Datasets:

autoevaluate

/

autoeval-staging-eval-project-kmfoda__booksum-7d55fc88-11175496

like 0

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/25.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_24_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 4.chapter 1

book 4, chapter 1

{"name": "Book 4, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-4-chapter-1", "summary": "Early the next morning, Alyosha is awakened by the elder Zosima. Although Zosima is quite frail, he's eager to speak to the monks who have gathered around him. He speaks in fragments that are scarcely coherent, but his general message seems to be that the monks should seek to love all mankind, they bear the guilt of all mankind, and it is only through love that they can fulfill their religious duty. The whole monastery is in a general state of excitement, although the monks scarcely dare to admit to themselves their hope that on his death, Zosima will perform extraordinary miracles. Their hopes are fueled when they learn that the woman Zosima had admonished for praying for her son as if he were dead has actually received a letter from her son announcing that he is returning home soon. Alyosha learns of this news through a letter from Madame Khokhlakov, sent to him through Rakitin, and everyone else somehow learns of it too. A visiting monk from Obdorsk is confused by these events. The night before, he had visited Father Ferapont, Zosima's primary rival at the monastery. Unlike Zosima, Ferapont is, well, a grouch. Generally curt because of his vow of silence, Ferapont fasts a lot and hangs out alone having visions beyond the monastery's beehives. When he does speak, Ferapont is generally rude or just confused. To the Obdorsk monk, Ferapont talks about his visions, including one where the Holy Spirit announced that someone would visit him today to ask him stupid questions - hint hint. Meanwhile, back in Zosima's cell, he is ready for bed, and only a few monks and Alyosha remain with him. Zosima reminds Alyosha of his obligations out in the world, to his family. While Alyosha leaves reluctantly, he is heartened by Zosima's promise to entrust him with his last words. Before Alyosha leaves, Father Paissy pulls him aside to remind him that science has yet to come up with a superior vision of humanity than Christianity. As he leaves, Alyosha realizes that Father Paissy has probably been entrusted with his spiritual well-being once Zosima has passed away, and he's grateful for his spiritual guidance.", "analysis": ""}

PART II Book IV. Lacerations Chapter I. Father Ferapont 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 Paissy. 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 arm-chair. 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 materialists--and I mean not only the good ones--for there are many good ones among them, especially in our day--hate 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 Paissy'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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy, 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 seventy-five 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 them--which 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 marvelous--your 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." "You--can 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 birds--sometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and sometimes as a blue-tit." "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, to-day 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 Paissy, 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 to-day?" "I did promise--to my father--my brothers--others 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy'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.

Book 4, Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-4-chapter-1

Early the next morning, Alyosha is awakened by the elder Zosima. Although Zosima is quite frail, he's eager to speak to the monks who have gathered around him. He speaks in fragments that are scarcely coherent, but his general message seems to be that the monks should seek to love all mankind, they bear the guilt of all mankind, and it is only through love that they can fulfill their religious duty. The whole monastery is in a general state of excitement, although the monks scarcely dare to admit to themselves their hope that on his death, Zosima will perform extraordinary miracles. Their hopes are fueled when they learn that the woman Zosima had admonished for praying for her son as if he were dead has actually received a letter from her son announcing that he is returning home soon. Alyosha learns of this news through a letter from Madame Khokhlakov, sent to him through Rakitin, and everyone else somehow learns of it too. A visiting monk from Obdorsk is confused by these events. The night before, he had visited Father Ferapont, Zosima's primary rival at the monastery. Unlike Zosima, Ferapont is, well, a grouch. Generally curt because of his vow of silence, Ferapont fasts a lot and hangs out alone having visions beyond the monastery's beehives. When he does speak, Ferapont is generally rude or just confused. To the Obdorsk monk, Ferapont talks about his visions, including one where the Holy Spirit announced that someone would visit him today to ask him stupid questions - hint hint. Meanwhile, back in Zosima's cell, he is ready for bed, and only a few monks and Alyosha remain with him. Zosima reminds Alyosha of his obligations out in the world, to his family. While Alyosha leaves reluctantly, he is heartened by Zosima's promise to entrust him with his last words. Before Alyosha leaves, Father Paissy pulls him aside to remind him that science has yet to come up with a superior vision of humanity than Christianity. As he leaves, Alyosha realizes that Father Paissy has probably been entrusted with his spiritual well-being once Zosima has passed away, and he's grateful for his spiritual guidance.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/32.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_31_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 32

chapter 32

{"name": "Chapter 32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-32", "summary": "After Jim questions the would-be assassins, he orders them to jump into the river. Harsh. Shortly after this adventure, Jim and Jewel start a romantic relationship. Back home, Jim starts telling Marlow about how his heroics have redeemed him from the Patna debacle, but Marlow is less than convinced. Seizing an opportunity to get some dirt on her man, Jewel pulls Marlow aside for a little heart to heart.", "analysis": ""}

'Jim took up an advantageous position and shepherded them out in a bunch through the doorway: all that time the torch had remained vertical in the grip of a little hand, without so much as a tremble. The three men obeyed him, perfectly mute, moving automatically. He ranged them in a row. "Link arms!" he ordered. They did so. "The first who withdraws his arm or turns his head is a dead man," he said. "March!" They stepped out together, rigidly; he followed, and at the side the girl, in a trailing white gown, her black hair falling as low as her waist, bore the light. Erect and swaying, she seemed to glide without touching the earth; the only sound was the silky swish and rustle of the long grass. "Stop!" cried Jim. 'The river-bank was steep; a great freshness ascended, the light fell on the edge of smooth dark water frothing without a ripple; right and left the shapes of the houses ran together below the sharp outlines of the roofs. "Take my greetings to Sherif Ali--till I come myself," said Jim. Not one head of the three budged. "Jump!" he thundered. The three splashes made one splash, a shower flew up, black heads bobbed convulsively, and disappeared; but a great blowing and spluttering went on, growing faint, for they were diving industriously in great fear of a parting shot. Jim turned to the girl, who had been a silent and attentive observer. His heart seemed suddenly to grow too big for his breast and choke him in the hollow of his throat. This probably made him speechless for so long, and after returning his gaze she flung the burning torch with a wide sweep of the arm into the river. The ruddy fiery glare, taking a long flight through the night, sank with a vicious hiss, and the calm soft starlight descended upon them, unchecked. 'He did not tell me what it was he said when at last he recovered his voice. I don't suppose he could be very eloquent. The world was still, the night breathed on them, one of those nights that seem created for the sheltering of tenderness, and there are moments when our souls, as if freed from their dark envelope, glow with an exquisite sensibility that makes certain silences more lucid than speeches. As to the girl, he told me, "She broke down a bit. Excitement--don't you know. Reaction. Deucedly tired she must have been--and all that kind of thing. And--and--hang it all--she was fond of me, don't you see. . . . I too . . . didn't know, of course . . . never entered my head . . ." 'Then he got up and began to walk about in some agitation. "I--I love her dearly. More than I can tell. Of course one cannot tell. You take a different view of your actions when you come to understand, when you are _made_ to understand every day that your existence is necessary--you see, absolutely necessary--to another person. I am made to feel that. Wonderful! But only try to think what her life has been. It is too extravagantly awful! Isn't it? And me finding her here like this--as you may go out for a stroll and come suddenly upon somebody drowning in a lonely dark place. Jove! No time to lose. Well, it is a trust too . . . I believe I am equal to it . . ." 'I must tell you the girl had left us to ourselves some time before. He slapped his chest. "Yes! I feel that, but I believe I am equal to all my luck!" He had the gift of finding a special meaning in everything that happened to him. This was the view he took of his love affair; it was idyllic, a little solemn, and also true, since his belief had all the unshakable seriousness of youth. Some time after, on another occasion, he said to me, "I've been only two years here, and now, upon my word, I can't conceive being able to live anywhere else. The very thought of the world outside is enough to give me a fright; because, don't you see," he continued, with downcast eyes watching the action of his boot busied in squashing thoroughly a tiny bit of dried mud (we were strolling on the river-bank)--"because I have not forgotten why I came here. Not yet!" 'I refrained from looking at him, but I think I heard a short sigh; we took a turn or two in silence. "Upon my soul and conscience," he began again, "if such a thing can be forgotten, then I think I have a right to dismiss it from my mind. Ask any man here" . . . his voice changed. "Is it not strange," he went on in a gentle, almost yearning tone, "that all these people, all these people who would do anything for me, can never be made to understand? Never! If you disbelieved me I could not call them up. It seems hard, somehow. I am stupid, am I not? What more can I want? If you ask them who is brave--who is true--who is just--who is it they would trust with their lives?--they would say, Tuan Jim. And yet they can never know the real, real truth . . ." 'That's what he said to me on my last day with him. I did not let a murmur escape me: I felt he was going to say more, and come no nearer to the root of the matter. The sun, whose concentrated glare dwarfs the earth into a restless mote of dust, had sunk behind the forest, and the diffused light from an opal sky seemed to cast upon a world without shadows and without brilliance the illusion of a calm and pensive greatness. I don't know why, listening to him, I should have noted so distinctly the gradual darkening of the river, of the air; the irresistible slow work of the night settling silently on all the visible forms, effacing the outlines, burying the shapes deeper and deeper, like a steady fall of impalpable black dust. '"Jove!" he began abruptly, "there are days when a fellow is too absurd for anything; only I know I can tell you what I like. I talk about being done with it--with the bally thing at the back of my head . . . Forgetting . . . Hang me if I know! I can think of it quietly. After all, what has it proved? Nothing. I suppose you don't think so . . ." 'I made a protesting murmur. '"No matter," he said. "I am satisfied . . . nearly. I've got to look only at the face of the first man that comes along, to regain my confidence. They can't be made to understand what is going on in me. What of that? Come! I haven't done so badly." '"Not so badly," I said. '"But all the same, you wouldn't like to have me aboard your own ship hey?" '"Confound you!" I cried. "Stop this." '"Aha! You see," he said, crowing, as it were, over me placidly. "Only," he went on, "you just try to tell this to any of them here. They would think you a fool, a liar, or worse. And so I can stand it. I've done a thing or two for them, but this is what they have done for me." '"My dear chap," I cried, "you shall always remain for them an insoluble mystery." Thereupon we were silent. '"Mystery," he repeated, before looking up. "Well, then let me always remain here." 'After the sun had set, the darkness seemed to drive upon us, borne in every faint puff of the breeze. In the middle of a hedged path I saw the arrested, gaunt, watchful, and apparently one-legged silhouette of Tamb' Itam; and across the dusky space my eye detected something white moving to and fro behind the supports of the roof. As soon as Jim, with Tamb' Itam at his heels, had started upon his evening rounds, I went up to the house alone, and, unexpectedly, found myself waylaid by the girl, who had been clearly waiting for this opportunity. 'It is hard to tell you what it was precisely she wanted to wrest from me. Obviously it would be something very simple--the simplest impossibility in the world; as, for instance, the exact description of the form of a cloud. She wanted an assurance, a statement, a promise, an explanation--I don't know how to call it: the thing has no name. It was dark under the projecting roof, and all I could see were the flowing lines of her gown, the pale small oval of her face, with the white flash of her teeth, and, turned towards me, the big sombre orbits of her eyes, where there seemed to be a faint stir, such as you may fancy you can detect when you plunge your gaze to the bottom of an immensely deep well. What is it that moves there? you ask yourself. Is it a blind monster or only a lost gleam from the universe? It occurred to me--don't laugh--that all things being dissimilar, she was more inscrutable in her childish ignorance than the Sphinx propounding childish riddles to wayfarers. She had been carried off to Patusan before her eyes were open. She had grown up there; she had seen nothing, she had known nothing, she had no conception of anything. I ask myself whether she were sure that anything else existed. What notions she may have formed of the outside world is to me inconceivable: all that she knew of its inhabitants were a betrayed woman and a sinister pantaloon. Her lover also came to her from there, gifted with irresistible seductions; but what would become of her if he should return to these inconceivable regions that seemed always to claim back their own? Her mother had warned her of this with tears, before she died . . . 'She had caught hold of my arm firmly, and as soon as I had stopped she had withdrawn her hand in haste. She was audacious and shrinking. She feared nothing, but she was checked by the profound incertitude and the extreme strangeness--a brave person groping in the dark. I belonged to this Unknown that might claim Jim for its own at any moment. I was, as it were, in the secret of its nature and of its intentions--the confidant of a threatening mystery--armed with its power perhaps! I believe she supposed I could with a word whisk Jim away out of her very arms; it is my sober conviction she went through agonies of apprehension during my long talks with Jim; through a real and intolerable anguish that might have conceivably driven her into plotting my murder, had the fierceness of her soul been equal to the tremendous situation it had created. This is my impression, and it is all I can give you: the whole thing dawned gradually upon me, and as it got clearer and clearer I was overwhelmed by a slow incredulous amazement. She made me believe her, but there is no word that on my lips could render the effect of the headlong and vehement whisper, of the soft, passionate tones, of the sudden breathless pause and the appealing movement of the white arms extended swiftly. They fell; the ghostly figure swayed like a slender tree in the wind, the pale oval of the face drooped; it was impossible to distinguish her features, the darkness of the eyes was unfathomable; two wide sleeves uprose in the dark like unfolding wings, and she stood silent, holding her head in her hands.'

Chapter 32

https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-32

After Jim questions the would-be assassins, he orders them to jump into the river. Harsh. Shortly after this adventure, Jim and Jewel start a romantic relationship. Back home, Jim starts telling Marlow about how his heroics have redeemed him from the Patna debacle, but Marlow is less than convinced. Seizing an opportunity to get some dirt on her man, Jewel pulls Marlow aside for a little heart to heart.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/7.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_6_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 2.chapter 2

book 2, chapter 2

{"name": "Book 2, Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-2-chapter-2", "summary": "When they enter Zosima's cell, they are joined by two hieromonks , the Father Librarian and Father Paissy, as well as another young seminarian. Alyosha walks in at the same time with a novice and Zosima. Zosima blesses the hieromonks, but Pyotr Miusov, who considers himself too advanced to believe in religion, politely refuses the blessing. Fyodor mockingly imitates Pyotr. Ivan also bows and refuses the blessing. Alyosha blushes, ashamed of their behavior. Fyodor goes off on a tangent and tells a silly and untrue story about Diderot. He then asks Zosima how to \"inherit eternal life,\" and Zosima calmly tells him by not lying. Fyodor seems to take this advice with good humor, then accuses Miusov of telling him the false story about Diderot. Miusov is confused and wonders whether he did tell the story, but then gets annoyed with Fyodor for mocking him. Zosima excuses himself from the gathering to bless the faithful outside, but before he leaves, Fyodor manages to kiss his hand, claiming that he was fooling around just to test him.", "analysis": ""}

Chapter II. The Old Buffoon 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 Paissy, 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 self-respecting, 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 Miuesov fancied that it was all done with intentional impressiveness. He stood in front of the other visitors. He ought--he had reflected upon it the evening before--from 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 Miuesov 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 old-fashioned 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. Miuesov 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 Miuesov might not have liked. He was a short, bent, little man, with very weak legs, and though he was only sixty-five, 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, light-colored, 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 Miuesov. 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," Miuesov 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 half-second, 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 well-known 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 Miuesov, 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 believe--I 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 Miuesov 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...." Miuesov 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 Miuesov. 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 Miuesov, 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 suck--the 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 over-sensitiveness 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 all--don'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 molehill--he 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 insulted--that 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 Miuesov 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 Miuesov 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 dinner--we 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?" Miuesov 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 good-humored 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 good-humored 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 now--for ten minutes."

Book 2, Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-2-chapter-2

When they enter Zosima's cell, they are joined by two hieromonks , the Father Librarian and Father Paissy, as well as another young seminarian. Alyosha walks in at the same time with a novice and Zosima. Zosima blesses the hieromonks, but Pyotr Miusov, who considers himself too advanced to believe in religion, politely refuses the blessing. Fyodor mockingly imitates Pyotr. Ivan also bows and refuses the blessing. Alyosha blushes, ashamed of their behavior. Fyodor goes off on a tangent and tells a silly and untrue story about Diderot. He then asks Zosima how to "inherit eternal life," and Zosima calmly tells him by not lying. Fyodor seems to take this advice with good humor, then accuses Miusov of telling him the false story about Diderot. Miusov is confused and wonders whether he did tell the story, but then gets annoyed with Fyodor for mocking him. Zosima excuses himself from the gathering to bless the faithful outside, but before he leaves, Fyodor manages to kiss his hand, claiming that he was fooling around just to test him.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/03.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_1_part_0.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 3

chapter 3

{"name": "Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421171214/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/study-guide/summary-chapter-3", "summary": "The next day, at \"half-past twelve\", Lord Henry visits his uncle, the grumpy Lord George Fermor, to learn what he can about Dorian Gray's past. Lord Fermor is old and idle, having spent most of his life moving apathetically through London's aristocratic social circles, devoting himself \"to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.\" He is therefore an ideal resource for information concerning people's private lives. All Lord Henry has to do is mention that Dorian \"is the last Lord Kelso's grandson.\" Lord Fermor informs his nephew that Dorian's mother was Margaret Devereux, the beautiful daughter of Lord Kelso, who upset her father and caused a scandal by eloping with a poor man of a lower class. Lord Kelso, a bitter man, sought his revenge by paying a young Belgian to insult his unwanted son-in-law. Dorian's father was apparently killed in the resulting fight, and his mother died only several months later. The specific conditions of the deaths are never disclosed. Custody of Dorian fell to Lord Kelso, who was socially ostracized for causing the whole ordeal. Kelso was notoriously mean-spirited and quarrelsome, always making scenes by viciously haggling with cabmen and the like. Henry leaves Lord Fermor's home to attend a luncheon at the house of his aunt, Lady Agatha. On the way, he reflects on how fascinating he finds the story of Dorian's origin, thinking that it makes his life \"a strange, almost modern, romance.\" Henry is excited by the prospect of shaping the young man's personality by opening his eyes to the world of sensuality that Henry is so devoted to. He thinks that the boy \"could be fashioned into a marvelous type,\" and that \"He would dominate him...He would make that wonderful spirit his own.\" At this point, we learn just how manipulative Henry truly is. Henry arrives at the lunch gathering rather late, as is his custom. Once at the table, he soon dominates the conversation, impressing the guests with the cleverness of his speech and playfully offending them with the beliefs that \"To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies,\" and that people \"discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.\" The man's charming tirade is described in terms of juggling and acrobatics. Dorian is among the guests, and Henry is performing primarily for his sake. His efforts are not in vain: once the lunch is finished, Dorian approaches him with words of admiration, saying that \"No one talks so wonderfully as you do.\" He accompanies Lord Henry to the park instead of calling on Basil as he had promised.", "analysis": "Instead of being driven by friendly affection, Henry is interested in Dorian as an artistic or scientific project. Dorian's purity and innocence are, to him, a blank canvas on which he can paint a personality so as to lead Dorian towards a lifestyle that Henry finds artistically pleasing. This is a prominent thread in the novel's thematic exploration of the relationship between life and art. That Henry refers to Dorian's early life as \"a strange, almost modern, romance\" is indicative of the man's need to view life in artistic, as opposed to ethical, terms. Henry fancies himself an artist, a sculptor or painter of personalities; he uses his charm, wit, and scandalous views as his paintbrush or chisel. Nevertheless, as curious as he is to see Dorian's character evolve into its own fascinating shape, Henry's deepest motivation is unabashedly selfish and vain. He wants to \"be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter.\" He wants to be adored, and to turn Dorian into a more physically attractive version of himself. This echoes the belief expressed in the preface that \"the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.\" However, although he certainly admires it, Henry's \"art\" is fundamentally flawed according to the first line of the preface: \"To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.\" Henry wants his \"art\" to reveal the \"artist\" . This suggests another major theme that explores the value of superficiality and the discrepancy between one's interior self and how one is perceived by others. As far plot development, this chapter offers very little. We learn crucial information about Dorian's past, facts that inform our assessment of his character, making him seem more tragic and romantic than he might otherwise. However, most of its pages are devoted to a colorful description of the people and the conversation at Lady Agatha's lunch table. Indeed, Henry's conversational acrobatics in this chapter are the closest example we have of Wilde's own conversational style. However, this is not to suggest that the content of this chapter is extraneous. All of Henry's witticisms also reverberate strongly with the major themes of the novel. For instance, Henry remarks that he \"can sympathise with everything, except suffering...One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.\" This sentiment, of course, exemplifies Dorian's later outlook on life, when his \"sores\" are concealed within the portrait. Henry also states that \"I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.\" Witty word play aside, this is a pithy expression of a central tenet of the Victorian Age's \"New Hedonism.\" Feelings, sensations, and emotions were considered important, not cold intellectualism. Once again, Henry voices a notion that will dominate Dorian's actions later in the novel."}

At half-past 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 rough-mannered 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 shooting-coat, 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 button-hole 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 fellow--a 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 son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him--and 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 good-looking chap." "He is very good-looking," 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 pork-packers, I suppose?" "I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told that pork-packing 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. "Good-bye, 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 _protege_." "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 that--perhaps 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 sonnet-sequence? 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 him--had 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 dining-room. "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 good-nature 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 well-known 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 hymn-book. Fortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged 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 dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious. "My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas." "Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?" 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 member--and 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 cast-off 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 over-expenditure 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 wine-stained 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 grape-juice 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. Good-bye, 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 good-bye 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 arm-chairs. 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 to-day," 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."

Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421171214/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/study-guide/summary-chapter-3

The next day, at "half-past twelve", Lord Henry visits his uncle, the grumpy Lord George Fermor, to learn what he can about Dorian Gray's past. Lord Fermor is old and idle, having spent most of his life moving apathetically through London's aristocratic social circles, devoting himself "to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing." He is therefore an ideal resource for information concerning people's private lives. All Lord Henry has to do is mention that Dorian "is the last Lord Kelso's grandson." Lord Fermor informs his nephew that Dorian's mother was Margaret Devereux, the beautiful daughter of Lord Kelso, who upset her father and caused a scandal by eloping with a poor man of a lower class. Lord Kelso, a bitter man, sought his revenge by paying a young Belgian to insult his unwanted son-in-law. Dorian's father was apparently killed in the resulting fight, and his mother died only several months later. The specific conditions of the deaths are never disclosed. Custody of Dorian fell to Lord Kelso, who was socially ostracized for causing the whole ordeal. Kelso was notoriously mean-spirited and quarrelsome, always making scenes by viciously haggling with cabmen and the like. Henry leaves Lord Fermor's home to attend a luncheon at the house of his aunt, Lady Agatha. On the way, he reflects on how fascinating he finds the story of Dorian's origin, thinking that it makes his life "a strange, almost modern, romance." Henry is excited by the prospect of shaping the young man's personality by opening his eyes to the world of sensuality that Henry is so devoted to. He thinks that the boy "could be fashioned into a marvelous type," and that "He would dominate him...He would make that wonderful spirit his own." At this point, we learn just how manipulative Henry truly is. Henry arrives at the lunch gathering rather late, as is his custom. Once at the table, he soon dominates the conversation, impressing the guests with the cleverness of his speech and playfully offending them with the beliefs that "To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies," and that people "discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes." The man's charming tirade is described in terms of juggling and acrobatics. Dorian is among the guests, and Henry is performing primarily for his sake. His efforts are not in vain: once the lunch is finished, Dorian approaches him with words of admiration, saying that "No one talks so wonderfully as you do." He accompanies Lord Henry to the park instead of calling on Basil as he had promised.

Instead of being driven by friendly affection, Henry is interested in Dorian as an artistic or scientific project. Dorian's purity and innocence are, to him, a blank canvas on which he can paint a personality so as to lead Dorian towards a lifestyle that Henry finds artistically pleasing. This is a prominent thread in the novel's thematic exploration of the relationship between life and art. That Henry refers to Dorian's early life as "a strange, almost modern, romance" is indicative of the man's need to view life in artistic, as opposed to ethical, terms. Henry fancies himself an artist, a sculptor or painter of personalities; he uses his charm, wit, and scandalous views as his paintbrush or chisel. Nevertheless, as curious as he is to see Dorian's character evolve into its own fascinating shape, Henry's deepest motivation is unabashedly selfish and vain. He wants to "be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter." He wants to be adored, and to turn Dorian into a more physically attractive version of himself. This echoes the belief expressed in the preface that "the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely." However, although he certainly admires it, Henry's "art" is fundamentally flawed according to the first line of the preface: "To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim." Henry wants his "art" to reveal the "artist" . This suggests another major theme that explores the value of superficiality and the discrepancy between one's interior self and how one is perceived by others. As far plot development, this chapter offers very little. We learn crucial information about Dorian's past, facts that inform our assessment of his character, making him seem more tragic and romantic than he might otherwise. However, most of its pages are devoted to a colorful description of the people and the conversation at Lady Agatha's lunch table. Indeed, Henry's conversational acrobatics in this chapter are the closest example we have of Wilde's own conversational style. However, this is not to suggest that the content of this chapter is extraneous. All of Henry's witticisms also reverberate strongly with the major themes of the novel. For instance, Henry remarks that he "can sympathise with everything, except suffering...One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better." This sentiment, of course, exemplifies Dorian's later outlook on life, when his "sores" are concealed within the portrait. Henry also states that "I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect." Witty word play aside, this is a pithy expression of a central tenet of the Victorian Age's "New Hedonism." Feelings, sensations, and emotions were considered important, not cold intellectualism. Once again, Henry voices a notion that will dominate Dorian's actions later in the novel.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/16.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Sense and Sensibility/section_1_part_6.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 16

chapter 16

{"name": "Chapter 16", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-20", "summary": "Marianne is up crying the whole of that night, and is absolutely inconsolable and overly dramatic in her grief. Days pass, and there is no work from Willoughby; Elinor grows anxious, and asks her mother to inquire of Marianne whether or not they are or were engaged. Her mother refuses to discuss this with Marianne, and so Elinor is left to wonder at the state of Marianne and Willoughby's attachment. Marianne is persuaded to go on a walk with Elinor, and on their way back a man rides toward them; Marianne is persuaded that it must be Willoughby, and is let down when it is Edward Ferrars instead. However, she is happy for her sister that he is there, though his formality with Elinor she believes to be unsuitable for a lover.", "analysis": "Here, indulgence is revealed as one of the principal failings in Marianne's character; she makes herself too susceptible to grief, and so lets her life and feelings be overwhelmed by it. She is also too trusting of people, and believes too fervently in Willoughby's blamelessness; trust is a theme of great importance in the relationships in the novel, and unfortunately, Marianne gave hers too dutifully to Willoughby. She also shows childishness in her appraisal of the Middletons as disagreeable, and of Edward as being too reserved; Marianne has a definite tendency toward overindulgence of spirit, and weights romantic virtues too highly as well"}

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with a headache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough! When breakfast was over she walked out by herself, and wandered about the village of Allenham, indulging the recollection of past enjoyment and crying over the present reverse for the chief of the morning. The evening passed off in the equal indulgence of feeling. She played over every favourite song that she had been used to play to Willoughby, every air in which their voices had been oftenest joined, and sat at the instrument gazing on every line of music that he had written out for her, till her heart was so heavy that no farther sadness could be gained; and this nourishment of grief was every day applied. She spent whole hours at the pianoforte alternately singing and crying; her voice often totally suspended by her tears. In books too, as well as in music, she courted the misery which a contrast between the past and present was certain of giving. She read nothing but what they had been used to read together. Such violence of affliction indeed could not be supported for ever; it sunk within a few days into a calmer melancholy; but these employments, to which she daily recurred, her solitary walks and silent meditations, still produced occasional effusions of sorrow as lively as ever. No letter from Willoughby came; and none seemed expected by Marianne. Her mother was surprised, and Elinor again became uneasy. But Mrs. Dashwood could find explanations whenever she wanted them, which at least satisfied herself. "Remember, Elinor," said she, "how very often Sir John fetches our letters himself from the post, and carries them to it. We have already agreed that secrecy may be necessary, and we must acknowledge that it could not be maintained if their correspondence were to pass through Sir John's hands." Elinor could not deny the truth of this, and she tried to find in it a motive sufficient for their silence. But there was one method so direct, so simple, and in her opinion so eligible of knowing the real state of the affair, and of instantly removing all mystery, that she could not help suggesting it to her mother. "Why do you not ask Marianne at once," said she, "whether she is or she is not engaged to Willoughby? From you, her mother, and so kind, so indulgent a mother, the question could not give offence. It would be the natural result of your affection for her. She used to be all unreserve, and to you more especially." "I would not ask such a question for the world. Supposing it possible that they are not engaged, what distress would not such an enquiry inflict! At any rate it would be most ungenerous. I should never deserve her confidence again, after forcing from her a confession of what is meant at present to be unacknowledged to any one. I know Marianne's heart: I know that she dearly loves me, and that I shall not be the last to whom the affair is made known, when circumstances make the revealment of it eligible. I would not attempt to force the confidence of any one; of a child much less; because a sense of duty would prevent the denial which her wishes might direct." Elinor thought this generosity overstrained, considering her sister's youth, and urged the matter farther, but in vain; common sense, common care, common prudence, were all sunk in Mrs. Dashwood's romantic delicacy. It was several days before Willoughby's name was mentioned before Marianne by any of her family; Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, indeed, were not so nice; their witticisms added pain to many a painful hour;--but one evening, Mrs. Dashwood, accidentally taking up a volume of Shakespeare, exclaimed, "We have never finished Hamlet, Marianne; our dear Willoughby went away before we could get through it. We will put it by, that when he comes again...But it may be months, perhaps, before THAT happens." "Months!" cried Marianne, with strong surprise. "No--nor many weeks." Mrs. Dashwood was sorry for what she had said; but it gave Elinor pleasure, as it produced a reply from Marianne so expressive of confidence in Willoughby and knowledge of his intentions. One morning, about a week after his leaving the country, Marianne was prevailed on to join her sisters in their usual walk, instead of wandering away by herself. Hitherto she had carefully avoided every companion in her rambles. If her sisters intended to walk on the downs, she directly stole away towards the lanes; if they talked of the valley, she was as speedy in climbing the hills, and could never be found when the others set off. But at length she was secured by the exertions of Elinor, who greatly disapproved such continual seclusion. They walked along the road through the valley, and chiefly in silence, for Marianne's MIND could not be controlled, and Elinor, satisfied with gaining one point, would not then attempt more. Beyond the entrance of the valley, where the country, though still rich, was less wild and more open, a long stretch of the road which they had travelled on first coming to Barton, lay before them; and on reaching that point, they stopped to look around them, and examine a prospect which formed the distance of their view from the cottage, from a spot which they had never happened to reach in any of their walks before. Amongst the objects in the scene, they soon discovered an animated one; it was a man on horseback riding towards them. In a few minutes they could distinguish him to be a gentleman; and in a moment afterwards Marianne rapturously exclaimed, "It is he; it is indeed;--I know it is!"--and was hastening to meet him, when Elinor cried out, "Indeed, Marianne, I think you are mistaken. It is not Willoughby. The person is not tall enough for him, and has not his air." "He has, he has," cried Marianne, "I am sure he has. His air, his coat, his horse. I knew how soon he would come." She walked eagerly on as she spoke; and Elinor, to screen Marianne from particularity, as she felt almost certain of its not being Willoughby, quickened her pace and kept up with her. They were soon within thirty yards of the gentleman. Marianne looked again; her heart sunk within her; and abruptly turning round, she was hurrying back, when the voices of both her sisters were raised to detain her; a third, almost as well known as Willoughby's, joined them in begging her to stop, and she turned round with surprise to see and welcome Edward Ferrars. He was the only person in the world who could at that moment be forgiven for not being Willoughby; the only one who could have gained a smile from her; but she dispersed her tears to smile on HIM, and in her sister's happiness forgot for a time her own disappointment. He dismounted, and giving his horse to his servant, walked back with them to Barton, whither he was purposely coming to visit them. He was welcomed by them all with great cordiality, but especially by Marianne, who showed more warmth of regard in her reception of him than even Elinor herself. To Marianne, indeed, the meeting between Edward and her sister was but a continuation of that unaccountable coldness which she had often observed at Norland in their mutual behaviour. On Edward's side, more particularly, there was a deficiency of all that a lover ought to look and say on such an occasion. He was confused, seemed scarcely sensible of pleasure in seeing them, looked neither rapturous nor gay, said little but what was forced from him by questions, and distinguished Elinor by no mark of affection. Marianne saw and listened with increasing surprise. She began almost to feel a dislike of Edward; and it ended, as every feeling must end with her, by carrying back her thoughts to Willoughby, whose manners formed a contrast sufficiently striking to those of his brother elect. After a short silence which succeeded the first surprise and enquiries of meeting, Marianne asked Edward if he came directly from London. No, he had been in Devonshire a fortnight. "A fortnight!" she repeated, surprised at his being so long in the same county with Elinor without seeing her before. He looked rather distressed as he added, that he had been staying with some friends near Plymouth. "Have you been lately in Sussex?" said Elinor. "I was at Norland about a month ago." "And how does dear, dear Norland look?" cried Marianne. "Dear, dear Norland," said Elinor, "probably looks much as it always does at this time of the year. The woods and walks thickly covered with dead leaves." "Oh," cried Marianne, "with what transporting sensation have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight." "It is not every one," said Elinor, "who has your passion for dead leaves." "No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood. But SOMETIMES they are."--As she said this, she sunk into a reverie for a few moments;--but rousing herself again, "Now, Edward," said she, calling his attention to the prospect, "here is Barton valley. Look up to it, and be tranquil if you can. Look at those hills! Did you ever see their equals? To the left is Barton park, amongst those woods and plantations. You may see the end of the house. And there, beneath that farthest hill, which rises with such grandeur, is our cottage." "It is a beautiful country," he replied; "but these bottoms must be dirty in winter." "How can you think of dirt, with such objects before you?" "Because," replied he, smiling, "among the rest of the objects before me, I see a very dirty lane." "How strange!" said Marianne to herself as she walked on. "Have you an agreeable neighbourhood here? Are the Middletons pleasant people?" "No, not all," answered Marianne; "we could not be more unfortunately situated." "Marianne," cried her sister, "how can you say so? How can you be so unjust? They are a very respectable family, Mr. Ferrars; and towards us have behaved in the friendliest manner. Have you forgot, Marianne, how many pleasant days we have owed to them?" "No," said Marianne, in a low voice, "nor how many painful moments." Elinor took no notice of this; and directing her attention to their visitor, endeavoured to support something like discourse with him, by talking of their present residence, its conveniences, &c. extorting from him occasional questions and remarks. His coldness and reserve mortified her severely; she was vexed and half angry; but resolving to regulate her behaviour to him by the past rather than the present, she avoided every appearance of resentment or displeasure, and treated him as she thought he ought to be treated from the family connection.

Chapter 16

https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-20

Marianne is up crying the whole of that night, and is absolutely inconsolable and overly dramatic in her grief. Days pass, and there is no work from Willoughby; Elinor grows anxious, and asks her mother to inquire of Marianne whether or not they are or were engaged. Her mother refuses to discuss this with Marianne, and so Elinor is left to wonder at the state of Marianne and Willoughby's attachment. Marianne is persuaded to go on a walk with Elinor, and on their way back a man rides toward them; Marianne is persuaded that it must be Willoughby, and is let down when it is Edward Ferrars instead. However, she is happy for her sister that he is there, though his formality with Elinor she believes to be unsuitable for a lover.

Here, indulgence is revealed as one of the principal failings in Marianne's character; she makes herself too susceptible to grief, and so lets her life and feelings be overwhelmed by it. She is also too trusting of people, and believes too fervently in Willoughby's blamelessness; trust is a theme of great importance in the relationships in the novel, and unfortunately, Marianne gave hers too dutifully to Willoughby. She also shows childishness in her appraisal of the Middletons as disagreeable, and of Edward as being too reserved; Marianne has a definite tendency toward overindulgence of spirit, and weights romantic virtues too highly as well

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/chapters_12_to_13.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_10_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapters 12-13

chapters 12-13

{"name": "Chapters 12-13", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1213", "summary": "The narrative now focuses on what happened when Jim and the three crewmen were picked up next day by the Avondale. The German skipper recited the alibi agreed on by all the crewmen, except Jim. The first lifeboat, the skipper said, was lowered slowly to avoid panic, and then \"the ship went down in a squall -- sank like lead.\" Jim knew that this was a lie, but he said nothing. Still, however, he was sure that he heard hundreds of pilgrims screaming and crying out for help. Once the men were on shore, they learned immediately that the Patna did not sink; it was sighted by a small French gunboat and towed to Aden. Did the Patna's light disappear, as the crewmen in the lifeboat seem to think it did? Yes, the wind had swung the ship's stern around, so that the lifeboat was suddenly behind the Patna. Thus, the Patna did seem to suddenly disappear. Marlow recalls a conversation that he had, purely by chance, some time afterward; it took place in Sydney, Australia, with the French lieutenant who boarded the Patna the day after its officers deserted it. For thirty hours, the Frenchman remained on board while his small boat pulled the Patna toward Aden, two of his men ready at any minute to cut the tow lines and let the Patna -- and all 800 Moslems sink if the ship's stern caved in. But the Patna's stern did not burst, and the rescue mission was wholly uneventful, remembered by the Frenchman primarily because the religious pilgrims did not have a single drop of wine to serve him with dinner. Marlow continued his conversation with the elderly French officer, fascinated by the man's bitterness and sadness. I have known some brave men,\" the Frenchman said, but, within each one, there was always fear: \"the fear -- it is always there.\" He sighed and said that all men are weak,\" but that we must each accept that truth and \"live with it.\" The French lieutenant left, and Marlow was alone. He shuddered as he thought of Jim working as a mere water-clerk, perhaps the most 11 unheroic,\" most unromantic work imaginable. He remembered a small, short man, \"bearded to the waist like a gnome,\" whose soul had shrunk to the size of \"a parched pea\" when circumstances forced him to do menial work; yet that man proved his manhood to himself when he tried to rescue a strong-bodied, strong-willed woman who so overpowered him that they both drowned. Marlow then returns us to the night before Jim's sentencing. That night, Marlow offered Jim a plan for escape, in addition to a letter of recommendation for a new job -- plus more than 200 rupees . Jim would have none of it. \"Clear out!\" he told Marlow, and Jim's face was so close that Marlow could see the soft down on Jim's smooth, young skin. Jim said that he had to be his own witness for what he had done. I may have jumped, but I don't run away.\" The knowledge that he jumped from the Patna, abandoning 800 people to what he was sure was certain death, was a deadly weight upon his soul. By staying to face the panel of inquiry, Jim hoped to perform an act that would partially restore his sense of self-worth. With a miserable grin on his face and a nervous laugh, Jim dashed off then, and the night swallowed him up. Marlow was stunned. Jim had touched Marlow's \"secret sensibility\"; Marlow knew that he himself might have taken the money and run if he were Jim. He was awed and puzzled by such resolute idealism in one so alone and so young, \"not yet four-and-twenty.\"", "analysis": "Jim tries to explain that when the Avondale rescued them, he said nothing when the captain gave out the fictitious story because, after all, I had jumped, hadn't I?\" Thus after avoiding the word \"jumped\" for so long, now that he has actually said it, he seems to take a perverse delight in using the word. After the report of the Patna, Jim is exultant partly because the shouts for help that have been haunting him must have been imaginary, but nevertheless, these shouts were so piercing that he is now glad that the pilgrims were saved so that he will no longer hear their imaginary shouts. He still can't understand the sinking of the masthead , but he knows that it too must be imaginary. Conrad then shifts his narrative to that of the report of the French lieutenant whose gunboat rescued the Patna. Then Conrad shifts the novel's time sequence again -- this time, to three years in the future, when Marlow encountered this same French lieutenant who had boarded the Patna and oversaw her towing for thirty hours without sleep or wine, but knowing that two quartermasters were standing with axes ready to cut loose the lines if the Patna were to begin to sink, in which case, the French lieutenant would have also have gone to his death. And yet in Chapter 13, when Marlow and the French lieutenant discuss the events, the Frenchman does not condemn Jim for his actions. Even though he himself was there for thirty hours, he maintains that \"After all, one does not die of . . . being afraid.\" Also, he maintains that \"there is a point -- there is a point -- for the best of us there is somewhere a point when you let go everything. And you have got to live with that truth -- do you see?\" Thus, the man who faced death for thirty hours refuses to either condemn or judge Jim. Conrad then returns to the time of the trial -- just before the judging, when Marlow finally feels that Jim has suffered enough indignation and therefore offers him money so that Jim can simply leave, disappear. But Jim refuses: \"I may have jumped, but I don't run away.\" It is as though once again his romantic nature craves added punishment and indignation."}

'All around everything was still as far as the ear could reach. The mist of his feelings shifted between us, as if disturbed by his struggles, and in the rifts of the immaterial veil he would appear to my staring eyes distinct of form and pregnant with vague appeal like a symbolic figure in a picture. The chill air of the night seemed to lie on my limbs as heavy as a slab of marble. '"I see," I murmured, more to prove to myself that I could break my state of numbness than for any other reason. '"The Avondale picked us up just before sunset," he remarked moodily. "Steamed right straight for us. We had only to sit and wait." 'After a long interval, he said, "They told their story." And again there was that oppressive silence. "Then only I knew what it was I had made up my mind to," he added. '"You said nothing," I whispered. '"What could I say?" he asked, in the same low tone. . . . "Shock slight. Stopped the ship. Ascertained the damage. Took measures to get the boats out without creating a panic. As the first boat was lowered ship went down in a squall. Sank like lead. . . . What could be more clear" . . . he hung his head . . . "and more awful?" His lips quivered while he looked straight into my eyes. "I had jumped--hadn't I?" he asked, dismayed. "That's what I had to live down. The story didn't matter." . . . He clasped his hands for an instant, glanced right and left into the gloom: "It was like cheating the dead," he stammered. '"And there were no dead," I said. 'He went away from me at this. That is the only way I can describe it. In a moment I saw his back close to the balustrade. He stood there for some time, as if admiring the purity and the peace of the night. Some flowering-shrub in the garden below spread its powerful scent through the damp air. He returned to me with hasty steps. '"And that did not matter," he said, as stubbornly as you please. '"Perhaps not," I admitted. I began to have a notion he was too much for me. After all, what did _I_ know? '"Dead or not dead, I could not get clear," he said. "I had to live; hadn't I?" '"Well, yes--if you take it in that way," I mumbled. '"I was glad, of course," he threw out carelessly, with his mind fixed on something else. "The exposure," he pronounced slowly, and lifted his head. "Do you know what was my first thought when I heard? I was relieved. I was relieved to learn that those shouts--did I tell you I had heard shouts? No? Well, I did. Shouts for help . . . blown along with the drizzle. Imagination, I suppose. And yet I can hardly . . . How stupid. . . . The others did not. I asked them afterwards. They all said No. No? And I was hearing them even then! I might have known--but I didn't think--I only listened. Very faint screams--day after day. Then that little half-caste chap here came up and spoke to me. 'The Patna . . . French gunboat . . . towed successfully to Aden . . . Investigation . . . Marine Office . . . Sailors' Home . . . arrangements made for your board and lodging!' I walked along with him, and I enjoyed the silence. So there had been no shouting. Imagination. I had to believe him. I could hear nothing any more. I wonder how long I could have stood it. It was getting worse, too . . . I mean--louder." 'He fell into thought. '"And I had heard nothing! Well--so be it. But the lights! The lights did go! We did not see them. They were not there. If they had been, I would have swam back--I would have gone back and shouted alongside--I would have begged them to take me on board. . . . I would have had my chance. . . . You doubt me? . . . How do you know how I felt? . . . What right have you to doubt? . . . I very nearly did it as it was--do you understand?" His voice fell. "There was not a glimmer--not a glimmer," he protested mournfully. "Don't you understand that if there had been, you would not have seen me here? You see me--and you doubt." 'I shook my head negatively. This question of the lights being lost sight of when the boat could not have been more than a quarter of a mile from the ship was a matter for much discussion. Jim stuck to it that there was nothing to be seen after the first shower had cleared away; and the others had affirmed the same thing to the officers of the Avondale. Of course people shook their heads and smiled. One old skipper who sat near me in court tickled my ear with his white beard to murmur, "Of course they would lie." As a matter of fact nobody lied; not even the chief engineer with his story of the mast-head light dropping like a match you throw down. Not consciously, at least. A man with his liver in such a state might very well have seen a floating spark in the corner of his eye when stealing a hurried glance over his shoulder. They had seen no light of any sort though they were well within range, and they could only explain this in one way: the ship had gone down. It was obvious and comforting. The foreseen fact coming so swiftly had justified their haste. No wonder they did not cast about for any other explanation. Yet the true one was very simple, and as soon as Brierly suggested it the court ceased to bother about the question. If you remember, the ship had been stopped, and was lying with her head on the course steered through the night, with her stern canted high and her bows brought low down in the water through the filling of the fore-compartment. Being thus out of trim, when the squall struck her a little on the quarter, she swung head to wind as sharply as though she had been at anchor. By this change in her position all her lights were in a very few moments shut off from the boat to leeward. It may very well be that, had they been seen, they would have had the effect of a mute appeal--that their glimmer lost in the darkness of the cloud would have had the mysterious power of the human glance that can awaken the feelings of remorse and pity. It would have said, "I am here--still here" . . . and what more can the eye of the most forsaken of human beings say? But she turned her back on them as if in disdain of their fate: she had swung round, burdened, to glare stubbornly at the new danger of the open sea which she so strangely survived to end her days in a breaking-up yard, as if it had been her recorded fate to die obscurely under the blows of many hammers. What were the various ends their destiny provided for the pilgrims I am unable to say; but the immediate future brought, at about nine o'clock next morning, a French gunboat homeward bound from Reunion. The report of her commander was public property. He had swept a little out of his course to ascertain what was the matter with that steamer floating dangerously by the head upon a still and hazy sea. There was an ensign, union down, flying at her main gaff (the serang had the sense to make a signal of distress at daylight); but the cooks were preparing the food in the cooking-boxes forward as usual. The decks were packed as close as a sheep-pen: there were people perched all along the rails, jammed on the bridge in a solid mass; hundreds of eyes stared, and not a sound was heard when the gunboat ranged abreast, as if all that multitude of lips had been sealed by a spell. 'The Frenchman hailed, could get no intelligible reply, and after ascertaining through his binoculars that the crowd on deck did not look plague-stricken, decided to send a boat. Two officers came on board, listened to the serang, tried to talk with the Arab, couldn't make head or tail of it: but of course the nature of the emergency was obvious enough. They were also very much struck by discovering a white man, dead and curled up peacefully on the bridge. "Fort intrigues par ce cadavre," as I was informed a long time after by an elderly French lieutenant whom I came across one afternoon in Sydney, by the merest chance, in a sort of cafe, and who remembered the affair perfectly. Indeed this affair, I may notice in passing, had an extraordinary power of defying the shortness of memories and the length of time: it seemed to live, with a sort of uncanny vitality, in the minds of men, on the tips of their tongues. I've had the questionable pleasure of meeting it often, years afterwards, thousands of miles away, emerging from the remotest possible talk, coming to the surface of the most distant allusions. Has it not turned up to-night between us? And I am the only seaman here. I am the only one to whom it is a memory. And yet it has made its way out! But if two men who, unknown to each other, knew of this affair met accidentally on any spot of this earth, the thing would pop up between them as sure as fate, before they parted. I had never seen that Frenchman before, and at the end of an hour we had done with each other for life: he did not seem particularly talkative either; he was a quiet, massive chap in a creased uniform, sitting drowsily over a tumbler half full of some dark liquid. His shoulder-straps were a bit tarnished, his clean-shaved cheeks were large and sallow; he looked like a man who would be given to taking snuff--don't you know? I won't say he did; but the habit would have fitted that kind of man. It all began by his handing me a number of Home News, which I didn't want, across the marble table. I said "Merci." We exchanged a few apparently innocent remarks, and suddenly, before I knew how it had come about, we were in the midst of it, and he was telling me how much they had been "intrigued by that corpse." It turned out he had been one of the boarding officers. 'In the establishment where we sat one could get a variety of foreign drinks which were kept for the visiting naval officers, and he took a sip of the dark medical-looking stuff, which probably was nothing more nasty than cassis a l'eau, and glancing with one eye into the tumbler, shook his head slightly. "Impossible de comprendre--vous concevez," he said, with a curious mixture of unconcern and thoughtfulness. I could very easily conceive how impossible it had been for them to understand. Nobody in the gunboat knew enough English to get hold of the story as told by the serang. There was a good deal of noise, too, round the two officers. "They crowded upon us. There was a circle round that dead man (autour de ce mort)," he described. "One had to attend to the most pressing. These people were beginning to agitate themselves--Parbleu! A mob like that--don't you see?" he interjected with philosophic indulgence. As to the bulkhead, he had advised his commander that the safest thing was to leave it alone, it was so villainous to look at. They got two hawsers on board promptly (en toute hale) and took the Patna in tow--stern foremost at that--which, under the circumstances, was not so foolish, since the rudder was too much out of the water to be of any great use for steering, and this manoeuvre eased the strain on the bulkhead, whose state, he expounded with stolid glibness, demanded the greatest care (exigeait les plus grands menagements). I could not help thinking that my new acquaintance must have had a voice in most of these arrangements: he looked a reliable officer, no longer very active, and he was seamanlike too, in a way, though as he sat there, with his thick fingers clasped lightly on his stomach, he reminded you of one of those snuffy, quiet village priests, into whose ears are poured the sins, the sufferings, the remorse of peasant generations, on whose faces the placid and simple expression is like a veil thrown over the mystery of pain and distress. He ought to have had a threadbare black soutane buttoned smoothly up to his ample chin, instead of a frock-coat with shoulder-straps and brass buttons. His broad bosom heaved regularly while he went on telling me that it had been the very devil of a job, as doubtless (sans doute) I could figure to myself in my quality of a seaman (en votre qualite de marin). At the end of the period he inclined his body slightly towards me, and, pursing his shaved lips, allowed the air to escape with a gentle hiss. "Luckily," he continued, "the sea was level like this table, and there was no more wind than there is here." . . . The place struck me as indeed intolerably stuffy, and very hot; my face burned as though I had been young enough to be embarrassed and blushing. They had directed their course, he pursued, to the nearest English port "naturellement," where their responsibility ceased, "Dieu merci." . . . He blew out his flat cheeks a little. . . . "Because, mind you (notez bien), all the time of towing we had two quartermasters stationed with axes by the hawsers, to cut us clear of our tow in case she . . ." He fluttered downwards his heavy eyelids, making his meaning as plain as possible. . . . "What would you! One does what one can (on fait ce qu'on peut)," and for a moment he managed to invest his ponderous immobility with an air of resignation. "Two quartermasters--thirty hours--always there. Two!" he repeated, lifting up his right hand a little, and exhibiting two fingers. This was absolutely the first gesture I saw him make. It gave me the opportunity to "note" a starred scar on the back of his hand--effect of a gunshot clearly; and, as if my sight had been made more acute by this discovery, I perceived also the seam of an old wound, beginning a little below the temple and going out of sight under the short grey hair at the side of his head--the graze of a spear or the cut of a sabre. He clasped his hands on his stomach again. "I remained on board that--that--my memory is going (s'en va). Ah! Patt-na. C'est bien ca. Patt-na. Merci. It is droll how one forgets. I stayed on that ship thirty hours. . . ." '"You did!" I exclaimed. Still gazing at his hands, he pursed his lips a little, but this time made no hissing sound. "It was judged proper," he said, lifting his eyebrows dispassionately, "that one of the officers should remain to keep an eye open (pour ouvrir l'oeil)" . . . he sighed idly . . . "and for communicating by signals with the towing ship--do you see?--and so on. For the rest, it was my opinion too. We made our boats ready to drop over--and I also on that ship took measures. . . . Enfin! One has done one's possible. It was a delicate position. Thirty hours! They prepared me some food. As for the wine--go and whistle for it--not a drop." In some extraordinary way, without any marked change in his inert attitude and in the placid expression of his face, he managed to convey the idea of profound disgust. "I--you know--when it comes to eating without my glass of wine--I am nowhere." 'I was afraid he would enlarge upon the grievance, for though he didn't stir a limb or twitch a feature, he made one aware how much he was irritated by the recollection. But he seemed to forget all about it. They delivered their charge to the "port authorities," as he expressed it. He was struck by the calmness with which it had been received. "One might have thought they had such a droll find (drole de trouvaille) brought them every day. You are extraordinary--you others," he commented, with his back propped against the wall, and looking himself as incapable of an emotional display as a sack of meal. There happened to be a man-of-war and an Indian Marine steamer in the harbour at the time, and he did not conceal his admiration of the efficient manner in which the boats of these two ships cleared the Patna of her passengers. Indeed his torpid demeanour concealed nothing: it had that mysterious, almost miraculous, power of producing striking effects by means impossible of detection which is the last word of the highest art. "Twenty-five minutes--watch in hand--twenty-five, no more." . . . He unclasped and clasped again his fingers without removing his hands from his stomach, and made it infinitely more effective than if he had thrown up his arms to heaven in amazement. . . . "All that lot (tout ce monde) on shore--with their little affairs--nobody left but a guard of seamen (marins de l'Etat) and that interesting corpse (cet interessant cadavre). Twenty-five minutes." . . . With downcast eyes and his head tilted slightly on one side he seemed to roll knowingly on his tongue the savour of a smart bit of work. He persuaded one without any further demonstration that his approval was eminently worth having, and resuming his hardly interrupted immobility, he went on to inform me that, being under orders to make the best of their way to Toulon, they left in two hours' time, "so that (de sorte que) there are many things in this incident of my life (dans cet episode de ma vie) which have remained obscure."''After these words, and without a change of attitude, he, so to speak, submitted himself passively to a state of silence. I kept him company; and suddenly, but not abruptly, as if the appointed time had arrived for his moderate and husky voice to come out of his immobility, he pronounced, "Mon Dieu! how the time passes!" Nothing could have been more commonplace than this remark; but its utterance coincided for me with a moment of vision. It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand ever so much--everything--in a flash--before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence. I raised my eyes when he spoke, and I saw him as though I had never seen him before. I saw his chin sunk on his breast, the clumsy folds of his coat, his clasped hands, his motionless pose, so curiously suggestive of his having been simply left there. Time had passed indeed: it had overtaken him and gone ahead. It had left him hopelessly behind with a few poor gifts: the iron-grey hair, the heavy fatigue of the tanned face, two scars, a pair of tarnished shoulder-straps; one of those steady, reliable men who are the raw material of great reputations, one of those uncounted lives that are buried without drums and trumpets under the foundations of monumental successes. "I am now third lieutenant of the Victorieuse" (she was the flagship of the French Pacific squadron at the time), he said, detaching his shoulders from the wall a couple of inches to introduce himself. I bowed slightly on my side of the table, and told him I commanded a merchant vessel at present anchored in Rushcutters' Bay. He had "remarked" her,--a pretty little craft. He was very civil about it in his impassive way. I even fancy he went the length of tilting his head in compliment as he repeated, breathing visibly the while, "Ah, yes. A little craft painted black--very pretty--very pretty (tres coquet)." After a time he twisted his body slowly to face the glass door on our right. "A dull town (triste ville)," he observed, staring into the street. It was a brilliant day; a southerly buster was raging, and we could see the passers-by, men and women, buffeted by the wind on the sidewalks, the sunlit fronts of the houses across the road blurred by the tall whirls of dust. "I descended on shore," he said, "to stretch my legs a little, but . . ." He didn't finish, and sank into the depths of his repose. "Pray--tell me," he began, coming up ponderously, "what was there at the bottom of this affair--precisely (au juste)? It is curious. That dead man, for instance--and so on." '"There were living men too," I said; "much more curious." '"No doubt, no doubt," he agreed half audibly, then, as if after mature consideration, murmured, "Evidently." I made no difficulty in communicating to him what had interested me most in this affair. It seemed as though he had a right to know: hadn't he spent thirty hours on board the Patna--had he not taken the succession, so to speak, had he not done "his possible"? He listened to me, looking more priest-like than ever, and with what--probably on account of his downcast eyes--had the appearance of devout concentration. Once or twice he elevated his eyebrows (but without raising his eyelids), as one would say "The devil!" Once he calmly exclaimed, "Ah, bah!" under his breath, and when I had finished he pursed his lips in a deliberate way and emitted a sort of sorrowful whistle. 'In any one else it might have been an evidence of boredom, a sign of indifference; but he, in his occult way, managed to make his immobility appear profoundly responsive, and as full of valuable thoughts as an egg is of meat. What he said at last was nothing more than a "Very interesting," pronounced politely, and not much above a whisper. Before I got over my disappointment he added, but as if speaking to himself, "That's it. That _is_ it." His chin seemed to sink lower on his breast, his body to weigh heavier on his seat. I was about to ask him what he meant, when a sort of preparatory tremor passed over his whole person, as a faint ripple may be seen upon stagnant water even before the wind is felt. "And so that poor young man ran away along with the others," he said, with grave tranquillity. 'I don't know what made me smile: it is the only genuine smile of mine I can remember in connection with Jim's affair. But somehow this simple statement of the matter sounded funny in French. . . . "S'est enfui avec les autres," had said the lieutenant. And suddenly I began to admire the discrimination of the man. He had made out the point at once: he did get hold of the only thing I cared about. I felt as though I were taking professional opinion on the case. His imperturbable and mature calmness was that of an expert in possession of the facts, and to whom one's perplexities are mere child's-play. "Ah! The young, the young," he said indulgently. "And after all, one does not die of it." "Die of what?" I asked swiftly. "Of being afraid." He elucidated his meaning and sipped his drink. 'I perceived that the three last fingers of his wounded hand were stiff and could not move independently of each other, so that he took up his tumbler with an ungainly clutch. "One is always afraid. One may talk, but . . ." He put down the glass awkwardly. . . . "The fear, the fear--look you--it is always there." . . . He touched his breast near a brass button, on the very spot where Jim had given a thump to his own when protesting that there was nothing the matter with his heart. I suppose I made some sign of dissent, because he insisted, "Yes! yes! One talks, one talks; this is all very fine; but at the end of the reckoning one is no cleverer than the next man--and no more brave. Brave! This is always to be seen. I have rolled my hump (roule ma bosse)," he said, using the slang expression with imperturbable seriousness, "in all parts of the world; I have known brave men--famous ones! Allez!" . . . He drank carelessly. . . . "Brave--you conceive--in the Service--one has got to be--the trade demands it (le metier veut ca). Is it not so?" he appealed to me reasonably. "Eh bien! Each of them--I say each of them, if he were an honest man--bien entendu--would confess that there is a point--there is a point--for the best of us--there is somewhere a point when you let go everything (vous lachez tout). And you have got to live with that truth--do you see? Given a certain combination of circumstances, fear is sure to come. Abominable funk (un trac epouvantable). And even for those who do not believe this truth there is fear all the same--the fear of themselves. Absolutely so. Trust me. Yes. Yes. . . . At my age one knows what one is talking about--que diable!" . . . He had delivered himself of all this as immovably as though he had been the mouthpiece of abstract wisdom, but at this point he heightened the effect of detachment by beginning to twirl his thumbs slowly. "It's evident--parbleu!" he continued; "for, make up your mind as much as you like, even a simple headache or a fit of indigestion (un derangement d'estomac) is enough to . . . Take me, for instance--I have made my proofs. Eh bien! I, who am speaking to you, once . . ." 'He drained his glass and returned to his twirling. "No, no; one does not die of it," he pronounced finally, and when I found he did not mean to proceed with the personal anecdote, I was extremely disappointed; the more so as it was not the sort of story, you know, one could very well press him for. I sat silent, and he too, as if nothing could please him better. Even his thumbs were still now. Suddenly his lips began to move. "That is so," he resumed placidly. "Man is born a coward (L'homme est ne poltron). It is a difficulty--parbleu! It would be too easy other vise. But habit--habit--necessity--do you see?--the eye of others--voila. One puts up with it. And then the example of others who are no better than yourself, and yet make good countenance. . . ." 'His voice ceased. '"That young man--you will observe--had none of these inducements--at least at the moment," I remarked. 'He raised his eyebrows forgivingly: "I don't say; I don't say. The young man in question might have had the best dispositions--the best dispositions," he repeated, wheezing a little. '"I am glad to see you taking a lenient view," I said. "His own feeling in the matter was--ah!--hopeful, and . . ." 'The shuffle of his feet under the table interrupted me. He drew up his heavy eyelids. Drew up, I say--no other expression can describe the steady deliberation of the act--and at last was disclosed completely to me. I was confronted by two narrow grey circlets, like two tiny steel rings around the profound blackness of the pupils. The sharp glance, coming from that massive body, gave a notion of extreme efficiency, like a razor-edge on a battle-axe. "Pardon," he said punctiliously. His right hand went up, and he swayed forward. "Allow me . . . I contended that one may get on knowing very well that one's courage does not come of itself (ne vient pas tout seul). There's nothing much in that to get upset about. One truth the more ought not to make life impossible. . . . But the honour--the honour, monsieur! . . . The honour . . . that is real--that is! And what life may be worth when" . . . he got on his feet with a ponderous impetuosity, as a startled ox might scramble up from the grass . . . "when the honour is gone--ah ca! par exemple--I can offer no opinion. I can offer no opinion--because--monsieur--I know nothing of it." 'I had risen too, and, trying to throw infinite politeness into our attitudes, we faced each other mutely, like two china dogs on a mantelpiece. Hang the fellow! he had pricked the bubble. The blight of futility that lies in wait for men's speeches had fallen upon our conversation, and made it a thing of empty sounds. "Very well," I said, with a disconcerted smile; "but couldn't it reduce itself to not being found out?" He made as if to retort readily, but when he spoke he had changed his mind. "This, monsieur, is too fine for me--much above me--I don't think about it." He bowed heavily over his cap, which he held before him by the peak, between the thumb and the forefinger of his wounded hand. I bowed too. We bowed together: we scraped our feet at each other with much ceremony, while a dirty specimen of a waiter looked on critically, as though he had paid for the performance. "Serviteur," said the Frenchman. Another scrape. "Monsieur" . . . "Monsieur." . . . The glass door swung behind his burly back. I saw the southerly buster get hold of him and drive him down wind with his hand to his head, his shoulders braced, and the tails of his coat blown hard against his legs. 'I sat down again alone and discouraged--discouraged about Jim's case. If you wonder that after more than three years it had preserved its actuality, you must know that I had seen him only very lately. I had come straight from Samarang, where I had loaded a cargo for Sydney: an utterly uninteresting bit of business,--what Charley here would call one of my rational transactions,--and in Samarang I had seen something of Jim. He was then working for De Jongh, on my recommendation. Water-clerk. "My representative afloat," as De Jongh called him. You can't imagine a mode of life more barren of consolation, less capable of being invested with a spark of glamour--unless it be the business of an insurance canvasser. Little Bob Stanton--Charley here knew him well--had gone through that experience. The same who got drowned afterwards trying to save a lady's-maid in the Sephora disaster. A case of collision on a hazy morning off the Spanish coast--you may remember. All the passengers had been packed tidily into the boats and shoved clear of the ship, when Bob sheered alongside again and scrambled back on deck to fetch that girl. How she had been left behind I can't make out; anyhow, she had gone completely crazy--wouldn't leave the ship--held to the rail like grim death. The wrestling-match could be seen plainly from the boats; but poor Bob was the shortest chief mate in the merchant service, and the woman stood five feet ten in her shoes and was as strong as a horse, I've been told. So it went on, pull devil, pull baker, the wretched girl screaming all the time, and Bob letting out a yell now and then to warn his boat to keep well clear of the ship. One of the hands told me, hiding a smile at the recollection, "It was for all the world, sir, like a naughty youngster fighting with his mother." The same old chap said that "At the last we could see that Mr. Stanton had given up hauling at the gal, and just stood by looking at her, watchful like. We thought afterwards he must've been reckoning that, maybe, the rush of water would tear her away from the rail by-and-by and give him a show to save her. We daren't come alongside for our life; and after a bit the old ship went down all on a sudden with a lurch to starboard--plop. The suck in was something awful. We never saw anything alive or dead come up." Poor Bob's spell of shore-life had been one of the complications of a love affair, I believe. He fondly hoped he had done with the sea for ever, and made sure he had got hold of all the bliss on earth, but it came to canvassing in the end. Some cousin of his in Liverpool put up to it. He used to tell us his experiences in that line. He made us laugh till we cried, and, not altogether displeased at the effect, undersized and bearded to the waist like a gnome, he would tiptoe amongst us and say, "It's all very well for you beggars to laugh, but my immortal soul was shrivelled down to the size of a parched pea after a week of that work." I don't know how Jim's soul accommodated itself to the new conditions of his life--I was kept too busy in getting him something to do that would keep body and soul together--but I am pretty certain his adventurous fancy was suffering all the pangs of starvation. It had certainly nothing to feed upon in this new calling. It was distressing to see him at it, though he tackled it with a stubborn serenity for which I must give him full credit. I kept my eye on his shabby plodding with a sort of notion that it was a punishment for the heroics of his fancy--an expiation for his craving after more glamour than he could carry. He had loved too well to imagine himself a glorious racehorse, and now he was condemned to toil without honour like a costermonger's donkey. He did it very well. He shut himself in, put his head down, said never a word. Very well; very well indeed--except for certain fantastic and violent outbreaks, on the deplorable occasions when the irrepressible Patna case cropped up. Unfortunately that scandal of the Eastern seas would not die out. And this is the reason why I could never feel I had done with Jim for good. 'I sat thinking of him after the French lieutenant had left, not, however, in connection with De Jongh's cool and gloomy backshop, where we had hurriedly shaken hands not very long ago, but as I had seen him years before in the last flickers of the candle, alone with me in the long gallery of the Malabar House, with the chill and the darkness of the night at his back. The respectable sword of his country's law was suspended over his head. To-morrow--or was it to-day? (midnight had slipped by long before we parted)--the marble-faced police magistrate, after distributing fines and terms of imprisonment in the assault-and-battery case, would take up the awful weapon and smite his bowed neck. Our communion in the night was uncommonly like a last vigil with a condemned man. He was guilty too. He was guilty--as I had told myself repeatedly, guilty and done for; nevertheless, I wished to spare him the mere detail of a formal execution. I don't pretend to explain the reasons of my desire--I don't think I could; but if you haven't got a sort of notion by this time, then I must have been very obscure in my narrative, or you too sleepy to seize upon the sense of my words. I don't defend my morality. There was no morality in the impulse which induced me to lay before him Brierly's plan of evasion--I may call it--in all its primitive simplicity. There were the rupees--absolutely ready in my pocket and very much at his service. Oh! a loan; a loan of course--and if an introduction to a man (in Rangoon) who could put some work in his way . . . Why! with the greatest pleasure. I had pen, ink, and paper in my room on the first floor And even while I was speaking I was impatient to begin the letter--day, month, year, 2.30 A.M. . . . for the sake of our old friendship I ask you to put some work in the way of Mr. James So-and-so, in whom, &c., &c. . . . I was even ready to write in that strain about him. If he had not enlisted my sympathies he had done better for himself--he had gone to the very fount and origin of that sentiment he had reached the secret sensibility of my egoism. I am concealing nothing from you, because were I to do so my action would appear more unintelligible than any man's action has the right to be, and--in the second place--to-morrow you will forget my sincerity along with the other lessons of the past. In this transaction, to speak grossly and precisely, I was the irreproachable man; but the subtle intentions of my immorality were defeated by the moral simplicity of the criminal. No doubt he was selfish too, but his selfishness had a higher origin, a more lofty aim. I discovered that, say what I would, he was eager to go through the ceremony of execution, and I didn't say much, for I felt that in argument his youth would tell against me heavily: he believed where I had already ceased to doubt. There was something fine in the wildness of his unexpressed, hardly formulated hope. "Clear out! Couldn't think of it," he said, with a shake of the head. "I make you an offer for which I neither demand nor expect any sort of gratitude," I said; "you shall repay the money when convenient, and . . ." "Awfully good of you," he muttered without looking up. I watched him narrowly: the future must have appeared horribly uncertain to him; but he did not falter, as though indeed there had been nothing wrong with his heart. I felt angry--not for the first time that night. "The whole wretched business," I said, "is bitter enough, I should think, for a man of your kind . . ." "It is, it is," he whispered twice, with his eyes fixed on the floor. It was heartrending. He towered above the light, and I could see the down on his cheek, the colour mantling warm under the smooth skin of his face. Believe me or not, I say it was outrageously heartrending. It provoked me to brutality. "Yes," I said; "and allow me to confess that I am totally unable to imagine what advantage you can expect from this licking of the dregs." "Advantage!" he murmured out of his stillness. "I am dashed if I do," I said, enraged. "I've been trying to tell you all there is in it," he went on slowly, as if meditating something unanswerable. "But after all, it is _my_ trouble." I opened my mouth to retort, and discovered suddenly that I'd lost all confidence in myself; and it was as if he too had given me up, for he mumbled like a man thinking half aloud. "Went away . . . went into hospitals. . . . Not one of them would face it. . . . They! . . ." He moved his hand slightly to imply disdain. "But I've got to get over this thing, and I mustn't shirk any of it or . . . I won't shirk any of it." He was silent. He gazed as though he had been haunted. His unconscious face reflected the passing expressions of scorn, of despair, of resolution--reflected them in turn, as a magic mirror would reflect the gliding passage of unearthly shapes. He lived surrounded by deceitful ghosts, by austere shades. "Oh! nonsense, my dear fellow," I began. He had a movement of impatience. "You don't seem to understand," he said incisively; then looking at me without a wink, "I may have jumped, but I don't run away." "I meant no offence," I said; and added stupidly, "Better men than you have found it expedient to run, at times." He coloured all over, while in my confusion I half-choked myself with my own tongue. "Perhaps so," he said at last, "I am not good enough; I can't afford it. I am bound to fight this thing down--I am fighting it now." I got out of my chair and felt stiff all over. The silence was embarrassing, and to put an end to it I imagined nothing better but to remark, "I had no idea it was so late," in an airy tone. . . . "I dare say you have had enough of this," he said brusquely: "and to tell you the truth"--he began to look round for his hat--"so have I." 'Well! he had refused this unique offer. He had struck aside my helping hand; he was ready to go now, and beyond the balustrade the night seemed to wait for him very still, as though he had been marked down for its prey. I heard his voice. "Ah! here it is." He had found his hat. For a few seconds we hung in the wind. "What will you do after--after . . ." I asked very low. "Go to the dogs as likely as not," he answered in a gruff mutter. I had recovered my wits in a measure, and judged best to take it lightly. "Pray remember," I said, "that I should like very much to see you again before you go." "I don't know what's to prevent you. The damned thing won't make me invisible," he said with intense bitterness,--"no such luck." And then at the moment of taking leave he treated me to a ghastly muddle of dubious stammers and movements, to an awful display of hesitations. God forgive him--me! He had taken it into his fanciful head that I was likely to make some difficulty as to shaking hands. It was too awful for words. I believe I shouted suddenly at him as you would bellow to a man you saw about to walk over a cliff; I remember our voices being raised, the appearance of a miserable grin on his face, a crushing clutch on my hand, a nervous laugh. The candle spluttered out, and the thing was over at last, with a groan that floated up to me in the dark. He got himself away somehow. The night swallowed his form. He was a horrible bungler. Horrible. I heard the quick crunch-crunch of the gravel under his boots. He was running. Absolutely running, with nowhere to go to. And he was not yet four-and-twenty.'

Chapters 12-13

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1213

The narrative now focuses on what happened when Jim and the three crewmen were picked up next day by the Avondale. The German skipper recited the alibi agreed on by all the crewmen, except Jim. The first lifeboat, the skipper said, was lowered slowly to avoid panic, and then "the ship went down in a squall -- sank like lead." Jim knew that this was a lie, but he said nothing. Still, however, he was sure that he heard hundreds of pilgrims screaming and crying out for help. Once the men were on shore, they learned immediately that the Patna did not sink; it was sighted by a small French gunboat and towed to Aden. Did the Patna's light disappear, as the crewmen in the lifeboat seem to think it did? Yes, the wind had swung the ship's stern around, so that the lifeboat was suddenly behind the Patna. Thus, the Patna did seem to suddenly disappear. Marlow recalls a conversation that he had, purely by chance, some time afterward; it took place in Sydney, Australia, with the French lieutenant who boarded the Patna the day after its officers deserted it. For thirty hours, the Frenchman remained on board while his small boat pulled the Patna toward Aden, two of his men ready at any minute to cut the tow lines and let the Patna -- and all 800 Moslems sink if the ship's stern caved in. But the Patna's stern did not burst, and the rescue mission was wholly uneventful, remembered by the Frenchman primarily because the religious pilgrims did not have a single drop of wine to serve him with dinner. Marlow continued his conversation with the elderly French officer, fascinated by the man's bitterness and sadness. I have known some brave men," the Frenchman said, but, within each one, there was always fear: "the fear -- it is always there." He sighed and said that all men are weak," but that we must each accept that truth and "live with it." The French lieutenant left, and Marlow was alone. He shuddered as he thought of Jim working as a mere water-clerk, perhaps the most 11 unheroic," most unromantic work imaginable. He remembered a small, short man, "bearded to the waist like a gnome," whose soul had shrunk to the size of "a parched pea" when circumstances forced him to do menial work; yet that man proved his manhood to himself when he tried to rescue a strong-bodied, strong-willed woman who so overpowered him that they both drowned. Marlow then returns us to the night before Jim's sentencing. That night, Marlow offered Jim a plan for escape, in addition to a letter of recommendation for a new job -- plus more than 200 rupees . Jim would have none of it. "Clear out!" he told Marlow, and Jim's face was so close that Marlow could see the soft down on Jim's smooth, young skin. Jim said that he had to be his own witness for what he had done. I may have jumped, but I don't run away." The knowledge that he jumped from the Patna, abandoning 800 people to what he was sure was certain death, was a deadly weight upon his soul. By staying to face the panel of inquiry, Jim hoped to perform an act that would partially restore his sense of self-worth. With a miserable grin on his face and a nervous laugh, Jim dashed off then, and the night swallowed him up. Marlow was stunned. Jim had touched Marlow's "secret sensibility"; Marlow knew that he himself might have taken the money and run if he were Jim. He was awed and puzzled by such resolute idealism in one so alone and so young, "not yet four-and-twenty."

Jim tries to explain that when the Avondale rescued them, he said nothing when the captain gave out the fictitious story because, after all, I had jumped, hadn't I?" Thus after avoiding the word "jumped" for so long, now that he has actually said it, he seems to take a perverse delight in using the word. After the report of the Patna, Jim is exultant partly because the shouts for help that have been haunting him must have been imaginary, but nevertheless, these shouts were so piercing that he is now glad that the pilgrims were saved so that he will no longer hear their imaginary shouts. He still can't understand the sinking of the masthead , but he knows that it too must be imaginary. Conrad then shifts his narrative to that of the report of the French lieutenant whose gunboat rescued the Patna. Then Conrad shifts the novel's time sequence again -- this time, to three years in the future, when Marlow encountered this same French lieutenant who had boarded the Patna and oversaw her towing for thirty hours without sleep or wine, but knowing that two quartermasters were standing with axes ready to cut loose the lines if the Patna were to begin to sink, in which case, the French lieutenant would have also have gone to his death. And yet in Chapter 13, when Marlow and the French lieutenant discuss the events, the Frenchman does not condemn Jim for his actions. Even though he himself was there for thirty hours, he maintains that "After all, one does not die of . . . being afraid." Also, he maintains that "there is a point -- there is a point -- for the best of us there is somewhere a point when you let go everything. And you have got to live with that truth -- do you see?" Thus, the man who faced death for thirty hours refuses to either condemn or judge Jim. Conrad then returns to the time of the trial -- just before the judging, when Marlow finally feels that Jim has suffered enough indignation and therefore offers him money so that Jim can simply leave, disappear. But Jim refuses: "I may have jumped, but I don't run away." It is as though once again his romantic nature craves added punishment and indignation.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/37.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_36_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 7

part 2, chapter 7

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-7", "summary": "The Marquis de La Mole tells Julien to go buy a new blue suit to wear around the house. It's only when he's wearing this suit that the marquis is able to treat him as an equal. When he's wearing his priest's black robes, the Marquis can't help but feel like they're different. The marquis is confined to his bed by an attack of gout. Julien visits him and entertains him with the story of how he came to fight a duel in Paris. The marquis gives Julien more and more responsibilities. He soon finds out that his financial advisors have been swindling him and hiding money from him. The marquis gives Julien the generous sum of 3,000 francs for helping him. When the marquis tries to give Julien another gift, Julien declines. This impresses the marquis. The marquis sends Julien to do some business in England. While there, Julien makes friends with a Russian nobleman named Prince Korasoff. Julien wants to meet some famous English philosopher, but then finds out that the guy is in jail for speaking his mind. When he gets back to France, the marquis scolds him for some political remarks he made to some foreign diplomats. Julien says that it wouldn't be good enough to make boring chitchat with these people. He had to say something substantial. The marquis gives Julien a special medal to wear around his neck whenever he's acting as the youngest son of the marquis' friend. When he's not wearing it, he'll just be the marquis' secretary. That'll help the marquis decide how to behave toward him. But to be sure, he wants Julien to know that this doesn't make him a nobleman. It's all just temporary. Monsieur Valenod from Verrieres visits the de La Mole house as the newly elected mayor of his town. It looks like he beat out Monsieur de Renal for the job. As a joke, Julien recommends a local imbecile for a posting in Verrieres. The marquis agrees that it would be a good joke and gives the man the position. Only later does Julien realize that he has kept a good, honorable man from getting the position. He feels guilty for toying with people's futures.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER XXXVII AN ATTACK OF GOUT And I got advancement, not on my merit, but because my master had the gout.--_Bertolotti_. The reader is perhaps surprised by this free and almost friendly tone. We had forgotten to say that the marquis had been confined to his house for six weeks by the gout. Mademoiselle de la Mole and her mother were at Hyeres near the marquise's mother. The comte Norbert only saw his father at stray moments. They got on very well, but had nothing to say to each other. M. de la Mole, reduced to Julien's society, was astonished to find that he possessed ideas. He made him read the papers to him. Soon the young secretary was competent to pick out the interesting passages. There was a new paper which the marquis abhorred. He had sworn never to read it, and spoke about it every day. Julien laughed. In his irritation against the present time, the marquis made him read Livy aloud. The improvised translation of the Latin text amused him. The marquis said one day in that tone of excessive politeness which frequently tried Julien's patience, "Allow me to present you with a blue suit, my dear Sorel. When you find it convenient to wear it and to come and see me, I shall look upon you as the younger brother of the comte de Chaulnes, that is to say, the son of my friend the old Duke." Julien did not quite gather what it was all about, but he tried a visit in the blue suit that very evening. The marquis treated him like an equal. Julien had a spirit capable of appreciating true politeness, but he had no idea of nuances. Before this freak of the marquis's he would have sworn that it was impossible for him to have been treated with more consideration. "What an admirable talent," said Julien to himself. When he got up to go, the marquis apologised for not being able to accompany him by reason of his gout. Julien was preoccupied by this strange idea. "Perhaps he is making fun of me," he thought. He went to ask advice of the abbe Pirard, who being less polite than the marquis, made no other answer except to whistle and change the subject. Julien presented himself to the marquis the next morning in his black suit, with his letter case and his letters for signature. He was received in the old way, but when he wore the blue suit that evening, the marquis's tone was quite different, and absolutely as polite as on the previous day. "As you are not exactly bored," said the marquis to him, "by these visits which you are kind enough to pay to a poor old man, you must tell him about all the little incidents of your life, but you must be frank and think of nothing except narrating them clearly and in an amusing way. For one must amuse oneself," continued the marquis. "That's the only reality in life. I can't have my life saved in a battle every day, or get a present of a million francs every day, but if I had Rivarol here by my sofa he would rid me every day of an hour of suffering and boredom. I saw a lot of him at Hamburg during the emigration." And the marquis told Julien the stories of Rivarol and the inhabitants of Hamburg who needed the combined efforts of four individuals to understand an epigram. M. de la Mole, being reduced to the society of this little abbe, tried to teach him. He put Julien's pride on its mettle. As he was asked to speak the truth, Julien resolved to tell everything, but to suppress two things, his fanatical admiration for the name which irritated the marquis, and that complete scepticism, which was not particularly appropriate to a prospective cure. His little affair with the chevalier de Beauvoisis came in very handy. The marquis laughed till the tears came into his eyes at the scene in the cafe in the Rue St. Honore with the coachman who had loaded him with sordid insults. The occasion was marked by a complete frankness between the marquis and the protege. M. de la Mole became interested in this singular character. At the beginning he had encouraged Julian's droll blunders in order to enjoy laughing at them. Soon he found it more interesting to correct very gently this young man's false outlook on life. "All other provincials who come to Paris admire everything," thought the marquis. "This one hates everything. They have too much affectation; he has not affectation enough; and fools take him for a fool." The attack of gout was protracted by the great winter cold and lasted some months. "One gets quite attached to a fine spaniel," thought the marquis. "Why should I be so ashamed of being attached to this little abbe? He is original. I treat him as a son. Well, where's the bother? The whim, if it lasts, will cost me a diamond and five hundred louis in my will." Once the marquis had realised his protege's strength of character, he entrusted him with some new business every day. Julien noticed with alarm that this great lord would often give him inconsistent orders with regard to the same matter. That might compromise him seriously. Julien now made a point whenever he worked with him, of bringing a register with him in which he wrote his instructions which the marquis initialled. Julien had now a clerk who would transcribe the instructions relating to each matter in a separate book. This book also contained a copy of all the letters. This idea seemed at first absolutely boring and ridiculous, but in two months the marquis appreciated its advantages. Julien suggested to him that he should take a clerk out of a banker's who was to keep proper book-keeping accounts of all the receipts and of all the expenses of the estates which Julien had been charged to administer. These measures so enlightened the marquis as to his own affairs that he could indulge the pleasure of undertaking two or three speculations without the help of his nominee who always robbed him. "Take three thousand francs for yourself," he said one day to his young steward. "Monsieur, I should lay myself open to calumny." "What do you want then?" retorted the marquis irritably. "Perhaps you will be kind enough to make out a statement of account and enter it in your own hand in the book. That order will give me a sum of 3,000 francs. Besides it's M. the abbe Pirard who had the idea of all this exactness in accounts." The marquis wrote out his instructions in the register with the bored air of the Marquis de Moncade listening to the accounts of his steward M. Poisson. Business was never talked when Julien appeared in the evening in his blue suit. The kindness of the marquis was so flattering to the self-respect of our hero, which was always morbidly sensitive, that in spite of himself, he soon came to feel a kind of attachment for this nice old man. It is not that Julien was a man of sensibility as the phrase is understood at Paris, but he was not a monster, and no one since the death of the old major had talked to him with so much kindness. He observed that the marquis showed a politeness and consideration for his own personal feelings which he had never found in the old surgeon. He now realised that the surgeon was much prouder of his cross than was the marquis of his blue ribbon. The marquis's father had been a great lord. One day, at the end of a morning audience for the transaction of business, when the black suit was worn, Julien happened to amuse the marquis who kept him for a couple of hours, and insisted on giving him some banknotes which his nominee had just brought from the house. "I hope M. le Marquis, that I am not deviating from the profound respect which I owe you, if I beg you to allow me to say a word." "Speak, my friend." "M. le Marquis will deign to allow me to refuse this gift. It is not meant for the man in the black suit, and it would completely spoil those manners which you have kindly put up with in the man in the blue suit." He saluted with much respect and went out without looking at his employer. This incident amused the marquis. He told it in the evening to the abbe Pirard. "I must confess one thing to you, my dear abbe. I know Julien's birth, and I authorise you not to regard this confidence as a secret." His conduct this morning is noble, thought the marquis, so I will ennoble him myself. Some time afterwards the marquis was able to go out. "Go and pass a couple of months at London," he said to Julien. "Ordinary and special couriers will bring you the letters I have received, together with my notes. You will write out the answers and send them back to me, putting each letter inside the answer. I have ascertained that the delay will be no more than five days." As he took the post down the Calais route, Julien was astonished at the triviality of the alleged business on which he had been sent. We will say nothing about the feeling of hate and almost horror with which he touched English soil. His mad passion for Bonaparte is already known. He saw in every officer a Sir Hudson Low, in every great noble a Lord Bathurst, ordering the infamies of St. Helena and being recompensed by six years of office. At London he really got to know the meaning of sublime fatuity. He had struck up a friendship with some young Russian nobles who initiated him. "Your future is assured, my dear Sorel," they said to him. "You naturally have that cold demeanour, _a thousand leagues away from the sensation one has at the moment_, that we have been making such efforts to acquire." "You have not understood your century," said the Prince Korasoff to him. "Always do the opposite of what is expected of you. On my honour there you have the sole religion of the period. Don't be foolish or affected, for then follies and affectations will be expected of you, and the maxim will not longer prove true." Julien covered himself with glory one day in the Salon of the Duke of Fitz-Folke who had invited him to dinner together with the Prince Korasoff. They waited for an hour. The way in which Julien conducted himself in the middle of twenty people who were waiting is still quoted as a precedent among the young secretaries of the London Embassy. His demeanour was unimpeachable. In spite of his friends, the dandies, he made a point of seeing the celebrated Philip Vane, the one philosopher that England has had since Locke. He found him finishing his seventh year in prison. The aristocracy doesn't joke in this country, thought Julien. Moreover Vane is disgraced, calumniated, etc. Julien found him in cheery spirits. The rage of the aristocracy prevented him from being bored. "There's the only merry man I've seen in England," thought Julien to himself, as he left the prison. "The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God," Vane had said to him. We suppress the rest of the system as being cynical. "What amusing notion do you bring me from England?" said M. la Mole to him on his return. He was silent. "What notion do you bring me, amusing or otherwise?" repeated the marquis sharply. "In the first place," said Julien, "The sanest Englishman is mad one hour every day. He is visited by the Demon of Suicide who is the local God. "In the second place, intellect and genius lose twenty-five per cent. of their value when they disembark in England. "In the third place, nothing in the world is so beautiful, so admirable, so touching, as the English landscapes." "Now it is my turn," said the marquis. "In the first place, why do you go and say at the ball at the Russian Ambassador's that there were three hundred thousand young men of twenty in France who passionately desire war? Do you think that is nice for the kings?" "One doesn't know what to do when talking to great diplomats," said Julien. "They have a mania for starting serious discussions. If one confines oneself to the commonplaces of the papers, one is taken for a fool. If one indulges in some original truth, they are astonished and at a loss for an answer, and get you informed by the first Secretary of the Embassy at seven o'clock next day that your conduct has been unbecoming." "Not bad," said the marquis laughing. "Anyway I will wager Monsieur Deep-one that you have not guessed what you went to do in England." "Pardon me," answered Julien. "I went there to dine once a week with the king's ambassador, who is the most polite of men." "You went to fetch this cross you see here," said the marquis to him. "I do not want to make you leave off your black suit, and I have got accustomed to the more amusing tone I have assumed with the man who wears the blue suit. So understand this until further orders. When I see this cross, you will be my friend, the Duke of Chaulne's younger son, who has been employed in the diplomatic service the last six months without having any idea of it. Observe," added the marquis very seriously, cutting short all manifestations of thanks, "that I do not want you to forget your place. That is always a mistake and a misfortune both for patron and for dependent. When my lawsuits bore you, or when you no longer suit me, I will ask a good living like that of our good friend the abbe Pirard's for you, and nothing more," added the marquis dryly. This put Julien's pride at its ease. He talked much more. He did not so frequently think himself insulted and aimed at by those phrases which are susceptible of some interpretation which is scarcely polite, and which anybody may give utterance to in the course of an animated conversation. This cross earned him a singular visit. It was that of the baron de Valenod, who came to Paris to thank the Minister for his barony, and arrive at an understanding with him. He was going to be nominated mayor of Verrieres, and to supersede M. de Renal. Julien did not fail to smile to himself when M. Valenod gave him to understand that they had just found out that M. de Renal was a Jacobin. The fact was that the new baron was the ministerial candidate at the election for which they were all getting ready, and that it was M. de Renal who was the Liberal candidate at the great electoral college of the department, which was, in fact, very ultra. It was in vain that Julien tried to learn something about madame de Renal. The baron seemed to remember their former rivalry, and was impenetrable. He concluded by canvassing Julien for his father's vote at the election which was going to take place. Julien promised to write. "You ought, monsieur le Chevalier, to present me to M. the marquis de la Mole." "I ought, as a matter of fact," thought Julien. "But a rascal like that!" "As a matter of fact," he answered, "I am too small a personage in the Hotel de la Mole to take it upon myself to introduce anyone." Julien told the marquis everything. In the evening he described Valenod's pretensions, as well as his deeds and feats since 1814. "Not only will you present the new baron to me," replied de la Mole, very seriously, "but I will invite him to dinner for the day after to-morrow. He will be one of our new prefects." "If that is the case, I ask for my father the post of director of the workhouse," answered Julien, coldly. "With pleasure," answered the marquis gaily. "It shall be granted. I was expecting a lecture. You are getting on." M. de Valenod informed Julien that the manager of the lottery office at Verrieres had just died. Julien thought it humorous to give that place to M. de Cholin, the old dotard whose petition he had once picked up in de la Mole's room. The marquis laughed heartily at the petition, which Julien recited as he made him sign the letter which requested that appointment of the minister of finance. M. de Cholin had scarcely been nominated, when Julien learnt that that post had been asked by the department for the celebrated geometrician, monsieur Gros. That generous man had an income of only 1400 francs, and every year had lent 600 to the late manager who had just died, to help him bring up his family. Julien was astonished at what he had done. "That's nothing," he said to himself. "It will be necessary to commit several other injustices if I mean to get on, and also to conceal them beneath pretty, sentimental speeches. Poor monsieur Gros! It is he who deserves the cross. It is I who have it, and I ought to conform to the spirit of the Government which gives it me."

Part 2, Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-7

The Marquis de La Mole tells Julien to go buy a new blue suit to wear around the house. It's only when he's wearing this suit that the marquis is able to treat him as an equal. When he's wearing his priest's black robes, the Marquis can't help but feel like they're different. The marquis is confined to his bed by an attack of gout. Julien visits him and entertains him with the story of how he came to fight a duel in Paris. The marquis gives Julien more and more responsibilities. He soon finds out that his financial advisors have been swindling him and hiding money from him. The marquis gives Julien the generous sum of 3,000 francs for helping him. When the marquis tries to give Julien another gift, Julien declines. This impresses the marquis. The marquis sends Julien to do some business in England. While there, Julien makes friends with a Russian nobleman named Prince Korasoff. Julien wants to meet some famous English philosopher, but then finds out that the guy is in jail for speaking his mind. When he gets back to France, the marquis scolds him for some political remarks he made to some foreign diplomats. Julien says that it wouldn't be good enough to make boring chitchat with these people. He had to say something substantial. The marquis gives Julien a special medal to wear around his neck whenever he's acting as the youngest son of the marquis' friend. When he's not wearing it, he'll just be the marquis' secretary. That'll help the marquis decide how to behave toward him. But to be sure, he wants Julien to know that this doesn't make him a nobleman. It's all just temporary. Monsieur Valenod from Verrieres visits the de La Mole house as the newly elected mayor of his town. It looks like he beat out Monsieur de Renal for the job. As a joke, Julien recommends a local imbecile for a posting in Verrieres. The marquis agrees that it would be a good joke and gives the man the position. Only later does Julien realize that he has kept a good, honorable man from getting the position. He feels guilty for toying with people's futures.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/79.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_13_part_11.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 11.chapter 10

book 11, chapter 10

{"name": "book 11, Chapter 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section14/", "summary": "\"He Said That. At last Alyosha knocks at the door, and the devil disappears. Ivan insists that what happened was real, but he is hysterical and seems to be undergoing a mental collapse. Before realizing that Ivan is having a nervous breakdown, Alyosha tells him his news: Smerdyakov has hung himself and is dead. Alyosha spends the night caring for Ivan and praying for him.", "analysis": "Book XI: Brother Ivan Fyodorovich, Chapters 1-10 Lise's miserable behavior makes her a parody of Ivan. Like Ivan, she is frustrated and hurt by the world's injustice, saying that she cannot respect anything. But whereas Ivan reacts to his frustration with an intellectually rigorous despair, Lise merely allows her doubts, both about the world and herself, to overwhelm her, so that she loses the ability to take anything seriously. Ivan's laughter at Lise's expression of her emotions is a response that involves both pity and -contempt. One of the main ideas of The Brothers Karamazov is that suffering can bring salvation, and that people who purge their sins through suffering can attain self-knowledge and redemption. Grushenka goes through this process, with Alyosha's aid, in the aftermath of her horrible illness. But Lise vulgarizes this notion: her slamming the door on her finger is a pathetic attempt to invoke this principle, but because her attempt to suffer is full of such obvious vanity and self-pity, it is only a mockery of the lofty idea it seeks to copy. Apart from Zosima, Alyosha is the most moral character in the novel, and the strength and clarity of his faith are the moral center of the novel. For Alyosha to have faith in Dmitri is not surprising, because Alyosha has faith in human nature. On the other hand, there is a sense in which, within the scope of the novel, the great philosophical conflicts that run through the story are all riding on the question of Dmitri's guilt or innocence. Thus, if Alyosha places his faith in Dmitri and is proved wrong, the idea of faith will be thrown into doubt. Ivan's collapse into madness at the end of this section demolishes his cold dignity and reveals the terrifying emptiness at the heart of his philosophy. At the same time, his crisis brings some of the central ideas of the novel into direct conflict. As the novel progresses, Ivan continually resists the notion that he bears any moral responsibility for the actions of other human beings, saying instead that people are only responsible for their own actions. But his conversations with Smerdyakov gradually illustrate for him the role he played in enabling Smerdyakov to murder Fyodor Pavlovich. Ivan is therefore forced to accept the universal burden of sin for the first time, and it is the agony of this burden that leads to his mental breakdown. In a sense, Ivan's skepticism is fueled by his general distrust of humanity. He withdraws into his detached intellectualism in part because he is unable to love other people, and wants to remain separate from them. Smerdyakov's revelation that Ivan's philosophy enabled him to murder Fyodor Pavlovich finally makes clear to Ivan the extent to which people are involved in one another's lives. While illuminating the terrifying consequences of Ivan's amoralism, Smerdyakov's crime also shatters the walls Ivan has built around himself, and, in a way, the rest of humanity comes flooding in on him. Without the consolation of faith, Ivan cannot handle this burden. His hallucination of the devil, like the revelation of Smerdyakov's guilt, shows him the nature of a world without God, but having so thoroughly rejected God, Ivan is left defenseless. His breakdown results from the collision between the psychology of doubt and the idea of moral responsibility. Ivan could endure one. He cannot endure both. Smerdyakov's motivations for killing Fyodor Pavlovich are vague. Smerdyakov believes Ivan wanted him to kill Fyodor Pavlovich. But he has other motivations as well. Smerdyakov may be living Ivan's philosophy that if there is no God, all is permitted. He may also kill for the money, or out of his own hatred of Fyodor Pavlovich. Finally, Smerdyakov may simply feel a desire to do evil. Allegorically, the murder signifies the logical extreme of Ivan's arguments. Smerdyakov shares Fyodor Pavlovich's brutish wickedness, and so, in a sense, Fyodor Pavlovich is killed by his own loathsome way of living. Ivan's conviction that good and evil are fraudulent categories, and that no one has any moral responsibility to anyone else, has facilitated the destruction of one amoral monstrosity by another. The deeply moral Ivan loses his mind when confronted with the horror of this development, as apparently does Smerdyakov, whose unmourned suicide is the final cry of terror and pain to come from the novel's exploration of the nihilism of disbelief"}

Chapter X. "It Was He Who Said That" 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 is--here," 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. "Stay"--he 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 devil--a 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 a ne pas mettre un chien dehors._..." Alyosha ran to the washing-stand, 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 to-morrow. I am more afraid of her than of anything. On account of the future. She will cast me off to-morrow 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. To-morrow 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 cunning--he 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 Alyosha--his 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'enigme_ is that I am a coward. 'It is not for such eagles to soar above the earth.' It was he added that--he! 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, to-morrow 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.

book 11, Chapter 10

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section14/

"He Said That. At last Alyosha knocks at the door, and the devil disappears. Ivan insists that what happened was real, but he is hysterical and seems to be undergoing a mental collapse. Before realizing that Ivan is having a nervous breakdown, Alyosha tells him his news: Smerdyakov has hung himself and is dead. Alyosha spends the night caring for Ivan and praying for him.

Book XI: Brother Ivan Fyodorovich, Chapters 1-10 Lise's miserable behavior makes her a parody of Ivan. Like Ivan, she is frustrated and hurt by the world's injustice, saying that she cannot respect anything. But whereas Ivan reacts to his frustration with an intellectually rigorous despair, Lise merely allows her doubts, both about the world and herself, to overwhelm her, so that she loses the ability to take anything seriously. Ivan's laughter at Lise's expression of her emotions is a response that involves both pity and -contempt. One of the main ideas of The Brothers Karamazov is that suffering can bring salvation, and that people who purge their sins through suffering can attain self-knowledge and redemption. Grushenka goes through this process, with Alyosha's aid, in the aftermath of her horrible illness. But Lise vulgarizes this notion: her slamming the door on her finger is a pathetic attempt to invoke this principle, but because her attempt to suffer is full of such obvious vanity and self-pity, it is only a mockery of the lofty idea it seeks to copy. Apart from Zosima, Alyosha is the most moral character in the novel, and the strength and clarity of his faith are the moral center of the novel. For Alyosha to have faith in Dmitri is not surprising, because Alyosha has faith in human nature. On the other hand, there is a sense in which, within the scope of the novel, the great philosophical conflicts that run through the story are all riding on the question of Dmitri's guilt or innocence. Thus, if Alyosha places his faith in Dmitri and is proved wrong, the idea of faith will be thrown into doubt. Ivan's collapse into madness at the end of this section demolishes his cold dignity and reveals the terrifying emptiness at the heart of his philosophy. At the same time, his crisis brings some of the central ideas of the novel into direct conflict. As the novel progresses, Ivan continually resists the notion that he bears any moral responsibility for the actions of other human beings, saying instead that people are only responsible for their own actions. But his conversations with Smerdyakov gradually illustrate for him the role he played in enabling Smerdyakov to murder Fyodor Pavlovich. Ivan is therefore forced to accept the universal burden of sin for the first time, and it is the agony of this burden that leads to his mental breakdown. In a sense, Ivan's skepticism is fueled by his general distrust of humanity. He withdraws into his detached intellectualism in part because he is unable to love other people, and wants to remain separate from them. Smerdyakov's revelation that Ivan's philosophy enabled him to murder Fyodor Pavlovich finally makes clear to Ivan the extent to which people are involved in one another's lives. While illuminating the terrifying consequences of Ivan's amoralism, Smerdyakov's crime also shatters the walls Ivan has built around himself, and, in a way, the rest of humanity comes flooding in on him. Without the consolation of faith, Ivan cannot handle this burden. His hallucination of the devil, like the revelation of Smerdyakov's guilt, shows him the nature of a world without God, but having so thoroughly rejected God, Ivan is left defenseless. His breakdown results from the collision between the psychology of doubt and the idea of moral responsibility. Ivan could endure one. He cannot endure both. Smerdyakov's motivations for killing Fyodor Pavlovich are vague. Smerdyakov believes Ivan wanted him to kill Fyodor Pavlovich. But he has other motivations as well. Smerdyakov may be living Ivan's philosophy that if there is no God, all is permitted. He may also kill for the money, or out of his own hatred of Fyodor Pavlovich. Finally, Smerdyakov may simply feel a desire to do evil. Allegorically, the murder signifies the logical extreme of Ivan's arguments. Smerdyakov shares Fyodor Pavlovich's brutish wickedness, and so, in a sense, Fyodor Pavlovich is killed by his own loathsome way of living. Ivan's conviction that good and evil are fraudulent categories, and that no one has any moral responsibility to anyone else, has facilitated the destruction of one amoral monstrosity by another. The deeply moral Ivan loses his mind when confronted with the horror of this development, as apparently does Smerdyakov, whose unmourned suicide is the final cry of terror and pain to come from the novel's exploration of the nihilism of disbelief

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/12.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_1_part_1.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 12

chapter 12

{"name": "Chapter 12", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-2-chapters-12-15", "summary": "On a Sunday morning in late October, several weeks after the night ride in The Chase, Tess travels home. Ascending the road, she sees Alec d'Urberville, who has been looking for her. He asks why she is slipping away, for nobody wished to hinder her leaving. She vows never to come back. When he asks why she is crying, she says that she sees the village where she was born, and wishes she had not been born at all. Tess tells Alec that she did not come to Trantridge for him, and that she hates herself for her weakness; her eyes were a little dazed by him, she explains. Alec admits that he is a bad fellow, but vows not to be unkind to her again. He attempts to kiss her once more, but she insists that she has never loved him. He tells her that she is being absurd. He asks her to come back to him, but once again she refuses. After Alec finally leaves her, Tess sees a man carrying a tin pot of red paint. He paints a quote from the Bible on a stile: \"Thy, Damnation, Slumbereth Not. She asks if he believes what he paints, and he replies quite adamantly that he does. She asks him to suppose that one's sin is not of one's own seeking, but he says that he cannot split hairs on that question. He tells her that if she wants edification, she should speak to Mr. Clare of Emminster, who will preach today. Tess reaches home and says that she is staying for a long holiday. Tess admits to her mother what occurred, and she scolds Tess for not getting Alec to marry her. Tess asks her mother why she did not warn her about the danger that men pose.", "analysis": "Hardy continues to leave many of the details of Tess's seduction ambiguous by allowing a certain space of time to pass between the night at The Chase and Tess' return to Marlott several weeks later. Both Tess and Alec, however, indicate that their sexual encounter was to some degree consensual. Most importantly, Tess admits that her \"eyes were a little dazed\" by Alec and that the event was a moment of weakness. This is the first concrete indication that Tess realizes her capability for sexuality; previously unaware of others' sexual designs for her and disdainful of the lust exhibited by others, Tess now admits that she too was capable of some degree of lust for Alec. This is significant as a development of Tess's sexual attitudes and as an indication of her inherent self-criticism. She finds herself to blame for Alec's seduction of her, rather than accusing him of treachery. The encounter between Tess and the sign painter introduces the theme of forgiveness that will pervade the novel. Tess wonders whether or not what she has done may be forgiven, and seems to find the answer that she cannot in Christian teaching. The encounter also introduces the character of Reverend Clare, whose son appeared during an early chapter and will play a large part in future chapters. Joan Durbeyfield's reprimand of her daughter for being seduced by Alec d'Urberville is ironic, for it is she who promoted the idea of a romantic attachment between Tess and Alec. When Tess submitted to Alec, she essentially followed her mother's orders, yet now faces her family's scorn"}

The basket was heavy and the bundle was large, but she lugged them along like a person who did not find her especial burden in material things. Occasionally she stopped to rest in a mechanical way by some gate or post; and then, giving the baggage another hitch upon her full round arm, went steadily on again. It was a Sunday morning in late October, about four months after Tess Durbeyfield's arrival at Trantridge, and some few weeks subsequent to the night ride in The Chase. The time was not long past daybreak, and the yellow luminosity upon the horizon behind her back lighted the ridge towards which her face was set--the barrier of the vale wherein she had of late been a stranger--which she would have to climb over to reach her birthplace. The ascent was gradual on this side, and the soil and scenery differed much from those within Blakemore Vale. Even the character and accent of the two peoples had shades of difference, despite the amalgamating effects of a roundabout railway; so that, though less than twenty miles from the place of her sojourn at Trantridge, her native village had seemed a far-away spot. The field-folk shut in there traded northward and westward, travelled, courted, and married northward and westward, thought northward and westward; those on this side mainly directed their energies and attention to the east and south. The incline was the same down which d'Urberville had driven her so wildly on that day in June. Tess went up the remainder of its length without stopping, and on reaching the edge of the escarpment gazed over the familiar green world beyond, now half-veiled in mist. It was always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess to-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson. Verily another girl than the simple one she had been at home was she who, bowed by thought, stood still here, and turned to look behind her. She could not bear to look forward into the Vale. Ascending by the long white road that Tess herself had just laboured up, she saw a two-wheeled vehicle, beside which walked a man, who held up his hand to attract her attention. She obeyed the signal to wait for him with unspeculative repose, and in a few minutes man and horse stopped beside her. "Why did you slip away by stealth like this?" said d'Urberville, with upbraiding breathlessness; "on a Sunday morning, too, when people were all in bed! I only discovered it by accident, and I have been driving like the deuce to overtake you. Just look at the mare. Why go off like this? You know that nobody wished to hinder your going. And how unnecessary it has been for you to toil along on foot, and encumber yourself with this heavy load! I have followed like a madman, simply to drive you the rest of the distance, if you won't come back." "I shan't come back," said she. "I thought you wouldn't--I said so! Well, then, put up your basket, and let me help you on." She listlessly placed her basket and bundle within the dog-cart, and stepped up, and they sat side by side. She had no fear of him now, and in the cause of her confidence her sorrow lay. D'Urberville mechanically lit a cigar, and the journey was continued with broken unemotional conversation on the commonplace objects by the wayside. He had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her when, in the early summer, they had driven in the opposite direction along the same road. But she had not, and she sat now, like a puppet, replying to his remarks in monosyllables. After some miles they came in view of the clump of trees beyond which the village of Marlott stood. It was only then that her still face showed the least emotion, a tear or two beginning to trickle down. "What are you crying for?" he coldly asked. "I was only thinking that I was born over there," murmured Tess. "Well--we must all be born somewhere." "I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else!" "Pooh! Well, if you didn't wish to come to Trantridge why did you come?" She did not reply. "You didn't come for love of me, that I'll swear." "'Tis quite true. If I had gone for love o' you, if I had ever sincerely loved you, if I loved you still, I should not so loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now! ... My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all." He shrugged his shoulders. She resumed-- "I didn't understand your meaning till it was too late." "That's what every woman says." "How can you dare to use such words!" she cried, turning impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit (of which he was to see more some day) awoke in her. "My God! I could knock you out of the gig! Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel?" "Very well," he said, laughing; "I am sorry to wound you. I did wrong--I admit it." He dropped into some little bitterness as he continued: "Only you needn't be so everlastingly flinging it in my face. I am ready to pay to the uttermost farthing. You know you need not work in the fields or the dairies again. You know you may clothe yourself with the best, instead of in the bald plain way you have lately affected, as if you couldn't get a ribbon more than you earn." Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a rule, in her large and impulsive nature. "I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will not--I cannot! I SHOULD be your creature to go on doing that, and I won't!" "One would think you were a princess from your manner, in addition to a true and original d'Urberville--ha! ha! Well, Tess, dear, I can say no more. I suppose I am a bad fellow--a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability. But, upon my lost soul, I won't be bad towards you again, Tess. And if certain circumstances should arise--you understand--in which you are in the least need, the least difficulty, send me one line, and you shall have by return whatever you require. I may not be at Trantridge--I am going to London for a time--I can't stand the old woman. But all letters will be forwarded." She said that she did not wish him to drive her further, and they stopped just under the clump of trees. D'Urberville alighted, and lifted her down bodily in his arms, afterwards placing her articles on the ground beside her. She bowed to him slightly, her eye just lingering in his; and then she turned to take the parcels for departure. Alec d'Urberville removed his cigar, bent towards her, and said-- "You are not going to turn away like that, dear! Come!" "If you wish," she answered indifferently. "See how you've mastered me!" She thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his, and remained like a marble term while he imprinted a kiss upon her cheek--half perfunctorily, half as if zest had not yet quite died out. Her eyes vaguely rested upon the remotest trees in the lane while the kiss was given, as though she were nearly unconscious of what he did. "Now the other side, for old acquaintance' sake." She turned her head in the same passive way, as one might turn at the request of a sketcher or hairdresser, and he kissed the other side, his lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the skin of the mushrooms in the fields around. "You don't give me your mouth and kiss me back. You never willingly do that--you'll never love me, I fear." "I have said so, often. It is true. I have never really and truly loved you, and I think I never can." She added mournfully, "Perhaps, of all things, a lie on this thing would do the most good to me now; but I have honour enough left, little as 'tis, not to tell that lie. If I did love you, I may have the best o' causes for letting you know it. But I don't." He emitted a laboured breath, as if the scene were getting rather oppressive to his heart, or to his conscience, or to his gentility. "Well, you are absurdly melancholy, Tess. I have no reason for flattering you now, and I can say plainly that you need not be so sad. You can hold your own for beauty against any woman of these parts, gentle or simple; I say it to you as a practical man and well-wisher. If you are wise you will show it to the world more than you do before it fades... And yet, Tess, will you come back to me! Upon my soul, I don't like to let you go like this!" "Never, never! I made up my mind as soon as I saw--what I ought to have seen sooner; and I won't come." "Then good morning, my four months' cousin--good-bye!" He leapt up lightly, arranged the reins, and was gone between the tall red-berried hedges. Tess did not look after him, but slowly wound along the crooked lane. It was still early, and though the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. There was not a human soul near. Sad October and her sadder self seemed the only two existences haunting that lane. As she walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the footsteps of a man; and owing to the briskness of his advance he was close at her heels and had said "Good morning" before she had been long aware of his propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand. He asked in a business-like manner if he should take her basket, which she permitted him to do, walking beside him. "It is early to be astir this Sabbath morn!" he said cheerfully. "Yes," said Tess. "When most people are at rest from their week's work." She also assented to this. "Though I do more real work to-day than all the week besides." "Do you?" "All the week I work for the glory of man, and on Sunday for the glory of God. That's more real than the other--hey? I have a little to do here at this stile." The man turned, as he spoke, to an opening at the roadside leading into a pasture. "If you'll wait a moment," he added, "I shall not be long." As he had her basket she could not well do otherwise; and she waited, observing him. He set down her basket and the tin pot, and stirring the paint with the brush that was in it began painting large square letters on the middle board of the three composing the stile, placing a comma after each word, as if to give pause while that word was driven well home to the reader's heart-- THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT. 2 Pet. ii. 3. Against the peaceful landscape, the pale, decaying tints of the copses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichened stile-boards, these staring vermilion words shone forth. They seemed to shout themselves out and make the atmosphere ring. Some people might have cried "Alas, poor Theology!" at the hideous defacement--the last grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time. But the words entered Tess with accusatory horror. It was as if this man had known her recent history; yet he was a total stranger. Having finished his text he picked up her basket, and she mechanically resumed her walk beside him. "Do you believe what you paint?" she asked in low tones. "Believe that tex? Do I believe in my own existence!" "But," said she tremulously, "suppose your sin was not of your own seeking?" He shook his head. "I cannot split hairs on that burning query," he said. "I have walked hundreds of miles this past summer, painting these texes on every wall, gate, and stile the length and breadth of this district. I leave their application to the hearts of the people who read 'em." "I think they are horrible," said Tess. "Crushing! Killing!" "That's what they are meant to be!" he replied in a trade voice. "But you should read my hottest ones--them I kips for slums and seaports. They'd make ye wriggle! Not but what this is a very good tex for rural districts. ... Ah--there's a nice bit of blank wall up by that barn standing to waste. I must put one there--one that it will be good for dangerous young females like yerself to heed. Will ye wait, missy?" "No," said she; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. A little way forward she turned her head. The old gray wall began to advertise a similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and unwonted mien, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon to perform. It was with a sudden flush that she read and realized what was to be the inscription he was now halfway through-- THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT-- Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted-- "If you want to ask for edification on these things of moment, there's a very earnest good man going to preach a charity-sermon to-day in the parish you are going to--Mr Clare of Emminster. I'm not of his persuasion now, but he's a good man, and he'll expound as well as any parson I know. 'Twas he began the work in me." But Tess did not answer; she throbbingly resumed her walk, her eyes fixed on the ground. "Pooh--I don't believe God said such things!" she murmured contemptuously when her flush had died away. A plume of smoke soared up suddenly from her father's chimney, the sight of which made her heart ache. The aspect of the interior, when she reached it, made her heart ache more. Her mother, who had just come down stairs, turned to greet her from the fireplace, where she was kindling barked-oak twigs under the breakfast kettle. The young children were still above, as was also her father, it being Sunday morning, when he felt justified in lying an additional half-hour. "Well!--my dear Tess!" exclaimed her surprised mother, jumping up and kissing the girl. "How be ye? I didn't see you till you was in upon me! Have you come home to be married?" "No, I have not come for that, mother." "Then for a holiday?" "Yes--for a holiday; for a long holiday," said Tess. "What, isn't your cousin going to do the handsome thing?" "He's not my cousin, and he's not going to marry me." Her mother eyed her narrowly. "Come, you have not told me all," she said. Then Tess went up to her mother, put her face upon Joan's neck, and told. "And yet th'st not got him to marry 'ee!" reiterated her mother. "Any woman would have done it but you, after that!" "Perhaps any woman would except me." "It would have been something like a story to come back with, if you had!" continued Mrs Durbeyfield, ready to burst into tears of vexation. "After all the talk about you and him which has reached us here, who would have expected it to end like this! Why didn't ye think of doing some good for your family instead o' thinking only of yourself? See how I've got to teave and slave, and your poor weak father with his heart clogged like a dripping-pan. I did hope for something to come out o' this! To see what a pretty pair you and he made that day when you drove away together four months ago! See what he has given us--all, as we thought, because we were his kin. But if he's not, it must have been done because of his love for 'ee. And yet you've not got him to marry!" Get Alec d'Urberville in the mind to marry her! He marry HER! On matrimony he had never once said a word. And what if he had? How a convulsive snatching at social salvation might have impelled her to answer him she could not say. But her poor foolish mother little knew her present feeling towards this man. Perhaps it was unusual in the circumstances, unlucky, unaccountable; but there it was; and this, as she had said, was what made her detest herself. She had never wholly cared for him; she did not at all care for him now. She had dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages he took of her helplessness; then, temporarily blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile: had suddenly despised and disliked him, and had run away. That was all. Hate him she did not quite; but he was dust and ashes to her, and even for her name's sake she scarcely wished to marry him. "You ought to have been more careful if you didn't mean to get him to make you his wife!" "O mother, my mother!" cried the agonized girl, turning passionately upon her parent as if her poor heart would break. "How could I be expected to know? I was a child when I left this house four months ago. Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk? Why didn't you warn me? Ladies know what to fend hands against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance o' learning in that way, and you did not help me!" Her mother was subdued. "I thought if I spoke of his fond feelings and what they might lead to, you would be hontish wi' him and lose your chance," she murmured, wiping her eyes with her apron. "Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose. 'Tis nater, after all, and what do please God!"

Chapter 12

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-2-chapters-12-15

On a Sunday morning in late October, several weeks after the night ride in The Chase, Tess travels home. Ascending the road, she sees Alec d'Urberville, who has been looking for her. He asks why she is slipping away, for nobody wished to hinder her leaving. She vows never to come back. When he asks why she is crying, she says that she sees the village where she was born, and wishes she had not been born at all. Tess tells Alec that she did not come to Trantridge for him, and that she hates herself for her weakness; her eyes were a little dazed by him, she explains. Alec admits that he is a bad fellow, but vows not to be unkind to her again. He attempts to kiss her once more, but she insists that she has never loved him. He tells her that she is being absurd. He asks her to come back to him, but once again she refuses. After Alec finally leaves her, Tess sees a man carrying a tin pot of red paint. He paints a quote from the Bible on a stile: "Thy, Damnation, Slumbereth Not. She asks if he believes what he paints, and he replies quite adamantly that he does. She asks him to suppose that one's sin is not of one's own seeking, but he says that he cannot split hairs on that question. He tells her that if she wants edification, she should speak to Mr. Clare of Emminster, who will preach today. Tess reaches home and says that she is staying for a long holiday. Tess admits to her mother what occurred, and she scolds Tess for not getting Alec to marry her. Tess asks her mother why she did not warn her about the danger that men pose.

Hardy continues to leave many of the details of Tess's seduction ambiguous by allowing a certain space of time to pass between the night at The Chase and Tess' return to Marlott several weeks later. Both Tess and Alec, however, indicate that their sexual encounter was to some degree consensual. Most importantly, Tess admits that her "eyes were a little dazed" by Alec and that the event was a moment of weakness. This is the first concrete indication that Tess realizes her capability for sexuality; previously unaware of others' sexual designs for her and disdainful of the lust exhibited by others, Tess now admits that she too was capable of some degree of lust for Alec. This is significant as a development of Tess's sexual attitudes and as an indication of her inherent self-criticism. She finds herself to blame for Alec's seduction of her, rather than accusing him of treachery. The encounter between Tess and the sign painter introduces the theme of forgiveness that will pervade the novel. Tess wonders whether or not what she has done may be forgiven, and seems to find the answer that she cannot in Christian teaching. The encounter also introduces the character of Reverend Clare, whose son appeared during an early chapter and will play a large part in future chapters. Joan Durbeyfield's reprimand of her daughter for being seduced by Alec d'Urberville is ironic, for it is she who promoted the idea of a romantic attachment between Tess and Alec. When Tess submitted to Alec, she essentially followed her mother's orders, yet now faces her family's scorn

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_10_part_0.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 10

chapter 10

{"name": "Chapter 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-10", "summary": "For most of this chapter, Dorian is concerned with moving the portrait to an attic room where it will be safely hidden. He calls for Victor, his servant, who enters the room. It occurs to Dorian that the servant has had access to the portrait and may have looked behind the screen. He tells Victor to summon the housekeeper, Mrs. Leaf, and then to go to Mr. Hubbard, the frame maker, and ask him to send over two of his men. From Mrs. Leaf, Dorian wants the key to his old schoolroom, a spacious attic area. Mrs. Leaf wants to clean the schoolroom before Dorian sees it; Dorian finally secures the key and sends Mrs. Leaf away. Dorian locates a piece of richly-colored fabric with which to cover the portrait. Ironically, the fabric previously had been used to cover coffins, and Dorian contemplates that it will now conceal the death and degeneration of the portrait. For a moment, he wonders if he should have confessed his secret to Basil after all and asked his assistance in escaping Lord Henry's influence. He realizes that Basil could have saved him from the sins he will surely commit, but he decides that it is \"too late now.\" The future looks inevitably bleak to Dorian. Dorian covers it just before Victor returns with the movers. Dorian is suspicious of Victor, worried that he may discover the secret of the portrait and blackmail him. He sends the servant on another errand to get him out of the house, carrying a note to Lord Henry requesting reading material and reminding his mentor of dinner plans that evening. Mr. Hubbard arrives with a rugged-looking assistant, and the two men carry the painting up the stairs to the schoolroom. When Dorian reaches the attic, he is flooded with childhood memories and regrets having to leave the portrait there to decay. However, the attic is the most secure and private place for it because Dorian has the only key to the room. He briefly considers that his nature might improve and that the evil already lurking in his soul may pass. Even so, the portrait will age, and Dorian hates the hideousness of growing old. He continues with his plans to conceal the portrait. After the movers leave, Dorian locks the door to the schoolroom and goes down to the library. Victor has already returned, leaving Dorian's tea and, from Lord Henry, a note, a well-worn book bound in yellow paper, and a newspaper. In the newspaper, Lord Henry has marked an article regarding the inquest into the death of Sibyl Vane. Dorian finds the article about Sibyl's death horribly ugly, and he frets that ugliness makes things seem too real. He is annoyed with Lord Henry for marking the article, which Victor may have noticed. Still, he reasons that he shouldn't worry about Victor reading the article because he did not kill the girl. Dorian finds the book more interesting. He begins reading, and in a short time he is engrossed by it. The book tells a story in which the sins of the world seem to be passing in review before him. Fascinated by this novel with no plot and only one character, he reads until Victor reminds him of his appointment with Lord Henry. Finally, Dorian dresses for dinner. When Dorian meets Lord Henry at the club, Lord Henry seems quietly pleased -- and not at all surprised -- that Dorian should like the book that he sent to him.", "analysis": "Throughout the first half of this chapter, Dorian is fraught with paranoia and fear that Victor will discover the secret of the portrait. Continuing the theme that was established in the preceding chapter, Dorian isn't enjoying the life he has chosen -- even though he craves it more than anything. Instead of a life of glorious exploration and passion, he spends his time scheming and worrying. Dorian seals his commitment to a life of vanity and debauchery when he hides and locks the portrait in the attic schoolroom. He rationalizes that he might, in fact, become more virtuous and reverse the moral decay reflected in the picture, but even he seems to know that will never happen. He seems to be thoroughly infected with the cynicism that Lord Henry has shown throughout the book; Dorian has been a good student of his mentor. It is enough for Dorian that he would wither and age without the portrait. He cannot and will not destroy the picture or attempt to negate the Faustian contract, if only because of his obsession with youthful beauty. The first ten chapters of the novel cover a time span of about a month after Dorian and Lord Henry meet. In that time, Lord Henry's influence increases, and Dorian changes significantly. As Basil points out, Dorian is not the innocent, well-meaning young man who first posed for him. With Lord Henry's encouragement, Dorian has become self-absorbed and cruel. At first, Dorian may not have been aware of the seriousness of his wish to remain youthful while the portrait aged. By the time that he hides the portrait in the attic, however, he has every reason to know the consequences. He knows that the pact will \"breed horrors and yet will never die.\" In this chapter, Dorian seems resigned to his fate. As in the Faust legends, the central character seems to feel beyond hope. According to the Faust legend, he could save himself if he would only repent and seek absolution. Dorian does consider turning to Basil, confessing, and seeking a more enlightened path. His ultimate decision, however, is not just based on despair. True to the Faust legend, he truly craves the benefits of the bargain. Having chosen, Dorian immediately falls under the power of the \"yellow book\" sent by Lord Henry. It is well-worn, and the reader can assume that Lord Henry knows its contents and anticipates its effect on Dorian. Dorian is enthralled by the story and immediately adopts it as a blueprint for his life. Note that Wilde ironically chooses a book to provide the guidelines for Dorian's life of debauchery. Wilde's devotion, even obsession, to his art is indicated by an incident regarding Chapter 10. Although Wilde affected the airs of a dilettante, he was industrious and productive. After submitting The Picture of Dorian Gray for proofreading, he went to France for a much-deserved break. His editors received a startling telegram from Paris: \"Stop all proofs. Wilde.\" The author returned in person to change the name of one character. The picture framer in the tenth chapter originally was named \"Ashton.\" Wilde had decided that \"Ashton is a gentleman's name.\" He changed it to \"Hubbard,\" which he felt was more fitting for a tradesman. Glossary placid calm, peaceful. garrulous habitually talkative. Bologna a city in northern Italy. pall a cover for a coffin. Michelangelo Michelangelo Buonarroti , Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and poet. Montaigne Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , French author. Winckelmann Johann Joachim Winckelmann , German philosopher, archaeologist, and art historian. annihilated completely destroyed. inveterate firmly established by long standing; deep-rooted. impecuniosity poverty. genial having a friendly, pleasant disposition. obsequious here, complacently complying. flaccid lacking firmness; lacking energy. death by misadventure The phrase does not specify suicide but implies some degree of fault or responsibility. argot specialized language used by a particular group. Symbolistes French, meaning \"Symbolists.\" The term refers to the literary and artistic movement begun by French poets in the nineteenth century that spread throughout Europe and America, influencing painting and drama; closely associated with Aestheticism, it advocated individual freedom even in themes of decay, ruin, and the bizarre. wan unnaturally pale; weary; ill."}

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 house-keeper that he wanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker 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 old-fashioned 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 years--not 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 place--that 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 seventeenth-century 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 itself--something 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 him--for it was really love--had 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 purple-and-gold 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 rose-red lips--they 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 writing-table 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 eight-fifteen 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 frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in with a somewhat rough-looking young assistant. Mr. Hubbard was a florid, red-whiskered 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 frame--though I don't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day 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 frame-maker, 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 years--not, indeed, since he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then as a study when he grew somewhat older. It was a large, well-proportioned 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 book-case filled with his dog-eared 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 youth--that 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 flesh--those 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, blue-veined 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 frame-maker, 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 tea-tray. 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 picture--had no doubt missed it already, while he had been laying the tea-things. 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 eight-fifteen. He opened _The St. James's_ languidly, and looked through it. A red pencil-mark 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 post-mortem 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, pearl-coloured 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 arm-chair 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 world-spirit 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 mediaeval 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 copper-green 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 morning-room, 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 dining-room.

Chapter 10

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-10

For most of this chapter, Dorian is concerned with moving the portrait to an attic room where it will be safely hidden. He calls for Victor, his servant, who enters the room. It occurs to Dorian that the servant has had access to the portrait and may have looked behind the screen. He tells Victor to summon the housekeeper, Mrs. Leaf, and then to go to Mr. Hubbard, the frame maker, and ask him to send over two of his men. From Mrs. Leaf, Dorian wants the key to his old schoolroom, a spacious attic area. Mrs. Leaf wants to clean the schoolroom before Dorian sees it; Dorian finally secures the key and sends Mrs. Leaf away. Dorian locates a piece of richly-colored fabric with which to cover the portrait. Ironically, the fabric previously had been used to cover coffins, and Dorian contemplates that it will now conceal the death and degeneration of the portrait. For a moment, he wonders if he should have confessed his secret to Basil after all and asked his assistance in escaping Lord Henry's influence. He realizes that Basil could have saved him from the sins he will surely commit, but he decides that it is "too late now." The future looks inevitably bleak to Dorian. Dorian covers it just before Victor returns with the movers. Dorian is suspicious of Victor, worried that he may discover the secret of the portrait and blackmail him. He sends the servant on another errand to get him out of the house, carrying a note to Lord Henry requesting reading material and reminding his mentor of dinner plans that evening. Mr. Hubbard arrives with a rugged-looking assistant, and the two men carry the painting up the stairs to the schoolroom. When Dorian reaches the attic, he is flooded with childhood memories and regrets having to leave the portrait there to decay. However, the attic is the most secure and private place for it because Dorian has the only key to the room. He briefly considers that his nature might improve and that the evil already lurking in his soul may pass. Even so, the portrait will age, and Dorian hates the hideousness of growing old. He continues with his plans to conceal the portrait. After the movers leave, Dorian locks the door to the schoolroom and goes down to the library. Victor has already returned, leaving Dorian's tea and, from Lord Henry, a note, a well-worn book bound in yellow paper, and a newspaper. In the newspaper, Lord Henry has marked an article regarding the inquest into the death of Sibyl Vane. Dorian finds the article about Sibyl's death horribly ugly, and he frets that ugliness makes things seem too real. He is annoyed with Lord Henry for marking the article, which Victor may have noticed. Still, he reasons that he shouldn't worry about Victor reading the article because he did not kill the girl. Dorian finds the book more interesting. He begins reading, and in a short time he is engrossed by it. The book tells a story in which the sins of the world seem to be passing in review before him. Fascinated by this novel with no plot and only one character, he reads until Victor reminds him of his appointment with Lord Henry. Finally, Dorian dresses for dinner. When Dorian meets Lord Henry at the club, Lord Henry seems quietly pleased -- and not at all surprised -- that Dorian should like the book that he sent to him.

Throughout the first half of this chapter, Dorian is fraught with paranoia and fear that Victor will discover the secret of the portrait. Continuing the theme that was established in the preceding chapter, Dorian isn't enjoying the life he has chosen -- even though he craves it more than anything. Instead of a life of glorious exploration and passion, he spends his time scheming and worrying. Dorian seals his commitment to a life of vanity and debauchery when he hides and locks the portrait in the attic schoolroom. He rationalizes that he might, in fact, become more virtuous and reverse the moral decay reflected in the picture, but even he seems to know that will never happen. He seems to be thoroughly infected with the cynicism that Lord Henry has shown throughout the book; Dorian has been a good student of his mentor. It is enough for Dorian that he would wither and age without the portrait. He cannot and will not destroy the picture or attempt to negate the Faustian contract, if only because of his obsession with youthful beauty. The first ten chapters of the novel cover a time span of about a month after Dorian and Lord Henry meet. In that time, Lord Henry's influence increases, and Dorian changes significantly. As Basil points out, Dorian is not the innocent, well-meaning young man who first posed for him. With Lord Henry's encouragement, Dorian has become self-absorbed and cruel. At first, Dorian may not have been aware of the seriousness of his wish to remain youthful while the portrait aged. By the time that he hides the portrait in the attic, however, he has every reason to know the consequences. He knows that the pact will "breed horrors and yet will never die." In this chapter, Dorian seems resigned to his fate. As in the Faust legends, the central character seems to feel beyond hope. According to the Faust legend, he could save himself if he would only repent and seek absolution. Dorian does consider turning to Basil, confessing, and seeking a more enlightened path. His ultimate decision, however, is not just based on despair. True to the Faust legend, he truly craves the benefits of the bargain. Having chosen, Dorian immediately falls under the power of the "yellow book" sent by Lord Henry. It is well-worn, and the reader can assume that Lord Henry knows its contents and anticipates its effect on Dorian. Dorian is enthralled by the story and immediately adopts it as a blueprint for his life. Note that Wilde ironically chooses a book to provide the guidelines for Dorian's life of debauchery. Wilde's devotion, even obsession, to his art is indicated by an incident regarding Chapter 10. Although Wilde affected the airs of a dilettante, he was industrious and productive. After submitting The Picture of Dorian Gray for proofreading, he went to France for a much-deserved break. His editors received a startling telegram from Paris: "Stop all proofs. Wilde." The author returned in person to change the name of one character. The picture framer in the tenth chapter originally was named "Ashton." Wilde had decided that "Ashton is a gentleman's name." He changed it to "Hubbard," which he felt was more fitting for a tradesman. Glossary placid calm, peaceful. garrulous habitually talkative. Bologna a city in northern Italy. pall a cover for a coffin. Michelangelo Michelangelo Buonarroti , Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and poet. Montaigne Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , French author. Winckelmann Johann Joachim Winckelmann , German philosopher, archaeologist, and art historian. annihilated completely destroyed. inveterate firmly established by long standing; deep-rooted. impecuniosity poverty. genial having a friendly, pleasant disposition. obsequious here, complacently complying. flaccid lacking firmness; lacking energy. death by misadventure The phrase does not specify suicide but implies some degree of fault or responsibility. argot specialized language used by a particular group. Symbolistes French, meaning "Symbolists." The term refers to the literary and artistic movement begun by French poets in the nineteenth century that spread throughout Europe and America, influencing painting and drama; closely associated with Aestheticism, it advocated individual freedom even in themes of decay, ruin, and the bizarre. wan unnaturally pale; weary; ill.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/04.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Sense and Sensibility/section_0_part_4.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 4

chapter 4

{"name": "Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-10", "summary": "Marianne questions Edward's taste in drawing; Elinor is perfectly content that he is not as obviously passionate about art as Marianne should hope, though she knows that this is one of Edward's failings with Marianne. Elinor says she is perfectly happy with his tastes and education, and even Marianne cannot find fault with his good nature and kind heart. Marianne says she would like Edward even more if he were to get married to Elinor; Elinor knows that her sister and mother believe that there is an attachment between herself and Edward, but does not wish to confirm it because she is not sure of feelings being exactly mutual. Elinor also admits that there is something in Edward which suggests he does not love her as much as she loves him. She believes that it might have something to do with the expectations and overbearing nature of Edward's mother, though of course Elinor cannot be sure. Fanny is especially displeased by this attraction, and comments to Mrs. Dashwood about how there are high hopes for Edward, and he must marry a woman of high birth and much wealth. Fortunately, Mrs. Dashwood then receives a letter from a relative of hers, offering her a cottage on his property very cheaply. The letter is very friendly and urges Mrs. Dashwood to come to Barton Park, his estate in Devonshire, to have a look at the nearby cottage and see if it is suitable. Since Mrs. Dashwood is ready to escape from Fanny, she accepts; Marianne and Elinor approve the proposal, though Elinor does not want to be separated from Edward.", "analysis": "The clash between sense and sensibility is again shown in this discussion between Elinor and Marianne, and what their views on Edward and Elinor's relationship are. Elinor, with all her sensibility, does not allow herself to get carried away; she knows that Edward's affections might fall short of hers, and that there is no promised attachment between them. Marianne surveys the situation with a more romantic eye, assuming that he must love her equally well, and is bound to propose soon. That romantic notions lead Marianne to assume more about the situation than is true shows the failing of sense; sense is far from exact, and belief and hope often fall short of reality. Elinor's confession to Marianne foreshadows some secret of Edward's; he must have a reason for sometimes acting reticent around Marianne, if his affection is as genuine as it seems. Another obstacle is, of course, the approval of Edward's mother, who has great hopes for Edward's advancement and certainly would not look favorably on a less-than-ideal match. Fanny's insinuations to Mrs. Dashwood indicate that any match between Elinor and Edward would be harshly opposed by the Ferrars family, and this foreshadows further obstacles to Edward and Elinor being united"}

"What a pity it is, Elinor," said Marianne, "that Edward should have no taste for drawing." "No taste for drawing!" replied Elinor, "why should you think so? He does not draw himself, indeed, but he has great pleasure in seeing the performances of other people, and I assure you he is by no means deficient in natural taste, though he has not had opportunities of improving it. Had he ever been in the way of learning, I think he would have drawn very well. He distrusts his own judgment in such matters so much, that he is always unwilling to give his opinion on any picture; but he has an innate propriety and simplicity of taste, which in general direct him perfectly right." Marianne was afraid of offending, and said no more on the subject; but the kind of approbation which Elinor described as excited in him by the drawings of other people, was very far from that rapturous delight, which, in her opinion, could alone be called taste. Yet, though smiling within herself at the mistake, she honoured her sister for that blind partiality to Edward which produced it. "I hope, Marianne," continued Elinor, "you do not consider him as deficient in general taste. Indeed, I think I may say that you cannot, for your behaviour to him is perfectly cordial, and if THAT were your opinion, I am sure you could never be civil to him." Marianne hardly knew what to say. She would not wound the feelings of her sister on any account, and yet to say what she did not believe was impossible. At length she replied: "Do not be offended, Elinor, if my praise of him is not in every thing equal to your sense of his merits. I have not had so many opportunities of estimating the minuter propensities of his mind, his inclinations and tastes, as you have; but I have the highest opinion in the world of his goodness and sense. I think him every thing that is worthy and amiable." "I am sure," replied Elinor, with a smile, "that his dearest friends could not be dissatisfied with such commendation as that. I do not perceive how you could express yourself more warmly." Marianne was rejoiced to find her sister so easily pleased. "Of his sense and his goodness," continued Elinor, "no one can, I think, be in doubt, who has seen him often enough to engage him in unreserved conversation. The excellence of his understanding and his principles can be concealed only by that shyness which too often keeps him silent. You know enough of him to do justice to his solid worth. But of his minuter propensities, as you call them you have from peculiar circumstances been kept more ignorant than myself. He and I have been at times thrown a good deal together, while you have been wholly engrossed on the most affectionate principle by my mother. I have seen a great deal of him, have studied his sentiments and heard his opinion on subjects of literature and taste; and, upon the whole, I venture to pronounce that his mind is well-informed, enjoyment of books exceedingly great, his imagination lively, his observation just and correct, and his taste delicate and pure. His abilities in every respect improve as much upon acquaintance as his manners and person. At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is perceived. At present, I know him so well, that I think him really handsome; or at least, almost so. What say you, Marianne?" "I shall very soon think him handsome, Elinor, if I do not now. When you tell me to love him as a brother, I shall no more see imperfection in his face, than I now do in his heart." Elinor started at this declaration, and was sorry for the warmth she had been betrayed into, in speaking of him. She felt that Edward stood very high in her opinion. She believed the regard to be mutual; but she required greater certainty of it to make Marianne's conviction of their attachment agreeable to her. She knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next--that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister. "I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of him--that I greatly esteem, that I like him." Marianne here burst forth with indignation-- "Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment." Elinor could not help laughing. "Excuse me," said she; "and be assured that I meant no offence to you, by speaking, in so quiet a way, of my own feelings. Believe them to be stronger than I have declared; believe them, in short, to be such as his merit, and the suspicion--the hope of his affection for me may warrant, without imprudence or folly. But farther than this you must not believe. I am by no means assured of his regard for me. There are moments when the extent of it seems doubtful; and till his sentiments are fully known, you cannot wonder at my wishing to avoid any encouragement of my own partiality, by believing or calling it more than it is. In my heart I feel little--scarcely any doubt of his preference. But there are other points to be considered besides his inclination. He is very far from being independent. What his mother really is we cannot know; but, from Fanny's occasional mention of her conduct and opinions, we have never been disposed to think her amiable; and I am very much mistaken if Edward is not himself aware that there would be many difficulties in his way, if he were to wish to marry a woman who had not either a great fortune or high rank." Marianne was astonished to find how much the imagination of her mother and herself had outstripped the truth. "And you really are not engaged to him!" said she. "Yet it certainly soon will happen. But two advantages will proceed from this delay. I shall not lose you so soon, and Edward will have greater opportunity of improving that natural taste for your favourite pursuit which must be so indispensably necessary to your future felicity. Oh! if he should be so far stimulated by your genius as to learn to draw himself, how delightful it would be!" Elinor had given her real opinion to her sister. She could not consider her partiality for Edward in so prosperous a state as Marianne had believed it. There was, at times, a want of spirits about him which, if it did not denote indifference, spoke of something almost as unpromising. A doubt of her regard, supposing him to feel it, need not give him more than inquietude. It would not be likely to produce that dejection of mind which frequently attended him. A more reasonable cause might be found in the dependent situation which forbade the indulgence of his affection. She knew that his mother neither behaved to him so as to make his home comfortable at present, nor to give him any assurance that he might form a home for himself, without strictly attending to her views for his aggrandizement. With such a knowledge as this, it was impossible for Elinor to feel easy on the subject. She was far from depending on that result of his preference of her, which her mother and sister still considered as certain. Nay, the longer they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard; and sometimes, for a few painful minutes, she believed it to be no more than friendship. But, whatever might really be its limits, it was enough, when perceived by his sister, to make her uneasy, and at the same time, (which was still more common,) to make her uncivil. She took the first opportunity of affronting her mother-in-law on the occasion, talking to her so expressively of her brother's great expectations, of Mrs. Ferrars's resolution that both her sons should marry well, and of the danger attending any young woman who attempted to DRAW HIM IN; that Mrs. Dashwood could neither pretend to be unconscious, nor endeavor to be calm. She gave her an answer which marked her contempt, and instantly left the room, resolving that, whatever might be the inconvenience or expense of so sudden a removal, her beloved Elinor should not be exposed another week to such insinuations. In this state of her spirits, a letter was delivered to her from the post, which contained a proposal particularly well timed. It was the offer of a small house, on very easy terms, belonging to a relation of her own, a gentleman of consequence and property in Devonshire. The letter was from this gentleman himself, and written in the true spirit of friendly accommodation. He understood that she was in need of a dwelling; and though the house he now offered her was merely a cottage, he assured her that everything should be done to it which she might think necessary, if the situation pleased her. He earnestly pressed her, after giving the particulars of the house and garden, to come with her daughters to Barton Park, the place of his own residence, from whence she might judge, herself, whether Barton Cottage, for the houses were in the same parish, could, by any alteration, be made comfortable to her. He seemed really anxious to accommodate them and the whole of his letter was written in so friendly a style as could not fail of giving pleasure to his cousin; more especially at a moment when she was suffering under the cold and unfeeling behaviour of her nearer connections. She needed no time for deliberation or inquiry. Her resolution was formed as she read. The situation of Barton, in a county so far distant from Sussex as Devonshire, which, but a few hours before, would have been a sufficient objection to outweigh every possible advantage belonging to the place, was now its first recommendation. To quit the neighbourhood of Norland was no longer an evil; it was an object of desire; it was a blessing, in comparison of the misery of continuing her daughter-in-law's guest; and to remove for ever from that beloved place would be less painful than to inhabit or visit it while such a woman was its mistress. She instantly wrote Sir John Middleton her acknowledgment of his kindness, and her acceptance of his proposal; and then hastened to shew both letters to her daughters, that she might be secure of their approbation before her answer were sent. Elinor had always thought it would be more prudent for them to settle at some distance from Norland, than immediately amongst their present acquaintance. On THAT head, therefore, it was not for her to oppose her mother's intention of removing into Devonshire. The house, too, as described by Sir John, was on so simple a scale, and the rent so uncommonly moderate, as to leave her no right of objection on either point; and, therefore, though it was not a plan which brought any charm to her fancy, though it was a removal from the vicinity of Norland beyond her wishes, she made no attempt to dissuade her mother from sending a letter of acquiescence.

Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-10

Marianne questions Edward's taste in drawing; Elinor is perfectly content that he is not as obviously passionate about art as Marianne should hope, though she knows that this is one of Edward's failings with Marianne. Elinor says she is perfectly happy with his tastes and education, and even Marianne cannot find fault with his good nature and kind heart. Marianne says she would like Edward even more if he were to get married to Elinor; Elinor knows that her sister and mother believe that there is an attachment between herself and Edward, but does not wish to confirm it because she is not sure of feelings being exactly mutual. Elinor also admits that there is something in Edward which suggests he does not love her as much as she loves him. She believes that it might have something to do with the expectations and overbearing nature of Edward's mother, though of course Elinor cannot be sure. Fanny is especially displeased by this attraction, and comments to Mrs. Dashwood about how there are high hopes for Edward, and he must marry a woman of high birth and much wealth. Fortunately, Mrs. Dashwood then receives a letter from a relative of hers, offering her a cottage on his property very cheaply. The letter is very friendly and urges Mrs. Dashwood to come to Barton Park, his estate in Devonshire, to have a look at the nearby cottage and see if it is suitable. Since Mrs. Dashwood is ready to escape from Fanny, she accepts; Marianne and Elinor approve the proposal, though Elinor does not want to be separated from Edward.

The clash between sense and sensibility is again shown in this discussion between Elinor and Marianne, and what their views on Edward and Elinor's relationship are. Elinor, with all her sensibility, does not allow herself to get carried away; she knows that Edward's affections might fall short of hers, and that there is no promised attachment between them. Marianne surveys the situation with a more romantic eye, assuming that he must love her equally well, and is bound to propose soon. That romantic notions lead Marianne to assume more about the situation than is true shows the failing of sense; sense is far from exact, and belief and hope often fall short of reality. Elinor's confession to Marianne foreshadows some secret of Edward's; he must have a reason for sometimes acting reticent around Marianne, if his affection is as genuine as it seems. Another obstacle is, of course, the approval of Edward's mother, who has great hopes for Edward's advancement and certainly would not look favorably on a less-than-ideal match. Fanny's insinuations to Mrs. Dashwood indicate that any match between Elinor and Edward would be harshly opposed by the Ferrars family, and this foreshadows further obstacles to Edward and Elinor being united

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/20.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_19_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 20

chapter 20

{"name": "Chapter 20", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-20", "summary": "The Dashwood sisters show up dutifully at the Middletons' house, and Mrs. Palmer rushes over to greet them. Mrs. Palmer announces that she and her husband have to leave tomorrow, so she's glad that the girls came. Apparently their visit was a surprise to everyone, including herself. She hopes that they will meet again soon in town . The Dashwoods say that they won't be going to London - Mrs. Palmer is very disappointed, and invites them to come anytime, saying that she'll basically figure out all of the plans for their visit. Mrs. Palmer tries to get her husband in on convincing the girls, but he's uninterested, and instead starts complaining about the weather, and about the fact that Sir John doesn't have a billiard room at Barton. Everyone else shows up, and Sir John teases Marianne about how often she walks around Allenham, Willoughby's ancestral home. Marianne looks serious and doesn't respond. Mrs. Palmer tells her not to worry - she's familiar with Willoughby, since they're live in the same part of the countryside, and she thinks he's a very handsome man. Mr. Palmer, not to be outdone, says that Willoughby's other house is hideous. When everyone's at dinner together, the Dashwoods witness some rather awkward family dynamics between Mr. Palmer and his in-laws. He's a prickly customer, to put it mildly. Mrs. Palmer genuinely laughs off her husband's bad behavior - she loves him despite his rudeness. Elinor muses on Mr. Palmer's character; she ponders the fact that he, like many other men, has married a beautiful woman despite her silliness, and that he's never recovered it. However, that's not the cause of his irritability - that's just his personality. Mrs. Palmer asks the Dashwood girls to come and stay at Cleveland, her home in the country. She and Mr. Palmer bicker a little more - apparently he's running for Parliament, and has been going around trying to get people to like him . Later, Mrs. Palmer assures Elinor that Mr. Palmer likes her and her sister very much. Elinor asks about Willoughby - what do people think of him where the Palmers live? Mrs. Palmer, who claims to know Willoughby very well, despite the fact that they've never spoken, says that she can understand why Elinor is curious, since Marianne is supposedly going to marry him. Elinor is taken aback, and wants to know how Mrs. Palmer heard such a rumor. Of course, there's a ridiculous story attached - Mrs. Palmer ran into Colonel Brandon one day in London, and basically asked him to confirm the rumor that Marianne was to marry Willoughby. Colonel Brandon didn't say anything, but Mrs. Palmer assumed that this was a sign of agreement. The pair briefly discusses Colonel Brandon, whom Mrs. Palmer dismisses as nice but dull. Finally, Mrs. Palmer gets back to the original topic - Willoughby. Apparently, he has a good reputation in Somerset , and everyone likes him. Mrs. Palmer compliments both Elinor and Marianne, saying that they're both equally beautiful. Elinor and Charlotte go back to the subject of Colonel Brandon; Charlotte claims that he wanted to marry her back in the day, but it obviously didn't happen. She's happy with Mr. Palmer, anyway - he's apparently exactly what she wants.", "analysis": ""}

As the Miss Dashwoods entered the drawing-room of the park the next day, at one door, Mrs. Palmer came running in at the other, looking as good humoured and merry as before. She took them all most affectionately by the hand, and expressed great delight in seeing them again. "I am so glad to see you!" said she, seating herself between Elinor and Marianne, "for it is so bad a day I was afraid you might not come, which would be a shocking thing, as we go away again tomorrow. We must go, for the Westons come to us next week you know. It was quite a sudden thing our coming at all, and I knew nothing of it till the carriage was coming to the door, and then Mr. Palmer asked me if I would go with him to Barton. He is so droll! He never tells me any thing! I am so sorry we cannot stay longer; however we shall meet again in town very soon, I hope." They were obliged to put an end to such an expectation. "Not go to town!" cried Mrs. Palmer, with a laugh, "I shall be quite disappointed if you do not. I could get the nicest house in the world for you, next door to ours, in Hanover-square. You must come, indeed. I am sure I shall be very happy to chaperon you at any time till I am confined, if Mrs. Dashwood should not like to go into public." They thanked her; but were obliged to resist all her entreaties. "Oh, my love," cried Mrs. Palmer to her husband, who just then entered the room--"you must help me to persuade the Miss Dashwoods to go to town this winter." Her love made no answer; and after slightly bowing to the ladies, began complaining of the weather. "How horrid all this is!" said he. "Such weather makes every thing and every body disgusting. Dullness is as much produced within doors as without, by rain. It makes one detest all one's acquaintance. What the devil does Sir John mean by not having a billiard room in his house? How few people know what comfort is! Sir John is as stupid as the weather." The rest of the company soon dropt in. "I am afraid, Miss Marianne," said Sir John, "you have not been able to take your usual walk to Allenham today." Marianne looked very grave and said nothing. "Oh, don't be so sly before us," said Mrs. Palmer; "for we know all about it, I assure you; and I admire your taste very much, for I think he is extremely handsome. We do not live a great way from him in the country, you know. Not above ten miles, I dare say." "Much nearer thirty," said her husband. "Ah, well! there is not much difference. I never was at his house; but they say it is a sweet pretty place." "As vile a spot as I ever saw in my life," said Mr. Palmer. Marianne remained perfectly silent, though her countenance betrayed her interest in what was said. "Is it very ugly?" continued Mrs. Palmer--"then it must be some other place that is so pretty I suppose." When they were seated in the dining room, Sir John observed with regret that they were only eight all together. "My dear," said he to his lady, "it is very provoking that we should be so few. Why did not you ask the Gilberts to come to us today?" "Did not I tell you, Sir John, when you spoke to me about it before, that it could not be done? They dined with us last." "You and I, Sir John," said Mrs. Jennings, "should not stand upon such ceremony." "Then you would be very ill-bred," cried Mr. Palmer. "My love you contradict every body," said his wife with her usual laugh. "Do you know that you are quite rude?" "I did not know I contradicted any body in calling your mother ill-bred." "Ay, you may abuse me as you please," said the good-natured old lady, "you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again. So there I have the whip hand of you." Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid of her; and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her, as they must live together. It was impossible for any one to be more thoroughly good-natured, or more determined to be happy than Mrs. Palmer. The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her husband gave her no pain; and when he scolded or abused her, she was highly diverted. "Mr. Palmer is so droll!" said she, in a whisper, to Elinor. "He is always out of humour." Elinor was not inclined, after a little observation, to give him credit for being so genuinely and unaffectedly ill-natured or ill-bred as he wished to appear. His temper might perhaps be a little soured by finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman,--but she knew that this kind of blunder was too common for any sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it.-- It was rather a wish of distinction, she believed, which produced his contemptuous treatment of every body, and his general abuse of every thing before him. It was the desire of appearing superior to other people. The motive was too common to be wondered at; but the means, however they might succeed by establishing his superiority in ill-breeding, were not likely to attach any one to him except his wife. "Oh, my dear Miss Dashwood," said Mrs. Palmer soon afterwards, "I have got such a favour to ask of you and your sister. Will you come and spend some time at Cleveland this Christmas? Now, pray do,--and come while the Westons are with us. You cannot think how happy I shall be! It will be quite delightful!--My love," applying to her husband, "don't you long to have the Miss Dashwoods come to Cleveland?" "Certainly," he replied, with a sneer--"I came into Devonshire with no other view." "There now,"--said his lady, "you see Mr. Palmer expects you; so you cannot refuse to come." They both eagerly and resolutely declined her invitation. "But indeed you must and shall come. I am sure you will like it of all things. The Westons will be with us, and it will be quite delightful. You cannot think what a sweet place Cleveland is; and we are so gay now, for Mr. Palmer is always going about the country canvassing against the election; and so many people came to dine with us that I never saw before, it is quite charming! But, poor fellow! it is very fatiguing to him! for he is forced to make every body like him." Elinor could hardly keep her countenance as she assented to the hardship of such an obligation. "How charming it will be," said Charlotte, "when he is in Parliament!--won't it? How I shall laugh! It will be so ridiculous to see all his letters directed to him with an M.P.--But do you know, he says, he will never frank for me? He declares he won't. Don't you, Mr. Palmer?" Mr. Palmer took no notice of her. "He cannot bear writing, you know," she continued--"he says it is quite shocking." "No," said he, "I never said any thing so irrational. Don't palm all your abuses of languages upon me." "There now; you see how droll he is. This is always the way with him! Sometimes he won't speak to me for half a day together, and then he comes out with something so droll--all about any thing in the world." She surprised Elinor very much as they returned into the drawing-room, by asking her whether she did not like Mr. Palmer excessively. "Certainly," said Elinor; "he seems very agreeable." "Well--I am so glad you do. I thought you would, he is so pleasant; and Mr. Palmer is excessively pleased with you and your sisters I can tell you, and you can't think how disappointed he will be if you don't come to Cleveland.--I can't imagine why you should object to it." Elinor was again obliged to decline her invitation; and by changing the subject, put a stop to her entreaties. She thought it probable that as they lived in the same county, Mrs. Palmer might be able to give some more particular account of Willoughby's general character, than could be gathered from the Middletons' partial acquaintance with him; and she was eager to gain from any one, such a confirmation of his merits as might remove the possibility of fear from Marianne. She began by inquiring if they saw much of Mr. Willoughby at Cleveland, and whether they were intimately acquainted with him. "Oh dear, yes; I know him extremely well," replied Mrs. Palmer;--"Not that I ever spoke to him, indeed; but I have seen him for ever in town. Somehow or other I never happened to be staying at Barton while he was at Allenham. Mama saw him here once before;--but I was with my uncle at Weymouth. However, I dare say we should have seen a great deal of him in Somersetshire, if it had not happened very unluckily that we should never have been in the country together. He is very little at Combe, I believe; but if he were ever so much there, I do not think Mr. Palmer would visit him, for he is in the opposition, you know, and besides it is such a way off. I know why you inquire about him, very well; your sister is to marry him. I am monstrous glad of it, for then I shall have her for a neighbour you know." "Upon my word," replied Elinor, "you know much more of the matter than I do, if you have any reason to expect such a match." "Don't pretend to deny it, because you know it is what every body talks of. I assure you I heard of it in my way through town." "My dear Mrs. Palmer!" "Upon my honour I did.--I met Colonel Brandon Monday morning in Bond-street, just before we left town, and he told me of it directly." "You surprise me very much. Colonel Brandon tell you of it! Surely you must be mistaken. To give such intelligence to a person who could not be interested in it, even if it were true, is not what I should expect Colonel Brandon to do." "But I do assure you it was so, for all that, and I will tell you how it happened. When we met him, he turned back and walked with us; and so we began talking of my brother and sister, and one thing and another, and I said to him, 'So, Colonel, there is a new family come to Barton cottage, I hear, and mama sends me word they are very pretty, and that one of them is going to be married to Mr. Willoughby of Combe Magna. Is it true, pray? for of course you must know, as you have been in Devonshire so lately.'" "And what did the Colonel say?" "Oh--he did not say much; but he looked as if he knew it to be true, so from that moment I set it down as certain. It will be quite delightful, I declare! When is it to take place?" "Mr. Brandon was very well I hope?" "Oh! yes, quite well; and so full of your praises, he did nothing but say fine things of you." "I am flattered by his commendation. He seems an excellent man; and I think him uncommonly pleasing." "So do I.--He is such a charming man, that it is quite a pity he should be so grave and so dull. Mama says HE was in love with your sister too.-- I assure you it was a great compliment if he was, for he hardly ever falls in love with any body." "Is Mr. Willoughby much known in your part of Somersetshire?" said Elinor. "Oh! yes, extremely well; that is, I do not believe many people are acquainted with him, because Combe Magna is so far off; but they all think him extremely agreeable I assure you. Nobody is more liked than Mr. Willoughby wherever he goes, and so you may tell your sister. She is a monstrous lucky girl to get him, upon my honour; not but that he is much more lucky in getting her, because she is so very handsome and agreeable, that nothing can be good enough for her. However, I don't think her hardly at all handsomer than you, I assure you; for I think you both excessively pretty, and so does Mr. Palmer too I am sure, though we could not get him to own it last night." Mrs. Palmer's information respecting Willoughby was not very material; but any testimony in his favour, however small, was pleasing to her. "I am so glad we are got acquainted at last," continued Charlotte.--"And now I hope we shall always be great friends. You can't think how much I longed to see you! It is so delightful that you should live at the cottage! Nothing can be like it, to be sure! And I am so glad your sister is going to be well married! I hope you will be a great deal at Combe Magna. It is a sweet place, by all accounts." "You have been long acquainted with Colonel Brandon, have not you?" "Yes, a great while; ever since my sister married.-- He was a particular friend of Sir John's. I believe," she added in a low voice, "he would have been very glad to have had me, if he could. Sir John and Lady Middleton wished it very much. But mama did not think the match good enough for me, otherwise Sir John would have mentioned it to the Colonel, and we should have been married immediately." "Did not Colonel Brandon know of Sir John's proposal to your mother before it was made? Had he never owned his affection to yourself?" "Oh, no; but if mama had not objected to it, I dare say he would have liked it of all things. He had not seen me then above twice, for it was before I left school. However, I am much happier as I am. Mr. Palmer is the kind of man I like."

Chapter 20

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-20

The Dashwood sisters show up dutifully at the Middletons' house, and Mrs. Palmer rushes over to greet them. Mrs. Palmer announces that she and her husband have to leave tomorrow, so she's glad that the girls came. Apparently their visit was a surprise to everyone, including herself. She hopes that they will meet again soon in town . The Dashwoods say that they won't be going to London - Mrs. Palmer is very disappointed, and invites them to come anytime, saying that she'll basically figure out all of the plans for their visit. Mrs. Palmer tries to get her husband in on convincing the girls, but he's uninterested, and instead starts complaining about the weather, and about the fact that Sir John doesn't have a billiard room at Barton. Everyone else shows up, and Sir John teases Marianne about how often she walks around Allenham, Willoughby's ancestral home. Marianne looks serious and doesn't respond. Mrs. Palmer tells her not to worry - she's familiar with Willoughby, since they're live in the same part of the countryside, and she thinks he's a very handsome man. Mr. Palmer, not to be outdone, says that Willoughby's other house is hideous. When everyone's at dinner together, the Dashwoods witness some rather awkward family dynamics between Mr. Palmer and his in-laws. He's a prickly customer, to put it mildly. Mrs. Palmer genuinely laughs off her husband's bad behavior - she loves him despite his rudeness. Elinor muses on Mr. Palmer's character; she ponders the fact that he, like many other men, has married a beautiful woman despite her silliness, and that he's never recovered it. However, that's not the cause of his irritability - that's just his personality. Mrs. Palmer asks the Dashwood girls to come and stay at Cleveland, her home in the country. She and Mr. Palmer bicker a little more - apparently he's running for Parliament, and has been going around trying to get people to like him . Later, Mrs. Palmer assures Elinor that Mr. Palmer likes her and her sister very much. Elinor asks about Willoughby - what do people think of him where the Palmers live? Mrs. Palmer, who claims to know Willoughby very well, despite the fact that they've never spoken, says that she can understand why Elinor is curious, since Marianne is supposedly going to marry him. Elinor is taken aback, and wants to know how Mrs. Palmer heard such a rumor. Of course, there's a ridiculous story attached - Mrs. Palmer ran into Colonel Brandon one day in London, and basically asked him to confirm the rumor that Marianne was to marry Willoughby. Colonel Brandon didn't say anything, but Mrs. Palmer assumed that this was a sign of agreement. The pair briefly discusses Colonel Brandon, whom Mrs. Palmer dismisses as nice but dull. Finally, Mrs. Palmer gets back to the original topic - Willoughby. Apparently, he has a good reputation in Somerset , and everyone likes him. Mrs. Palmer compliments both Elinor and Marianne, saying that they're both equally beautiful. Elinor and Charlotte go back to the subject of Colonel Brandon; Charlotte claims that he wanted to marry her back in the day, but it obviously didn't happen. She's happy with Mr. Palmer, anyway - he's apparently exactly what she wants.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/part_1_chapters_4_to_5.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_1_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 1.chapters 4-5

chapters 4-5

{"name": "Chapters 4-5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-1-chapters-45", "summary": "M. de Renal proposes to Sorel the next day that Julien come live with them and tutor their children. Old Sorel, a crafty peasant, meditates the conditions but refuses to answer before he has consulted his son Julien. Returning to his sawmill, Sorel finds Julien reading, sitting astride a beam above the saw he should be tending. Infuriated by his useless son, Sorel brutally knocks the book into the stream. Julien is saddened by the loss of this book, a cherished possession from the legacy his army surgeon friend had left him. His father demands an explanation of the strange offer from Renal, but Julien is unable to account for it. In solitude, Julien decides that rather than submit to the humiliation of eating with the Renals' servants, he will run away and enlist in the army. He abandons this plan immediately, however, since it would require that he renounce his ambitions for the priesthood, where success would be certain. The next day, the bargain is struck, and Sorel has again outwitted Renal, obtaining as much as he can for his son's services. Julien, meanwhile, has entrusted his possessions -- books and military decoration -- for safekeeping to his friend Fouque. On his way to the chateau, Julien judges it wise for his hypocrisy to stop by the church. There he feels his courage waning but reassures himself with a Napoleonic \"To Arms!\" and resolutely goes forth to battle in his first encounter at the Renal home.", "analysis": "Stendhal continues alternating exposition and dramatic action in these two chapters. We are not surprised that Sorel outwits Renal in his two encounters since we have been prepared for it. Of main interest here is Julien, first seen in his characteristic stance -- reading, and in a relatively \"high place.\" This is the first of many times that Stendhal will set Julien physically above his fellows, emphasizing Julien's superiority and solitude and providing him with a secret refuge from society. The fall from the rafter foreshadows Julien's ultimate fall. He is persecuted even by his family because he is different. This aspiring \"pariah\" will be forever excluded because of his superiority. Note Julien's response to brutality and ugliness: tears. His is a very sensitive nature. It is fitting that Stendhal first presents Julien physically at a moment when he is emotionally moved. Normally pale, his cheeks are flushed with anger, his dark eyes burning with hatred, revealing a reflective and passionate nature. Julien's eternal struggle to control his sensibility by self-mastery and discipline will characterize his future conduct. His hypocritical air helps ward off the blows of his father and will serve as a defense against society. Julien's dual formation -- by the military, through the old surgeon who has inculcated him with respect for Napoleon, and by the Church, through Father Chelan, who has found in him a quick intelligence, readily grasping theology and easily memorizing the Bible -- is alluded to in these two chapters, reiterating the novel's title and sketching Julien's situation as representative of the youth of France during the Restoration: Born too late to achieve greatness in Napoleon's military endeavors, they must seek it through the Church. During the interrogation by his father, Julien betrays his pride and ambition in three short, almost automatic utterances: \"What will I get for that? . . . I don't want to be a servant. . . . But whom will I eat with?\" We learn that his aristocratic pride is acquired from Rousseau, whose Saint-Preux he also resembles in his extreme sensibility. Julien's ability to memorize will be an asset both in his success as a preceptor and later, when he plays the same role, that of subservient secretary, but in the highest circle of political intriguers. Another quality of Julien that is sketched is his distrustfulness -- of youth, of his peasant heritage. He will not speak to Father Chelan of his new position since he suspects a trap. In Chapter 5, Stendhal again takes up Renal's fear of losing Julien to Valenod -- a misunderstanding that will later justify Renal's blindness to Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal. It is Sorel who, quite by chance, hits upon the threat of a better offer for Julien elsewhere, which gives the old sawyer the upper hand in his bargaining with Renal. Mme. de Renal had already suggested this threat in Chapter 3. On that occasion, Renal seized the danger as an argument -- cleverly contrived, he congratulated himself -- for moving ahead with his plan to hire Julien. The church visit adds to the elaboration of Julien's character, permitting Stendhal to speak of his hero's hypocrisy, his best weapon. This permits more exposition, first of the Congregation, then of more details of Julien's relationship with Chenal and of his decision to use the priesthood as a means to success. Julien had witnessed the persecution of Napoleon sympathizers and was forced to keep silent on that subject. In alliance with the \"ultra\" monarchy, the all-powerful Congregation, a clandestine Jesuit organization, held absolute sway and did not permit dissension. The art of hypocrisy requires complete self-control. Julien punishes himself for having openly defended Napoleon at a gathering of priests with Chelan. The manner of narration is characteristic of Stendhal: \"At one point in the conversation he began fervently to praise Napoleon. He tied his right arm to his chest.\" Stendhal's psychological analysis sometimes omits transitional thoughts. The causal relationship between the two statements quoted must be supplied by the reader. A final, very important trait of Julien is his personal honor, his only moral principle. It is called into play when he asks himself in the church if he could be a coward. Here he begins his ritual of self-imposing obstacles which his honor requires that he overcome. The forewarning that Stendhal intercalates in the form of a scrap of paper bearing the ominous warning \"the first step\" on the other side cannot be taken seriously by the sophisticated reader. It is simply indicative of Stendhal's penchant for the secretive, the mysterious. Its presence cannot be logically explained since Julien's fate is realized without recourse to any supernatural powers. It also underlines Stendhal's intention to be closely inspired by reality in writing fiction. Stendhal turns briefly to Mme. de Renal, who is having her own doubts about the imminent arrival of Julien. Her initial and ultimate reception of him will be the subject of the next three chapters so that this final paragraph is transitional."}

CHAPTER IV A FATHER AND A SON E sara mia colpa Se cosi e? --_Machiavelli_. "My wife really has a head on her shoulders," said the mayor of Verrieres at six o'clock the following morning, as he went down to the saw-mill of Father Sorel. "It had never occurred to me that if I do not take little Abbe Sorel, who, they say, knows Latin like an angel, that restless spirit, the director of the workhouse, might have the same idea and snatch him away from me, though of course I told her that it had, in order to preserve my proper superiority. And how smugly, to be sure, would he talk about his children's tutor!... The question is, once the tutor's mine, shall he wear the cassock?" M. de Renal was absorbed in this problem when he saw a peasant in the distance, a man nearly six feet tall, who since dawn had apparently been occupied in measuring some pieces of wood which had been put down alongside the Doubs on the towing-path. The peasant did not look particularly pleased when he saw M. the Mayor approach, as these pieces of wood obstructed the road, and had been placed there in breach of the rules. Father Sorel (for it was he) was very surprised, and even more pleased at the singular offer which M. de Renal made him for his son Julien. None the less, he listened to it with that air of sulky discontent and apathy which the subtle inhabitants of these mountains know so well how to assume. Slaves as they have been since the time of the Spanish Conquest, they still preserve this feature, which is also found in the character of the Egyptian fellah. Sorel's answer was at first simply a long-winded recitation of all the formulas of respect which he knew by heart. While he was repeating these empty words with an uneasy smile, which accentuated all the natural disingenuousness, if not, indeed, knavishness of his physiognomy, the active mind of the old peasant tried to discover what reason could induce so important a man to take into his house his good-for-nothing of a son. He was very dissatisfied with Julien, and it was for Julien that M. de Renal offered the undreamt-of salary of 300 fcs. a year, with board and even clothing. This latter claim, which Father Sorel had had the genius to spring upon the mayor, had been granted with equal suddenness by M. de Renal. This demand made an impression on the mayor. It is clear, he said to himself, that since Sorel is not beside himself with delight over my proposal, as in the ordinary way he ought to be, he must have had offers made to him elsewhere, and whom could they have come from, if not from Valenod. It was in vain that M. de Renal pressed Sorel to clinch the matter then and there. The old peasant, astute man that he was, stubbornly refused to do so. He wanted, he said, to consult his son, as if in the provinces, forsooth, a rich father consulted a penniless son for any other reason than as a mere matter of form. A water saw-mill consists of a shed by the side of a stream. The roof is supported by a framework resting on four large timber pillars. A saw can be seen going up and down at a height of eight to ten feet in the middle of the shed, while a piece of wood is propelled against this saw by a very simple mechanism. It is a wheel whose motive-power is supplied by the stream, which sets in motion this double piece of mechanism, the mechanism of the saw which goes up and down, and the mechanism which gently pushes the piece of wood towards the saw, which cuts it up into planks. Approaching his workshop, Father Sorel called Julien in his stentorian voice; nobody answered. He only saw his giant elder sons, who, armed with heavy axes, were cutting up the pine planks which they had to carry to the saw. They were engrossed in following exactly the black mark traced on each piece of wood, from which every blow of their axes threw off enormous shavings. They did not hear their father's voice. The latter made his way towards the shed. He entered it and looked in vain for Julien in the place where he ought to have been by the side of the saw. He saw him five or six feet higher up, sitting astride one of the rafters of the roof. Instead of watching attentively the action of the machinery, Julien was reading. Nothing was more anti-pathetic to old Sorel. He might possibly have forgiven Julien his puny physique, ill adapted as it was to manual labour, and different as it was from that of his elder brothers; but he hated this reading mania. He could not read himself. It was in vain that he called Julien two or three times. It was the young man's concentration on his book, rather than the din made by the saw, which prevented him from hearing his father's terrible voice. At last the latter, in spite of his age, jumped nimbly on to the tree that was undergoing the action of the saw, and from there on to the cross-bar that supported the roof. A violent blow made the book which Julien held, go flying into the stream; a second blow on the head, equally violent, which took the form of a box on the ears, made him lose his balance. He was on the point of falling twelve or fifteen feet lower down into the middle of the levers of the running machinery which would have cut him to pieces, but his father caught him as he fell, in his left hand. "So that's it, is it, lazy bones! always going to read your damned books are you, when you're keeping watch on the saw? You read them in the evening if you want to, when you go to play the fool at the cure's, that's the proper time." Although stunned by the force of the blow and bleeding profusely, Julien went back to his official post by the side of the saw. He had tears in his eyes, less by reason of the physical pain than on account of the loss of his beloved book. "Get down, you beast, when I am talking to you," the noise of the machinery prevented Julien from hearing this order. His father, who had gone down did not wish to give himself the trouble of climbing up on to the machinery again, and went to fetch a long fork used for bringing down nuts, with which he struck him on the shoulder. Julien had scarcely reached the ground, when old Sorel chased him roughly in front of him and pushed him roughly towards the house. "God knows what he is going to do with me," said the young man to himself. As he passed, he looked sorrowfully into the stream into which his book had fallen, it was the one that he held dearest of all, the _Memorial of St. Helena_. He had purple cheeks and downcast eyes. He was a young man of eighteen to nineteen years old, and of puny appearance, with irregular but delicate features, and an aquiline nose. The big black eyes which betokened in their tranquil moments a temperament at once fiery and reflective were at the present moment animated by an expression of the most ferocious hate. Dark chestnut hair, which came low down over his brow, made his forehead appear small and gave him a sinister look during his angry moods. It is doubtful if any face out of all the innumerable varieties of the human physiognomy was ever distinguished by a more arresting individuality. A supple well-knit figure, indicated agility rather than strength. His air of extreme pensiveness and his great pallor had given his father the idea that he would not live, or that if he did, it would only be to be a burden to his family. The butt of the whole house, he hated his brothers and his father. He was regularly beaten in the Sunday sports in the public square. A little less than a year ago his pretty face had begun to win him some sympathy among the young girls. Universally despised as a weakling, Julien had adored that old Surgeon-Major, who had one day dared to talk to the mayor on the subject of the plane trees. This Surgeon had sometimes paid Father Sorel for taking his son for a day, and had taught him Latin and History, that is to say the 1796 Campaign in Italy which was all the history he knew. When he died, he had bequeathed his Cross of the Legion of Honour, his arrears of half pay, and thirty or forty volumes, of which the most precious had just fallen into the public stream, which had been diverted owing to the influence of M. the Mayor. Scarcely had he entered the house, when Julien felt his shoulder gripped by his father's powerful hand; he trembled, expecting some blows. "Answer me without lying," cried the harsh voice of the old peasant in his ears, while his hand turned him round and round, like a child's hand turns round a lead soldier. The big black eyes of Julien filled with tears, and were confronted by the small grey eyes of the old carpenter, who looked as if he meant to read to the very bottom of his soul. CHAPTER V A NEGOTIATION Cunctando restituit rem.--_Ennius_. "Answer me without lies, if you can, you damned dog, how did you get to know Madame de Renal? When did you speak to her?" "I have never spoken to her," answered Julien, "I have only seen that lady in church." "You must have looked at her, you impudent rascal." "Not once! you know, I only see God in church," answered Julien, with a little hypocritical air, well suited, so he thought, to keep off the parental claws. "None the less there's something that does not meet the eye," answered the cunning peasant. He was then silent for a moment. "But I shall never get anything out of you, you damned hypocrite," he went on. "As a matter of fact, I am going to get rid of you, and my saw-mill will go all the better for it. You have nobbled the curate, or somebody else, who has got you a good place. Run along and pack your traps, and I will take you to M. de Renal's, where you are going to be tutor to his children." "What shall I get for that?" "Board, clothing, and three hundred francs salary." "I do not want to be a servant." "Who's talking of being a servant, you brute, do you think I want my son to be a servant?" "But with whom shall I have my meals?" This question discomforted old Sorel, who felt he might possibly commit some imprudence if he went on talking. He burst out against Julien, flung insult after insult at him, accused him of gluttony, and left him to go and consult his other sons. Julien saw them afterwards, each one leaning on his axe and holding counsel. Having looked at them for a long time, Julien saw that he could find out nothing, and went and stationed himself on the other side of the saw in order to avoid being surprised. He wanted to think over this unexpected piece of news, which changed his whole life, but he felt himself unable to consider the matter prudently, his imagination being concentrated in wondering what he would see in M. de Renal's fine mansion. "I must give all that up," he said to himself, "rather than let myself be reduced to eating with the servants. My father would like to force me to it. I would rather die. I have fifteen francs and eight sous of savings. I will run away to-night; I will go across country by paths where there are no gendarmes to be feared, and in two days I shall be at Besancon. I will enlist as a soldier there, and, if necessary, I will cross into Switzerland. But in that case, no more advancement, it will be all up with my being a priest, that fine career which may lead to anything." This abhorrence of eating with the servants was not really natural to Julien; he would have done things quite, if not more, disagreeable in order to get on. He derived this repugnance from the _Confessions_ of Rousseau. It was the only book by whose help his imagination endeavoured to construct the world. The collection of the Bulletins of the Grand Army, and the _Memorial of St. Helena_ completed his Koran. He would have died for these three works. He never believed in any other. To use a phrase of the old Surgeon-Major, he regarded all the other books in the world as packs of lies, written by rogues in order to get on. Julien possessed both a fiery soul and one of those astonishing memories which are so often combined with stupidity. In order to win over the old cure Chelan, on whose good grace he realized that his future prospects depended, he had learnt by heart the New Testament in Latin. He also knew M. de Maistre's book on The Pope, and believed in one as little as he did in the other. Sorel and his son avoided talking to each other to-day as though by mutual consent. In the evening Julien went to take his theology lesson at the cure's, but he did not consider that it was prudent to say anything to him about the strange proposal which had been made to his father. "It is possibly a trap," he said to himself, "I must pretend that I have forgotten all about it." Early next morning, M. de Renal had old Sorel summoned to him. He eventually arrived, after keeping M. de Renal waiting for an hour-and-a-half, and made, as he entered the room, a hundred apologies interspersed with as many bows. After having run the gauntlet of all kinds of objections, Sorel was given to understand that his son would have his meals with the master and mistress of the house, and that he would eat alone in a room with the children on the days when they had company. The more clearly Sorel realized the genuine eagerness of M. the Mayor, the more difficulties he felt inclined to raise. Being moreover full of mistrust and astonishment, he asked to see the room where his son would sleep. It was a big room, quite decently furnished, into which the servants were already engaged in carrying the beds of the three children. This circumstance explained a lot to the old peasant. He asked immediately, with quite an air of assurance, to see the suit which would be given to his son. M. de Renal opened his desk and took out one hundred francs. "Your son will go to M. Durand, the draper, with this money and will get a complete black suit." "And even supposing I take him away from you," said the peasant, who had suddenly forgotten all his respectful formalities, "will he still keep this black suit?" "Certainly!" "Well," said Sorel, in a drawling voice, "all that remains to do is to agree on just one thing, the money which you will give him." "What!" exclaimed M. de Renal, indignantly, "we agreed on that yesterday. I shall give him three hundred francs, I think that is a lot, and probably too much." "That is your offer and I do not deny it," said old Sorel, speaking still very slowly; and by a stroke of genius which will only astonish those who do not know the Franche-Comte peasants, he fixed his eyes on M. de Renal and added, "We shall get better terms elsewhere." The Mayor's face exhibited the utmost consternation at these words. He pulled himself together however and after a cunning conversation of two hours' length, where every single word on both sides was carefully weighed, the subtlety of the peasant scored a victory over the subtlety of the rich man, whose livelihood was not so dependent on his faculty of cunning. All the numerous stipulations which were to regulate Julien's new existence were duly formulated. Not only was his salary fixed at four hundred francs, but they were to be paid in advance on the first of each month. "Very well, I will give him thirty-five francs," said M. de Renal. "I am quite sure," said the peasant, in a fawning voice, "that a rich, generous man like the M. mayor would go as far as thirty-six francs, to make up a good round sum." "Agreed!" said M. de Renal, "but let this be final." For the moment his temper gave him a tone of genuine firmness. The peasant saw that it would not do to go any further. Then, on his side, M. de Renal managed to score. He absolutely refused to give old Sorel, who was very anxious to receive it on behalf of his son, the thirty-six francs for the first month. It had occurred to M. de Renal that he would have to tell his wife the figure which he had cut throughout these negotiations. "Hand me back the hundred francs which I gave you," he said sharply. "M. Durand owes me something, I will go with your son to see about a black cloth suit." After this manifestation of firmness, Sorel had the prudence to return to his respectful formulas; they took a good quarter of an hour. Finally, seeing that there was nothing more to be gained, he took his leave. He finished his last bow with these words: "I will send my son to the Chateau." The Mayor's officials called his house by this designation when they wanted to humour him. When he got back to his workshop, it was in vain that Sorel sought his son. Suspicious of what might happen, Julien had gone out in the middle of the night. He wished to place his Cross of the Legion of Honour and his books in a place of safety. He had taken everything to a young wood-merchant named Fouque, who was a friend of his, and who lived in the high mountain which commands Verrieres. "God knows, you damned lazy bones," said his father to him when he re-appeared, "if you will ever be sufficiently honourable to pay me back the price of your board which I have been advancing to you for so many years. Take your rags and clear out to M. the Mayor's." Julien was astonished at not being beaten and hastened to leave. He had scarcely got out of sight of his terrible father when he slackened his pace. He considered that it would assist the role played by his hypocrisy to go and say a prayer in the church. The word hypocrisy surprises you? The soul of the peasant had had to go through a great deal before arriving at this horrible word. Julien had seen in the days of his early childhood certain Dragoons of the 6th[1] with long white cloaks and hats covered with long black plumed helmets who were returning from Italy, and tied up their horses to the grilled window of his father's house. The sight had made him mad on the military profession. Later on he had listened with ecstasy to the narrations of the battles of Lodi, Arcola and Rivoli with which the old surgeon-major had regaled him. He observed the ardent gaze which the old man used to direct towards his cross. But when Julien was fourteen years of age they commenced to build a church at Verrieres which, in view of the smallness of the town, has some claim to be called magnificent. There were four marble columns in particular, the sight of which impressed Julien. They became celebrated in the district owing to the mortal hate which they raised between the Justice of the Peace and the young vicar who had been sent from Besancon and who passed for a spy of the congregation. The Justice of the Peace was on the point of losing his place, so said the public opinion at any rate. Had he not dared to have a difference with the priest who went every fortnight to Besancon; where he saw, so they said, my Lord the Bishop. In the meanwhile the Justice of the Peace, who was the father of a numerous family, gave several sentences which seemed unjust: all these sentences were inflicted on those of the inhabitants who read the "_Constitutionnel_." The right party triumphed. It is true it was only a question of sums of three or five francs, but one of these little fines had to be paid by a nail-maker, who was god-father to Julien. This man exclaimed in his anger "What a change! and to think that for more than twenty years the Justice of the Peace has passed for an honest man." The Surgeon-Major, Julien's friend, died. Suddenly Julien left off talking about Napoleon. He announced his intention of becoming a priest, and was always to be seen in his father's workshop occupied in learning by heart the Latin Bible which the cure had lent him. The good old man was astonished at his progress, and passed whole evenings in teaching him theology. In his society Julien did not manifest other than pious sentiments. Who could not possibly guess that beneath this girlish face, so pale and so sweet, lurked the unbreakable resolution to risk a thousand deaths rather than fail to make his fortune. Making his fortune primarily meant to Julien getting out of Verrieres: he abhorred his native country; everything that he saw there froze his imagination. He had had moments of exultation since his earliest childhood. He would then dream with gusto of being presented one day to the pretty women of Paris. He would manage to attract their attention by some dazzling feat: why should he not be loved by one of them just as Buonaparte, when still poor, had been loved by the brilliant Madame de Beauharnais. For many years past Julien had scarcely passed a single year of his life without reminding himself that Buonaparte, the obscure and penniless lieutenant, had made himself master of the whole world by the power of his sword. This idea consoled him for his misfortune, which he considered to be great, and rendered such joyful moments as he had doubly intense. The building of the church and the sentences pronounced by the Justice of the Peace suddenly enlightened him. An idea came to him which made him almost mad for some weeks, and finally took complete possession of him with all the magic that a first idea possesses for a passionate soul which believes that it is original. "At the time when Buonaparte got himself talked about, France was frightened of being invaded; military distinction was necessary and fashionable. Nowadays, one sees priests of forty with salaries of 100,000 francs, that is to say, three times as much as Napoleon's famous generals of a division. They need persons to assist them. Look at that Justice of the Peace, such a good sort and such an honest man up to the present and so old too; he sacrifices his honour through the fear of incurring the displeasure of a young vicar of thirty. I must be a priest." On one occasion, in the middle of his new-found piety (he had already been studying theology for two years), he was betrayed by a sudden burst of fire which consumed his soul. It was at M. Chelan's. The good cure had invited him to a dinner of priests, and he actually let himself praise Napoleon with enthusiasm. He bound his right arm over his breast, pretending that he had dislocated it in moving a trunk of a pine-tree and carried it for two months in that painful position. After this painful penance, he forgave himself. This is the young man of eighteen with a puny physique, and scarcely looking more than seventeen at the outside, who entered the magnificent church of Verrieres carrying a little parcel under his arm. He found it gloomy and deserted. All the transepts in the building had been covered with crimson cloth in celebration of a feast. The result was that the sun's rays produced an effect of dazzling light of the most impressive and religious character. Julien shuddered. Finding himself alone in the church, he established himself in the pew which had the most magnificent appearance. It bore the arms of M. de Renal. Julien noticed a piece of printed paper spread out on the stool, which was apparently intended to be read, he cast his eyes over it and saw:--"_Details of the execution and the last moments of Louis Jenrel, executed at Besancon the...._" The paper was torn. The two first words of a line were legible on the back, they were, "_The First Step_." "Who could have put this paper there?" said Julien. "Poor fellow!" he added with a sigh, "the last syllable of his name is the same as mine," and he crumpled up the paper. As he left, Julien thought he saw blood near the Host, it was holy water which the priests had been sprinkling on it, the reflection of the red curtains which covered the windows made it look like blood. Finally, Julien felt ashamed of his secret terror. "Am I going to play the coward," he said to himself: "_To Arms!_" This phrase, repeated so often in the old Surgeon-Major's battle stories, symbolized heroism to Julien. He got up rapidly and walked to M. de Renal's house. As soon as he saw it twenty yards in front of him he was seized, in spite of his fine resolution, with an overwhelming timidity. The iron grill was open. He thought it was magnificent. He had to go inside. Julien was not the only person whose heart was troubled by his arrival in the house. The extreme timidity of Madame de Renal was fluttered when she thought of this stranger whose functions would necessitate his coming between her and her children. She was accustomed to seeing her sons sleep in her own room. She had shed many tears that morning, when she had seen their beds carried into the apartment intended for the tutor. It was in vain that she asked her husband to have the bed of Stanislas-Xavier, the youngest, carried back into her room. Womanly delicacy was carried in Madame de Renal to the point of excess. She conjured up in her imagination the most disagreeable personage, who was coarse, badly groomed and encharged with the duty of scolding her children simply because he happened to know Latin, and only too ready to flog her sons for their ignorance of that barbarous language. [1] The author was sub-lieutenant in the 6th Dragoons in 1800.

Chapters 4-5

https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-1-chapters-45

M. de Renal proposes to Sorel the next day that Julien come live with them and tutor their children. Old Sorel, a crafty peasant, meditates the conditions but refuses to answer before he has consulted his son Julien. Returning to his sawmill, Sorel finds Julien reading, sitting astride a beam above the saw he should be tending. Infuriated by his useless son, Sorel brutally knocks the book into the stream. Julien is saddened by the loss of this book, a cherished possession from the legacy his army surgeon friend had left him. His father demands an explanation of the strange offer from Renal, but Julien is unable to account for it. In solitude, Julien decides that rather than submit to the humiliation of eating with the Renals' servants, he will run away and enlist in the army. He abandons this plan immediately, however, since it would require that he renounce his ambitions for the priesthood, where success would be certain. The next day, the bargain is struck, and Sorel has again outwitted Renal, obtaining as much as he can for his son's services. Julien, meanwhile, has entrusted his possessions -- books and military decoration -- for safekeeping to his friend Fouque. On his way to the chateau, Julien judges it wise for his hypocrisy to stop by the church. There he feels his courage waning but reassures himself with a Napoleonic "To Arms!" and resolutely goes forth to battle in his first encounter at the Renal home.

Stendhal continues alternating exposition and dramatic action in these two chapters. We are not surprised that Sorel outwits Renal in his two encounters since we have been prepared for it. Of main interest here is Julien, first seen in his characteristic stance -- reading, and in a relatively "high place." This is the first of many times that Stendhal will set Julien physically above his fellows, emphasizing Julien's superiority and solitude and providing him with a secret refuge from society. The fall from the rafter foreshadows Julien's ultimate fall. He is persecuted even by his family because he is different. This aspiring "pariah" will be forever excluded because of his superiority. Note Julien's response to brutality and ugliness: tears. His is a very sensitive nature. It is fitting that Stendhal first presents Julien physically at a moment when he is emotionally moved. Normally pale, his cheeks are flushed with anger, his dark eyes burning with hatred, revealing a reflective and passionate nature. Julien's eternal struggle to control his sensibility by self-mastery and discipline will characterize his future conduct. His hypocritical air helps ward off the blows of his father and will serve as a defense against society. Julien's dual formation -- by the military, through the old surgeon who has inculcated him with respect for Napoleon, and by the Church, through Father Chelan, who has found in him a quick intelligence, readily grasping theology and easily memorizing the Bible -- is alluded to in these two chapters, reiterating the novel's title and sketching Julien's situation as representative of the youth of France during the Restoration: Born too late to achieve greatness in Napoleon's military endeavors, they must seek it through the Church. During the interrogation by his father, Julien betrays his pride and ambition in three short, almost automatic utterances: "What will I get for that? . . . I don't want to be a servant. . . . But whom will I eat with?" We learn that his aristocratic pride is acquired from Rousseau, whose Saint-Preux he also resembles in his extreme sensibility. Julien's ability to memorize will be an asset both in his success as a preceptor and later, when he plays the same role, that of subservient secretary, but in the highest circle of political intriguers. Another quality of Julien that is sketched is his distrustfulness -- of youth, of his peasant heritage. He will not speak to Father Chelan of his new position since he suspects a trap. In Chapter 5, Stendhal again takes up Renal's fear of losing Julien to Valenod -- a misunderstanding that will later justify Renal's blindness to Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal. It is Sorel who, quite by chance, hits upon the threat of a better offer for Julien elsewhere, which gives the old sawyer the upper hand in his bargaining with Renal. Mme. de Renal had already suggested this threat in Chapter 3. On that occasion, Renal seized the danger as an argument -- cleverly contrived, he congratulated himself -- for moving ahead with his plan to hire Julien. The church visit adds to the elaboration of Julien's character, permitting Stendhal to speak of his hero's hypocrisy, his best weapon. This permits more exposition, first of the Congregation, then of more details of Julien's relationship with Chenal and of his decision to use the priesthood as a means to success. Julien had witnessed the persecution of Napoleon sympathizers and was forced to keep silent on that subject. In alliance with the "ultra" monarchy, the all-powerful Congregation, a clandestine Jesuit organization, held absolute sway and did not permit dissension. The art of hypocrisy requires complete self-control. Julien punishes himself for having openly defended Napoleon at a gathering of priests with Chelan. The manner of narration is characteristic of Stendhal: "At one point in the conversation he began fervently to praise Napoleon. He tied his right arm to his chest." Stendhal's psychological analysis sometimes omits transitional thoughts. The causal relationship between the two statements quoted must be supplied by the reader. A final, very important trait of Julien is his personal honor, his only moral principle. It is called into play when he asks himself in the church if he could be a coward. Here he begins his ritual of self-imposing obstacles which his honor requires that he overcome. The forewarning that Stendhal intercalates in the form of a scrap of paper bearing the ominous warning "the first step" on the other side cannot be taken seriously by the sophisticated reader. It is simply indicative of Stendhal's penchant for the secretive, the mysterious. Its presence cannot be logically explained since Julien's fate is realized without recourse to any supernatural powers. It also underlines Stendhal's intention to be closely inspired by reality in writing fiction. Stendhal turns briefly to Mme. de Renal, who is having her own doubts about the imminent arrival of Julien. Her initial and ultimate reception of him will be the subject of the next three chapters so that this final paragraph is transitional.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/50.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_5_part_5.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 49

chapter 49

{"name": "Chapter 49", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-6-chapters-45-52", "summary": "The Clares receive the letter that Tess wrote to Angel so that they may forward it to him. Mrs. Clare laments that Angel has been ill-used and should have been sent to Cambridge. The Clares blame themselves for Angel's marriage, for if Angel were not destined to be a farmer, he would have never been thrown in with an agricultural girl. During Angel's absence he had mentally aged a dozen years. Angel wonders whether he rejected Tess eternally and could no longer say that he would always reject her. Angel has grown to be Tess's advocate, remembering Izz Huett's words about her. Tess's sister, Liza-Lu, visits Tess at Flintcomb-Ash and tells her how both of their parents are ill and Joan may be dying.", "analysis": "Hardy removes the center of action from Tess in this chapter to give a brief account of Angel's recent actions and to suggest a change in Angel's behavior and attitudes. The obstacle to Angel reuniting with Tess becomes not whether or not Angel can accept Tess, but instead whether or not Angel believes that Tess will accept him if he were to return. Nevertheless, this foreshadows an eventual reunion between Tess and Angel, as he no longer feels the strong aversion to Tess that proved the cause of their separation. When Hardy does give details concerning the title character, he continues the pattern of greater suffering that has marked Tess's life since her separation from Angel. The possible death of Joan Durbeyfield suggests an inevitable change in the dynamic between Tess and Alec; since it is Tess's devotion to her parents that causes her to weaken against Alec's demands, her fate is contingent upon what occurs to them"}

The appeal duly found its way to the breakfast-table of the quiet Vicarage to the westward, in that valley where the air is so soft and the soil so rich that the effort of growth requires but superficial aid by comparison with the tillage at Flintcomb-Ash, and where to Tess the human world seemed so different (though it was much the same). It was purely for security that she had been requested by Angel to send her communications through his father, whom he kept pretty well informed of his changing addresses in the country he had gone to exploit for himself with a heavy heart. "Now," said old Mr Clare to his wife, when he had read the envelope, "if Angel proposes leaving Rio for a visit home at the end of next month, as he told us that he hoped to do, I think this may hasten his plans; for I believe it to be from his wife." He breathed deeply at the thought of her; and the letter was redirected to be promptly sent on to Angel. "Dear fellow, I hope he will get home safely," murmured Mrs Clare. "To my dying day I shall feel that he has been ill-used. You should have sent him to Cambridge in spite of his want of faith and given him the same chance as the other boys had. He would have grown out of it under proper influence, and perhaps would have taken Orders after all. Church or no Church, it would have been fairer to him." This was the only wail with which Mrs Clare ever disturbed her husband's peace in respect to their sons. And she did not vent this often; for she was as considerate as she was devout, and knew that his mind too was troubled by doubts as to his justice in this matter. Only too often had she heard him lying awake at night, stifling sighs for Angel with prayers. But the uncompromising Evangelical did not even now hold that he would have been justified in giving his son, an unbeliever, the same academic advantages that he had given to the two others, when it was possible, if not probable, that those very advantages might have been used to decry the doctrines which he had made it his life's mission and desire to propagate, and the mission of his ordained sons likewise. To put with one hand a pedestal under the feet of the two faithful ones, and with the other to exalt the unfaithful by the same artificial means, he deemed to be alike inconsistent with his convictions, his position, and his hopes. Nevertheless, he loved his misnamed Angel, and in secret mourned over this treatment of him as Abraham might have mourned over the doomed Isaac while they went up the hill together. His silent self-generated regrets were far bitterer than the reproaches which his wife rendered audible. They blamed themselves for this unlucky marriage. If Angel had never been destined for a farmer he would never have been thrown with agricultural girls. They did not distinctly know what had separated him and his wife, nor the date on which the separation had taken place. At first they had supposed it must be something of the nature of a serious aversion. But in his later letters he occasionally alluded to the intention of coming home to fetch her; from which expressions they hoped the division might not owe its origin to anything so hopelessly permanent as that. He had told them that she was with her relatives, and in their doubts they had decided not to intrude into a situation which they knew no way of bettering. The eyes for which Tess's letter was intended were gazing at this time on a limitless expanse of country from the back of a mule which was bearing him from the interior of the South-American Continent towards the coast. His experiences of this strange land had been sad. The severe illness from which he had suffered shortly after his arrival had never wholly left him, and he had by degrees almost decided to relinquish his hope of farming here, though, as long as the bare possibility existed of his remaining, he kept this change of view a secret from his parents. The crowds of agricultural labourers who had come out to the country in his wake, dazzled by representations of easy independence, had suffered, died, and wasted away. He would see mothers from English farms trudging along with their infants in their arms, when the child would be stricken with fever and would die; the mother would pause to dig a hole in the loose earth with her bare hands, would bury the babe therein with the same natural grave-tools, shed one tear, and again trudge on. Angel's original intention had not been emigration to Brazil but a northern or eastern farm in his own country. He had come to this place in a fit of desperation, the Brazil movement among the English agriculturists having by chance coincided with his desire to escape from his past existence. During this time of absence he had mentally aged a dozen years. What arrested him now as of value in life was less its beauty than its pathos. Having long discredited the old systems of mysticism, he now began to discredit the old appraisements of morality. He thought they wanted readjusting. Who was the moral man? Still more pertinently, who was the moral woman? The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed. How, then, about Tess? Viewing her in these lights, a regret for his hasty judgement began to oppress him. Did he reject her eternally, or did he not? He could no longer say that he would always reject her, and not to say that was in spirit to accept her now. This growing fondness for her memory coincided in point of time with her residence at Flintcomb-Ash, but it was before she had felt herself at liberty to trouble him with a word about her circumstances or her feelings. He was greatly perplexed; and in his perplexity as to her motives in withholding intelligence, he did not inquire. Thus her silence of docility was misinterpreted. How much it really said if he had understood!--that she adhered with literal exactness to orders which he had given and forgotten; that despite her natural fearlessness she asserted no rights, admitted his judgement to be in every respect the true one, and bent her head dumbly thereto. In the before-mentioned journey by mules through the interior of the country, another man rode beside him. Angel's companion was also an Englishman, bent on the same errand, though he came from another part of the island. They were both in a state of mental depression, and they spoke of home affairs. Confidence begat confidence. With that curious tendency evinced by men, more especially when in distant lands, to entrust to strangers details of their lives which they would on no account mention to friends, Angel admitted to this man as they rode along the sorrowful facts of his marriage. The stranger had sojourned in many more lands and among many more peoples than Angel; to his cosmopolitan mind such deviations from the social norm, so immense to domesticity, were no more than are the irregularities of vale and mountain-chain to the whole terrestrial curve. He viewed the matter in quite a different light from Angel; thought that what Tess had been was of no importance beside what she would be, and plainly told Clare that he was wrong in coming away from her. The next day they were drenched in a thunder-storm. Angel's companion was struck down with fever, and died by the week's end. Clare waited a few hours to bury him, and then went on his way. The cursory remarks of the large-minded stranger, of whom he knew absolutely nothing beyond a commonplace name, were sublimed by his death, and influenced Clare more than all the reasoned ethics of the philosophers. His own parochialism made him ashamed by its contrast. His inconsistencies rushed upon him in a flood. He had persistently elevated Hellenic Paganism at the expense of Christianity; yet in that civilization an illegal surrender was not certain disesteem. Surely then he might have regarded that abhorrence of the un-intact state, which he had inherited with the creed of mysticism, as at least open to correction when the result was due to treachery. A remorse struck into him. The words of Izz Huett, never quite stilled in his memory, came back to him. He had asked Izz if she loved him, and she had replied in the affirmative. Did she love him more than Tess did? No, she had replied; Tess would lay down her life for him, and she herself could do no more. He thought of Tess as she had appeared on the day of the wedding. How her eyes had lingered upon him; how she had hung upon his words as if they were a god's! And during the terrible evening over the hearth, when her simple soul uncovered itself to his, how pitiful her face had looked by the rays of the fire, in her inability to realize that his love and protection could possibly be withdrawn. Thus from being her critic he grew to be her advocate. Cynical things he had uttered to himself about her; but no man can be always a cynic and live; and he withdrew them. The mistake of expressing them had arisen from his allowing himself to be influenced by general principles to the disregard of the particular instance. But the reasoning is somewhat musty; lovers and husbands have gone over the ground before to-day. Clare had been harsh towards her; there is no doubt of it. Men are too often harsh with women they love or have loved; women with men. And yet these harshnesses are tenderness itself when compared with the universal harshness out of which they grow; the harshness of the position towards the temperament, of the means towards the aims, of to-day towards yesterday, of hereafter towards to-day. The historic interest of her family--that masterful line of d'Urbervilles--whom he had despised as a spent force, touched his sentiments now. Why had he not known the difference between the political value and the imaginative value of these things? In the latter aspect her d'Urberville descent was a fact of great dimensions; worthless to economics, it was a most useful ingredient to the dreamer, to the moralizer on declines and falls. It was a fact that would soon be forgotten--that bit of distinction in poor Tess's blood and name, and oblivion would fall upon her hereditary link with the marble monuments and leaded skeletons at Kingsbere. So does Time ruthlessly destroy his own romances. In recalling her face again and again, he thought now that he could see therein a flash of the dignity which must have graced her grand-dames; and the vision sent that _aura_ through his veins which he had formerly felt, and which left behind it a sense of sickness. Despite her not-inviolate past, what still abode in such a woman as Tess outvalued the freshness of her fellows. Was not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer? So spoke love renascent, preparing the way for Tess's devoted outpouring, which was then just being forwarded to him by his father; though owing to his distance inland it was to be a long time in reaching him. Meanwhile the writer's expectation that Angel would come in response to the entreaty was alternately great and small. What lessened it was that the facts of her life which had led to the parting had not changed--could never change; and that, if her presence had not attenuated them, her absence could not. Nevertheless she addressed her mind to the tender question of what she could do to please him best if he should arrive. Sighs were expended on the wish that she had taken more notice of the tunes he played on his harp, that she had inquired more curiously of him which were his favourite ballads among those the country-girls sang. She indirectly inquired of Amby Seedling, who had followed Izz from Talbothays, and by chance Amby remembered that, amongst the snatches of melody in which they had indulged at the dairyman's, to induce the cows to let down their milk, Clare had seemed to like "Cupid's Gardens", "I have parks, I have hounds", and "The break o' the day"; and had seemed not to care for "The Tailor's Breeches" and "Such a beauty I did grow", excellent ditties as they were. To perfect the ballads was now her whimsical desire. She practised them privately at odd moments, especially "The break o' the day": Arise, arise, arise! And pick your love a posy, All o' the sweetest flowers That in the garden grow. The turtle doves and sma' birds In every bough a-building, So early in the May-time At the break o' the day! It would have melted the heart of a stone to hear her singing these ditties whenever she worked apart from the rest of the girls in this cold dry time; the tears running down her cheeks all the while at the thought that perhaps he would not, after all, come to hear her, and the simple silly words of the songs resounding in painful mockery of the aching heart of the singer. Tess was so wrapt up in this fanciful dream that she seemed not to know how the season was advancing; that the days had lengthened, that Lady-Day was at hand, and would soon be followed by Old Lady-Day, the end of her term here. But before the quarter-day had quite come, something happened which made Tess think of far different matters. She was at her lodging as usual one evening, sitting in the downstairs room with the rest of the family, when somebody knocked at the door and inquired for Tess. Through the doorway she saw against the declining light a figure with the height of a woman and the breadth of a child, a tall, thin, girlish creature whom she did not recognize in the twilight till the girl said "Tess!" "What--is it 'Liza-Lu?" asked Tess, in startled accents. Her sister, whom a little over a year ago she had left at home as a child, had sprung up by a sudden shoot to a form of this presentation, of which as yet Lu seemed herself scarce able to understand the meaning. Her thin legs, visible below her once-long frock, now short by her growing, and her uncomfortable hands and arms revealed her youth and inexperience. "Yes, I have been traipsing about all day, Tess," said Lu, with unemotional gravity, "a-trying to find 'ee; and I'm very tired." "What is the matter at home?" "Mother is took very bad, and the doctor says she's dying, and as father is not very well neither, and says 'tis wrong for a man of such a high family as his to slave and drave at common labouring work, we don't know what to do." Tess stood in reverie a long time before she thought of asking 'Liza-Lu to come in and sit down. When she had done so, and 'Liza-Lu was having some tea, she came to a decision. It was imperative that she should go home. Her agreement did not end till Old Lady-Day, the sixth of April, but as the interval thereto was not a long one she resolved to run the risk of starting at once. To go that night would be a gain of twelve-hours; but her sister was too tired to undertake such a distance till the morrow. Tess ran down to where Marian and Izz lived, informed them of what had happened, and begged them to make the best of her case to the farmer. Returning, she got Lu a supper, and after that, having tucked the younger into her own bed, packed up as many of her belongings as would go into a withy basket, and started, directing Lu to follow her next morning.

Chapter 49

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-6-chapters-45-52

The Clares receive the letter that Tess wrote to Angel so that they may forward it to him. Mrs. Clare laments that Angel has been ill-used and should have been sent to Cambridge. The Clares blame themselves for Angel's marriage, for if Angel were not destined to be a farmer, he would have never been thrown in with an agricultural girl. During Angel's absence he had mentally aged a dozen years. Angel wonders whether he rejected Tess eternally and could no longer say that he would always reject her. Angel has grown to be Tess's advocate, remembering Izz Huett's words about her. Tess's sister, Liza-Lu, visits Tess at Flintcomb-Ash and tells her how both of their parents are ill and Joan may be dying.

Hardy removes the center of action from Tess in this chapter to give a brief account of Angel's recent actions and to suggest a change in Angel's behavior and attitudes. The obstacle to Angel reuniting with Tess becomes not whether or not Angel can accept Tess, but instead whether or not Angel believes that Tess will accept him if he were to return. Nevertheless, this foreshadows an eventual reunion between Tess and Angel, as he no longer feels the strong aversion to Tess that proved the cause of their separation. When Hardy does give details concerning the title character, he continues the pattern of greater suffering that has marked Tess's life since her separation from Angel. The possible death of Joan Durbeyfield suggests an inevitable change in the dynamic between Tess and Alec; since it is Tess's devotion to her parents that causes her to weaken against Alec's demands, her fate is contingent upon what occurs to them

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/chapters_35_to_36.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Sense and Sensibility/section_24_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapters 35-36

chapters 35-36

{"name": "Chapters 35-36", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101060302/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/sense-and-sensibility/summary-and-analysis/chapters-3536", "summary": "The following morning, Lucy Steele called to see Elinor and asked her, \"Could anything be so flattering as Mrs. Ferrars' way of treating me yesterday?\" When Elinor suggested that Lucy's anticipation of favor should wait until Mrs. Ferrars' awareness of the nature of Lucy's connection to Edward, Lucy insinuated that Elinor was jealous and said that shouldn't change things at all. An awkward situation arose when a servant suddenly announced the arrival of Edward Ferrars. Everybody felt very foolish, but Elinor welcomed him so kindly that \"he had courage enough to sit down.\" On pretext of finding Marianne, Elinor left Edward and Lucy together. When the sisters came back, Marianne greeted Edward with profuse affection. Not knowing of the secret engagement, she behaved as if Edward were in love with Elinor, much to everyone's discomfort. Edward left very soon, \"and Lucy, who would have outstayed him had his visit lasted two hours, soon afterwards went away. A few days later, Charlotte Palmer's baby was born. As Mrs. Jennings spent much time with her daughter, Elinor and Marianne were invited daily to Lady Middleton's. They were also invited to parties by people who believed them to be staying with their sister-in-law. At one musical parry, Elinor noticed the young man whom they had seen in Mr. Gray's jewelry shop. John Dashwood introduced him as Mr. Robert Ferrars, and Elinor found him \"exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy.\" John Dashwood suggested to his wife that he might invite his sisters to stay with them, but Fanny persuaded him that they could do that another year. Instead, she invited the Misses Steele, leading Lucy to believe that Mrs. Dashwood approved of a possible marriage between herself and Edward.", "analysis": "When dealing with characters who are not sensible, Austen almost invariably uses direct speech, and the characters reveal themselves the more clearly because of it. We learn a lot about Robert Ferrars when he talks so insincerely to Elinor about the advantages of living in a cottage. Lucy Steele's speech is equally self-revealing. Not only her lack of education but her innate vulgarity is exposed. She makes such mistakes in grammar as \"She had quite took a fancy to me.\" Her short, simple sentences seem to reflect her emptiness of mind. Robert Ferrars seems the opposite of his brother. Robert attributes his own superiority to an education in the \"public\" schools , which reinforced all his natural tendency towards snobbery."}

Elinor's curiosity to see Mrs. Ferrars was satisfied.-- She had found in her every thing that could tend to make a farther connection between the families undesirable.-- She had seen enough of her pride, her meanness, and her determined prejudice against herself, to comprehend all the difficulties that must have perplexed the engagement, and retarded the marriage, of Edward and herself, had he been otherwise free;--and she had seen almost enough to be thankful for her OWN sake, that one greater obstacle preserved her from suffering under any other of Mrs. Ferrars's creation, preserved her from all dependence upon her caprice, or any solicitude for her good opinion. Or at least, if she did not bring herself quite to rejoice in Edward's being fettered to Lucy, she determined, that had Lucy been more amiable, she OUGHT to have rejoiced. She wondered that Lucy's spirits could be so very much elevated by the civility of Mrs. Ferrars;--that her interest and her vanity should so very much blind her as to make the attention which seemed only paid her because she was NOT ELINOR, appear a compliment to herself--or to allow her to derive encouragement from a preference only given her, because her real situation was unknown. But that it was so, had not only been declared by Lucy's eyes at the time, but was declared over again the next morning more openly, for at her particular desire, Lady Middleton set her down in Berkeley Street on the chance of seeing Elinor alone, to tell her how happy she was. The chance proved a lucky one, for a message from Mrs. Palmer soon after she arrived, carried Mrs. Jennings away. "My dear friend," cried Lucy, as soon as they were by themselves, "I come to talk to you of my happiness. Could anything be so flattering as Mrs. Ferrars's way of treating me yesterday? So exceeding affable as she was!--You know how I dreaded the thoughts of seeing her;--but the very moment I was introduced, there was such an affability in her behaviour as really should seem to say, she had quite took a fancy to me. Now was not it so?-- You saw it all; and was not you quite struck with it?" "She was certainly very civil to you." "Civil!--Did you see nothing but only civility?-- I saw a vast deal more. Such kindness as fell to the share of nobody but me!--No pride, no hauteur, and your sister just the same--all sweetness and affability!" Elinor wished to talk of something else, but Lucy still pressed her to own that she had reason for her happiness; and Elinor was obliged to go on.-- "Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement," said she, "nothing could be more flattering than their treatment of you;--but as that was not the case"-- "I guessed you would say so,"--replied Lucy quickly--"but there was no reason in the world why Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she did not, and her liking me is every thing. You shan't talk me out of my satisfaction. I am sure it will all end well, and there will be no difficulties at all, to what I used to think. Mrs. Ferrars is a charming woman, and so is your sister. They are both delightful women, indeed!--I wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs. Dashwood was!" To this Elinor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any. "Are you ill, Miss Dashwood?--you seem low--you don't speak;--sure you an't well." "I never was in better health." "I am glad of it with all my heart; but really you did not look it. I should be sorry to have YOU ill; you, that have been the greatest comfort to me in the world!--Heaven knows what I should have done without your friendship."-- Elinor tried to make a civil answer, though doubting her own success. But it seemed to satisfy Lucy, for she directly replied, "Indeed I am perfectly convinced of your regard for me, and next to Edward's love, it is the greatest comfort I have.--Poor Edward!--But now there is one good thing, we shall be able to meet, and meet pretty often, for Lady Middleton's delighted with Mrs. Dashwood, so we shall be a good deal in Harley Street, I dare say, and Edward spends half his time with his sister--besides, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Ferrars will visit now;--and Mrs. Ferrars and your sister were both so good to say more than once, they should always be glad to see me.-- They are such charming women!--I am sure if ever you tell your sister what I think of her, you cannot speak too high." But Elinor would not give her any encouragement to hope that she SHOULD tell her sister. Lucy continued. "I am sure I should have seen it in a moment, if Mrs. Ferrars had took a dislike to me. If she had only made me a formal courtesy, for instance, without saying a word, and never after had took any notice of me, and never looked at me in a pleasant way--you know what I mean--if I had been treated in that forbidding sort of way, I should have gave it all up in despair. I could not have stood it. For where she DOES dislike, I know it is most violent." Elinor was prevented from making any reply to this civil triumph, by the door's being thrown open, the servant's announcing Mr. Ferrars, and Edward's immediately walking in. It was a very awkward moment; and the countenance of each shewed that it was so. They all looked exceedingly foolish; and Edward seemed to have as great an inclination to walk out of the room again, as to advance farther into it. The very circumstance, in its unpleasantest form, which they would each have been most anxious to avoid, had fallen on them.--They were not only all three together, but were together without the relief of any other person. The ladies recovered themselves first. It was not Lucy's business to put herself forward, and the appearance of secrecy must still be kept up. She could therefore only LOOK her tenderness, and after slightly addressing him, said no more. But Elinor had more to do; and so anxious was she, for his sake and her own, to do it well, that she forced herself, after a moment's recollection, to welcome him, with a look and manner that were almost easy, and almost open; and another struggle, another effort still improved them. She would not allow the presence of Lucy, nor the consciousness of some injustice towards herself, to deter her from saying that she was happy to see him, and that she had very much regretted being from home, when he called before in Berkeley Street. She would not be frightened from paying him those attentions which, as a friend and almost a relation, were his due, by the observant eyes of Lucy, though she soon perceived them to be narrowly watching her. Her manners gave some re-assurance to Edward, and he had courage enough to sit down; but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the ladies in a proportion, which the case rendered reasonable, though his sex might make it rare; for his heart had not the indifference of Lucy's, nor could his conscience have quite the ease of Elinor's. Lucy, with a demure and settled air, seemed determined to make no contribution to the comfort of the others, and would not say a word; and almost every thing that WAS said, proceeded from Elinor, who was obliged to volunteer all the information about her mother's health, their coming to town, &c. which Edward ought to have inquired about, but never did. Her exertions did not stop here; for she soon afterwards felt herself so heroically disposed as to determine, under pretence of fetching Marianne, to leave the others by themselves; and she really did it, and THAT in the handsomest manner, for she loitered away several minutes on the landing-place, with the most high-minded fortitude, before she went to her sister. When that was once done, however, it was time for the raptures of Edward to cease; for Marianne's joy hurried her into the drawing-room immediately. Her pleasure in seeing him was like every other of her feelings, strong in itself, and strongly spoken. She met him with a hand that would be taken, and a voice that expressed the affection of a sister. "Dear Edward!" she cried, "this is a moment of great happiness!--This would almost make amends for every thing!" Edward tried to return her kindness as it deserved, but before such witnesses he dared not say half what he really felt. Again they all sat down, and for a moment or two all were silent; while Marianne was looking with the most speaking tenderness, sometimes at Edward and sometimes at Elinor, regretting only that their delight in each other should be checked by Lucy's unwelcome presence. Edward was the first to speak, and it was to notice Marianne's altered looks, and express his fear of her not finding London agree with her. "Oh, don't think of me!" she replied with spirited earnestness, though her eyes were filled with tears as she spoke, "don't think of MY health. Elinor is well, you see. That must be enough for us both." This remark was not calculated to make Edward or Elinor more easy, nor to conciliate the good will of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with no very benignant expression. "Do you like London?" said Edward, willing to say any thing that might introduce another subject. "Not at all. I expected much pleasure in it, but I have found none. The sight of you, Edward, is the only comfort it has afforded; and thank Heaven! you are what you always were!" She paused--no one spoke. "I think, Elinor," she presently added, "we must employ Edward to take care of us in our return to Barton. In a week or two, I suppose, we shall be going; and, I trust, Edward will not be very unwilling to accept the charge." Poor Edward muttered something, but what it was, nobody knew, not even himself. But Marianne, who saw his agitation, and could easily trace it to whatever cause best pleased herself, was perfectly satisfied, and soon talked of something else. "We spent such a day, Edward, in Harley Street yesterday! So dull, so wretchedly dull!--But I have much to say to you on that head, which cannot be said now." And with this admirable discretion did she defer the assurance of her finding their mutual relatives more disagreeable than ever, and of her being particularly disgusted with his mother, till they were more in private. "But why were you not there, Edward?--Why did you not come?" "I was engaged elsewhere." "Engaged! But what was that, when such friends were to be met?" "Perhaps, Miss Marianne," cried Lucy, eager to take some revenge on her, "you think young men never stand upon engagements, if they have no mind to keep them, little as well as great." Elinor was very angry, but Marianne seemed entirely insensible of the sting; for she calmly replied, "Not so, indeed; for, seriously speaking, I am very sure that conscience only kept Edward from Harley Street. And I really believe he HAS the most delicate conscience in the world; the most scrupulous in performing every engagement, however minute, and however it may make against his interest or pleasure. He is the most fearful of giving pain, of wounding expectation, and the most incapable of being selfish, of any body I ever saw. Edward, it is so, and I will say it. What! are you never to hear yourself praised!--Then you must be no friend of mine; for those who will accept of my love and esteem, must submit to my open commendation." The nature of her commendation, in the present case, however, happened to be particularly ill-suited to the feelings of two thirds of her auditors, and was so very unexhilarating to Edward, that he very soon got up to go away. "Going so soon!" said Marianne; "my dear Edward, this must not be." And drawing him a little aside, she whispered her persuasion that Lucy could not stay much longer. But even this encouragement failed, for he would go; and Lucy, who would have outstaid him, had his visit lasted two hours, soon afterwards went away. "What can bring her here so often?" said Marianne, on her leaving them. "Could not she see that we wanted her gone!--how teazing to Edward!" "Why so?--we were all his friends, and Lucy has been the longest known to him of any. It is but natural that he should like to see her as well as ourselves." Marianne looked at her steadily, and said, "You know, Elinor, that this is a kind of talking which I cannot bear. If you only hope to have your assertion contradicted, as I must suppose to be the case, you ought to recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it. I cannot descend to be tricked out of assurances, that are not really wanted." She then left the room; and Elinor dared not follow her to say more, for bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy, she could give no information that would convince Marianne; and painful as the consequences of her still continuing in an error might be, she was obliged to submit to it. All that she could hope, was that Edward would not often expose her or himself to the distress of hearing Marianne's mistaken warmth, nor to the repetition of any other part of the pain that had attended their recent meeting--and this she had every reason to expect. Within a few days after this meeting, the newspapers announced to the world, that the lady of Thomas Palmer, Esq. was safely delivered of a son and heir; a very interesting and satisfactory paragraph, at least to all those intimate connections who knew it before. This event, highly important to Mrs. Jennings's happiness, produced a temporary alteration in the disposal of her time, and influenced, in a like degree, the engagements of her young friends; for as she wished to be as much as possible with Charlotte, she went thither every morning as soon as she was dressed, and did not return till late in the evening; and the Miss Dashwoods, at the particular request of the Middletons, spent the whole of every day in Conduit Street. For their own comfort they would much rather have remained, at least all the morning, in Mrs. Jennings's house; but it was not a thing to be urged against the wishes of everybody. Their hours were therefore made over to Lady Middleton and the two Miss Steeles, by whom their company, in fact was as little valued, as it was professedly sought. They had too much sense to be desirable companions to the former; and by the latter they were considered with a jealous eye, as intruding on THEIR ground, and sharing the kindness which they wanted to monopolize. Though nothing could be more polite than Lady Middleton's behaviour to Elinor and Marianne, she did not really like them at all. Because they neither flattered herself nor her children, she could not believe them good-natured; and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical; but THAT did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily given. Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy. It checked the idleness of one, and the business of the other. Lady Middleton was ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was proud to think of and administer at other times, she feared they would despise her for offering. Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the three, by their presence; and it was in their power to reconcile her to it entirely. Would either of them only have given her a full and minute account of the whole affair between Marianne and Mr. Willoughby, she would have thought herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of the best place by the fire after dinner, which their arrival occasioned. But this conciliation was not granted; for though she often threw out expressions of pity for her sister to Elinor, and more than once dropt a reflection on the inconstancy of beaux before Marianne, no effect was produced, but a look of indifference from the former, or of disgust in the latter. An effort even yet lighter might have made her their friend. Would they only have laughed at her about the Doctor! But so little were they, anymore than the others, inclined to oblige her, that if Sir John dined from home, she might spend a whole day without hearing any other raillery on the subject, than what she was kind enough to bestow on herself. All these jealousies and discontents, however, were so totally unsuspected by Mrs. Jennings, that she thought it a delightful thing for the girls to be together; and generally congratulated her young friends every night, on having escaped the company of a stupid old woman so long. She joined them sometimes at Sir John's, sometimes at her own house; but wherever it was, she always came in excellent spirits, full of delight and importance, attributing Charlotte's well doing to her own care, and ready to give so exact, so minute a detail of her situation, as only Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire. One thing DID disturb her; and of that she made her daily complaint. Mr. Palmer maintained the common, but unfatherly opinion among his sex, of all infants being alike; and though she could plainly perceive, at different times, the most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his father of it; no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby of the same age; nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the world. I come now to the relation of a misfortune, which about this time befell Mrs. John Dashwood. It so happened that while her two sisters with Mrs. Jennings were first calling on her in Harley Street, another of her acquaintance had dropt in--a circumstance in itself not apparently likely to produce evil to her. But while the imaginations of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgments of our conduct, and to decide on it by slight appearances, one's happiness must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance. In the present instance, this last-arrived lady allowed her fancy to so far outrun truth and probability, that on merely hearing the name of the Miss Dashwoods, and understanding them to be Mr. Dashwood's sisters, she immediately concluded them to be staying in Harley Street; and this misconstruction produced within a day or two afterwards, cards of invitation for them as well as for their brother and sister, to a small musical party at her house. The consequence of which was, that Mrs. John Dashwood was obliged to submit not only to the exceedingly great inconvenience of sending her carriage for the Miss Dashwoods, but, what was still worse, must be subject to all the unpleasantness of appearing to treat them with attention: and who could tell that they might not expect to go out with her a second time? The power of disappointing them, it was true, must always be hers. But that was not enough; for when people are determined on a mode of conduct which they know to be wrong, they feel injured by the expectation of any thing better from them. Marianne had now been brought by degrees, so much into the habit of going out every day, that it was become a matter of indifference to her, whether she went or not: and she prepared quietly and mechanically for every evening's engagement, though without expecting the smallest amusement from any, and very often without knowing, till the last moment, where it was to take her. To her dress and appearance she was grown so perfectly indifferent, as not to bestow half the consideration on it, during the whole of her toilet, which it received from Miss Steele in the first five minutes of their being together, when it was finished. Nothing escaped HER minute observation and general curiosity; she saw every thing, and asked every thing; was never easy till she knew the price of every part of Marianne's dress; could have guessed the number of her gowns altogether with better judgment than Marianne herself, and was not without hopes of finding out before they parted, how much her washing cost per week, and how much she had every year to spend upon herself. The impertinence of these kind of scrutinies, moreover, was generally concluded with a compliment, which though meant as its douceur, was considered by Marianne as the greatest impertinence of all; for after undergoing an examination into the value and make of her gown, the colour of her shoes, and the arrangement of her hair, she was almost sure of being told that upon "her word she looked vastly smart, and she dared to say she would make a great many conquests." With such encouragement as this, was she dismissed on the present occasion, to her brother's carriage; which they were ready to enter five minutes after it stopped at the door, a punctuality not very agreeable to their sister-in-law, who had preceded them to the house of her acquaintance, and was there hoping for some delay on their part that might inconvenience either herself or her coachman. The events of this evening were not very remarkable. The party, like other musical parties, comprehended a great many people who had real taste for the performance, and a great many more who had none at all; and the performers themselves were, as usual, in their own estimation, and that of their immediate friends, the first private performers in England. As Elinor was neither musical, nor affecting to be so, she made no scruple of turning her eyes from the grand pianoforte, whenever it suited her, and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp, and violoncello, would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the room. In one of these excursive glances she perceived among a group of young men, the very he, who had given them a lecture on toothpick-cases at Gray's. She perceived him soon afterwards looking at herself, and speaking familiarly to her brother; and had just determined to find out his name from the latter, when they both came towards her, and Mr. Dashwood introduced him to her as Mr. Robert Ferrars. He addressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow which assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy. Happy had it been for her, if her regard for Edward had depended less on his own merit, than on the merit of his nearest relations! For then his brother's bow must have given the finishing stroke to what the ill-humour of his mother and sister would have begun. But while she wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that the emptiness of conceit of the one, put her out of all charity with the modesty and worth of the other. Why they WERE different, Robert exclaimed to her himself in the course of a quarter of an hour's conversation; for, talking of his brother, and lamenting the extreme GAUCHERIE which he really believed kept him from mixing in proper society, he candidly and generously attributed it much less to any natural deficiency, than to the misfortune of a private education; while he himself, though probably without any particular, any material superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school, was as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man. "Upon my soul," he added, "I believe it is nothing more; and so I often tell my mother, when she is grieving about it. 'My dear Madam,' I always say to her, 'you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been prevented.' This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly convinced of her error." Elinor would not oppose his opinion, because, whatever might be her general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not think of Edward's abode in Mr. Pratt's family, with any satisfaction. "You reside in Devonshire, I think,"--was his next observation, "in a cottage near Dawlish." Elinor set him right as to its situation; and it seemed rather surprising to him that anybody could live in Devonshire, without living near Dawlish. He bestowed his hearty approbation however on their species of house. "For my own part," said he, "I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me, and be happy. I advise every body who is going to build, to build a cottage. My friend Lord Courtland came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice, and laid before me three different plans of Bonomi's. I was to decide on the best of them. 'My dear Courtland,' said I, immediately throwing them all into the fire, 'do not adopt either of them, but by all means build a cottage.' And that I fancy, will be the end of it. "Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no space in a cottage; but this is all a mistake. I was last month at my friend Elliott's, near Dartford. Lady Elliott wished to give a dance. 'But how can it be done?' said she; 'my dear Ferrars, do tell me how it is to be managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten couple, and where can the supper be?' I immediately saw that there could be no difficulty in it, so I said, 'My dear Lady Elliott, do not be uneasy. The dining parlour will admit eighteen couple with ease; card-tables may be placed in the drawing-room; the library may be open for tea and other refreshments; and let the supper be set out in the saloon.' Lady Elliott was delighted with the thought. We measured the dining-room, and found it would hold exactly eighteen couple, and the affair was arranged precisely after my plan. So that, in fact, you see, if people do but know how to set about it, every comfort may be as well enjoyed in a cottage as in the most spacious dwelling." Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition. As John Dashwood had no more pleasure in music than his eldest sister, his mind was equally at liberty to fix on any thing else; and a thought struck him during the evening, which he communicated to his wife, for her approbation, when they got home. The consideration of Mrs. Dennison's mistake, in supposing his sisters their guests, had suggested the propriety of their being really invited to become such, while Mrs. Jennings's engagements kept her from home. The expense would be nothing, the inconvenience not more; and it was altogether an attention which the delicacy of his conscience pointed out to be requisite to its complete enfranchisement from his promise to his father. Fanny was startled at the proposal. "I do not see how it can be done," said she, "without affronting Lady Middleton, for they spend every day with her; otherwise I should be exceedingly glad to do it. You know I am always ready to pay them any attention in my power, as my taking them out this evening shews. But they are Lady Middleton's visitors. How can I ask them away from her?" Her husband, but with great humility, did not see the force of her objection. "They had already spent a week in this manner in Conduit Street, and Lady Middleton could not be displeased at their giving the same number of days to such near relations." Fanny paused a moment, and then, with fresh vigor, said, "My love I would ask them with all my heart, if it was in my power. But I had just settled within myself to ask the Miss Steeles to spend a few days with us. They are very well behaved, good kind of girls; and I think the attention is due to them, as their uncle did so very well by Edward. We can ask your sisters some other year, you know; but the Miss Steeles may not be in town any more. I am sure you will like them; indeed, you DO like them, you know, very much already, and so does my mother; and they are such favourites with Harry!" Mr. Dashwood was convinced. He saw the necessity of inviting the Miss Steeles immediately, and his conscience was pacified by the resolution of inviting his sisters another year; at the same time, however, slyly suspecting that another year would make the invitation needless, by bringing Elinor to town as Colonel Brandon's wife, and Marianne as THEIR visitor. Fanny, rejoicing in her escape, and proud of the ready wit that had procured it, wrote the next morning to Lucy, to request her company and her sister's, for some days, in Harley Street, as soon as Lady Middleton could spare them. This was enough to make Lucy really and reasonably happy. Mrs. Dashwood seemed actually working for her, herself; cherishing all her hopes, and promoting all her views! Such an opportunity of being with Edward and his family was, above all things, the most material to her interest, and such an invitation the most gratifying to her feelings! It was an advantage that could not be too gratefully acknowledged, nor too speedily made use of; and the visit to Lady Middleton, which had not before had any precise limits, was instantly discovered to have been always meant to end in two days' time. When the note was shown to Elinor, as it was within ten minutes after its arrival, it gave her, for the first time, some share in the expectations of Lucy; for such a mark of uncommon kindness, vouchsafed on so short an acquaintance, seemed to declare that the good-will towards her arose from something more than merely malice against herself; and might be brought, by time and address, to do every thing that Lucy wished. Her flattery had already subdued the pride of Lady Middleton, and made an entry into the close heart of Mrs. John Dashwood; and these were effects that laid open the probability of greater. The Miss Steeles removed to Harley Street, and all that reached Elinor of their influence there, strengthened her expectation of the event. Sir John, who called on them more than once, brought home such accounts of the favour they were in, as must be universally striking. Mrs. Dashwood had never been so much pleased with any young women in her life, as she was with them; had given each of them a needle book made by some emigrant; called Lucy by her Christian name; and did not know whether she should ever be able to part with them. [At this point in the first and second editions, Volume II ended.]

Chapters 35-36

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101060302/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/sense-and-sensibility/summary-and-analysis/chapters-3536

The following morning, Lucy Steele called to see Elinor and asked her, "Could anything be so flattering as Mrs. Ferrars' way of treating me yesterday?" When Elinor suggested that Lucy's anticipation of favor should wait until Mrs. Ferrars' awareness of the nature of Lucy's connection to Edward, Lucy insinuated that Elinor was jealous and said that shouldn't change things at all. An awkward situation arose when a servant suddenly announced the arrival of Edward Ferrars. Everybody felt very foolish, but Elinor welcomed him so kindly that "he had courage enough to sit down." On pretext of finding Marianne, Elinor left Edward and Lucy together. When the sisters came back, Marianne greeted Edward with profuse affection. Not knowing of the secret engagement, she behaved as if Edward were in love with Elinor, much to everyone's discomfort. Edward left very soon, "and Lucy, who would have outstayed him had his visit lasted two hours, soon afterwards went away. A few days later, Charlotte Palmer's baby was born. As Mrs. Jennings spent much time with her daughter, Elinor and Marianne were invited daily to Lady Middleton's. They were also invited to parties by people who believed them to be staying with their sister-in-law. At one musical parry, Elinor noticed the young man whom they had seen in Mr. Gray's jewelry shop. John Dashwood introduced him as Mr. Robert Ferrars, and Elinor found him "exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy." John Dashwood suggested to his wife that he might invite his sisters to stay with them, but Fanny persuaded him that they could do that another year. Instead, she invited the Misses Steele, leading Lucy to believe that Mrs. Dashwood approved of a possible marriage between herself and Edward.

When dealing with characters who are not sensible, Austen almost invariably uses direct speech, and the characters reveal themselves the more clearly because of it. We learn a lot about Robert Ferrars when he talks so insincerely to Elinor about the advantages of living in a cottage. Lucy Steele's speech is equally self-revealing. Not only her lack of education but her innate vulgarity is exposed. She makes such mistakes in grammar as "She had quite took a fancy to me." Her short, simple sentences seem to reflect her emptiness of mind. Robert Ferrars seems the opposite of his brother. Robert attributes his own superiority to an education in the "public" schools , which reinforced all his natural tendency towards snobbery.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/14.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_6_part_2.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 14

chapter 14

{"name": "Chapter 14", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210228142327/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doriangray/section7/", "summary": "The next morning, Dorian wakes from a restful sleep. Once the events of the previous night sink in, he feels the return of his hatred for Basil. He decides not to brood on these things for fear of making himself ill or mad. After breakfast, he sends for Alan Campbell, a young scientist and former friend from whom he has grown distant. While waiting for Campbell to arrive, Dorian passes the time with a book of poems and reflects on his once intimate relationship with the scientist: the two were, at one point, inseparable. He also draws pictures and reflects on his drawings' similarity to Basil's likeness. Dorian then wonders if Campbell will come and is relieved when the servant announces his arrival. Campbell has come reluctantly, having been summoned on a matter of life and death. Dorian confesses that there is a dead man locked in the uppermost room of his house, though he refrains from discussing the circumstances of the man's death. He asks Campbell to use his knowledge of chemistry to destroy the body. Campbell refuses. Dorian admits that he murdered the man, and Campbell reiterates that he has no interest in becoming involved. Dorian blackmails Campbell, threatening to reveal a secret that would bring great disgrace on him. With no alternative, Campbell agrees to dispose of the body and sends a servant to his home for the necessary equipment. Dorian goes upstairs to cover the portrait and notices that one of the hands on the painting is dripping with red, \"as though the canvas had sweated blood. Campbell works until evening, then leaves. When Dorian returns to the room, the body is gone, and the odor of nitric acid fills the room", "analysis": "Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen take a decided turn for the macabre: the murder of Basil and the gruesome way it is reflected in the portrait--\"as though the canvas had sweated blood\"--root the novel firmly in the Gothic tradition, where darkness and supernatural horrors reign. In this setting, it becomes a challenge for Wilde to keep his hero from becoming a flat archetype of menacing evil. Much to his credit, he manages to keep Dorian a somewhat sympathetic character, even as he commits an unspeakable crime and blackmails a once dear friend to help him cover it up. Dorian remains worthy of sympathy because we see clearly the failure of his struggle to rise above a troubled conscience. With a murder added to his growing list of sins, Dorian wants nothing more than to be able to shrug off his guilt: he perceives Basil's corpse as a \"thing\" sitting in a chair and tries to lose himself in the lines of a French poet. The most telling evidence of Dorian's guilt can be seen as he sits waiting for the arrival of Alan Campbell; Dorian draws and soon remarks that \"every face that he drew seemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward.\" This scene resonates with the Chapter Nine scene in which Dorian asks the artist to draw a picture of Sibyl Vane so that he may better remember her: in both instances, the hedonistic Dorian betrays his gnawing conscience. Throughout the novel, Basil acts as a sort of moral ballast, reminding Lord Henry and Dorian of the price that must be paid for their pleasure seeking. In these chapters, he provides a fascinating counterpoint to the philosophy by which Dorian lives. Refusing to believe that the dissipation of a soul can occur without notice, he claims that \"f 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.\" The introduction of such an opposing view discloses Wilde's love of contradiction. In his essay \"The Truth of Masks,\" Wilde wrote that \" Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true.\" Indeed, the truth of The Picture of Dorian Gray, if one is to be found, emerges from oppositions. After all, as Dorian reflects while gazing upon his ruined portrait, art depends as much upon horror as it does upon \"marvellous beauty,\" just as one's being is always the synthesis of a \"Heaven and Hell.\" Like the other secondary characters in the novel, Alan Campbell is introduced and rather quickly ignored. His appearance, however, plays a vital role in establishing the darkening mood of the novel. The macabre experiments that he is accustomed to conducting as a chemist provide him with the knowledge that Dorian finds so necessary. Furthermore, the secrets that surround his personal life contribute to the air of mystery that surrounds Dorian. It is significant that the reader never learns the details of the circumstances by which Dorian blackmails Campbell. Given Wilde's increasingly indiscreet lifestyle and the increasingly hostile social attitudes toward homosexuality that flourished at the end of the nineteenth century, the reader can assume that Campbell's transgression is of a sexual nature. In 1885, the British Parliament passed the Labouchere Amendment, which widened prohibitions against male homosexual acts to include not only sodomy but also \"gross indecency\" , an offense that carried a two-year prison term. Oscar Wilde himself was eventually found guilty of the latter offense. This new law was commonly known as the Blackmailer's Charter. Thus, Alan Campbell, a seemingly inconsequential character, serves as an important indicator of the social prejudices and punishments in Wilde's time."}

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, blood-stained 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 half-hour 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 scarf-pin 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 152, 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 book-case 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 title-page of the book. It was Gautier's Emaux et Camees, Charpentier's Japanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching. The binding was of citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trellis-work 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 lavee_," 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 Venus de l'Adriatique Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc. Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes Suivant la phrase au pur contour, S'enflent comme des gorges rondes Que souleve un soupir d'amour. L'esquif aborde et me depose, Jetant son amarre au pilier, Devant une facade rose, Sur le marbre d'un escalier. How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be floating down the green water-ways 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 turquoise-blue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido. The sudden flashes of colour reminded him of the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the tall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through the dim, dust-stained arcades. Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he kept saying over and over to himself: "Devant une facade 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 _cafe_ 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, lotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red 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 kiss-stained marble, tell of that curious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the "_monstre charmant_" that couches in the porphyry-room 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 before--almost 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 together--music and that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he wished--and, 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, too--was 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, slow-breathing 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 coal-black 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 upstairs--to 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 you--mad 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 dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don't affect you. If in some hideous dissecting-room 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, Dorian--they 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 me--no 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 gas-fire 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 chimney-piece. 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 do--what you force me to do--it 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." "Yes--Harden. 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 place--otherwise 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 half-past 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 half-closed 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 gold-and-purple 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, good-bye. 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.

Chapter 14

https://web.archive.org/web/20210228142327/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doriangray/section7/

The next morning, Dorian wakes from a restful sleep. Once the events of the previous night sink in, he feels the return of his hatred for Basil. He decides not to brood on these things for fear of making himself ill or mad. After breakfast, he sends for Alan Campbell, a young scientist and former friend from whom he has grown distant. While waiting for Campbell to arrive, Dorian passes the time with a book of poems and reflects on his once intimate relationship with the scientist: the two were, at one point, inseparable. He also draws pictures and reflects on his drawings' similarity to Basil's likeness. Dorian then wonders if Campbell will come and is relieved when the servant announces his arrival. Campbell has come reluctantly, having been summoned on a matter of life and death. Dorian confesses that there is a dead man locked in the uppermost room of his house, though he refrains from discussing the circumstances of the man's death. He asks Campbell to use his knowledge of chemistry to destroy the body. Campbell refuses. Dorian admits that he murdered the man, and Campbell reiterates that he has no interest in becoming involved. Dorian blackmails Campbell, threatening to reveal a secret that would bring great disgrace on him. With no alternative, Campbell agrees to dispose of the body and sends a servant to his home for the necessary equipment. Dorian goes upstairs to cover the portrait and notices that one of the hands on the painting is dripping with red, "as though the canvas had sweated blood. Campbell works until evening, then leaves. When Dorian returns to the room, the body is gone, and the odor of nitric acid fills the room

Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen take a decided turn for the macabre: the murder of Basil and the gruesome way it is reflected in the portrait--"as though the canvas had sweated blood"--root the novel firmly in the Gothic tradition, where darkness and supernatural horrors reign. In this setting, it becomes a challenge for Wilde to keep his hero from becoming a flat archetype of menacing evil. Much to his credit, he manages to keep Dorian a somewhat sympathetic character, even as he commits an unspeakable crime and blackmails a once dear friend to help him cover it up. Dorian remains worthy of sympathy because we see clearly the failure of his struggle to rise above a troubled conscience. With a murder added to his growing list of sins, Dorian wants nothing more than to be able to shrug off his guilt: he perceives Basil's corpse as a "thing" sitting in a chair and tries to lose himself in the lines of a French poet. The most telling evidence of Dorian's guilt can be seen as he sits waiting for the arrival of Alan Campbell; Dorian draws and soon remarks that "every face that he drew seemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward." This scene resonates with the Chapter Nine scene in which Dorian asks the artist to draw a picture of Sibyl Vane so that he may better remember her: in both instances, the hedonistic Dorian betrays his gnawing conscience. Throughout the novel, Basil acts as a sort of moral ballast, reminding Lord Henry and Dorian of the price that must be paid for their pleasure seeking. In these chapters, he provides a fascinating counterpoint to the philosophy by which Dorian lives. Refusing to believe that the dissipation of a soul can occur without notice, he claims that "f 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." The introduction of such an opposing view discloses Wilde's love of contradiction. In his essay "The Truth of Masks," Wilde wrote that " Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true." Indeed, the truth of The Picture of Dorian Gray, if one is to be found, emerges from oppositions. After all, as Dorian reflects while gazing upon his ruined portrait, art depends as much upon horror as it does upon "marvellous beauty," just as one's being is always the synthesis of a "Heaven and Hell." Like the other secondary characters in the novel, Alan Campbell is introduced and rather quickly ignored. His appearance, however, plays a vital role in establishing the darkening mood of the novel. The macabre experiments that he is accustomed to conducting as a chemist provide him with the knowledge that Dorian finds so necessary. Furthermore, the secrets that surround his personal life contribute to the air of mystery that surrounds Dorian. It is significant that the reader never learns the details of the circumstances by which Dorian blackmails Campbell. Given Wilde's increasingly indiscreet lifestyle and the increasingly hostile social attitudes toward homosexuality that flourished at the end of the nineteenth century, the reader can assume that Campbell's transgression is of a sexual nature. In 1885, the British Parliament passed the Labouchere Amendment, which widened prohibitions against male homosexual acts to include not only sodomy but also "gross indecency" , an offense that carried a two-year prison term. Oscar Wilde himself was eventually found guilty of the latter offense. This new law was commonly known as the Blackmailer's Charter. Thus, Alan Campbell, a seemingly inconsequential character, serves as an important indicator of the social prejudices and punishments in Wilde's time.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/1.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_0_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 1

part 1, chapter 1

{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-1", "summary": "Welcome to Verrieres, a cute little town filled with white houses and chestnut trees. There are a lot of sawmills in the area . There's also a nail factory that belongs to the town's mayor, Monsieur de Renal. We get a description of Mr. Renal, who's a respectable-looking dude with a long, proud family history. We find out that Renal has a relationship with an old peasant named Sorel. He had to buy out the peasant's sawmill in order to expand his garden terrace and keep any ugly mills out of the way. Sorel agreed to move his business, but only after he got a bunch of money out of Renal. The narrator closes the opening chapter by saying that the town of Verrieres is totally tyrannized by public opinion. In other words, there's a lot of gossip and a lot of judgment in the town. If you have a good name, that's great. But if you have a bad name, no one will treat you well.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER I A SMALL TOWN Put thousands together less bad, But the cage less gay.--_Hobbes_. The little town of Verrieres can pass for one of the prettiest in Franche-Comte. Its white houses with their pointed red-tiled roofs stretch along the slope of a hill, whose slightest undulations are marked by groups of vigorous chestnuts. The Doubs flows to within some hundred feet above its fortifications, which were built long ago by the Spaniards, and are now in ruins. Verrieres is sheltered on the north by a high mountain which is one of the branches of the Jura. The jagged peaks of the Verra are covered with snow from the beginning of the October frosts. A torrent which rushes down from the mountains traverses Verrieres before throwing itself into the Doubs, and supplies the motive power for a great number of saw mills. The industry is very simple, and secures a certain prosperity to the majority of the inhabitants who are more peasant than bourgeois. It is not, however, the wood saws which have enriched this little town. It is the manufacture of painted tiles, called Mulhouse tiles, that is responsible for that general affluence which has caused the facades of nearly all the houses in Verrieres to be rebuilt since the fall of Napoleon. One has scarcely entered the town, before one is stunned by the din of a strident machine of terrifying aspect. Twenty heavy hammers which fall with a noise that makes the paved floor tremble, are lifted up by a wheel set in motion by the torrent. Each of these hammers manufactures every day I don't know how many thousands of nails. The little pieces of iron which are rapidly transformed into nails by these enormous hammers, are put in position by fresh pretty young girls. This labour so rough at first sight is one of the industries which most surprises the traveller who penetrates for the first time the mountains which separate France and Helvetia. If when he enters Verrieres, the traveller asks who owns this fine nail factory which deafens everybody who goes up the Grande-Rue, he is answered in a drawling tone "Eh! it belongs to M. the Mayor." And if the traveller stops a few minutes in that Grande-Rue of Verrieres which goes on an upward incline from the bank of the Doubs to nearly as far as the summit of the hill, it is a hundred to one that he will see a big man with a busy and important air. When he comes in sight all hats are quickly taken off. His hair is grizzled and he is dressed in grey. He is a Knight of several Orders, has a large forehead and an aquiline nose, and if you take him all round, his features are not devoid of certain regularity. One might even think on the first inspection that it combines with the dignity of the village mayor that particular kind of comfortableness which is appropriate to the age of forty-eight or fifty. But soon the traveller from Paris will be shocked by a certain air of self-satisfaction and self-complacency mingled with an almost indefinable narrowness and lack of inspiration. One realises at last that this man's talent is limited to seeing that he is paid exactly what he is owed, and in paying his own debts at the latest possible moment. Such is M. de Renal, the mayor of Verrieres. After having crossed the road with a solemn step, he enters the mayoral residence and disappears from the eye of the traveller. But if the latter continues to walk a hundred steps further up, he will perceive a house with a fairly fine appearance, with some magnificent gardens behind an iron grill belonging to the house. Beyond that is an horizon line formed by the hills of Burgundy, which seem ideally made to delight the eyes. This view causes the traveller to forget that pestilential atmosphere of petty money-grubbing by which he is beginning to be suffocated. He is told that this house belongs to M. de Renal. It is to the profits which he has made out of his big nail factory that the mayor of Verrieres owes this fine residence of hewn stone which he is just finishing. His family is said to be Spanish and ancient, and is alleged to have been established in the country well before the conquest of Louis XIV. Since 1815, he blushes at being a manufacturer: 1815 made him mayor of Verrieres. The terraced walls of this magnificent garden which descends to the Doubs, plateau by plateau, also represent the reward of M. de Renal's proficiency in the iron-trade. Do not expect to find in France those picturesque gardens which surround the manufacturing towns of Germany, like Leipsic, Frankfurt and Nurenburgh, etc. The more walls you build in Franche-Comte and the more you fortify your estate with piles of stone, the more claim you will acquire on the respect of your neighbours. Another reason for the admiration due to M. de Renal's gardens and their numerous walls, is the fact that he has purchased, through sheer power of the purse, certain small parcels of the ground on which they stand. That saw-mill, for instance, whose singular position on the banks of the Doubs struck you when you entered Verrieres, and where you notice the name of SOREL written in gigantic characters on the chief beam of the roof, used to occupy six years ago that precise space on which is now reared the wall of the fourth terrace in M. de Renal's gardens. Proud man that he was, the mayor had none the less to negotiate with that tough, stubborn peasant, old Sorel. He had to pay him in good solid golden louis before he could induce him to transfer his workshop elsewhere. As to the _public_ stream which supplied the motive power for the saw-mill, M. de Renal obtained its diversion, thanks to the influence which he enjoyed at Paris. This favour was accorded him after the election of 182-. He gave Sorel four acres for every one he had previously held, five hundred yards lower down on the banks of the Doubs. Although this position was much more advantageous for his pine-plank trade, father Sorel (as he is called since he has become rich) knew how to exploit the impatience and _mania for landed ownership_ which animated his neighbour to the tune of six thousand francs. It is true that this arrangement was criticised by the wiseacres of the locality. One day, it was on a Sunday four years later, as M. de Renal was coming back from church in his mayor's uniform, he saw old Sorel smiling at him, as he stared at him some distance away surrounded by his three sons. That smile threw a fatal flood of light into the soul of the mayor. From that time on, he is of opinion that he could have obtained the exchange at a cheaper rate. In order to win the public esteem of Verrieres it is essential that, though you should build as many walls as you can, you should not adopt some plan imported from Italy by those masons who cross the passes of the Jura in the spring on their way to Paris. Such an innovation would bring down upon the head of the imprudent builder an eternal reputation for _wrongheadedness_, and he will be lost for ever in the sight of those wise, well-balanced people who dispense public esteem in Franche-Comte. As a matter of fact, these prudent people exercise in the place the most offensive despotism. It is by reason of this awful word, that anyone who has lived in that great republic which is called Paris, finds living in little towns quite intolerable. The tyranny of public opinion (and what public opinion!) is as _stupid_ in the little towns of France as in the United States of America.

Part 1, Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-1

Welcome to Verrieres, a cute little town filled with white houses and chestnut trees. There are a lot of sawmills in the area . There's also a nail factory that belongs to the town's mayor, Monsieur de Renal. We get a description of Mr. Renal, who's a respectable-looking dude with a long, proud family history. We find out that Renal has a relationship with an old peasant named Sorel. He had to buy out the peasant's sawmill in order to expand his garden terrace and keep any ugly mills out of the way. Sorel agreed to move his business, but only after he got a bunch of money out of Renal. The narrator closes the opening chapter by saying that the town of Verrieres is totally tyrannized by public opinion. In other words, there's a lot of gossip and a lot of judgment in the town. If you have a good name, that's great. But if you have a bad name, no one will treat you well.

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/32.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_4_part_8.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter xxxii

chapter xxxii

{"name": "Chapter XXXII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase4-chapter25-34", "summary": "The young couple grows more and more in love and Tess finally agrees to set a date for New Year's Eve. He is to go to another farm to study the workings of a flour mill which was once the site of one of the d'Urberville's family's many houses. Angel surprises Tess with a silk wedding gown and traveling suit and requests a license instead of having the banns read out publicly in the church", "analysis": ""}

This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day. The beginning of November found its date still in abeyance, though he asked her at the most tempting times. But Tess's desire seemed to be for a perpetual betrothal in which everything should remain as it was then. The meads were changing now; but it was still warm enough in early afternoons before milking to idle there awhile, and the state of dairy-work at this time of year allowed a spare hour for idling. Looking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun, a glistening ripple of gossamer webs was visible to their eyes under the luminary, like the track of moonlight on the sea. Gnats, knowing nothing of their brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer of this pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then passed out of its line, and were quite extinct. In the presence of these things he would remind her that the date was still the question. Or he would ask her at night, when he accompanied her on some mission invented by Mrs Crick to give him the opportunity. This was mostly a journey to the farmhouse on the slopes above the vale, to inquire how the advanced cows were getting on in the straw-barton to which they were relegated. For it was a time of the year that brought great changes to the world of kine. Batches of the animals were sent away daily to this lying-in hospital, where they lived on straw till their calves were born, after which event, and as soon as the calf could walk, mother and offspring were driven back to the dairy. In the interval which elapsed before the calves were sold there was, of course, little milking to be done, but as soon as the calf had been taken away the milkmaids would have to set to work as usual. Returning from one of these dark walks they reached a great gravel-cliff immediately over the levels, where they stood still and listened. The water was now high in the streams, squirting through the weirs, and tinkling under culverts; the smallest gullies were all full; there was no taking short cuts anywhere, and foot-passengers were compelled to follow the permanent ways. From the whole extent of the invisible vale came a multitudinous intonation; it forced upon their fancy that a great city lay below them, and that the murmur was the vociferation of its populace. "It seems like tens of thousands of them," said Tess; "holding public-meetings in their market-places, arguing, preaching, quarrelling, sobbing, groaning, praying, and cursing." Clare was not particularly heeding. "Did Crick speak to you to-day, dear, about his not wanting much assistance during the winter months?" "No." "The cows are going dry rapidly." "Yes. Six or seven went to the straw-barton yesterday, and three the day before, making nearly twenty in the straw already. Ah--is it that the farmer don't want my help for the calving? O, I am not wanted here any more! And I have tried so hard to--" "Crick didn't exactly say that he would no longer require you. But, knowing what our relations were, he said in the most good-natured and respectful manner possible that he supposed on my leaving at Christmas I should take you with me, and on my asking what he would do without you he merely observed that, as a matter of fact, it was a time of year when he could do with a very little female help. I am afraid I was sinner enough to feel rather glad that he was in this way forcing your hand." "I don't think you ought to have felt glad, Angel. Because 'tis always mournful not to be wanted, even if at the same time 'tis convenient." "Well, it is convenient--you have admitted that." He put his finger upon her cheek. "Ah!" he said. "What?" "I feel the red rising up at her having been caught! But why should I trifle so! We will not trifle--life is too serious." "It is. Perhaps I saw that before you did." She was seeing it then. To decline to marry him after all--in obedience to her emotion of last night--and leave the dairy, meant to go to some strange place, not a dairy; for milkmaids were not in request now calving-time was coming on; to go to some arable farm where no divine being like Angel Clare was. She hated the thought, and she hated more the thought of going home. "So that, seriously, dearest Tess," he continued, "since you will probably have to leave at Christmas, it is in every way desirable and convenient that I should carry you off then as my property. Besides, if you were not the most uncalculating girl in the world you would know that we could not go on like this for ever." "I wish we could. That it would always be summer and autumn, and you always courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have done through the past summer-time!" "I always shall." "O, I know you will!" she cried, with a sudden fervour of faith in him. "Angel, I will fix the day when I will become yours for always!" Thus at last it was arranged between them, during that dark walk home, amid the myriads of liquid voices on the right and left. When they reached the dairy Mr and Mrs Crick were promptly told--with injunctions of secrecy; for each of the lovers was desirous that the marriage should be kept as private as possible. The dairyman, though he had thought of dismissing her soon, now made a great concern about losing her. What should he do about his skimming? Who would make the ornamental butter-pats for the Anglebury and Sandbourne ladies? Mrs Crick congratulated Tess on the shilly-shallying having at last come to an end, and said that directly she set eyes on Tess she divined that she was to be the chosen one of somebody who was no common outdoor man; Tess had looked so superior as she walked across the barton on that afternoon of her arrival; that she was of a good family she could have sworn. In point of fact Mrs Crick did remember thinking that Tess was graceful and good-looking as she approached; but the superiority might have been a growth of the imagination aided by subsequent knowledge. Tess was now carried along upon the wings of the hours, without the sense of a will. The word had been given; the number of the day written down. Her naturally bright intelligence had begun to admit the fatalistic convictions common to field-folk and those who associate more extensively with natural phenomena than with their fellow-creatures; and she accordingly drifted into that passive responsiveness to all things her lover suggested, characteristic of the frame of mind. But she wrote anew to her mother, ostensibly to notify the wedding-day; really to again implore her advice. It was a gentleman who had chosen her, which perhaps her mother had not sufficiently considered. A post-nuptial explanation, which might be accepted with a light heart by a rougher man, might not be received with the same feeling by him. But this communication brought no reply from Mrs Durbeyfield. Despite Angel Clare's plausible representation to himself and to Tess of the practical need for their immediate marriage, there was in truth an element of precipitancy in the step, as became apparent at a later date. He loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and fancifully than with the impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for him. He had entertained no notion, when doomed as he had thought to an unintellectual bucolic life, that such charms as he beheld in this idyllic creature would be found behind the scenes. Unsophistication was a thing to talk of; but he had not known how it really struck one until he came here. Yet he was very far from seeing his future track clearly, and it might be a year or two before he would be able to consider himself fairly started in life. The secret lay in the tinge of recklessness imparted to his career and character by the sense that he had been made to miss his true destiny through the prejudices of his family. "Don't you think 'twould have been better for us to wait till you were quite settled in your midland farm?" she once asked timidly. (A midland farm was the idea just then.) "To tell the truth, my Tess, I don't like you to be left anywhere away from my protection and sympathy." The reason was a good one, so far as it went. His influence over her had been so marked that she had caught his manner and habits, his speech and phrases, his likings and his aversions. And to leave her in farmland would be to let her slip back again out of accord with him. He wished to have her under his charge for another reason. His parents had naturally desired to see her once at least before he carried her off to a distant settlement, English or colonial; and as no opinion of theirs was to be allowed to change his intention, he judged that a couple of months' life with him in lodgings whilst seeking for an advantageous opening would be of some social assistance to her at what she might feel to be a trying ordeal--her presentation to his mother at the Vicarage. Next, he wished to see a little of the working of a flour-mill, having an idea that he might combine the use of one with corn-growing. The proprietor of a large old water-mill at Wellbridge--once the mill of an Abbey--had offered him the inspection of his time-honoured mode of procedure, and a hand in the operations for a few days, whenever he should choose to come. Clare paid a visit to the place, some few miles distant, one day at this time, to inquire particulars, and returned to Talbothays in the evening. She found him determined to spend a short time at the Wellbridge flour-mills. And what had determined him? Less the opportunity of an insight into grinding and bolting than the casual fact that lodgings were to be obtained in that very farmhouse which, before its mutilation, had been the mansion of a branch of the d'Urberville family. This was always how Clare settled practical questions; by a sentiment which had nothing to do with them. They decided to go immediately after the wedding, and remain for a fortnight, instead of journeying to towns and inns. "Then we will start off to examine some farms on the other side of London that I have heard of," he said, "and by March or April we will pay a visit to my father and mother." Questions of procedure such as these arose and passed, and the day, the incredible day, on which she was to become his, loomed large in the near future. The thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, was the date. His wife, she said to herself. Could it ever be? Their two selves together, nothing to divide them, every incident shared by them; why not? And yet why? One Sunday morning Izz Huett returned from church, and spoke privately to Tess. "You was not called home this morning." "What?" "It should ha' been the first time of asking to-day," she answered, looking quietly at Tess. "You meant to be married New Year's Eve, deary?" The other returned a quick affirmative. "And there must be three times of asking. And now there be only two Sundays left between." Tess felt her cheek paling; Izz was right; of course there must be three. Perhaps he had forgotten! If so, there must be a week's postponement, and that was unlucky. How could she remind her lover? She who had been so backward was suddenly fired with impatience and alarm lest she should lose her dear prize. A natural incident relieved her anxiety. Izz mentioned the omission of the banns to Mrs Crick, and Mrs Crick assumed a matron's privilege of speaking to Angel on the point. "Have ye forgot 'em, Mr Clare? The banns, I mean." "No, I have not forgot 'em," says Clare. As soon as he caught Tess alone he assured her: "Don't let them tease you about the banns. A licence will be quieter for us, and I have decided on a licence without consulting you. So if you go to church on Sunday morning you will not hear your own name, if you wished to." "I didn't wish to hear it, dearest," she said proudly. But to know that things were in train was an immense relief to Tess notwithstanding, who had well-nigh feared that somebody would stand up and forbid the banns on the ground of her history. How events were favouring her! "I don't quite feel easy," she said to herself. "All this good fortune may be scourged out of me afterwards by a lot of ill. That's how Heaven mostly does. I wish I could have had common banns!" But everything went smoothly. She wondered whether he would like her to be married in her present best white frock, or if she ought to buy a new one. The question was set at rest by his forethought, disclosed by the arrival of some large packages addressed to her. Inside them she found a whole stock of clothing, from bonnet to shoes, including a perfect morning costume, such as would well suit the simple wedding they planned. He entered the house shortly after the arrival of the packages, and heard her upstairs undoing them. A minute later she came down with a flush on her face and tears in her eyes. "How thoughtful you've been!" she murmured, her cheek upon his shoulder. "Even to the gloves and handkerchief! My own love--how good, how kind!" "No, no, Tess; just an order to a tradeswoman in London--nothing more." And to divert her from thinking too highly of him, he told her to go upstairs, and take her time, and see if it all fitted; and, if not, to get the village sempstress to make a few alterations. She did return upstairs, and put on the gown. Alone, she stood for a moment before the glass looking at the effect of her silk attire; and then there came into her head her mother's ballad of the mystic robe-- That never would become that wife That had once done amiss, which Mrs Durbeyfield had used to sing to her as a child, so blithely and so archly, her foot on the cradle, which she rocked to the tune. Suppose this robe should betray her by changing colour, as her robe had betrayed Queen Guinevere. Since she had been at the dairy she had not once thought of the lines till now.

Chapter XXXII

https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase4-chapter25-34

The young couple grows more and more in love and Tess finally agrees to set a date for New Year's Eve. He is to go to another farm to study the workings of a flour mill which was once the site of one of the d'Urberville's family's many houses. Angel surprises Tess with a silk wedding gown and traveling suit and requests a license instead of having the banns read out publicly in the church

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/43.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_42_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 43

chapter 43

{"name": "Chapter 43", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-43", "summary": "Bathsheba questioned Liddy again about Fanny. Liddy didn't know any more, but said that Maryann had heard tales. Bathsheba refused to believe what Liddy whispered to her, arguing that there was but one name on the coffin. Feeling that she must draw strength from another to see her through what lay ahead, Bathsheba went to Oak's cottage. Through the window she watched him close the book he had been reading and realized that he was about to retire. Unable to bring herself to ask him about the matter that troubled her, Bathsheba returned home. Standing near the coffin, she sobbed, \"I hope, hope it is not true that there are two of you!\" Finally she fetched a screwdriver and opened the coffin. \"It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!\" The tears came, \"tears of a complicated origin.\" Unable to refrain from hating Fanny, Bathsheba knelt beside the coffin and prayed. When she arose, she was calmer. The slamming door of the coach-house announced Troy's arrival. He asked what had happened, but Bathsheba would not tell him. The two approached the coffin. A candle illuminated the bodies. Overcome, Troy sank to his knees, then kissed Fanny's face. Bathsheba cried out to him. He pushed her away and told her, \"This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be.\" Turning to Fanny, he said, \"In the sight of Heaven you are my very, very wife!\" Bathsheba turned and ran from the house.", "analysis": "Intuitively, Bathsheba knew the truth and, impelled by guilt feelings caused by the initial surge of hatred and jealousy that she had felt, she showed her pity toward mother and child by placing flowers around their bodies. Troy's emotion and remorse reinforce her realization that her marriage is over. The title that Hardy gave to this chapter, \"Fanny's Revenge,\" suggests something of the Greek tragedies, as does the dramatic revelation of truth that the chapter contains. But it is not Fanny who is vengeful -- it is fate."}

FANNY'S REVENGE "Do you want me any longer ma'am?" inquired Liddy, at a later hour the same evening, standing by the door with a chamber candlestick in her hand and addressing Bathsheba, who sat cheerless and alone in the large parlour beside the first fire of the season. "No more to-night, Liddy." "I'll sit up for master if you like, ma'am. I am not at all afraid of Fanny, if I may sit in my own room and have a candle. She was such a childlike, nesh young thing that her spirit couldn't appear to anybody if it tried, I'm quite sure." "Oh no, no! You go to bed. I'll sit up for him myself till twelve o'clock, and if he has not arrived by that time, I shall give him up and go to bed too." "It is half-past ten now." "Oh! is it?" "Why don't you sit upstairs, ma'am?" "Why don't I?" said Bathsheba, desultorily. "It isn't worth while--there's a fire here, Liddy." She suddenly exclaimed in an impulsive and excited whisper, "Have you heard anything strange said of Fanny?" The words had no sooner escaped her than an expression of unutterable regret crossed her face, and she burst into tears. "No--not a word!" said Liddy, looking at the weeping woman with astonishment. "What is it makes you cry so, ma'am; has anything hurt you?" She came to Bathsheba's side with a face full of sympathy. "No, Liddy--I don't want you any more. I can hardly say why I have taken to crying lately: I never used to cry. Good-night." Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door. Bathsheba was lonely and miserable now; not lonelier actually than she had been before her marriage; but her loneliness then was to that of the present time as the solitude of a mountain is to the solitude of a cave. And within the last day or two had come these disquieting thoughts about her husband's past. Her wayward sentiment that evening concerning Fanny's temporary resting-place had been the result of a strange complication of impulses in Bathsheba's bosom. Perhaps it would be more accurately described as a determined rebellion against her prejudices, a revulsion from a lower instinct of uncharitableness, which would have withheld all sympathy from the dead woman, because in life she had preceded Bathsheba in the attentions of a man whom Bathsheba had by no means ceased from loving, though her love was sick to death just now with the gravity of a further misgiving. In five or ten minutes there was another tap at the door. Liddy reappeared, and coming in a little way stood hesitating, until at length she said, "Maryann has just heard something very strange, but I know it isn't true. And we shall be sure to know the rights of it in a day or two." "What is it?" "Oh, nothing connected with you or us, ma'am. It is about Fanny. That same thing you have heard." "I have heard nothing." "I mean that a wicked story is got to Weatherbury within this last hour--that--" Liddy came close to her mistress and whispered the remainder of the sentence slowly into her ear, inclining her head as she spoke in the direction of the room where Fanny lay. Bathsheba trembled from head to foot. "I don't believe it!" she said, excitedly. "And there's only one name written on the coffin-cover." "Nor I, ma'am. And a good many others don't; for we should surely have been told more about it if it had been true--don't you think so, ma'am?" "We might or we might not." Bathsheba turned and looked into the fire, that Liddy might not see her face. Finding that her mistress was going to say no more, Liddy glided out, closed the door softly, and went to bed. Bathsheba's face, as she continued looking into the fire that evening, might have excited solicitousness on her account even among those who loved her least. The sadness of Fanny Robin's fate did not make Bathsheba's glorious, although she was the Esther to this poor Vashti, and their fates might be supposed to stand in some respects as contrasts to each other. When Liddy came into the room a second time the beautiful eyes which met hers had worn a listless, weary look. When she went out after telling the story they had expressed wretchedness in full activity. Her simple country nature, fed on old-fashioned principles, was troubled by that which would have troubled a woman of the world very little, both Fanny and her child, if she had one, being dead. Bathsheba had grounds for conjecturing a connection between her own history and the dimly suspected tragedy of Fanny's end which Oak and Boldwood never for a moment credited her with possessing. The meeting with the lonely woman on the previous Saturday night had been unwitnessed and unspoken of. Oak may have had the best of intentions in withholding for as many days as possible the details of what had happened to Fanny; but had he known that Bathsheba's perceptions had already been exercised in the matter, he would have done nothing to lengthen the minutes of suspense she was now undergoing, when the certainty which must terminate it would be the worst fact suspected after all. She suddenly felt a longing desire to speak to some one stronger than herself, and so get strength to sustain her surmised position with dignity and her lurking doubts with stoicism. Where could she find such a friend? nowhere in the house. She was by far the coolest of the women under her roof. Patience and suspension of judgement for a few hours were what she wanted to learn, and there was nobody to teach her. Might she but go to Gabriel Oak!--but that could not be. What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring things. Boldwood, who seemed so much deeper and higher and stronger in feeling than Gabriel, had not yet learnt, any more than she herself, the simple lesson which Oak showed a mastery of by every turn and look he gave--that among the multitude of interests by which he was surrounded, those which affected his personal well-being were not the most absorbing and important in his eyes. Oak meditatively looked upon the horizon of circumstances without any special regard to his own standpoint in the midst. That was how she would wish to be. But then Oak was not racked by incertitude upon the inmost matter of his bosom, as she was at this moment. Oak knew all about Fanny that he wished to know--she felt convinced of that. If she were to go to him now at once and say no more than these few words, "What is the truth of the story?" he would feel bound in honour to tell her. It would be an inexpressible relief. No further speech would need to be uttered. He knew her so well that no eccentricity of behaviour in her would alarm him. She flung a cloak round her, went to the door and opened it. Every blade, every twig was still. The air was yet thick with moisture, though somewhat less dense than during the afternoon, and a steady smack of drops upon the fallen leaves under the boughs was almost musical in its soothing regularity. It seemed better to be out of the house than within it, and Bathsheba closed the door, and walked slowly down the lane till she came opposite to Gabriel's cottage, where he now lived alone, having left Coggan's house through being pinched for room. There was a light in one window only, and that was downstairs. The shutters were not closed, nor was any blind or curtain drawn over the window, neither robbery nor observation being a contingency which could do much injury to the occupant of the domicile. Yes, it was Gabriel himself who was sitting up: he was reading. From her standing-place in the road she could see him plainly, sitting quite still, his light curly head upon his hand, and only occasionally looking up to snuff the candle which stood beside him. At length he looked at the clock, seemed surprised at the lateness of the hour, closed his book, and arose. He was going to bed, she knew, and if she tapped it must be done at once. Alas for her resolve! She felt she could not do it. Not for worlds now could she give a hint about her misery to him, much less ask him plainly for information on the cause of Fanny's death. She must suspect, and guess, and chafe, and bear it all alone. Like a homeless wanderer she lingered by the bank, as if lulled and fascinated by the atmosphere of content which seemed to spread from that little dwelling, and was so sadly lacking in her own. Gabriel appeared in an upper room, placed his light in the window-bench, and then--knelt down to pray. The contrast of the picture with her rebellious and agitated existence at this same time was too much for her to bear to look upon longer. It was not for her to make a truce with trouble by any such means. She must tread her giddy distracting measure to its last note, as she had begun it. With a swollen heart she went again up the lane, and entered her own door. More fevered now by a reaction from the first feelings which Oak's example had raised in her, she paused in the hall, looking at the door of the room wherein Fanny lay. She locked her fingers, threw back her head, and strained her hot hands rigidly across her forehead, saying, with a hysterical sob, "Would to God you would speak and tell me your secret, Fanny! ... Oh, I hope, hope it is not true that there are two of you! ... If I could only look in upon you for one little minute, I should know all!" A few moments passed, and she added, slowly, "AND I WILL." Bathsheba in after times could never gauge the mood which carried her through the actions following this murmured resolution on this memorable evening of her life. She went to the lumber-closet for a screw-driver. At the end of a short though undefined time she found herself in the small room, quivering with emotion, a mist before her eyes, and an excruciating pulsation in her brain, standing beside the uncovered coffin of the girl whose conjectured end had so entirely engrossed her, and saying to herself in a husky voice as she gazed within-- "It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!" She was conscious of having brought about this situation by a series of actions done as by one in an extravagant dream; of following that idea as to method, which had burst upon her in the hall with glaring obviousness, by gliding to the top of the stairs, assuring herself by listening to the heavy breathing of her maids that they were asleep, gliding down again, turning the handle of the door within which the young girl lay, and deliberately setting herself to do what, if she had anticipated any such undertaking at night and alone, would have horrified her, but which, when done, was not so dreadful as was the conclusive proof of her husband's conduct which came with knowing beyond doubt the last chapter of Fanny's story. Bathsheba's head sank upon her bosom, and the breath which had been bated in suspense, curiosity, and interest, was exhaled now in the form of a whispered wail: "Oh-h-h!" she said, and the silent room added length to her moan. Her tears fell fast beside the unconscious pair in the coffin: tears of a complicated origin, of a nature indescribable, almost indefinable except as other than those of simple sorrow. Assuredly their wonted fires must have lived in Fanny's ashes when events were so shaped as to chariot her hither in this natural, unobtrusive, yet effectual manner. The one feat alone--that of dying--by which a mean condition could be resolved into a grand one, Fanny had achieved. And to that had destiny subjoined this reencounter to-night, which had, in Bathsheba's wild imagining, turned her companion's failure to success, her humiliation to triumph, her lucklessness to ascendency; it had thrown over herself a garish light of mockery, and set upon all things about her an ironical smile. Fanny's face was framed in by that yellow hair of hers; and there was no longer much room for doubt as to the origin of the curl owned by Troy. In Bathsheba's heated fancy the innocent white countenance expressed a dim triumphant consciousness of the pain she was retaliating for her pain with all the merciless rigour of the Mosaic law: "Burning for burning; wound for wound: strife for strife." Bathsheba indulged in contemplations of escape from her position by immediate death, which, thought she, though it was an inconvenient and awful way, had limits to its inconvenience and awfulness that could not be overpassed; whilst the shames of life were measureless. Yet even this scheme of extinction by death was but tamely copying her rival's method without the reasons which had glorified it in her rival's case. She glided rapidly up and down the room, as was mostly her habit when excited, her hands hanging clasped in front of her, as she thought and in part expressed in broken words: "O, I hate her, yet I don't mean that I hate her, for it is grievous and wicked; and yet I hate her a little! Yes, my flesh insists upon hating her, whether my spirit is willing or no! ... If she had only lived, I could have been angry and cruel towards her with some justification; but to be vindictive towards a poor dead woman recoils upon myself. O God, have mercy! I am miserable at all this!" Bathsheba became at this moment so terrified at her own state of mind that she looked around for some sort of refuge from herself. The vision of Oak kneeling down that night recurred to her, and with the imitative instinct which animates women she seized upon the idea, resolved to kneel, and, if possible, pray. Gabriel had prayed; so would she. She knelt beside the coffin, covered her face with her hands, and for a time the room was silent as a tomb. Whether from a purely mechanical, or from any other cause, when Bathsheba arose it was with a quieted spirit, and a regret for the antagonistic instincts which had seized upon her just before. In her desire to make atonement she took flowers from a vase by the window, and began laying them around the dead girl's head. Bathsheba knew no other way of showing kindness to persons departed than by giving them flowers. She knew not how long she remained engaged thus. She forgot time, life, where she was, what she was doing. A slamming together of the coach-house doors in the yard brought her to herself again. An instant after, the front door opened and closed, steps crossed the hall, and her husband appeared at the entrance to the room, looking in upon her. He beheld it all by degrees, stared in stupefaction at the scene, as if he thought it an illusion raised by some fiendish incantation. Bathsheba, pallid as a corpse on end, gazed back at him in the same wild way. So little are instinctive guesses the fruit of a legitimate induction that, at this moment, as he stood with the door in his hand, Troy never once thought of Fanny in connection with what he saw. His first confused idea was that somebody in the house had died. "Well--what?" said Troy, blankly. "I must go! I must go!" said Bathsheba, to herself more than to him. She came with a dilated eye towards the door, to push past him. "What's the matter, in God's name? who's dead?" said Troy. "I cannot say; let me go out. I want air!" she continued. "But no; stay, I insist!" He seized her hand, and then volition seemed to leave her, and she went off into a state of passivity. He, still holding her, came up the room, and thus, hand in hand, Troy and Bathsheba approached the coffin's side. The candle was standing on a bureau close by them, and the light slanted down, distinctly enkindling the cold features of both mother and babe. Troy looked in, dropped his wife's hand, knowledge of it all came over him in a lurid sheen, and he stood still. So still he remained that he could be imagined to have left in him no motive power whatever. The clashes of feeling in all directions confounded one another, produced a neutrality, and there was motion in none. "Do you know her?" said Bathsheba, in a small enclosed echo, as from the interior of a cell. "I do," said Troy. "Is it she?" "It is." He had originally stood perfectly erect. And now, in the well-nigh congealed immobility of his frame could be discerned an incipient movement, as in the darkest night may be discerned light after a while. He was gradually sinking forwards. The lines of his features softened, and dismay modulated to illimitable sadness. Bathsheba was regarding him from the other side, still with parted lips and distracted eyes. Capacity for intense feeling is proportionate to the general intensity of the nature, and perhaps in all Fanny's sufferings, much greater relatively to her strength, there never was a time she suffered in an absolute sense what Bathsheba suffered now. What Troy did was to sink upon his knees with an indefinable union of remorse and reverence upon his face, and, bending over Fanny Robin, gently kissed her, as one would kiss an infant asleep to avoid awakening it. At the sight and sound of that, to her, unendurable act, Bathsheba sprang towards him. All the strong feelings which had been scattered over her existence since she knew what feeling was, seemed gathered together into one pulsation now. The revulsion from her indignant mood a little earlier, when she had meditated upon compromised honour, forestalment, eclipse in maternity by another, was violent and entire. All that was forgotten in the simple and still strong attachment of wife to husband. She had sighed for her self-completeness then, and now she cried aloud against the severance of the union she had deplored. She flung her arms round Troy's neck, exclaiming wildly from the deepest deep of her heart-- "Don't--don't kiss them! O, Frank, I can't bear it--I can't! I love you better than she did: kiss me too, Frank--kiss me! YOU WILL, FRANK, KISS ME TOO!" There was something so abnormal and startling in the childlike pain and simplicity of this appeal from a woman of Bathsheba's calibre and independence, that Troy, loosening her tightly clasped arms from his neck, looked at her in bewilderment. It was such an unexpected revelation of all women being alike at heart, even those so different in their accessories as Fanny and this one beside him, that Troy could hardly seem to believe her to be his proud wife Bathsheba. Fanny's own spirit seemed to be animating her frame. But this was the mood of a few instants only. When the momentary surprise had passed, his expression changed to a silencing imperious gaze. "I will not kiss you!" he said pushing her away. Had the wife now but gone no further. Yet, perhaps, under the harrowing circumstances, to speak out was the one wrong act which can be better understood, if not forgiven in her, than the right and politic one, her rival being now but a corpse. All the feeling she had been betrayed into showing she drew back to herself again by a strenuous effort of self-command. "What have you to say as your reason?" she asked, her bitter voice being strangely low--quite that of another woman now. "I have to say that I have been a bad, black-hearted man," he answered. "And that this woman is your victim; and I not less than she." "Ah! don't taunt me, madam. This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be. If Satan had not tempted me with that face of yours, and those cursed coquetries, I should have married her. I never had another thought till you came in my way. Would to God that I had; but it is all too late!" He turned to Fanny then. "But never mind, darling," he said; "in the sight of Heaven you are my very, very wife!" At these words there arose from Bathsheba's lips a long, low cry of measureless despair and indignation, such a wail of anguish as had never before been heard within those old-inhabited walls. It was the "Tetelestai" [GREEK word meaning "it is finished"] of her union with Troy. "If she's--that,--what--am I?" she added, as a continuation of the same cry, and sobbing pitifully: and the rarity with her of such abandonment only made the condition more dire. "You are nothing to me--nothing," said Troy, heartlessly. "A ceremony before a priest doesn't make a marriage. I am not morally yours." A vehement impulse to flee from him, to run from this place, hide, and escape his words at any price, not stopping short of death itself, mastered Bathsheba now. She waited not an instant, but turned to the door and ran out.

Chapter 43

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-43

Bathsheba questioned Liddy again about Fanny. Liddy didn't know any more, but said that Maryann had heard tales. Bathsheba refused to believe what Liddy whispered to her, arguing that there was but one name on the coffin. Feeling that she must draw strength from another to see her through what lay ahead, Bathsheba went to Oak's cottage. Through the window she watched him close the book he had been reading and realized that he was about to retire. Unable to bring herself to ask him about the matter that troubled her, Bathsheba returned home. Standing near the coffin, she sobbed, "I hope, hope it is not true that there are two of you!" Finally she fetched a screwdriver and opened the coffin. "It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!" The tears came, "tears of a complicated origin." Unable to refrain from hating Fanny, Bathsheba knelt beside the coffin and prayed. When she arose, she was calmer. The slamming door of the coach-house announced Troy's arrival. He asked what had happened, but Bathsheba would not tell him. The two approached the coffin. A candle illuminated the bodies. Overcome, Troy sank to his knees, then kissed Fanny's face. Bathsheba cried out to him. He pushed her away and told her, "This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be." Turning to Fanny, he said, "In the sight of Heaven you are my very, very wife!" Bathsheba turned and ran from the house.

Intuitively, Bathsheba knew the truth and, impelled by guilt feelings caused by the initial surge of hatred and jealousy that she had felt, she showed her pity toward mother and child by placing flowers around their bodies. Troy's emotion and remorse reinforce her realization that her marriage is over. The title that Hardy gave to this chapter, "Fanny's Revenge," suggests something of the Greek tragedies, as does the dramatic revelation of truth that the chapter contains. But it is not Fanny who is vengeful -- it is fate.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/17.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_2_part_2.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 17

chapter 17

{"name": "Chapter 17", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-3-chapters-16-24", "summary": "Tess begins milking with the other milkers, including the master dairyman, Richard Crick, who introduces himself to Tess and inquires after her family. Crick knows a little about the d'Urbervilles, but Tess dismisses the ideas that she comes from an esteemed family. Later, while Tess is on a break with the other workers, Crick tells a story about an aged man named William Dewy who was chased by a bull, but played a Christmas Eve hymn for the bull on his fiddle, causing it to lay down as if it were in a Nativity scene. After Crick tells the story, a young man remarks that the story is a reminder of medieval times, when faith was a living thing. The young man is Angel Clare, with whom Tess danced years ago. Later, Tess inquires about Angel, and another milkmaid tells her that Angel is learning milking and never says much. Since he is a parson's son, he is too taken with his thoughts to notice girls. Angel's father is Reverend Clare at Emminster, and all of his sons except for Angel are clergymen.", "analysis": "In contrast to Alec d'Urberville and the immediate sense of danger that he presents to Tess, Angel Clare represents a significant sense of idealism and purity. While Alec presents Tess with a forceful sexuality upon his first entrance in the novel, Angel is in a great sense desexualized; one of the milkmaids even thinks that he does not even think of girls. As Angel's family history and reaction to Dairyman Crick's story suggest, Angel is a person with deep moral convictions, although the particular religious leanings of Angel will later be revealed. Hardy indicates that the deeply moral Angel is nevertheless a religious outsider, the only one in his family who did not enter the clergy. As an outsider in some sense, Angel Clare thus bears some similarities to the outcast Tess. The meeting of these two characters seems to be the work of fate, for they had a chance meeting in the opening chapters of the novel. This bolsters the themes of fate and inevitability that pervade Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Tess finds herself for the first time in an accommodating environment at Talbothays dairy. Dairyman Crick is cheerful and friendly toward Tess, in comparison to her manipulative parents and predatory relatives. The atmosphere is jovial and inviting, as Dairyman Crick tells absurd stories and inquires after Tess's family. Hardy constructs the dairy as an idyllic atmosphere, yet the relief that Tess finds here is certainly to be short-lived"}

The dairymaids and men had flocked down from their cottages and out of the dairy-house with the arrival of the cows from the meads; the maids walking in pattens, not on account of the weather, but to keep their shoes above the mulch of the barton. Each girl sat down on her three-legged stool, her face sideways, her right cheek resting against the cow, and looked musingly along the animal's flank at Tess as she approached. The male milkers, with hat-brims turned down, resting flat on their foreheads and gazing on the ground, did not observe her. One of these was a sturdy middle-aged man--whose long white "pinner" was somewhat finer and cleaner than the wraps of the others, and whose jacket underneath had a presentable marketing aspect--the master-dairyman, of whom she was in quest, his double character as a working milker and butter maker here during six days, and on the seventh as a man in shining broad-cloth in his family pew at church, being so marked as to have inspired a rhyme: Dairyman Dick All the week:-- On Sundays Mister Richard Crick. Seeing Tess standing at gaze he went across to her. The majority of dairymen have a cross manner at milking time, but it happened that Mr Crick was glad to get a new hand--for the days were busy ones now--and he received her warmly; inquiring for her mother and the rest of the family--(though this as a matter of form merely, for in reality he had not been aware of Mrs Durbeyfield's existence till apprised of the fact by a brief business-letter about Tess). "Oh--ay, as a lad I knowed your part o' the country very well," he said terminatively. "Though I've never been there since. And a aged woman of ninety that use to live nigh here, but is dead and gone long ago, told me that a family of some such name as yours in Blackmoor Vale came originally from these parts, and that 'twere a old ancient race that had all but perished off the earth--though the new generations didn't know it. But, Lord, I took no notice of the old woman's ramblings, not I." "Oh no--it is nothing," said Tess. Then the talk was of business only. "You can milk 'em clean, my maidy? I don't want my cows going azew at this time o' year." She reassured him on that point, and he surveyed her up and down. She had been staying indoors a good deal, and her complexion had grown delicate. "Quite sure you can stand it? 'Tis comfortable enough here for rough folk; but we don't live in a cowcumber frame." She declared that she could stand it, and her zest and willingness seemed to win him over. "Well, I suppose you'll want a dish o' tay, or victuals of some sort, hey? Not yet? Well, do as ye like about it. But faith, if 'twas I, I should be as dry as a kex wi' travelling so far." "I'll begin milking now, to get my hand in," said Tess. She drank a little milk as temporary refreshment--to the surprise--indeed, slight contempt--of Dairyman Crick, to whose mind it had apparently never occurred that milk was good as a beverage. "Oh, if ye can swaller that, be it so," he said indifferently, while holding up the pail that she sipped from. "'Tis what I hain't touched for years--not I. Rot the stuff; it would lie in my innerds like lead. You can try your hand upon she," he pursued, nodding to the nearest cow. "Not but what she do milk rather hard. We've hard ones and we've easy ones, like other folks. However, you'll find out that soon enough." When Tess had changed her bonnet for a hood, and was really on her stool under the cow, and the milk was squirting from her fists into the pail, she appeared to feel that she really had laid a new foundation for her future. The conviction bred serenity, her pulse slowed, and she was able to look about her. The milkers formed quite a little battalion of men and maids, the men operating on the hard-teated animals, the maids on the kindlier natures. It was a large dairy. There were nearly a hundred milchers under Crick's management, all told; and of the herd the master-dairyman milked six or eight with his own hands, unless away from home. These were the cows that milked hardest of all; for his journey-milkmen being more or less casually hired, he would not entrust this half-dozen to their treatment, lest, from indifference, they should not milk them fully; nor to the maids, lest they should fail in the same way for lack of finger-grip; with the result that in course of time the cows would "go azew"--that is, dry up. It was not the loss for the moment that made slack milking so serious, but that with the decline of demand there came decline, and ultimately cessation, of supply. After Tess had settled down to her cow there was for a time no talk in the barton, and not a sound interfered with the purr of the milk-jets into the numerous pails, except a momentary exclamation to one or other of the beasts requesting her to turn round or stand still. The only movements were those of the milkers' hands up and down, and the swing of the cows' tails. Thus they all worked on, encompassed by the vast flat mead which extended to either slope of the valley--a level landscape compounded of old landscapes long forgotten, and, no doubt, differing in character very greatly from the landscape they composed now. "To my thinking," said the dairyman, rising suddenly from a cow he had just finished off, snatching up his three-legged stool in one hand and the pail in the other, and moving on to the next hard-yielder in his vicinity, "to my thinking, the cows don't gie down their milk to-day as usual. Upon my life, if Winker do begin keeping back like this, she'll not be worth going under by midsummer." "'Tis because there's a new hand come among us," said Jonathan Kail. "I've noticed such things afore." "To be sure. It may be so. I didn't think o't." "I've been told that it goes up into their horns at such times," said a dairymaid. "Well, as to going up into their horns," replied Dairyman Crick dubiously, as though even witchcraft might be limited by anatomical possibilities, "I couldn't say; I certainly could not. But as nott cows will keep it back as well as the horned ones, I don't quite agree to it. Do ye know that riddle about the nott cows, Jonathan? Why do nott cows give less milk in a year than horned?" "I don't!" interposed the milkmaid, "Why do they?" "Because there bain't so many of 'em," said the dairyman. "Howsomever, these gam'sters do certainly keep back their milk to-day. Folks, we must lift up a stave or two--that's the only cure for't." Songs were often resorted to in dairies hereabout as an enticement to the cows when they showed signs of withholding their usual yield; and the band of milkers at this request burst into melody--in purely business-like tones, it is true, and with no great spontaneity; the result, according to their own belief, being a decided improvement during the song's continuance. When they had gone through fourteen or fifteen verses of a cheerful ballad about a murderer who was afraid to go to bed in the dark because he saw certain brimstone flames around him, one of the male milkers said-- "I wish singing on the stoop didn't use up so much of a man's wind! You should get your harp, sir; not but what a fiddle is best." Tess, who had given ear to this, thought the words were addressed to the dairyman, but she was wrong. A reply, in the shape of "Why?" came as it were out of the belly of a dun cow in the stalls; it had been spoken by a milker behind the animal, whom she had not hitherto perceived. "Oh yes; there's nothing like a fiddle," said the dairyman. "Though I do think that bulls are more moved by a tune than cows--at least that's my experience. Once there was an old aged man over at Mellstock--William Dewy by name--one of the family that used to do a good deal of business as tranters over there--Jonathan, do ye mind?--I knowed the man by sight as well as I know my own brother, in a manner of speaking. Well, this man was a coming home along from a wedding, where he had been playing his fiddle, one fine moonlight night, and for shortness' sake he took a cut across Forty-acres, a field lying that way, where a bull was out to grass. The bull seed William, and took after him, horns aground, begad; and though William runned his best, and hadn't MUCH drink in him (considering 'twas a wedding, and the folks well off), he found he'd never reach the fence and get over in time to save himself. Well, as a last thought, he pulled out his fiddle as he runned, and struck up a jig, turning to the bull, and backing towards the corner. The bull softened down, and stood still, looking hard at William Dewy, who fiddled on and on; till a sort of a smile stole over the bull's face. But no sooner did William stop his playing and turn to get over hedge than the bull would stop his smiling and lower his horns towards the seat of William's breeches. Well, William had to turn about and play on, willy-nilly; and 'twas only three o'clock in the world, and 'a knowed that nobody would come that way for hours, and he so leery and tired that 'a didn't know what to do. When he had scraped till about four o'clock he felt that he verily would have to give over soon, and he said to himself, 'There's only this last tune between me and eternal welfare! Heaven save me, or I'm a done man.' Well, then he called to mind how he'd seen the cattle kneel o' Christmas Eves in the dead o' night. It was not Christmas Eve then, but it came into his head to play a trick upon the bull. So he broke into the 'Tivity Hymm, just as at Christmas carol-singing; when, lo and behold, down went the bull on his bended knees, in his ignorance, just as if 'twere the true 'Tivity night and hour. As soon as his horned friend were down, William turned, clinked off like a long-dog, and jumped safe over hedge, before the praying bull had got on his feet again to take after him. William used to say that he'd seen a man look a fool a good many times, but never such a fool as that bull looked when he found his pious feelings had been played upon, and 'twas not Christmas Eve. ... Yes, William Dewy, that was the man's name; and I can tell you to a foot where's he a-lying in Mellstock Churchyard at this very moment--just between the second yew-tree and the north aisle." "It's a curious story; it carries us back to medieval times, when faith was a living thing!" The remark, singular for a dairy-yard, was murmured by the voice behind the dun cow; but as nobody understood the reference, no notice was taken, except that the narrator seemed to think it might imply scepticism as to his tale. "Well, 'tis quite true, sir, whether or no. I knowed the man well." "Oh yes; I have no doubt of it," said the person behind the dun cow. Tess's attention was thus attracted to the dairyman's interlocutor, of whom she could see but the merest patch, owing to his burying his head so persistently in the flank of the milcher. She could not understand why he should be addressed as "sir" even by the dairyman himself. But no explanation was discernible; he remained under the cow long enough to have milked three, uttering a private ejaculation now and then, as if he could not get on. "Take it gentle, sir; take it gentle," said the dairyman. "'Tis knack, not strength, that does it." "So I find," said the other, standing up at last and stretching his arms. "I think I have finished her, however, though she made my fingers ache." Tess could then see him at full length. He wore the ordinary white pinner and leather leggings of a dairy-farmer when milking, and his boots were clogged with the mulch of the yard; but this was all his local livery. Beneath it was something educated, reserved, subtle, sad, differing. But the details of his aspect were temporarily thrust aside by the discovery that he was one whom she had seen before. Such vicissitudes had Tess passed through since that time that for a moment she could not remember where she had met him; and then it flashed upon her that he was the pedestrian who had joined in the club-dance at Marlott--the passing stranger who had come she knew not whence, had danced with others but not with her, and slightingly left her, and gone on his way with his friends. The flood of memories brought back by this revival of an incident anterior to her troubles produced a momentary dismay lest, recognizing her also, he should by some means discover her story. But it passed away when she found no sign of remembrance in him. She saw by degrees that since their first and only encounter his mobile face had grown more thoughtful, and had acquired a young man's shapely moustache and beard--the latter of the palest straw colour where it began upon his cheeks, and deepening to a warm brown farther from its root. Under his linen milking-pinner he wore a dark velveteen jacket, cord breeches and gaiters, and a starched white shirt. Without the milking-gear nobody could have guessed what he was. He might with equal probability have been an eccentric landowner or a gentlemanly ploughman. That he was but a novice at dairy work she had realized in a moment, from the time he had spent upon the milking of one cow. Meanwhile many of the milkmaids had said to one another of the newcomer, "How pretty she is!" with something of real generosity and admiration, though with a half hope that the auditors would qualify the assertion--which, strictly speaking, they might have done, prettiness being an inexact definition of what struck the eye in Tess. When the milking was finished for the evening they straggled indoors, where Mrs Crick, the dairyman's wife--who was too respectable to go out milking herself, and wore a hot stuff gown in warm weather because the dairymaids wore prints--was giving an eye to the leads and things. Only two or three of the maids, Tess learnt, slept in the dairy-house besides herself, most of the helpers going to their homes. She saw nothing at supper-time of the superior milker who had commented on the story, and asked no questions about him, the remainder of the evening being occupied in arranging her place in the bed-chamber. It was a large room over the milk-house, some thirty feet long; the sleeping-cots of the other three indoor milkmaids being in the same apartment. They were blooming young women, and, except one, rather older than herself. By bedtime Tess was thoroughly tired, and fell asleep immediately. But one of the girls, who occupied an adjoining bed, was more wakeful than Tess, and would insist upon relating to the latter various particulars of the homestead into which she had just entered. The girl's whispered words mingled with the shades, and, to Tess's drowsy mind, they seemed to be generated by the darkness in which they floated. "Mr Angel Clare--he that is learning milking, and that plays the harp--never says much to us. He is a pa'son's son, and is too much taken up wi' his own thoughts to notice girls. He is the dairyman's pupil--learning farming in all its branches. He has learnt sheep-farming at another place, and he's now mastering dairy-work.... Yes, he is quite the gentleman-born. His father is the Reverent Mr Clare at Emminster--a good many miles from here." "Oh--I have heard of him," said her companion, now awake. "A very earnest clergyman, is he not?" "Yes--that he is--the earnestest man in all Wessex, they say--the last of the old Low Church sort, they tell me--for all about here be what they call High. All his sons, except our Mr Clare, be made pa'sons too." Tess had not at this hour the curiosity to ask why the present Mr Clare was not made a parson like his brethren, and gradually fell asleep again, the words of her informant coming to her along with the smell of the cheeses in the adjoining cheeseloft, and the measured dripping of the whey from the wrings downstairs.

Chapter 17

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-3-chapters-16-24

Tess begins milking with the other milkers, including the master dairyman, Richard Crick, who introduces himself to Tess and inquires after her family. Crick knows a little about the d'Urbervilles, but Tess dismisses the ideas that she comes from an esteemed family. Later, while Tess is on a break with the other workers, Crick tells a story about an aged man named William Dewy who was chased by a bull, but played a Christmas Eve hymn for the bull on his fiddle, causing it to lay down as if it were in a Nativity scene. After Crick tells the story, a young man remarks that the story is a reminder of medieval times, when faith was a living thing. The young man is Angel Clare, with whom Tess danced years ago. Later, Tess inquires about Angel, and another milkmaid tells her that Angel is learning milking and never says much. Since he is a parson's son, he is too taken with his thoughts to notice girls. Angel's father is Reverend Clare at Emminster, and all of his sons except for Angel are clergymen.

In contrast to Alec d'Urberville and the immediate sense of danger that he presents to Tess, Angel Clare represents a significant sense of idealism and purity. While Alec presents Tess with a forceful sexuality upon his first entrance in the novel, Angel is in a great sense desexualized; one of the milkmaids even thinks that he does not even think of girls. As Angel's family history and reaction to Dairyman Crick's story suggest, Angel is a person with deep moral convictions, although the particular religious leanings of Angel will later be revealed. Hardy indicates that the deeply moral Angel is nevertheless a religious outsider, the only one in his family who did not enter the clergy. As an outsider in some sense, Angel Clare thus bears some similarities to the outcast Tess. The meeting of these two characters seems to be the work of fate, for they had a chance meeting in the opening chapters of the novel. This bolsters the themes of fate and inevitability that pervade Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Tess finds herself for the first time in an accommodating environment at Talbothays dairy. Dairyman Crick is cheerful and friendly toward Tess, in comparison to her manipulative parents and predatory relatives. The atmosphere is jovial and inviting, as Dairyman Crick tells absurd stories and inquires after Tess's family. Hardy constructs the dairy as an idyllic atmosphere, yet the relief that Tess finds here is certainly to be short-lived

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/part_2_chapters_21_to_23.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_15_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 21-23

chapters 21-23

{"name": "Chapters 21-23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-2123", "summary": "The marquis prepares Julien for his role as scribe and spy. Julien will accompany the marquis to a meeting of a group of ultras, where he will take notes on the conversation, condense them with the help of the marquis, memorize the contents, and, inconspicuously dressed, start out on a mission to London. On the way to the meeting, Julien recites a page from the newspaper to the marquis to demonstrate his photographic memory. At the place of rendezvous, the room gradually fills with the plotters. Julien sharpens numerous quills waiting for further orders. The marquis introduces Julien to the conspirators, and Julien demonstrates to them his prodigious memory. The twelve conspirators would plot means of strengthening the ultras' position against the ever-increasing threat of liberalism, or, as it was termed, Jacobinism. The question is whether to ask England to intervene in order to strengthen the ultra monarchy. The marquis is of the opinion that England will help only if the French help themselves by galvanizing their ultra supporters at every level of society. He would recommend severe curtailment of the liberty of the press in an effort to control public opinion. A cardinal supports the proposal of the marquis, adding the necessity of relying on the power of the Church, whose 50,000 priests have the ear of the people. He suggests that the cabinet minister, M. de Nerval, resign since he is compromising their cause. Nerval, present among the conspirators, presents himself as favoring the ultra cause against the liberal monarchy. The discussion becomes heated and lasts until three in the morning. The minister leaves, then the Bonapartist, and the remaining conspirators conjecture that the Bonapartist might betray them in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the minister. Later, Julien and the marquis edit the notes, which Julien memorizes, and the next morning Julien departs on his mission. Stopping at an inn near Metz, Julien encounters the Italian singer Geronimo, who informs Julien that their innkeeper has detained them in order to find a spy who must be apprehended. Julien awakens to find the Jesuit leader of the Besancon Congregation searching his effects. It is Geronimo who is suspected of being the spy. The singer has been drugged, having fallen into the trap that Julien has avoided. Arriving in London, Julien finally succeeds in meeting the Duke of Wellington, to whom he recites the message in the secrecy of a shabby inn. Julien follows the duke's instructions to go to Strasbourg, then return within twelve days. Julien arrives in Strasbourg, eluding the watchful Jesuits.", "analysis": "The mission to which Stendhal has previously alluded is conveniently introduced to create suspense, of course, but also to separate the lovers in order to reverse their roles. Upon his return, Julien will take the offensive. The transition between what preceded and the spy episode was constituted by Mathilde's musings on Julien's future. Julien has definitely replaced Norbert as a son worthy of the Marquis de la Mole, and for the first time, the marquis explicitly states this preference. Freudians would see in this a disavowal by Stendhal of his own father and a legitimization of his view of himself as one of the \"happy few.\" Julien gains admittance to the inner sanctum of reactionary power, but he is still an outsider, a role to which he is condemned. He is made painfully aware of this role of outsider-inside by his isolation, obvious only to himself, before the meeting begins. His embarrassment, which he aggravates by endlessly sharpening quills, aptly characterizes Julien as a very self-conscious being. The presence of the Bishop of Agde serves to remind the reader again of the distance covered by our hero since Julien was also in the role of messenger when the bishop appeared in Verrieres. The affair of the secret note affords another insight into the manner in which Stendhal utilizes actual happenings as a basis for fiction. Although the novel is set in 1830, at the end of the autocratic reign of Charles X, this episode is based upon incidents that took place during the reign of Louis XVIII , the more liberal brother of Charles. The memory of Napoleon's One Hundred Days in 1815 and Louis' liberalism actually caused the ultras to plot with foreign powers in an effort to re-establish the reactionary spirit of the \"ancien regime.\" Stendhal's conspirators are speaking \"historically,\" without naming him, of Louis XVIII, although they are \"living\" under the reign of Louis' successor, Charles X. The \"Ordonnances de Juillet\" by which Charles X attempted to revoke the Charter embodying the principles of the Revolution of '89 and to stifle freedom of the press precipitated the July Revolution of 1830, which hailed the \"bourgeois king,\" Louis-Philippe, who re-established liberalism and reigned until 1848. This incident and others of political inspiration in the novel were added by Stendhal after the July Revolution. He could hardly have included them with impunity before that date. Stendhal has a predilection for the mystery of clandestine operations, of spy intrigue, including secret rendezvous to which only the initiated are admitted. It is at once related to his own adventures and simply an indication of the exclusiveness of the \"happy few,\" the elite of whom Stendhal counted himself as one. Although Julien has definite republican sympathies, he is in the service of legitimists. Aside from aptly describing this social pariah -- the idealist who champions the revolutionary cause but who traffics with the enemy out of necessity -- Julien's paradoxical position betrays the political ambiguities of Stendhal himself. Defender of liberalism and, at the same time, aspiring to the good old days of the monarchy, Stendhal nonetheless abhorred the idea of a democracy. Stendhal's apology for inclusion of the political discussion should not be taken too seriously by the reader. Furthermore, the political and social substrata of the novel are the context in which Julien's individual adventure is realized. This is the most illustrious role that Julien will play as an individual subservient to others. His next brief \"position\" will seem to grant him a momentary social independence. The power hierarchy, so ubiquitous in the novel, is apparent even in this assemblage of the summit. Some are deferential to others, some can be outspoken and ironic, others must be silent. It should be noted that Stendhal limits the narration strictly to Julien's perception and comprehension of the mysterious proceedings. The reader has the impression that he, too, is an outsider privileged to eavesdrop. We are rarely told any more than Julien knows. When Julien is excluded briefly during the course of the meeting, the reader is also excluded. And we take our cues from Julien, who takes his from interpreting the facial expressions and tone of voice of the Marquis de la Mole. Three minor characters have reappeared in these chapters: Castanede, Agde, Geronimo. Their reappearance reminds us of Julien's progress: He is now the very successful protege of the Marquis de la Mole, and he fulfills his mission without a hitch."}

CHAPTER LI THE SECRET NOTE I have seen everything I relate, and if I may have made a mistake when I saw it, I am certainly not deceiving you in telling you of it. _Letter to the author_. The marquis summoned him; M. de la Mole looked rejuvenated, his eye was brilliant. "Let us discuss your memory a little," he said to Julien, "it is said to be prodigious. Could you learn four pages by heart and go and say them at London, but without altering a single word?" The marquis was irritably fingering, the day's _Quotidienne_, and was trying in vain to hide an extreme seriousness which Julien had never noticed in him before, even when discussing the Frilair lawsuit. Julien had already learned sufficient manners to appreciate that he ought to appear completely taken in by the lightness of tone which was being manifested. "This number of the _Quotidienne_ is not very amusing possibly, but if M. the marquis will allow me, I shall do myself the honour to-morrow morning of reciting it to him from beginning to end." "What, even the advertisements?" "Quite accurately and without leaving out a word." "You give me your word?" replied the marquis with sudden gravity. "Yes, monsieur; the only thing which could upset my memory is the fear of breaking my promise." "The fact is, I forgot to put this question to you yesterday: I am not going to ask for your oath never to repeat what you are going to hear. I know you too well to insult you like that. I have answered for you. I am going to take you into a salon where a dozen persons will he assembled. You will make a note of what each one says. "Do not be uneasy. It will not be a confused conversation by any means. Each one will speak in his turn, though not necessarily in an orderly manner," added the marquis falling back into that light, subtle manner which was so natural to him. "While we are talking, you will write out twenty pages and will come back here with me, and we will get those twenty pages down to four, and those are the four pages you will recite to me to-morrow morning instead of the four pages of the _Quotidienne_. You will leave immediately afterwards. You must post about like a young man travelling on pleasure. Your aim will be to avoid attracting attention. You will arrive at the house of a great personage. You will there need more skill. Your business will then be to take in all his entourage, for among his secretaries and his servants are some people who have sold themselves to our enemies, and who spy on our travelling agents in order to intercept them. "You will have an insignificant letter of introduction. At the moment his Excellency looks at you, you will take out this watch of mine, which I will lend you for the journey. Wear it now, it will be so much done; at any rate give me yours. "The duke himself will be good enough to write at your dictation the four pages you have learnt by heart. "Having done this, but not earlier, mind you, you can, if his Excellency questions you, tell him about the meeting at which you are now going to be present. "You will be prevented from boring yourself on the journey between Paris and the minister's residence by the thought that there are people who would like nothing better than to fire a shot at M. the abbe Sorel. In that case that gentleman's mission will be finished, and I see a great delay, for how are we to know of your death, my dear friend? Even your zeal cannot go to the length of informing us of it. "Run straight away and buy a complete suit," went on the marquis seriously. "Dress in the fashion of two years ago. To-night you must look somewhat badly groomed. When you travel, on the other hand, you will be as usual. Does this surprise you? Does your suspiciousness guess the secret? Yes, my friend, one of the venerable personages you are going to hear deliver his opinion, is perfectly capable of giving information as the result of which you stand a very good chance of being given at least opium some fine evening in some good inn where you will have asked for supper." "It is better," said Julien, "to do an extra thirty leagues and not take the direct road. It is a case of Rome, I suppose...." The marquis assumed an expression of extreme haughtiness and dissatisfaction which Julien had never seen him wear since Bray-le-Haut. "That is what you will know, monsieur, when I think it proper to tell you. I do not like questions." "That was not one," answered Julien eagerly. "I swear, monsieur, I was thinking quite aloud. My mind was trying to find out the safest route." "Yes, it seems your mind was a very long way off. Remember that an emissary, and particularly one of your age should not appear to be a man who forces confidences." Julien was very mortified; he was in the wrong. His vanity tried to find an excuse and did not find one. "You understand," added monsieur de la Mole, "that one always falls back on one's heart when one has committed some mistake." An hour afterwards Julien was in the marquis's ante-chamber. He looked quite like a servant with his old clothes, a tie of a dubious white, and a certain touch of the usher in his whole appearance. The marquis burst out laughing as he saw him, and it was only then that Julien's justification was complete. "If this young man betrays me," said M. de la Mole to himself, "whom is one to trust? And yet, when one acts, one must trust someone. My son and his brilliant friends of the same calibre have as much courage and loyalty as a hundred thousand men. If it were necessary to fight, they would die on the steps of the throne. They know everything--except what one needs in emergency. Devil take me if I can find a single one among them who can learn four pages by heart and do a hundred leagues without being tracked down. Norbert would know how to sell his life as dearly as his grandfathers did. But any conscript could do as much." The marquis fell into a profound reverie. "As for selling one's life too," he said with a sigh, "perhaps this Sorel would manage it quite as well as he could. "Let us get into the carriage," said the marquis as though to chase away an unwanted idea. "Monsieur," said Julien, "while they were getting this suit ready for me, I learnt the first page of to-days _Quotidienne_ by heart." The marquis took the paper. Julien recited it without making a single mistake. "Good," said the marquis, who this night felt very diplomatic. "During the time he takes over this our young man will not notice the streets through which we are passing." They arrived in a big salon that looked melancholy enough and was partly upholstered in green velvet. In the middle of the room a scowling lackey had just placed a big dining-table which he subsequently changed into a writing-table by means of an immense green inkstained tablecloth which had been plundered from some minister. The master of the house was an enormous man whose name was not pronounced. Julien thought he had the appearance and eloquence of a man who ruminated. At a sign from the marquis, Julien had remained at the lower end of the table. In order to keep himself in countenance, he began to cut quills. He counted out of the corner of his eye seven visitors, but Julien could only see their backs. Two seemed to him to be speaking to M. de la Mole on a footing of equality, the others seemed more or less respectful. A new person entered without being announced. "This is strange," thought Julien. "People are not announced in this salon. Is this precaution taken in my honour?" Everybody got up to welcome the new arrival. He wore the same extremely distinguished decoration as three of the other persons who were in the salon. They talked fairly low. In endeavouring to form an opinion of the new comer, Julien was reduced to seeing what he could learn from his features and his appearance. He was short and thick-set. He had a high colour and a brilliant eye and an expression that looked like a malignant boar, and nothing else. Julien's attention was partly distracted by the almost immediate arrival of a very different kind of person. It was a tall very thin man who wore three or four waistcoats. His eye was caressing, his demeanour polite. "He looks exactly like the old bishop of Besancon," thought Julien. This man evidently belonged to the church, was apparently not more than fifty to fifty-five years of age, and no one could have looked more paternal than he did. The young bishop of Agde appeared. He looked very astonished when, in making a scrutiny of those present, his gaze fell upon Julien. He had not spoken to him since the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. His look of surprise embarrassed and irritated Julien. "What!" he said to himself, "will knowing a man always turn out unfortunate for me? I don't feel the least bit intimidated by all those great lords whom I have never seen, but the look of that young bishop freezes me. I must admit that I am a very strange and very unhappy person." An extremely swarthy little man entered noisily soon afterwards and started talking as soon as he reached the door. He had a yellow complexion and looked a little mad. As soon as this ruthless talker arrived, the others formed themselves into knots with the apparent object of avoiding the bother of listening to him. As they went away from the mantelpiece they came near the lower end of the table where Julien was placed. His countenance became more and more embarrassed, for whatever efforts he made, he could not avoid hearing, and in spite of all his lack of experience he appreciated all the moment of the things which they were discussing with such complete frankness, and the importance which the high personages whom he apparently had under his observation must attach to their being kept secret. Julien had already cut twenty quills as slowly as possible; this distraction would shortly be no longer available. He looked in vain at M. de la Mole's eyes for an order; the marquis had forgotten him. "What I am doing is ridiculous," he said to himself as he cut his quills, "but persons with so mediocre an appearance and who are handling such great interests either for themselves or for others must be extremely liable to take offence. My unfortunate look has a certain questioning and scarcely respectful expression, which will doubtless irritate them. But if I palpably lower my eyes I shall look as if I were picking up every word they said." His embarrassment was extreme, he was listening to strange things. CHAPTER LII THE DISCUSSION The republic:--For one man to day who will sacrifice everything for the public welfare, there are thousands and millions who think of nothing except their enjoyments and their vanity. One is requested in Paris by reason of the qualities not of one's self but of one's carriage. --NAPOLEON, Memorial. The footman rushed in saying "Monsieur the duke de ----" "Hold your tongue, you are just a fool," said the duke as he entered. He spoke these words so well, and with so much majesty, that Julien could not help thinking this great person's accomplishments were limited to the science of snubbing a lackey. Julien raised his eyes and immediately lowered them. He had so fully appreciated the significance of the new arrival that he feared that his look might be an indiscretion. The duke was a man of fifty dressed like a dandy and with a jerky walk. He had a narrow head with a large nose and a face that jutted forward; it would have been difficult to have looked at the same time more insignificant. His arrival was the signal for the opening of the meeting. Julien was sharply interrupted in his physiognomical observations by de la Mole's voice. "I present to you M. the abbe Sorel," said the Marquis. "He is gifted with an astonishing memory; it is scarcely an hour ago since I spoke to him of the mission by which he might be honoured, and he has learned the first page of the _Quotidienne_ by heart in order to give proof of his memory." "Ah! foreign news of that poor N--" said the master of the house. He took up the paper eagerly and looked at Julien in a manner rendered humorous by its own self-importance. "Speak, monsieur," he said to him. The silence was profound, all eyes were fixed on Julien. He recited so well that the duke said at the end of twenty lines, "That is enough." The little man who looked like a boar sat down. He was the president, for he had scarcely taken his place before he showed Julien a card-table and signed to him to bring it near him. Julien established himself at it with writing materials. He counted twelve persons seated round the green table cloth. "M. Sorel," said the Duke, "retire into next room, you will be called." The master of the house began to look very anxious. "The shutters are not shut," he said to his neighbour in a semi-whisper. "It is no good looking out of the window," he stupidly cried to Julien--"so here I am more or less mixed up in a conspiracy," thought the latter. "Fortunately it is not one of those which lead to the Place-de-Greve. Even though there were danger, I owe this and even more to the marquis, and should be glad to be given the chance of making up for all the sorrow which my madness may one day occasion him." While thinking of his own madness and his own unhappiness he regarded the place where he was, in such a way as to imprint it upon his memory for ever. He then remembered for the first time that he had never heard the lackey tell the name of the street, and that the marquis had taken a fiacre which he never did in the ordinary way. Julien was left to his own reflections for a long time. He was in a salon upholstered in red velvet with large pieces of gold lace. A large ivory crucifix was on the console-table and a gilt-edged, magnificently bound copy of M. de Maistre's book _The Pope_ was on the mantelpiece. Julien opened it so as not to appear to be eavesdropping. From time to time they talked loudly in the next room. At last the door was opened and he was called in. "Remember, gentlemen," the president was saying "that from this moment we are talking in the presence of the duke of ----. This gentleman," he said, pointing to Julien, "is a young acolyte devoted to our sacred cause who by the aid of his marvellous memory will repeat quite easily our very slightest words." "It is your turn to speak, Monsieur," he said pointing to the paternal looking personage who wore three or four waistcoats. Julien thought it would have been more natural to have called him the gentleman in the waistcoats. He took some paper and wrote a great deal. (At this juncture the author would have liked to have put a page of dots. "That," said his publisher, "would be clumsy and in the case of so light a work clumsiness is death." "Politics," replies the author, "is a stone tied round the neck of literature which submerges it in less than six months. Politics in the midst of imaginative matter is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert. The noise is racking without being energetic. It does not harmonise with the sound of any instrument. These politics will give mortal offence to one half of the readers and will bore the other half, who will have already read the ideas in question as set out in the morning paper in its own drastic manner." "If your characters don't talk politics," replied the publisher, "they cease to be Frenchmen of 1830, and your book is no longer a mirror as you claim?") Julien's record ran to twenty-six pages. Here is a very diluted extract, for it has been necessary to adopt the invariable practice of suppressing those ludicrous passages, whose violence would have seemed either offensive or intolerable (see the _Gazette des Tribunaux_). The man with the waistcoats and the paternal expression (he was perhaps a bishop) often smiled and then his eyes, which were surrounded with a floating forest of eyebrows, assumed a singular brilliance and an unusually decided expression. This personage whom they made speak first before the duke ("but what duke is it?" thought Julien to himself) with the apparent object of expounding various points of view and fulfilling the functions of an advocate-general, appeared to Julien to fall into the uncertainty and lack of definiteness with which those officials are so often taxed. During the course of the discussion the duke went so far as to reproach him on this score. After several sentences of morality and indulgent philosophy the man in the waistcoats said, "Noble England, under the guiding hand of a great man, the immortal Pitt, has spent forty milliards of francs in opposing the revolution. If this meeting will allow me to treat so melancholy a subject with some frankness, England fails to realise sufficiently that in dealing with a man like Buonaparte, especially when they have nothing to oppose him with, except a bundle of good intentions there is nothing decisive except personal methods." "Ah! praising assassination again!" said the master of the house anxiously. "Spare us your sentimental sermons," cried the president angrily. His boarlike eye shone with a savage brilliance. "Go on," he said to the man with the waistcoats. The cheeks and the forehead of the president became purple. "Noble England," replied the advocate-general, "is crushed to-day: for each Englishman before paying for his own bread is obliged to pay the interest on forty milliards of francs which were used against the Jacobins. She has no more Pitt." "She has the Duke of Wellington," said a military personage looking very important. "Please, gentlemen, silence," exclaimed the president. "If we are still going to dispute, there was no point in having M. Sorel in." "We know that monsieur has many ideas," said the duke irritably, looking at the interrupter who was an old Napoleonic general. Julien saw that these words contained some personal and very offensive allusion. Everybody smiled, the turncoat general appeared beside himself with rage. "There is no longer a Pitt, gentlemen," went on the speaker with all the despondency of a man who has given up all hope of bringing his listeners to reason. "If there were a new Pitt in England, you would not dupe a nation twice over by the same means." "That's why a victorious general, a Buonaparte, will be henceforward impossible in France," exclaimed the military interrupter. On this occasion neither the president nor the duke ventured to get angry, though Julien thought he read in their eyes that they would very much like to have done so. They lowered their eyes, and the duke contented himself with sighing in quite an audible manner. But the speaker was put upon his mettle. "My audience is eager for me to finish," he said vigorously, completely discarding that smiling politeness and that balanced diction that Julien thought had expressed his character so well. "It is eager for me to finish, it is not grateful to me for the efforts I am making to offend nobody's ears, however long they may be. Well, gentlemen, I will be brief. "I will tell you in quite common words: England has not got a sou with which to help the good cause. If Pitt himself were to come back he would never succeed with all his genius in duping the small English landowners, for they know that the short Waterloo campaign alone cost them a milliard of francs. As you like clear phrases," continued the speaker, becoming more and more animated, "I will say this to you: Help yourselves, for England has not got a guinea left to help you with, and when England does not pay, Austria, Russia and Prussia--who will only have courage but have no money--cannot launch more than one or two campaigns against France. "One may hope that the young soldiers who will be recruited by the Jacobins will be beaten in the first campaign, and possibly in the second; but, even though I seem a revolutionary in your prejudiced eyes, in the third campaign--in the third campaign I say--you will have the soldiers of 1794 who were no longer the soldiers enlisted in 1792." At this point interruption broke out simultaneously from three or four quarters. "Monsieur," said the president to Julien, "Go and make a precis in the next room of the beginning of the report which you have written out." Julien went out to his great regret. The speaker was just dealing with the question of probabilities which formed the usual subject for his meditations. "They are frightened of my making fun of them," he thought. When he was called back, M. de la Mole was saying with a seriousness which seemed quite humorous to Julien who knew him so well, "Yes, gentlemen, one finds the phrase, 'is it god, table or tub?' especially applicable to this unhappy people. '_It is god_' exclaims the writer of fables. It is to you, gentlemen, that this noble and profound phrase seems to apply. Act on your own initiative, and noble France will appear again, almost such as our ancestors made her, and as our own eyes have seen her before the death of Louis XVI. "England execrates disgraceful Jacobinism as much as we do, or at any rate her noble lords do. Without English gold, Austria and Prussia would only be able to give battle two or three times. Would that be sufficient to ensure a successful occupation like the one which M. de Richelieu so foolishly failed to exploit in 1817? I do not think so." At this point there was an interruption which was stifled by the hushes of the whole room. It came again from the old Imperial general who wanted the blue ribbon and wished to figure among the authors of the secret note. "I do not think so," replied M. de la Mole, after the uproar had subsided. He laid stress on the "I" with an insolence which charmed Julien. "That's a pretty piece of acting," he said to himself, as he made his pen almost keep pace with the marquis' words. M. de la Mole annihilated the twenty campaigns of the turncoat with a well turned phrase. "It is not only on foreign powers," continued the marquis in a more even tone, "on whom we shall be able to rely for a new military occupation. All those young men who write inflammatory articles in the _Globe_ will provide you with three or four thousand young captains among whom you may find men with the genius, but not the good intentions of a Kleber, a Hoche, a Jourdan, a Pichegru." "We did not know how to glorify him," said the president. "He should have been immortalized." "Finally, it is necessary for France to have two parties," went on M. de la Mole; "but two parties not merely in name, but with clear-cut lines of cleavage. Let us realise what has got to be crushed. On the one hand the journalists and the electors, in a word, public opinion; youth and all that admire it. While it is stupefying itself with the noise of its own vain words, we have certain advantages of administrating the expenditure of the budget." At this point there was another interruption. "As for you, monsieur," said M. de la Mole to the interrupter, with an admirable haughtiness and ease of manner, "you do not spend, if the words chokes you, but you devour the forty thousand francs put down to you in the State budget, and the eighty thousand which you receive from the civil list." "Well, monsieur, since you force me to it, I will be bold enough to take you for an example. Like your noble ancestors, who followed Saint Louis to the crusade, you ought in return for those hundred and twenty thousand francs to show us at any rate a regiment; a company, why, what am I saying? say half a company, even if it only had fifty men, ready to fight and devoted to the good cause to the point of risking their lives in its service. You have nothing but lackeys, who in the event of a rebellion would frighten you yourselves." "Throne, Church, Nobility are liable to perish to-morrow, gentlemen, so long as you refrain from creating in each department a force of five hundred devoted men, devoted I mean, not only with all the French courage, but with all the Spanish constancy. "Half of this force ought to be composed of our children, our nephews, of real gentlemen, in fact. Each of them will have beside him not a little talkative bourgeois ready to hoist the tricolor cockade, if 1815 turns up again, but a good, frank and simple peasant like Cathelineau. Our gentleman will have educated him, it will be his own foster brother if it is possible. Let each of us sacrifice the fifth of his income in order to form this little devoted force of five hundred men in each department. Then you will be able to reckon on a foreign occupation. The foreign soldier will never penetrate even as far as Dijon if he is not certain of finding five hundred friendly soldiers in each department. "The foreign kings will only listen to you when you are in a position to announce to them that you have twenty thousand gentlemen ready to take up arms in order to open to them the gates of France. The service is troublesome, you say. Gentlemen, it is the only way of saving our lives. There is war to the death between the liberty of the press and our existence as gentlemen. Become manufacturers, become peasants, or take up your guns. Be timid if you like, but do not be stupid. Open your eyes. "'_Form your battalions_,' I would say to you in the words of the Jacobin songs. Some noble Gustavus Adolphus will then be found who, touched by the imminent peril of the monarchical principle, will make a dash three hundred leagues from his own country, and will do for you what Gustavus did for the Protestant princes. Do you want to go on talking without acting? In fifty years' time there will be only presidents or republics in Europe and not one king, and with those three letters R. O. I. you will see the last of the priests and the gentlemen. I can see nothing but candidates paying court to squalid majorities. "It is no use your saying that at the present time France has not a single accredited general who is universally known and loved, that the army is only known and organised in the interests of the throne and the church, and that it has been deprived of all its old troopers, while each of the Prussian and Austrian regiments count fifty non-commissioned officers who have seen fire. "Two hundred thousand young men of the middle classes are spoiling for war--" "A truce to disagreeable truths," said a grave personage in a pompous tone. He was apparently a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, for M. de la Mole smiled pleasantly, instead of getting angry, a circumstance which greatly impressed Julien. "A truce to unpleasant truths, let us resume, gentlemen. The man who needs to have a gangrened leg cut off would be ill advised to say to his surgeon, 'this disease is very healthy.' If I may use the metaphor, gentlemen, the noble duke of ---- is our surgeon." "So the great words have at last been uttered," thought Julien. "It is towards the ---- that I shall gallop to-night." CHAPTER LIII THE CLERGY, THE FORESTS, LIBERTY The first law of every being, is to preserve itself and live. You sow hemlock, and expect to see ears of corn ripen.--_Machiavelli_. The great personage continued. One could see that he knew his subject. He proceeded to expound the following great truths with a soft and tempered eloquence with which Julien was inordinately delighted:-- "1. England has not a guinea to help us with; economy and Hume are the fashion there. Even the saints will not give us any money, and M. Brougham will make fun of us. "2. The impossibility of getting the kings of Europe to embark on more than two campaigns without English gold; two campaigns will not be enough to dispose of the middle classes. "3. The necessity of forming an armed party in France. Without this, the monarchical principle in Europe will not risk even two campaigns. "The fourth point which I venture to suggest to you, as self-evident, is this: "The impossibility of forming an armed party in France without the clergy. I am bold enough to tell you this because I will prove it to you, gentlemen. You must make every sacrifice for the clergy. "Firstly, because as it is occupied with its mission by day and by night, and guided by highly capable men established far from these storms at three hundred leagues from your frontiers----" "Ah, Rome, Rome!" exclaimed the master of the house. "Yes, monsieur, Rome," replied the Cardinal haughtily. "Whatever more or less ingenious jokes may have been the fashion when you were young, I have no hesitation in saying that in 1830 it is only the clergy, under the guidance of Rome, who has the ear of the lower classes. "Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day appointed by their chiefs, and the people--who after all provide soldiers--will be more touched by the voices of its priests than by all the versifying in the whole world." (This personality provoked some murmurs.) "The clergy has a genius superior to yours," went on the cardinal raising his voice. "All the progress that has been made towards this essential point of having an armed party in France has been made by us." At this juncture facts were introduced. "Who used eighty thousand rifles in Vendee?" etc., etc. "So long as the clergy is without its forests it is helpless. At the first war the minister of finance will write to his agents that there is no money to be had except for the cure. At bottom France does not believe, and she loves war. Whoever gives her war will be doubly popular, for making war is, to use a vulgar phrase, the same as starving the Jesuits; making war means delivering those monsters of pride--the men of France--from the menace of foreign intervention." The cardinal had a favourable hearing. "M. de Nerval," he said, "will have to leave the ministry, his name irritates and to no purpose." At these words everybody got up and talked at the same time. "I will be sent away again," thought Julien, but the sapient president himself had forgotten both the presence and existence of Julien. All eyes were turned upon a man whom Julien recognised. It was M. de Nerval, the prime minister, whom he had seen at M. the duc de Retz's ball. The disorder was at its height, as the papers say when they talk of the Chamber. At the end of a long quarter of an hour a little quiet was established. Then M. de Nerval got up and said in an apostolic tone and a singular voice: "I will not go so far as to say that I do not set great store on being a minister. "It has been demonstrated to me, gentlemen, that my name will double the forces of the Jacobins by making many moderates divide against us. I should therefore be willing to retire; but the ways of the Lord are only visible to a small number; but," he added, looking fixedly at the cardinal, "I have a mission. Heaven has said: 'You will either loose your head on the scaffold or you will re-establish the monarchy of France and reduce the Chambers to the condition of the parliament of Louis XV.,' and that, gentlemen, I shall do." He finished his speech, sat down, and there was a long silence. "What a good actor," thought Julien. He made his usual mistake of ascribing too much intelligence to the people. Excited by the debates of so lively an evening, and above all by the sincerity of the discussion, M. de Nerval did at this moment believe in his mission. This man had great courage, but at the same time no sense. During the silence that followed the impressive words, "I shall do it," midnight struck. Julien thought that the striking of the clock had in it a certain element of funereal majesty. He felt moved. The discussion was soon resumed with increasing energy, and above all with an incredible naivety. "These people will have me poisoned," thought Julien at times. "How can they say such things before a plebian." They were still talking when two o'clock struck. The master of the house had been sleeping for some time. M. de la Mole was obliged to ring for new candles. M. de Nerval, the minister, had left at the quarter to two, but not without having repeatedly studied Julien's face in a mirror which was at the minister's side. His departure had seemed to put everybody at their ease. While they were bringing new candles, the man in the waistcoats, whispered to his neighbour: "God knows what that man will say to the king. He may throw ridicule upon us and spoil our future." "One must own that he must possess an unusual self-assurance, not to say impudence, to put in an appearance here There were signs of it before he became a minister; but a portfolio changes everything and swamps all a man's interests; he must have felt its effect." The minister had scarcely left before the general of Buonaparte closed his eyes. He now talked of his health and his wounds, consulted his watch, and went away. "I will wager," said the man in the waistcoats, "that the general is running after the minister; he will apologise for having been here and pretend that he is our leader." "Let us now deliberate, gentlemen," said the president, after the sleepy servants had finished bringing and lighting new candles. "Let us leave off trying to persuade each other. Let us think of the contents of the note which will be read by our friends outside in forty-eight hours from now. We have heard ministers spoken of. Now that M. de Nerval has left us, we are at liberty to say 'what we do care for ministers.'" The cardinal gave a subtle smile of approval. "Nothing is easier it seems to me than summing up our position," said the young bishop of Agde, with the restrained concentrated fire of the most exalted fanaticism. He had kept silent up to this time; his eye, which Julien had noticed as being soft and calm at the beginning, had become fiery during the first hour of the discussion. His soul was now bubbling over like lava from Vesuvius. "England only made one mistake from 1806 to 1814," he said, "and that was in not taking direct and personal measures against Napoleon. As soon as that man had made dukes and chamberlains, as soon as he had re-established the throne, the mission that God had entrusted to him was finished. The only thing to do with him was to sacrifice him. The scriptures teach us in more than one place how to make an end of tyrants" (at this point there were several Latin quotations). "To-day, gentlemen, it is not a man who has to be sacrificed, it is Paris. What is the use of arming your five hundred men in each department, a hazardous and interminable enterprise? What is the good of involving France in a matter which is personal to Paris? Paris alone has done the evil, with its journals and it salons. Let the new Babylon perish. "We must bring to an end the conflict between the church and Paris. Such a catastrophe would even be in the worldly interests of the throne. Why did not Paris dare to whisper a word under Buonaparte? Ask the cannon of Saint-Roch?" Julien did not leave with M. de la Mole before three o'clock in the morning. The marquis seemed tired and ashamed. For the first time in his life in conversation with Julien, his tone was plaintive. He asked him for his word never to reveal the excesses of zeal, that was his expression, of which chance had just made him a witness. "Only mention it to our foreign friend, if he seriously insists on knowing what our young madmen are like. What does it matter to them if a state is overthrown, they will become cardinals and will take refuge in Rome. As for us, we shall be massacred by the peasants in our chateaus." The secret note into which the marquis condensed Julien's full report of twenty-six pages was not ready before a quarter to five. "I am dead tired," said the marquis, "as is quite obvious from the lack of clearness at the end of this note; I am more dissatisfied with it than with anything I ever did in my whole life. Look here, my friend," he added, "go and rest for some hours, and as I am frightened you might be kidnapped, I shall lock you up in your room." The marquis took Julien on the following day to a lonely chateau at a good distance from Paris. There were strange guests there whom Julien thought were priests. He was given a passport which was made out in a fictitious name, but indicated the real destination of his journey, which he had always pretended not to know. He got into a carriage alone. The marquis had no anxiety on the score of his memory. Julien had recited the secret note to him several times but he was very apprehensive of his being intercepted. "Above all, mind you look like a coxcomb who is simply travelling to kill time," he said affectionately to him when he was leaving the salon. "Perhaps there was more than one treacherous brother in this evening's meeting." The journey was quick and very melancholy. Julien had scarcely got out of the marquis's sight before he forgot his secret note and his mission, and only thought about Mathilde's disdain. At a village some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came and told him that there were no horses. It was ten o'clock in the evening. Julien was very annoyed and asked for supper. He walked in front of the door and gradually without being noticed passed into the stable-yard. He did not see any horses there. "That man looked strange though," thought Julien to himself. "He was scrutinizing me with his brutal eyes." As one sees he was beginning to be slightly sceptical of all he heard. He thought of escaping after supper, and in order to learn at any rate something about the surrounding country, he left his room to go and warm himself at the kitchen fire. He was overjoyed to find there the celebrated singer, signor Geronimo. The Neopolitan was ensconced in an armchair which he had had brought near the fire. He was groaning aloud, and was speaking more to himself than to the twenty dumbfounded German peasants who surrounded him. "Those people will be my ruin," he cried to Julien, "I have promised to sing to-morrow at Mayence. Seven sovereign princes have gone there to hear me. Let us go and take the air," he added, meaningly. When he had gone a hundred yards down the road, and it was impossible to be overheard, he said to Julien: "Do you know the real truth, the postmaster is a scoundrel. When I went out for a walk I gave twenty sous to a little ragamuffin who told me everything. There are twelve horses in the stable at the other end of the village. They want to stop some courier." "Really," said Julien innocently. Discovering the fraud was not enough; the thing was to get away, but Geronimo and his friends could not succeed in doing this. "Let us wait for daybreak," said the singer at last, "they are mistrustful of us. It is perhaps you or me whom they suspect. We will order a good breakfast to-morrow morning, we will go for a walk while they are getting it ready, we will then escape, we will hire horses, and gain the next station." "And how about your luggage?" said Julien, who thought perhaps Geronimo himself might have been sent to intercept him. They had to have supper and go to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep when he was woken up with a start by the voices of two persons who were speaking in his room with utmost freedom. He recognised the postmaster armed with a dark lantern. The light was turned on the carriage-seat which Julien had had taken up into his room. Beside the postmaster was a man who was calmly searching the open seat. Julien could see nothing except the sleeves of his coat which were black and very tight. "It's a cassock," he said to himself and he softly seized the little pistol which he had placed under his pillow. "Don't be frightened of his waking up, cure," said the postmaster, "the wine that has been served him was the stuff prepared by yourself." "I can't find any trace of papers," answered the cure. "A lot of linen and essences, pommades, and vanities. It's a young man of the world on pleasure bent. The other one who effects an Italian accent is more likely to be the emissary." The men approached Julien to search the pockets of his travelling coat. He felt very tempted to kill them for thieves. Nothing could be safer in its consequences. He was very desirous of doing so.... "I should only be a fool," he said to himself, "I should compromise my mission." "He is not a diplomatist," said the priest after searching his coat. He went away and did well to do so. "It will be a bad business for him," Julien was saying to himself, "if he touches me in my bed. He may have quite well come to stab me, and I won't put up with that." The cure turned his head, Julien half opened his eyes. He was inordinately astonished, he was the abbe Castanede. As a matter of fact, although these two persons had made a point of talking in a fairly low voice, he had thought from the first that he recognised one of the voices. Julien was seized with an inordinate desire to purge the earth of one of its most cowardly villains; "But my mission," he said to himself. The cure and his acolyte went out. A quarter of an hour afterwards Julien pretended to have just woken up. He called out and woke up the whole house. "I am poisoned," he exclaimed, "I am suffering horribly!" He wanted an excuse to go to Geronimo's help. He found him half suffocated by the laudanum that had been contained in the wine. Julien had been apprehensive of some trick of this character and had supped on some chocolate which he had brought from Paris. He could not wake Geronimo up sufficiently to induce him to leave. "If they were to give me the whole kingdom of Naples," said the singer, "I would not now give up the pleasure of sleeping." "But the seven sovereign princes?" "Let them wait." Julien left alone, and arrived at the house of the great personage without other incident. He wasted a whole morning in vainly soliciting an audience. Fortunately about four o'clock the duke wanted to take the air. Julien saw him go out on foot and he did not hesitate to ask him for alms. When at two yards' distance from the great personage he pulled out the Marquis de la Mole's watch and exhibited it ostentatiously. "_Follow me at a distance_," said the man without looking at him. At a quarter of a league's distance the duke suddenly entered a little _coffee-house_. It was in a room of this low class inn that Julien had the honour of reciting his four pages to the duke. When he had finished he was told to "_start again and go more slowly_." The prince took notes. "Reach the next posting station on foot. Leave your luggage and your carriage here. Get to Strasbourg as best you can and at half-past twelve on the twenty-second of the month (it was at present the tenth) come to this same coffee-house. Do not leave for half-an-hour. Silence!" These were the only words which Julien heard. They sufficed to inspire him with the highest admiration. "That is the way," he thought, "that real business is done; what would this great statesman say if he were to listen to the impassioned ranters heard three days ago?" Julien took two days to reach Strasbourg. He thought he would have nothing to do there. He made a great detour. "If that devil of an abbe Castanede has recognised me he is not the kind of man to loose track of me easily.... And how he would revel in making a fool of me, and causing my mission to fail." Fortunately the abbe Castanede, who was chief of the congregational police on all the northern frontier had not recognised him. And the Strasbourg Jesuits, although very zealous, never gave a thought to observing Julien, who with his cross and his blue tail-coat looked like a young military man, very much engrossed in his own personal appearance.

Chapters 21-23

https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-2123

The marquis prepares Julien for his role as scribe and spy. Julien will accompany the marquis to a meeting of a group of ultras, where he will take notes on the conversation, condense them with the help of the marquis, memorize the contents, and, inconspicuously dressed, start out on a mission to London. On the way to the meeting, Julien recites a page from the newspaper to the marquis to demonstrate his photographic memory. At the place of rendezvous, the room gradually fills with the plotters. Julien sharpens numerous quills waiting for further orders. The marquis introduces Julien to the conspirators, and Julien demonstrates to them his prodigious memory. The twelve conspirators would plot means of strengthening the ultras' position against the ever-increasing threat of liberalism, or, as it was termed, Jacobinism. The question is whether to ask England to intervene in order to strengthen the ultra monarchy. The marquis is of the opinion that England will help only if the French help themselves by galvanizing their ultra supporters at every level of society. He would recommend severe curtailment of the liberty of the press in an effort to control public opinion. A cardinal supports the proposal of the marquis, adding the necessity of relying on the power of the Church, whose 50,000 priests have the ear of the people. He suggests that the cabinet minister, M. de Nerval, resign since he is compromising their cause. Nerval, present among the conspirators, presents himself as favoring the ultra cause against the liberal monarchy. The discussion becomes heated and lasts until three in the morning. The minister leaves, then the Bonapartist, and the remaining conspirators conjecture that the Bonapartist might betray them in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the minister. Later, Julien and the marquis edit the notes, which Julien memorizes, and the next morning Julien departs on his mission. Stopping at an inn near Metz, Julien encounters the Italian singer Geronimo, who informs Julien that their innkeeper has detained them in order to find a spy who must be apprehended. Julien awakens to find the Jesuit leader of the Besancon Congregation searching his effects. It is Geronimo who is suspected of being the spy. The singer has been drugged, having fallen into the trap that Julien has avoided. Arriving in London, Julien finally succeeds in meeting the Duke of Wellington, to whom he recites the message in the secrecy of a shabby inn. Julien follows the duke's instructions to go to Strasbourg, then return within twelve days. Julien arrives in Strasbourg, eluding the watchful Jesuits.

The mission to which Stendhal has previously alluded is conveniently introduced to create suspense, of course, but also to separate the lovers in order to reverse their roles. Upon his return, Julien will take the offensive. The transition between what preceded and the spy episode was constituted by Mathilde's musings on Julien's future. Julien has definitely replaced Norbert as a son worthy of the Marquis de la Mole, and for the first time, the marquis explicitly states this preference. Freudians would see in this a disavowal by Stendhal of his own father and a legitimization of his view of himself as one of the "happy few." Julien gains admittance to the inner sanctum of reactionary power, but he is still an outsider, a role to which he is condemned. He is made painfully aware of this role of outsider-inside by his isolation, obvious only to himself, before the meeting begins. His embarrassment, which he aggravates by endlessly sharpening quills, aptly characterizes Julien as a very self-conscious being. The presence of the Bishop of Agde serves to remind the reader again of the distance covered by our hero since Julien was also in the role of messenger when the bishop appeared in Verrieres. The affair of the secret note affords another insight into the manner in which Stendhal utilizes actual happenings as a basis for fiction. Although the novel is set in 1830, at the end of the autocratic reign of Charles X, this episode is based upon incidents that took place during the reign of Louis XVIII , the more liberal brother of Charles. The memory of Napoleon's One Hundred Days in 1815 and Louis' liberalism actually caused the ultras to plot with foreign powers in an effort to re-establish the reactionary spirit of the "ancien regime." Stendhal's conspirators are speaking "historically," without naming him, of Louis XVIII, although they are "living" under the reign of Louis' successor, Charles X. The "Ordonnances de Juillet" by which Charles X attempted to revoke the Charter embodying the principles of the Revolution of '89 and to stifle freedom of the press precipitated the July Revolution of 1830, which hailed the "bourgeois king," Louis-Philippe, who re-established liberalism and reigned until 1848. This incident and others of political inspiration in the novel were added by Stendhal after the July Revolution. He could hardly have included them with impunity before that date. Stendhal has a predilection for the mystery of clandestine operations, of spy intrigue, including secret rendezvous to which only the initiated are admitted. It is at once related to his own adventures and simply an indication of the exclusiveness of the "happy few," the elite of whom Stendhal counted himself as one. Although Julien has definite republican sympathies, he is in the service of legitimists. Aside from aptly describing this social pariah -- the idealist who champions the revolutionary cause but who traffics with the enemy out of necessity -- Julien's paradoxical position betrays the political ambiguities of Stendhal himself. Defender of liberalism and, at the same time, aspiring to the good old days of the monarchy, Stendhal nonetheless abhorred the idea of a democracy. Stendhal's apology for inclusion of the political discussion should not be taken too seriously by the reader. Furthermore, the political and social substrata of the novel are the context in which Julien's individual adventure is realized. This is the most illustrious role that Julien will play as an individual subservient to others. His next brief "position" will seem to grant him a momentary social independence. The power hierarchy, so ubiquitous in the novel, is apparent even in this assemblage of the summit. Some are deferential to others, some can be outspoken and ironic, others must be silent. It should be noted that Stendhal limits the narration strictly to Julien's perception and comprehension of the mysterious proceedings. The reader has the impression that he, too, is an outsider privileged to eavesdrop. We are rarely told any more than Julien knows. When Julien is excluded briefly during the course of the meeting, the reader is also excluded. And we take our cues from Julien, who takes his from interpreting the facial expressions and tone of voice of the Marquis de la Mole. Three minor characters have reappeared in these chapters: Castanede, Agde, Geronimo. Their reappearance reminds us of Julien's progress: He is now the very successful protege of the Marquis de la Mole, and he fulfills his mission without a hitch.

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_3_part_4.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter xix

chapter xix

{"name": "Chapter XIX", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase3-chapter16-24", "summary": "Clare favors Tess over any of the other dairymaids. In the garden at sunset, he plays his harp and asks her to join him. She tells him of her negative views on life, which perplexes and saddens him. Avoiding her own background, she listens as he tells her about himself, his philosophical viewpoints. He offers to become her teacher", "analysis": ""}

In general the cows were milked as they presented themselves, without fancy or choice. But certain cows will show a fondness for a particular pair of hands, sometimes carrying this predilection so far as to refuse to stand at all except to their favourite, the pail of a stranger being unceremoniously kicked over. It was Dairyman Crick's rule to insist on breaking down these partialities and aversions by constant interchange, since otherwise, in the event of a milkman or maid going away from the dairy, he was placed in a difficulty. The maids' private aims, however, were the reverse of the dairyman's rule, the daily selection by each damsel of the eight or ten cows to which she had grown accustomed rendering the operation on their willing udders surprisingly easy and effortless. Tess, like her compeers, soon discovered which of the cows had a preference for her style of manipulation, and her fingers having become delicate from the long domiciliary imprisonments to which she had subjected herself at intervals during the last two or three years, she would have been glad to meet the milchers' views in this respect. Out of the whole ninety-five there were eight in particular--Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young Pretty, Tidy, and Loud--who, though the teats of one or two were as hard as carrots, gave down to her with a readiness that made her work on them a mere touch of the fingers. Knowing, however, the dairyman's wish, she endeavoured conscientiously to take the animals just as they came, excepting the very hard yielders which she could not yet manage. But she soon found a curious correspondence between the ostensibly chance position of the cows and her wishes in this matter, till she felt that their order could not be the result of accident. The dairyman's pupil had lent a hand in getting the cows together of late, and at the fifth or sixth time she turned her eyes, as she rested against the cow, full of sly inquiry upon him. "Mr Clare, you have ranged the cows!" she said, blushing; and in making the accusation, symptoms of a smile gently lifted her upper lip in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower lip remaining severely still. "Well, it makes no difference," said he. "You will always be here to milk them." "Do you think so? I HOPE I shall! But I don't KNOW." She was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of her grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her meaning. She had spoken so earnestly to him, as if his presence were somehow a factor in her wish. Her misgiving was such that at dusk, when the milking was over, she walked in the garden alone, to continue her regrets that she had disclosed to him her discovery of his considerateness. It was a typical summer evening in June, the atmosphere being in such delicate equilibrium and so transmissive that inanimate objects seemed endowed with two or three senses, if not five. There was no distinction between the near and the far, and an auditor felt close to everything within the horizon. The soundlessness impressed her as a positive entity rather than as the mere negation of noise. It was broken by the strumming of strings. Tess had heard those notes in the attic above her head. Dim, flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed to her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark quality like that of nudity. To speak absolutely, both instrument and execution were poor; but the relative is all, and as she listened Tess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot. Far from leaving she drew up towards the performer, keeping behind the hedge that he might not guess her presence. The outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been left uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with juicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall blooming weeds emitting offensive smells--weeds whose red and yellow and purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that of cultivated flowers. She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that were underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime, and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him. Tess was conscious of neither time nor space. The exaltation which she had described as being producible at will by gazing at a star came now without any determination of hers; she undulated upon the thin notes of the second-hand harp, and their harmonies passed like breezes through her, bringing tears into her eyes. The floating pollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of the garden the weeping of the garden's sensibility. Though near nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not close for intentness, and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of sound. The light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in the western bank of cloud; it was like a piece of day left behind by accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere. He concluded his plaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great skill; and she waited, thinking another might be begun. But, tired of playing, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was rambling up behind her. Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if hardly moving at all. Angel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low tones reaching her, though he was some distance off. "What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?" said he. "Are you afraid?" "Oh no, sir--not of outdoor things; especially just now when the apple-blooth is falling, and everything is so green." "But you have your indoor fears--eh?" "Well--yes, sir." "What of?" "I couldn't quite say." "The milk turning sour?" "No." "Life in general?" "Yes, sir." "Ah--so have I, very often. This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don't you think so?" "It is--now you put it that way." "All the same, I shouldn't have expected a young girl like you to see it so just yet. How is it you do?" She maintained a hesitating silence. "Come, Tess, tell me in confidence." She thought that he meant what were the aspects of things to her, and replied shyly-- "The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they?--that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,--'Why do ye trouble me with your looks?' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand farther away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!' ... But YOU, sir, can raise up dreams with your music, and drive all such horrid fancies away!" He was surprised to find this young woman--who though but a milkmaid had just that touch of rarity about her which might make her the envied of her housemates--shaping such sad imaginings. She was expressing in her own native phrases--assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training--feelings which might almost have been called those of the age--the ache of modernism. The perception arrested him less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition--a more accurate expression, by words in _logy_ and _ism_, of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries. Still, it was strange that they should have come to her while yet so young; more than strange; it was impressive, interesting, pathetic. Not guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration. Tess's passing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest. Tess, on her part, could not understand why a man of clerical family and good education, and above physical want, should look upon it as a mishap to be alive. For the unhappy pilgrim herself there was very good reason. But how could this admirable and poetic man ever have descended into the Valley of Humiliation, have felt with the man of Uz--as she herself had felt two or three years ago--"My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway." It was true that he was at present out of his class. But she knew that was only because, like Peter the Great in a shipwright's yard, he was studying what he wanted to know. He did not milk cows because he was obliged to milk cows, but because he was learning to be a rich and prosperous dairyman, landowner, agriculturist, and breeder of cattle. He would become an American or Australian Abraham, commanding like a monarch his flocks and his herds, his spotted and his ring-straked, his men-servants and his maids. At times, nevertheless, it did seem unaccountable to her that a decidedly bookish, musical, thinking young man should have chosen deliberately to be a farmer, and not a clergyman, like his father and brothers. Thus, neither having the clue to the other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and mood without attempting to pry into each other's history. Every day, every hour, brought to him one more little stroke of her nature, and to her one more of his. Tess was trying to lead a repressed life, but she little divined the strength of her own vitality. At first Tess seemed to regard Angel Clare as an intelligence rather than as a man. As such she compared him with herself; and at every discovery of the abundance of his illuminations, of the distance between her own modest mental standpoint and the unmeasurable, Andean altitude of his, she became quite dejected, disheartened from all further effort on her own part whatever. He observed her dejection one day, when he had casually mentioned something to her about pastoral life in ancient Greece. She was gathering the buds called "lords and ladies" from the bank while he spoke. "Why do you look so woebegone all of a sudden?" he asked. "Oh, 'tis only--about my own self," she said, with a frail laugh of sadness, fitfully beginning to peel "a lady" meanwhile. "Just a sense of what might have been with me! My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am! I'm like the poor Queen of Sheba who lived in the Bible. There is no more spirit in me." "Bless my soul, don't go troubling about that! Why," he said with some enthusiasm, "I should be only too glad, my dear Tess, to help you to anything in the way of history, or any line of reading you would like to take up--" "It is a lady again," interrupted she, holding out the bud she had peeled. "What?" "I meant that there are always more ladies than lords when you come to peel them." "Never mind about the lords and ladies. Would you like to take up any course of study--history, for example?" "Sometimes I feel I don't want to know anything more about it than I know already." "Why not?" "Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only--finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember that your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings 'll be like thousands's and thousands'." "What, really, then, you don't want to learn anything?" "I shouldn't mind learning why--why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike," she answered, with a slight quaver in her voice. "But that's what books will not tell me." "Tess, fie for such bitterness!" Of course he spoke with a conventional sense of duty only, for that sort of wondering had not been unknown to himself in bygone days. And as he looked at the unpracticed mouth and lips, he thought that such a daughter of the soil could only have caught up the sentiment by rote. She went on peeling the lords and ladies till Clare, regarding for a moment the wave-like curl of her lashes as they dropped with her bent gaze on her soft cheek, lingeringly went away. When he was gone she stood awhile, thoughtfully peeling the last bud; and then, awakening from her reverie, flung it and all the crowd of floral nobility impatiently on the ground, in an ebullition of displeasure with herself for her _niaiserie_, and with a quickening warmth in her heart of hearts. How stupid he must think her! In an access of hunger for his good opinion she bethought herself of what she had latterly endeavoured to forget, so unpleasant had been its issues--the identity of her family with that of the knightly d'Urbervilles. Barren attribute as it was, disastrous as its discovery had been in many ways to her, perhaps Mr Clare, as a gentleman and a student of history, would respect her sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords and ladies if he knew that those Purbeck-marble and alabaster people in Kingsbere Church really represented her own lineal forefathers; that she was no spurious d'Urberville, compounded of money and ambition like those at Trantridge, but true d'Urberville to the bone. But, before venturing to make the revelation, dubious Tess indirectly sounded the dairyman as to its possible effect upon Mr Clare, by asking the former if Mr Clare had any great respect for old county families when they had lost all their money and land. "Mr Clare," said the dairyman emphatically, "is one of the most rebellest rozums you ever knowed--not a bit like the rest of his family; and if there's one thing that he do hate more than another 'tis the notion of what's called a' old family. He says that it stands to reason that old families have done their spurt of work in past days, and can't have anything left in 'em now. There's the Billets and the Drenkhards and the Greys and the St Quintins and the Hardys and the Goulds, who used to own the lands for miles down this valley; you could buy 'em all up now for an old song a'most. Why, our little Retty Priddle here, you know, is one of the Paridelles--the old family that used to own lots o' the lands out by King's Hintock, now owned by the Earl o' Wessex, afore even he or his was heard of. Well, Mr Clare found this out, and spoke quite scornful to the poor girl for days. 'Ah!' he says to her, 'you'll never make a good dairymaid! All your skill was used up ages ago in Palestine, and you must lie fallow for a thousand years to git strength for more deeds!' A boy came here t'other day asking for a job, and said his name was Matt, and when we asked him his surname he said he'd never heard that 'a had any surname, and when we asked why, he said he supposed his folks hadn't been 'stablished long enough. 'Ah! you're the very boy I want!' says Mr Clare, jumping up and shaking hands wi'en; 'I've great hopes of you;' and gave him half-a-crown. O no! he can't stomach old families!" After hearing this caricature of Clare's opinion poor Tess was glad that she had not said a word in a weak moment about her family--even though it was so unusually old almost to have gone round the circle and become a new one. Besides, another diary-girl was as good as she, it seemed, in that respect. She held her tongue about the d'Urberville vault and the Knight of the Conqueror whose name she bore. The insight afforded into Clare's character suggested to her that it was largely owing to her supposed untraditional newness that she had won interest in his eyes.

Chapter XIX

https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase3-chapter16-24

Clare favors Tess over any of the other dairymaids. In the garden at sunset, he plays his harp and asks her to join him. She tells him of her negative views on life, which perplexes and saddens him. Avoiding her own background, she listens as he tells her about himself, his philosophical viewpoints. He offers to become her teacher

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/06.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_5_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 6

chapter 6

{"name": "Chapter 6", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-6", "summary": "Marlow now tells the dinner guests more about Jim's trial before the panel of inquiry. The trial, he says, became something of a public \"event.\" Here was a handsome young man on trial for leaving almost a thousand poor and ragged religious pilgrims to almost certain death. Justice demanded punishment, and Jim, almost willingly it seemed, faced his judges alone and endured the grueling and exhausting inquisition. The trial, Marlow says, was ultimately unsatisfactory because it was an exercise in futility. Instead of trying to determine the philosophical why's of Jim's behavior, the inquiry focused entirely upon the factual and pragmatic how's of the affair. At the end of the second day of Jim's trial, Marlow remembers that a very revealing incident occurred. An ugly, mangy dog was weaving in and out of the crowd, and a man laughed aloud, remarking, \"Look at that wretched cur.\" Instantaneously, Jim whirled and accused Marlow of calling him a cur, and it was only with great difficulty that Marlow was able to convince Jim that it was another man who had spoken and that he had referred to an actual dog. Afterward, Jim was terribly humiliated. His face turned crimson, the clear blue of his eyes darkened, and he seemed to be on the verge of tears. For that single moment, Marlow says, he witnessed how \"a single word had stripped of his discretion.\" All of Jim's almost successfully disguised suffering during the trial surfaced; without meaning to, Jim had revealed an explosive, volatile side of his nature. Jim turned away instantly, frightened to have revealed himself so nakedly, but Marlow was so thoroughly captivated by the young man that he followed him and invited him to dinner.", "analysis": "The inexplicability of human action is presented through the story of Captain Brierly. Here we have a man who has risen to the pinnacle of his profession by the age of thirty-two, has never made a mistake, nor had an accident or mishap. He has no debts, no entanglements, and yet, for no seeming reason, he goes about logically and systematically putting his ship into the hands of the chief mate, Mr. Jones, and then he commits suicide by diving into the sea with iron ballasts fastened to his body. Ultimately Jim's actions, however, will seem as inexplicable as Captain Brierly's. Some critics even believe that the captain is so troubled by the actions of someone like Jim, who is such an outstanding gentleman . . . \"one of us,\" that the analogy troubles Brierly too much; therefore, he calmly prepares his own suicide so that he won't have to live with the knowledge that he too might someday do the exact same thing. Of course, it is also very significant that Brierly wants to furnish sufficient money for Jim to disappear because the entire trial and inquiry and the \"infernal publicity is too shocking\"; by analogy, the trial is a reflection upon a fellow Englishman in an alien land. Again, by the end of Chapter 6, Conrad has still not revealed Jim's full, actual predicament, and Brierly intrigues us further by asking, \"Why are we tormenting that young chap?\" We don't know; we are still in the dark as to the nature of Jim's torment. Marlow's first meeting with Jim is charged with emotion as Jim mistakenly thinks that Marlow has referred to him as a \"wretched cur.\" By the time the mistake is corrected, Marlow is able to persuade Jim to have dinner with him, and we now anticipate hearing more of Jim's story."}

'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that watery-eyed old Jones mopping his bald head with a red cotton handkerchief, the sorrowing yelp of the dog, the squalor of that fly-blown cuddy which was the only shrine of his memory, threw a veil of inexpressibly mean pathos over Brierly's remembered figure, the posthumous revenge of fate for that belief in his own splendour which had almost cheated his life of its legitimate terrors. Almost! Perhaps wholly. Who can tell what flattering view he had induced himself to take of his own suicide? '"Why did he commit the rash act, Captain Marlow--can you think?" asked Jones, pressing his palms together. "Why? It beats me! Why?" He slapped his low and wrinkled forehead. "If he had been poor and old and in debt--and never a show--or else mad. But he wasn't of the kind that goes mad, not he. You trust me. What a mate don't know about his skipper isn't worth knowing. Young, healthy, well off, no cares. . . . I sit here sometimes thinking, thinking, till my head fairly begins to buzz. There was some reason." '"You may depend on it, Captain Jones," said I, "it wasn't anything that would have disturbed much either of us two," I said; and then, as if a light had been flashed into the muddle of his brain, poor old Jones found a last word of amazing profundity. He blew his nose, nodding at me dolefully: "Ay, ay! neither you nor I, sir, had ever thought so much of ourselves." 'Of course the recollection of my last conversation with Brierly is tinged with the knowledge of his end that followed so close upon it. I spoke with him for the last time during the progress of the inquiry. It was after the first adjournment, and he came up with me in the street. He was in a state of irritation, which I noticed with surprise, his usual behaviour when he condescended to converse being perfectly cool, with a trace of amused tolerance, as if the existence of his interlocutor had been a rather good joke. "They caught me for that inquiry, you see," he began, and for a while enlarged complainingly upon the inconveniences of daily attendance in court. "And goodness knows how long it will last. Three days, I suppose." I heard him out in silence; in my then opinion it was a way as good as another of putting on side. "What's the use of it? It is the stupidest set-out you can imagine," he pursued hotly. I remarked that there was no option. He interrupted me with a sort of pent-up violence. "I feel like a fool all the time." I looked up at him. This was going very far--for Brierly--when talking of Brierly. He stopped short, and seizing the lapel of my coat, gave it a slight tug. "Why are we tormenting that young chap?" he asked. This question chimed in so well to the tolling of a certain thought of mine that, with the image of the absconding renegade in my eye, I answered at once, "Hanged if I know, unless it be that he lets you." I was astonished to see him fall into line, so to speak, with that utterance, which ought to have been tolerably cryptic. He said angrily, "Why, yes. Can't he see that wretched skipper of his has cleared out? What does he expect to happen? Nothing can save him. He's done for." We walked on in silence a few steps. "Why eat all that dirt?" he exclaimed, with an oriental energy of expression--about the only sort of energy you can find a trace of east of the fiftieth meridian. I wondered greatly at the direction of his thoughts, but now I strongly suspect it was strictly in character: at bottom poor Brierly must have been thinking of himself. I pointed out to him that the skipper of the Patna was known to have feathered his nest pretty well, and could procure almost anywhere the means of getting away. With Jim it was otherwise: the Government was keeping him in the Sailors' Home for the time being, and probably he hadn't a penny in his pocket to bless himself with. It costs some money to run away. "Does it? Not always," he said, with a bitter laugh, and to some further remark of mine--"Well, then, let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there! By heavens! _I_ would." I don't know why his tone provoked me, and I said, "There is a kind of courage in facing it out as he does, knowing very well that if he went away nobody would trouble to run after him." "Courage be hanged!" growled Brierly. "That sort of courage is of no use to keep a man straight, and I don't care a snap for such courage. If you were to say it was a kind of cowardice now--of softness. I tell you what, I will put up two hundred rupees if you put up another hundred and undertake to make the beggar clear out early to-morrow morning. The fellow's a gentleman if he ain't fit to be touched--he will understand. He must! This infernal publicity is too shocking: there he sits while all these confounded natives, serangs, lascars, quartermasters, are giving evidence that's enough to burn a man to ashes with shame. This is abominable. Why, Marlow, don't you think, don't you feel, that this is abominable; don't you now--come--as a seaman? If he went away all this would stop at once." Brierly said these words with a most unusual animation, and made as if to reach after his pocket-book. I restrained him, and declared coldly that the cowardice of these four men did not seem to me a matter of such great importance. "And you call yourself a seaman, I suppose," he pronounced angrily. I said that's what I called myself, and I hoped I was too. He heard me out, and made a gesture with his big arm that seemed to deprive me of my individuality, to push me away into the crowd. "The worst of it," he said, "is that all you fellows have no sense of dignity; you don't think enough of what you are supposed to be." 'We had been walking slowly meantime, and now stopped opposite the harbour office, in sight of the very spot from which the immense captain of the Patna had vanished as utterly as a tiny feather blown away in a hurricane. I smiled. Brierly went on: "This is a disgrace. We've got all kinds amongst us--some anointed scoundrels in the lot; but, hang it, we must preserve professional decency or we become no better than so many tinkers going about loose. We are trusted. Do you understand?--trusted! Frankly, I don't care a snap for all the pilgrims that ever came out of Asia, but a decent man would not have behaved like this to a full cargo of old rags in bales. We aren't an organised body of men, and the only thing that holds us together is just the name for that kind of decency. Such an affair destroys one's confidence. A man may go pretty near through his whole sea-life without any call to show a stiff upper lip. But when the call comes . . . Aha! . . . If I . . ." 'He broke off, and in a changed tone, "I'll give you two hundred rupees now, Marlow, and you just talk to that chap. Confound him! I wish he had never come out here. Fact is, I rather think some of my people know his. The old man's a parson, and I remember now I met him once when staying with my cousin in Essex last year. If I am not mistaken, the old chap seemed rather to fancy his sailor son. Horrible. I can't do it myself--but you . . ." 'Thus, apropos of Jim, I had a glimpse of the real Brierly a few days before he committed his reality and his sham together to the keeping of the sea. Of course I declined to meddle. The tone of this last "but you" (poor Brierly couldn't help it), that seemed to imply I was no more noticeable than an insect, caused me to look at the proposal with indignation, and on account of that provocation, or for some other reason, I became positive in my mind that the inquiry was a severe punishment to that Jim, and that his facing it--practically of his own free will--was a redeeming feature in his abominable case. I hadn't been so sure of it before. Brierly went off in a huff. At the time his state of mind was more of a mystery to me than it is now. 'Next day, coming into court late, I sat by myself. Of course I could not forget the conversation I had with Brierly, and now I had them both under my eyes. The demeanour of one suggested gloomy impudence and of the other a contemptuous boredom; yet one attitude might not have been truer than the other, and I was aware that one was not true. Brierly was not bored--he was exasperated; and if so, then Jim might not have been impudent. According to my theory he was not. I imagined he was hopeless. Then it was that our glances met. They met, and the look he gave me was discouraging of any intention I might have had to speak to him. Upon either hypothesis--insolence or despair--I felt I could be of no use to him. This was the second day of the proceedings. Very soon after that exchange of glances the inquiry was adjourned again to the next day. The white men began to troop out at once. Jim had been told to stand down some time before, and was able to leave amongst the first. I saw his broad shoulders and his head outlined in the light of the door, and while I made my way slowly out talking with some one--some stranger who had addressed me casually--I could see him from within the court-room resting both elbows on the balustrade of the verandah and turning his back on the small stream of people trickling down the few steps. There was a murmur of voices and a shuffle of boots. 'The next case was that of assault and battery committed upon a money-lender, I believe; and the defendant--a venerable villager with a straight white beard--sat on a mat just outside the door with his sons, daughters, sons-in-law, their wives, and, I should think, half the population of his village besides, squatting or standing around him. A slim dark woman, with part of her back and one black shoulder bared, and with a thin gold ring in her nose, suddenly began to talk in a high-pitched, shrewish tone. The man with me instinctively looked up at her. We were then just through the door, passing behind Jim's burly back. 'Whether those villagers had brought the yellow dog with them, I don't know. Anyhow, a dog was there, weaving himself in and out amongst people's legs in that mute stealthy way native dogs have, and my companion stumbled over him. The dog leaped away without a sound; the man, raising his voice a little, said with a slow laugh, "Look at that wretched cur," and directly afterwards we became separated by a lot of people pushing in. I stood back for a moment against the wall while the stranger managed to get down the steps and disappeared. I saw Jim spin round. He made a step forward and barred my way. We were alone; he glared at me with an air of stubborn resolution. I became aware I was being held up, so to speak, as if in a wood. The verandah was empty by then, the noise and movement in court had ceased: a great silence fell upon the building, in which, somewhere far within, an oriental voice began to whine abjectly. The dog, in the very act of trying to sneak in at the door, sat down hurriedly to hunt for fleas. '"Did you speak to me?" asked Jim very low, and bending forward, not so much towards me but at me, if you know what I mean. I said "No" at once. Something in the sound of that quiet tone of his warned me to be on my defence. I watched him. It was very much like a meeting in a wood, only more uncertain in its issue, since he could possibly want neither my money nor my life--nothing that I could simply give up or defend with a clear conscience. "You say you didn't," he said, very sombre. "But I heard." "Some mistake," I protested, utterly at a loss, and never taking my eyes off him. To watch his face was like watching a darkening sky before a clap of thunder, shade upon shade imperceptibly coming on, the doom growing mysteriously intense in the calm of maturing violence. '"As far as I know, I haven't opened my lips in your hearing," I affirmed with perfect truth. I was getting a little angry, too, at the absurdity of this encounter. It strikes me now I have never in my life been so near a beating--I mean it literally; a beating with fists. I suppose I had some hazy prescience of that eventuality being in the air. Not that he was actively threatening me. On the contrary, he was strangely passive--don't you know? but he was lowering, and, though not exceptionally big, he looked generally fit to demolish a wall. The most reassuring symptom I noticed was a kind of slow and ponderous hesitation, which I took as a tribute to the evident sincerity of my manner and of my tone. We faced each other. In the court the assault case was proceeding. I caught the words: "Well--buffalo--stick--in the greatness of my fear. . . ." '"What did you mean by staring at me all the morning?" said Jim at last. He looked up and looked down again. "Did you expect us all to sit with downcast eyes out of regard for your susceptibilities?" I retorted sharply. I was not going to submit meekly to any of his nonsense. He raised his eyes again, and this time continued to look me straight in the face. "No. That's all right," he pronounced with an air of deliberating with himself upon the truth of this statement--"that's all right. I am going through with that. Only"--and there he spoke a little faster--"I won't let any man call me names outside this court. There was a fellow with you. You spoke to him--oh yes--I know; 'tis all very fine. You spoke to him, but you meant me to hear. . . ." 'I assured him he was under some extraordinary delusion. I had no conception how it came about. "You thought I would be afraid to resent this," he said, with just a faint tinge of bitterness. I was interested enough to discern the slightest shades of expression, but I was not in the least enlightened; yet I don't know what in these words, or perhaps just the intonation of that phrase, induced me suddenly to make all possible allowances for him. I ceased to be annoyed at my unexpected predicament. It was some mistake on his part; he was blundering, and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature. I was anxious to end this scene on grounds of decency, just as one is anxious to cut short some unprovoked and abominable confidence. The funniest part was, that in the midst of all these considerations of the higher order I was conscious of a certain trepidation as to the possibility--nay, likelihood--of this encounter ending in some disreputable brawl which could not possibly be explained, and would make me ridiculous. I did not hanker after a three days' celebrity as the man who got a black eye or something of the sort from the mate of the Patna. He, in all probability, did not care what he did, or at any rate would be fully justified in his own eyes. It took no magician to see he was amazingly angry about something, for all his quiet and even torpid demeanour. I don't deny I was extremely desirous to pacify him at all costs, had I only known what to do. But I didn't know, as you may well imagine. It was a blackness without a single gleam. We confronted each other in silence. He hung fire for about fifteen seconds, then made a step nearer, and I made ready to ward off a blow, though I don't think I moved a muscle. "If you were as big as two men and as strong as six," he said very softly, "I would tell you what I think of you. You . . ." "Stop!" I exclaimed. This checked him for a second. "Before you tell me what you think of me," I went on quickly, "will you kindly tell me what it is I've said or done?" During the pause that ensued he surveyed me with indignation, while I made supernatural efforts of memory, in which I was hindered by the oriental voice within the court-room expostulating with impassioned volubility against a charge of falsehood. Then we spoke almost together. "I will soon show you I am not," he said, in a tone suggestive of a crisis. "I declare I don't know," I protested earnestly at the same time. He tried to crush me by the scorn of his glance. "Now that you see I am not afraid you try to crawl out of it," he said. "Who's a cur now--hey?" Then, at last, I understood. 'He had been scanning my features as though looking for a place where he would plant his fist. "I will allow no man," . . . he mumbled threateningly. It was, indeed, a hideous mistake; he had given himself away utterly. I can't give you an idea how shocked I was. I suppose he saw some reflection of my feelings in my face, because his expression changed just a little. "Good God!" I stammered, "you don't think I . . ." "But I am sure I've heard," he persisted, raising his voice for the first time since the beginning of this deplorable scene. Then with a shade of disdain he added, "It wasn't you, then? Very well; I'll find the other." "Don't be a fool," I cried in exasperation; "it wasn't that at all." "I've heard," he said again with an unshaken and sombre perseverance. 'There may be those who could have laughed at his pertinacity; I didn't. Oh, I didn't! There had never been a man so mercilessly shown up by his own natural impulse. A single word had stripped him of his discretion--of that discretion which is more necessary to the decencies of our inner being than clothing is to the decorum of our body. "Don't be a fool," I repeated. "But the other man said it, you don't deny that?" he pronounced distinctly, and looking in my face without flinching. "No, I don't deny," said I, returning his gaze. At last his eyes followed downwards the direction of my pointing finger. He appeared at first uncomprehending, then confounded, and at last amazed and scared as though a dog had been a monster and he had never seen a dog before. "Nobody dreamt of insulting you," I said. 'He contemplated the wretched animal, that moved no more than an effigy: it sat with ears pricked and its sharp muzzle pointed into the doorway, and suddenly snapped at a fly like a piece of mechanism. 'I looked at him. The red of his fair sunburnt complexion deepened suddenly under the down of his cheeks, invaded his forehead, spread to the roots of his curly hair. His ears became intensely crimson, and even the clear blue of his eyes was darkened many shades by the rush of blood to his head. His lips pouted a little, trembling as though he had been on the point of bursting into tears. I perceived he was incapable of pronouncing a word from the excess of his humiliation. From disappointment too--who knows? Perhaps he looked forward to that hammering he was going to give me for rehabilitation, for appeasement? Who can tell what relief he expected from this chance of a row? He was naive enough to expect anything; but he had given himself away for nothing in this case. He had been frank with himself--let alone with me--in the wild hope of arriving in that way at some effective refutation, and the stars had been ironically unpropitious. He made an inarticulate noise in his throat like a man imperfectly stunned by a blow on the head. It was pitiful. 'I didn't catch up again with him till well outside the gate. I had even to trot a bit at the last, but when, out of breath at his elbow, I taxed him with running away, he said, "Never!" and at once turned at bay. I explained I never meant to say he was running away from _me_. "From no man--from not a single man on earth," he affirmed with a stubborn mien. I forbore to point out the one obvious exception which would hold good for the bravest of us; I thought he would find out by himself very soon. He looked at me patiently while I was thinking of something to say, but I could find nothing on the spur of the moment, and he began to walk on. I kept up, and anxious not to lose him, I said hurriedly that I couldn't think of leaving him under a false impression of my--of my--I stammered. The stupidity of the phrase appalled me while I was trying to finish it, but the power of sentences has nothing to do with their sense or the logic of their construction. My idiotic mumble seemed to please him. He cut it short by saying, with courteous placidity that argued an immense power of self-control or else a wonderful elasticity of spirits--"Altogether my mistake." I marvelled greatly at this expression: he might have been alluding to some trifling occurrence. Hadn't he understood its deplorable meaning? "You may well forgive me," he continued, and went on a little moodily, "All these staring people in court seemed such fools that--that it might have been as I supposed." 'This opened suddenly a new view of him to my wonder. I looked at him curiously and met his unabashed and impenetrable eyes. "I can't put up with this kind of thing," he said, very simply, "and I don't mean to. In court it's different; I've got to stand that--and I can do it too." 'I don't pretend I understood him. The views he let me have of himself were like those glimpses through the shifting rents in a thick fog--bits of vivid and vanishing detail, giving no connected idea of the general aspect of a country. They fed one's curiosity without satisfying it; they were no good for purposes of orientation. Upon the whole he was misleading. That's how I summed him up to myself after he left me late in the evening. I had been staying at the Malabar House for a few days, and on my pressing invitation he dined with me there.'

Chapter 6

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-6

Marlow now tells the dinner guests more about Jim's trial before the panel of inquiry. The trial, he says, became something of a public "event." Here was a handsome young man on trial for leaving almost a thousand poor and ragged religious pilgrims to almost certain death. Justice demanded punishment, and Jim, almost willingly it seemed, faced his judges alone and endured the grueling and exhausting inquisition. The trial, Marlow says, was ultimately unsatisfactory because it was an exercise in futility. Instead of trying to determine the philosophical why's of Jim's behavior, the inquiry focused entirely upon the factual and pragmatic how's of the affair. At the end of the second day of Jim's trial, Marlow remembers that a very revealing incident occurred. An ugly, mangy dog was weaving in and out of the crowd, and a man laughed aloud, remarking, "Look at that wretched cur." Instantaneously, Jim whirled and accused Marlow of calling him a cur, and it was only with great difficulty that Marlow was able to convince Jim that it was another man who had spoken and that he had referred to an actual dog. Afterward, Jim was terribly humiliated. His face turned crimson, the clear blue of his eyes darkened, and he seemed to be on the verge of tears. For that single moment, Marlow says, he witnessed how "a single word had stripped of his discretion." All of Jim's almost successfully disguised suffering during the trial surfaced; without meaning to, Jim had revealed an explosive, volatile side of his nature. Jim turned away instantly, frightened to have revealed himself so nakedly, but Marlow was so thoroughly captivated by the young man that he followed him and invited him to dinner.

The inexplicability of human action is presented through the story of Captain Brierly. Here we have a man who has risen to the pinnacle of his profession by the age of thirty-two, has never made a mistake, nor had an accident or mishap. He has no debts, no entanglements, and yet, for no seeming reason, he goes about logically and systematically putting his ship into the hands of the chief mate, Mr. Jones, and then he commits suicide by diving into the sea with iron ballasts fastened to his body. Ultimately Jim's actions, however, will seem as inexplicable as Captain Brierly's. Some critics even believe that the captain is so troubled by the actions of someone like Jim, who is such an outstanding gentleman . . . "one of us," that the analogy troubles Brierly too much; therefore, he calmly prepares his own suicide so that he won't have to live with the knowledge that he too might someday do the exact same thing. Of course, it is also very significant that Brierly wants to furnish sufficient money for Jim to disappear because the entire trial and inquiry and the "infernal publicity is too shocking"; by analogy, the trial is a reflection upon a fellow Englishman in an alien land. Again, by the end of Chapter 6, Conrad has still not revealed Jim's full, actual predicament, and Brierly intrigues us further by asking, "Why are we tormenting that young chap?" We don't know; we are still in the dark as to the nature of Jim's torment. Marlow's first meeting with Jim is charged with emotion as Jim mistakenly thinks that Marlow has referred to him as a "wretched cur." By the time the mistake is corrected, Marlow is able to persuade Jim to have dinner with him, and we now anticipate hearing more of Jim's story.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/49.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_10_part_4.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 8.chapter 4

book 8, chapter 4

{"name": "book 8, Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section11/", "summary": "In the Dark Enraged, Dmitri takes a brass pestle--a small club-shaped tool used for grinding powder--to use as a weapon and hurries to Fyodor Pavlovich's house, certain that Grushenka has gone to be with his father. But when he spies through the window, he sees that Fyodor Pavlovich is alone, and when he taps out Grushenka's secret signal, Fyodor Pavlovich rushes to the window. Dmitri concludes that Grushenka is not with his father. Grigory happens by at this moment and sees Dmitri sneaking around in the garden. He accosts him, and the men scuffle. Dmitri hits Grigory with the pestle, and Grigory falls to the ground, blood pooling beneath him. Dmitri, in a panic, tries to tend the wound, staining his clothes in the process. But then he throws the pestle into the darkness and flees the scene", "analysis": ""}

Chapter IV. In The Dark 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 kitchen-garden, 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 bath-house, 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 left-hand 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 striped-silk dressing-gown, 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 dressing-gown. 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 looking-glass 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 looking-glass, 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 bath-house, 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 running--the 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 passers-by 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 to-day or to-morrow." 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 good-humored 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.

book 8, Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section11/

In the Dark Enraged, Dmitri takes a brass pestle--a small club-shaped tool used for grinding powder--to use as a weapon and hurries to Fyodor Pavlovich's house, certain that Grushenka has gone to be with his father. But when he spies through the window, he sees that Fyodor Pavlovich is alone, and when he taps out Grushenka's secret signal, Fyodor Pavlovich rushes to the window. Dmitri concludes that Grushenka is not with his father. Grigory happens by at this moment and sees Dmitri sneaking around in the garden. He accosts him, and the men scuffle. Dmitri hits Grigory with the pestle, and Grigory falls to the ground, blood pooling beneath him. Dmitri, in a panic, tries to tend the wound, staining his clothes in the process. But then he throws the pestle into the darkness and flees the scene

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/book_vii.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_10_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book vii.chapter i-chapter iv

book vii

{"name": "Book VII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-3-book-vii", "summary": "As soon as Father Zossima's body is prepared for burial, it is placed in a large room. News traveling fast, the room is quickly filled. As soon as they hear of the elder's death, large numbers of people gather, expecting a miracle. There is no miracle, however, only this: Zossima's corpse begins to putrefy almost immediately, and the odor of decay is soon sickening to all of the mourners. All present become nauseated and begin to grow fearful because they believe that the decay of a body is related to its spiritual character. It seems an evil omen that Zossima's corpse would rot so soon after death, for the elder was popularly believed to be on the verge of sainthood. Discontented monks and enemies of Father Zossima are not long to act. Quickly they announce that the decaying body is proof that the elder was no saint; at last the doctrine he preached is proved to be incorrect. The townspeople are confused. Tradition and superstition are embedded in their nerves. They have expected something awesome but certainly not a portent that points to Zossima's being a possible disciple of Satan. Not even Alyosha escapes the fear that grips the community. He cannot understand why God has allowed such disgrace to accompany the elder's death. Father Ferapont, the fanatical ascetic, rushes to Zossima's cell and begins to exorcise devils out of all the corners. Elsewhere there is also madness -- the entire monastery is torn by confused loyalties and uncertainties. Finally, the extreme Ferapont is ordered to leave. But shortly thereafter, there is another departure from the monastery. Alyosha leaves also; he wishes to find solitude to grieve and ponder. Alone, he again questions the justice of all that has happened. Instead of receiving the glory that Alyosha believed was Zossima's due, his mentor is now \"degraded and dishonored.\" Alyosha cannot doubt God, but he must question why He has allowed such a dreadful thing to occur. Alyosha is interrupted in his thoughts as the seminarian, Rakitin, who earlier mocked Alyosha, ridicules his grief and makes contemptuous remarks about Zossima's decaying body. He tempts Alyosha with sausage and vodka, both of which are denied a monk during Lent, and Alyosha suddenly accepts both. Rakitin then goes a step further and suggests that they visit Grushenka, and again Alyosha agrees. Grushenka is astonished at her visitors but regains her composure and explains that she is waiting for an important message to arrive. They are curious about the message, and she tells them that it comes from an army officer whom she loved five years ago and who deserted her. Now he has returned to the province and is sending for her. Grushenka notices Alyosha's dejection and tries to cheer him by sitting on his knee and teasing him, but when she learns that Father Zossima died only a few hours earlier, she too becomes remorseful. She upbraids herself and denounces her life as that of a wicked sinner. Alyosha stops her, speaking with great kindness and understanding, and the two suddenly exchange glimpses into each other's souls. Love and trust are given, one to the other, and Grushenka unabashedly speaks to Alyosha of her problems; she no longer feels ashamed of her life. As for Alyosha, Grushenka's genuine expressions of sympathy lift him out of the deep depression he has felt since Zossima's death. Rakitin cannot understand this sudden compassion between them and is spiteful and vindictive, especially after Grushenka confesses that she had paid Rakitin to bring Alyosha to her. The message arrives from Grushenka's lover, and she excuses herself and leaves, asking Alyosha to tell Dmitri that she did love him -- once, for an hour. Very late, Alyosha returns to the monastery and goes to Zossima's cell. He kneels and prays, still troubled by many things, and then hears Father Paissy reading the account of the wedding at Cana in the Gospel of St. John. Because he is exhausted and because of the sweet lull of the Father's voice, Alyosha dozes. He dreams that he is at the marriage in Cana, along with Christ and the other guests. Zossima appears and calls to Alyosha; he tells him to come forth and join the crowd, reminding him that man should be joyful. Even today, he says, Alyosha has helped Grushenka find her path toward salvation. Alyosha wakes, and his eyes are filled with tears of joy. He goes outside and flings himself on the earth, kissing and embracing it. His heart is filled with ecstasy over his new knowledge and his new understanding of the joy of life.", "analysis": "Dostoevsky has been preparing the reader throughout the novel for this single crisis in Alyosha's life. There have been many hints that a miracle is expected to accompany Zossima's death, but one of the central points of Ivan's Grand Inquisitor tale is that man must believe freely in the teachings of a person without the benefit of either divine manifestations or miracles. A person's beliefs, furthermore, can be greatly strengthened by emerging triumphantly from a period of great doubt. In this chapter, Dostoevsky presents Alyosha's tests -- corollaries of Christ's tests in the wilderness. If Alyosha emerges successfully, then he will be qualified to move within society and to influence it. Alyosha, of course, does not need miracles for himself. But he recognizes the need of others for them, and with no miracle and because the body is decaying, he knows that spiteful rumors will rise around Zossima's memory. He cannot endure the holiest of holy men being exposed to jeering and mockery. Such indignity and humiliation of premature decay are unnecessary. Alyosha's questionings align him closely with his brother Ivan. Ivan also asked about God's justice, and, like his brother, Alyosha does not question God; he is concerned only about His justice. When the seminarian appears, Alyosha even echoes Ivan's arguments by saying, \"I am not rebelling against my God; I simply don't accept His world.\" But Karamazovs are concerned with justice, not God Himself. Alyosha, of course, realizes that Christ went through such jeering and mockery. But for a moment, he gives way to temptation, and in this way he becomes human and not semi-divine; he becomes believably mortal. He can later be more deeply admired for his courage in resisting temptation. Alyosha questions, and by his questions one realizes the value of doubting. A serene acceptance of all -- with no questioning -- is neither courageous nor admirable; it is merely shallow, immature. Alyosha, when he defies his vows, accepts the sausage and vodka, and goes to see Grushenka, has a temporary spiritual revolt but emerges a much stronger adherent of faith. In terms of a larger perspective within the action of the novel, one should remember that Ivan leaves town on the day that Zossima dies. Ivan catches the train at about the same time that Alyosha arrives at Grushenka's. Also, it is later this evening that Fyodor's murder takes place, and it is also later this evening that Alyosha rediscovers his faith and rededicates himself to the principles advocated by Father Zossima. Ironically, Alyosha's transformation initially results from his encounter with Grushenka. He goes there in defiance of his monastic orders. Grushenka, for her part, hopes to seduce Alyosha's innocence; his purity is threatening. But when they meet, Alyosha sees in Grushenka a woman he cannot condemn; he sees \"a loving heart\" that can compassionately respond to the suffering that Alyosha is undergoing. In his confession to her, he admits that he came hoping only to find an evil woman. Such honesty is infectious and transforming. Grushenka says, \"He is the first, the only one who has pitied me . . . I've been waiting all my life for some one like you. I knew that someone like you would come and forgive me.\" And, unlikely as it seems, perhaps in a way like the miracle that all expected, carnality and purity create new love and compassion. The explanation, however, is far from being that of a miracle. Alyosha has only followed Zossima's teachings. He has loved Grushenka; he has not damned her; and he, and she, suddenly rediscover themselves. At the end of this scene, Rakitin, who could not understand the attraction between Alyosha and Grushenka, feels that Alyosha dislikes him for taking twenty-five rubles from Grushenka. But the point is this: Alyosha does not judge him; Rakitin leaves because he judges himself and finds himself guilty. When Alyosha returns to the monastery, he feels such mixed emotions that there is a \"sweetness in his heart.\" By this single experience with Grushenka, he has found the value of much that Zossima preached. He has seen how responding to even such a person as Grushenka has changed his entire view of life. Suddenly, he feels himself at peace with the entire world. Alyosha listens to the monk read of the marriage in Cana and realizes that Christ came to give people pleasure in this world; he came to preach a message of joy and love. This is exactly what Father Zossima advocated. In his dream, he sees his beloved elder in the presence of Christ and knows that the message they both preached is far more important than any \"miracle.\" With love, he embraces the earth and is quietly filled with new understanding of all that Zossima said. He leaves the monastery with new conviction. He is ready at last to take his place in the world as Zossima said that he must."}

PART III Book VII. Alyosha Chapter I. The Breath Of Corruption 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 Paissy, 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 eight-cornered 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 Paissy 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 unheard-of, 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 Paissy 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 town--as 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 light-mindedness 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 Paissy felt for some reason suddenly suspicious--though, 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 good-hearted but weak-minded 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 half-hour 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 stumbling-block 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 turning-point 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, God-fearing 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 Paissy 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 deeply-rooted 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 twenty-four 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 glory--that 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 terror-stricken. I have mentioned above, that though Father Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 arm-chair 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 it--and 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy stood over him, waiting resolutely. Father Ferapont paused and, suddenly leaning his cheek on his hand despondently, pronounced in a sing-song voice, looking at the coffin of the dead elder: "To-morrow they will sing over him 'Our Helper and Defender'--a splendid anthem--and over me when I die all they'll sing will be 'What earthly joy'--a little canticle,"(6) 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy guessed what a great change was taking place in him at that moment. "Have you, too, fallen into temptation?" cried Father Paissy. "Can you be with those of little faith?" he added mournfully. Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Paissy, but quickly turned his eyes away again and again looked on the ground. He stood sideways and did not turn his face to Father Paissy, 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 Paissy, looking after him with sorrowful surprise. Chapter II. A Critical Moment Father Paissy, 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 Paissy'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 worth--that'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 idea--oh, no, not at all--what he saw before all was one figure--the 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 concentrated--and perhaps wrongly so--on 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 Paissy 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 time--and am prepared to admit that it might be difficult to defend my feeling--I 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 ill-treating 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 come-down 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 this--wouldn'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." Chapter III. An Onion 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 strong-willed 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 grown-up 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 protegee, 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 1820, 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 drawing-room 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 drawing-room. 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 free-and-easy 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 looking-glass 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 curtains--that'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 to-day, Alyosha." Grushenka spoke aloud, and, though she was alarmed, she seemed very happy about something. "Why are you so afraid of Mitya to-day?" 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 good-hearted 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 good-natured, her gestures were rapid, direct, confiding, but she was greatly excited. "Dear me, how everything comes together to-day!" 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 good-natured 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 to-day. 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 to-day. 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 now--I 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 to-day, 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 her--do you see how she has pity on me? I came here to find a wicked soul--I felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I've found a true sister, I have found a treasure--a 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 good--that'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 others--partly 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 twenty-five 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 twenty-five 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 twenty-five 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 to-day; 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 hard-hearted, grew stout--grew 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 me--he 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 to-day, 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 dead--he 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 her--it 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 ill-humor 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 tear-stained 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 cry-baby 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, to-morrow, 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! Good-by! Good-by, 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 him--so let him remember that hour all his life--say, '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 again--that'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 twenty-five 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. Chapter IV. Cana Of Galilee It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosha returned to the hermitage; the door-keeper let him in by a special entrance. It had struck nine o'clock--the 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 things--something steadfast and comforting--and 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 Paissy 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 Paissy. "_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 each--only 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 to-day. 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 Paissy without his noticing it. Father Paissy 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 mind--and 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."

Book VII

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-3-book-vii

As soon as Father Zossima's body is prepared for burial, it is placed in a large room. News traveling fast, the room is quickly filled. As soon as they hear of the elder's death, large numbers of people gather, expecting a miracle. There is no miracle, however, only this: Zossima's corpse begins to putrefy almost immediately, and the odor of decay is soon sickening to all of the mourners. All present become nauseated and begin to grow fearful because they believe that the decay of a body is related to its spiritual character. It seems an evil omen that Zossima's corpse would rot so soon after death, for the elder was popularly believed to be on the verge of sainthood. Discontented monks and enemies of Father Zossima are not long to act. Quickly they announce that the decaying body is proof that the elder was no saint; at last the doctrine he preached is proved to be incorrect. The townspeople are confused. Tradition and superstition are embedded in their nerves. They have expected something awesome but certainly not a portent that points to Zossima's being a possible disciple of Satan. Not even Alyosha escapes the fear that grips the community. He cannot understand why God has allowed such disgrace to accompany the elder's death. Father Ferapont, the fanatical ascetic, rushes to Zossima's cell and begins to exorcise devils out of all the corners. Elsewhere there is also madness -- the entire monastery is torn by confused loyalties and uncertainties. Finally, the extreme Ferapont is ordered to leave. But shortly thereafter, there is another departure from the monastery. Alyosha leaves also; he wishes to find solitude to grieve and ponder. Alone, he again questions the justice of all that has happened. Instead of receiving the glory that Alyosha believed was Zossima's due, his mentor is now "degraded and dishonored." Alyosha cannot doubt God, but he must question why He has allowed such a dreadful thing to occur. Alyosha is interrupted in his thoughts as the seminarian, Rakitin, who earlier mocked Alyosha, ridicules his grief and makes contemptuous remarks about Zossima's decaying body. He tempts Alyosha with sausage and vodka, both of which are denied a monk during Lent, and Alyosha suddenly accepts both. Rakitin then goes a step further and suggests that they visit Grushenka, and again Alyosha agrees. Grushenka is astonished at her visitors but regains her composure and explains that she is waiting for an important message to arrive. They are curious about the message, and she tells them that it comes from an army officer whom she loved five years ago and who deserted her. Now he has returned to the province and is sending for her. Grushenka notices Alyosha's dejection and tries to cheer him by sitting on his knee and teasing him, but when she learns that Father Zossima died only a few hours earlier, she too becomes remorseful. She upbraids herself and denounces her life as that of a wicked sinner. Alyosha stops her, speaking with great kindness and understanding, and the two suddenly exchange glimpses into each other's souls. Love and trust are given, one to the other, and Grushenka unabashedly speaks to Alyosha of her problems; she no longer feels ashamed of her life. As for Alyosha, Grushenka's genuine expressions of sympathy lift him out of the deep depression he has felt since Zossima's death. Rakitin cannot understand this sudden compassion between them and is spiteful and vindictive, especially after Grushenka confesses that she had paid Rakitin to bring Alyosha to her. The message arrives from Grushenka's lover, and she excuses herself and leaves, asking Alyosha to tell Dmitri that she did love him -- once, for an hour. Very late, Alyosha returns to the monastery and goes to Zossima's cell. He kneels and prays, still troubled by many things, and then hears Father Paissy reading the account of the wedding at Cana in the Gospel of St. John. Because he is exhausted and because of the sweet lull of the Father's voice, Alyosha dozes. He dreams that he is at the marriage in Cana, along with Christ and the other guests. Zossima appears and calls to Alyosha; he tells him to come forth and join the crowd, reminding him that man should be joyful. Even today, he says, Alyosha has helped Grushenka find her path toward salvation. Alyosha wakes, and his eyes are filled with tears of joy. He goes outside and flings himself on the earth, kissing and embracing it. His heart is filled with ecstasy over his new knowledge and his new understanding of the joy of life.

Dostoevsky has been preparing the reader throughout the novel for this single crisis in Alyosha's life. There have been many hints that a miracle is expected to accompany Zossima's death, but one of the central points of Ivan's Grand Inquisitor tale is that man must believe freely in the teachings of a person without the benefit of either divine manifestations or miracles. A person's beliefs, furthermore, can be greatly strengthened by emerging triumphantly from a period of great doubt. In this chapter, Dostoevsky presents Alyosha's tests -- corollaries of Christ's tests in the wilderness. If Alyosha emerges successfully, then he will be qualified to move within society and to influence it. Alyosha, of course, does not need miracles for himself. But he recognizes the need of others for them, and with no miracle and because the body is decaying, he knows that spiteful rumors will rise around Zossima's memory. He cannot endure the holiest of holy men being exposed to jeering and mockery. Such indignity and humiliation of premature decay are unnecessary. Alyosha's questionings align him closely with his brother Ivan. Ivan also asked about God's justice, and, like his brother, Alyosha does not question God; he is concerned only about His justice. When the seminarian appears, Alyosha even echoes Ivan's arguments by saying, "I am not rebelling against my God; I simply don't accept His world." But Karamazovs are concerned with justice, not God Himself. Alyosha, of course, realizes that Christ went through such jeering and mockery. But for a moment, he gives way to temptation, and in this way he becomes human and not semi-divine; he becomes believably mortal. He can later be more deeply admired for his courage in resisting temptation. Alyosha questions, and by his questions one realizes the value of doubting. A serene acceptance of all -- with no questioning -- is neither courageous nor admirable; it is merely shallow, immature. Alyosha, when he defies his vows, accepts the sausage and vodka, and goes to see Grushenka, has a temporary spiritual revolt but emerges a much stronger adherent of faith. In terms of a larger perspective within the action of the novel, one should remember that Ivan leaves town on the day that Zossima dies. Ivan catches the train at about the same time that Alyosha arrives at Grushenka's. Also, it is later this evening that Fyodor's murder takes place, and it is also later this evening that Alyosha rediscovers his faith and rededicates himself to the principles advocated by Father Zossima. Ironically, Alyosha's transformation initially results from his encounter with Grushenka. He goes there in defiance of his monastic orders. Grushenka, for her part, hopes to seduce Alyosha's innocence; his purity is threatening. But when they meet, Alyosha sees in Grushenka a woman he cannot condemn; he sees "a loving heart" that can compassionately respond to the suffering that Alyosha is undergoing. In his confession to her, he admits that he came hoping only to find an evil woman. Such honesty is infectious and transforming. Grushenka says, "He is the first, the only one who has pitied me . . . I've been waiting all my life for some one like you. I knew that someone like you would come and forgive me." And, unlikely as it seems, perhaps in a way like the miracle that all expected, carnality and purity create new love and compassion. The explanation, however, is far from being that of a miracle. Alyosha has only followed Zossima's teachings. He has loved Grushenka; he has not damned her; and he, and she, suddenly rediscover themselves. At the end of this scene, Rakitin, who could not understand the attraction between Alyosha and Grushenka, feels that Alyosha dislikes him for taking twenty-five rubles from Grushenka. But the point is this: Alyosha does not judge him; Rakitin leaves because he judges himself and finds himself guilty. When Alyosha returns to the monastery, he feels such mixed emotions that there is a "sweetness in his heart." By this single experience with Grushenka, he has found the value of much that Zossima preached. He has seen how responding to even such a person as Grushenka has changed his entire view of life. Suddenly, he feels himself at peace with the entire world. Alyosha listens to the monk read of the marriage in Cana and realizes that Christ came to give people pleasure in this world; he came to preach a message of joy and love. This is exactly what Father Zossima advocated. In his dream, he sees his beloved elder in the presence of Christ and knows that the message they both preached is far more important than any "miracle." With love, he embraces the earth and is quietly filled with new understanding of all that Zossima said. He leaves the monastery with new conviction. He is ready at last to take his place in the world as Zossima said that he must.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/15.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Sense and Sensibility/section_14_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 15

chapter 15

{"name": "Chapter 15", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility30.asp", "summary": "Puzzled about his hasty departure, Mrs. Jennings. shows concern for the Colonel. Elinor feels anxious about Marianne and wonders why she has not disclosed her engagement to her mother. Willoughby visits them everyday and displays his affection for Marianne. On one of his visits, he reveals his attachment to Barton Cottage and asks Mrs. Dashwood not to make changes there.", "analysis": "Notes A few more facts about Colonel Brandon are revealed. Mrs. Jennings talks about his estate at Delaford and about his relatives. Her dropping hints about the family and fortune of Colonel Brandon enhances the desire of the reader to know more about this elusive character. Elinor is concerned about Marianne and her relationship with Willoughby. Though she is aware of their mutual affection, she is not sure about the seriousness of their relationship; Marianne has not spoken about it to any one of them. Willoughby displays another facet of his personality. He can be very sentimental. He talks about his deep attachment to Barton Cottage and shows concern when Mrs. Dashwood expresses her desire to renovate it. He also expresses his gratitude towards them for their kindness. Through his words and actions, he hints at his emotional involvement with Marianne. CHAPTER 15 Summary Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor and Margaret make their customary visit to the Park. On their return, they are shocked to see Marianne looking dejected and flustered. Willoughby informs them about his decision to leave for London immediately. However, his explanation for this sudden departure does not convince Elinor. She suspects something more serious. Mrs. Dashwood is not so pessimistic. Marianne drowns herself in sorrow but refrains from talking about it. Notes The cheerful atmosphere of Barton Cottage is disrupted. Marianne, who had been blissful in the company of Willoughby, now looks miserable. Since she does not reveal anything about Willoughby's conversation with her before his departure to London, mystery shrouds their relationship. The incident casts a cloud over the family. Elinor is puzzled at Willoughby's change of behavior with Marianne and at his sudden plans to visit London. She suspects Willoughby's intentions and is doubtful of his integrity. Mrs. Dashwood, too, is disturbed although she does not share Elinor's view. Jane Austen frequently reminds the reader about Elinor's superior sense and reasoning ability. After observing Willoughby before his departure, she tries to analyze his behavior and his decision to take leave of them so abruptly. Willoughby, who had always spoken openly about all matters, could have revealed the real reason behind his visit to London unless he desperately needed to conceal something. Mrs. Dashwood, blinded by her faith in Willoughby, refuses to entertain negative thoughts about him. She feels sure of Willoughby's feelings for her daughter and hopes for the best. CHAPTER 16 Summary Marianne broods over her plight but hardly talks about Willoughby. Sometimes she inadvertently reveals her feelings for him. One morning, as they are walking in the countryside, they are surprised to encounter Edward Ferrars, who has arrived to visit them at Barton. Marianne is delighted to meet him and is glad for her sister. She welcomes Edward with open arms. Notes Marianne isolates herself from the others and becomes engulfed in a cloud of gloom. By sulking over her fate, she disturbs the peace of her family. She lacks restraint and has no regard for the others in her family. Willoughby exits from the scene and Edward enters. Willoughby's departure had disturbed the members of the Dashwood family, but Edward's visit gladdens them: Edward's arrival at Barton is like a streak of sunlight in an overcast sky. His presence even manages to lift Marianne out of her depression. She forgets her sorrow for the moment and welcomes him. His visit seems to offer her some consolation. She talks to him animatedly and asks him about Norland. Elinor is elated to see Edward but shows restraint in her behavior towards him. She keeps her emotions in control and tries to react normally to the situation."}

Mrs. Dashwood's visit to Lady Middleton took place the next day, and two of her daughters went with her; but Marianne excused herself from being of the party, under some trifling pretext of employment; and her mother, who concluded that a promise had been made by Willoughby the night before of calling on her while they were absent, was perfectly satisfied with her remaining at home. On their return from the park they found Willoughby's curricle and servant in waiting at the cottage, and Mrs. Dashwood was convinced that her conjecture had been just. So far it was all as she had foreseen; but on entering the house she beheld what no foresight had taught her to expect. They were no sooner in the passage than Marianne came hastily out of the parlour apparently in violent affliction, with her handkerchief at her eyes; and without noticing them ran up stairs. Surprised and alarmed they proceeded directly into the room she had just quitted, where they found only Willoughby, who was leaning against the mantel-piece with his back towards them. He turned round on their coming in, and his countenance shewed that he strongly partook of the emotion which over-powered Marianne. "Is anything the matter with her?" cried Mrs. Dashwood as she entered--"is she ill?" "I hope not," he replied, trying to look cheerful; and with a forced smile presently added, "It is I who may rather expect to be ill--for I am now suffering under a very heavy disappointment!" "Disappointment?" "Yes, for I am unable to keep my engagement with you. Mrs. Smith has this morning exercised the privilege of riches upon a poor dependent cousin, by sending me on business to London. I have just received my dispatches, and taken my farewell of Allenham; and by way of exhilaration I am now come to take my farewell of you." "To London!--and are you going this morning?" "Almost this moment." "This is very unfortunate. But Mrs. Smith must be obliged;--and her business will not detain you from us long I hope." He coloured as he replied, "You are very kind, but I have no idea of returning into Devonshire immediately. My visits to Mrs. Smith are never repeated within the twelvemonth." "And is Mrs. Smith your only friend? Is Allenham the only house in the neighbourhood to which you will be welcome? For shame, Willoughby, can you wait for an invitation here?" His colour increased; and with his eyes fixed on the ground he only replied, "You are too good." Mrs. Dashwood looked at Elinor with surprise. Elinor felt equal amazement. For a few moments every one was silent. Mrs. Dashwood first spoke. "I have only to add, my dear Willoughby, that at Barton cottage you will always be welcome; for I will not press you to return here immediately, because you only can judge how far THAT might be pleasing to Mrs. Smith; and on this head I shall be no more disposed to question your judgment than to doubt your inclination." "My engagements at present," replied Willoughby, confusedly, "are of such a nature--that--I dare not flatter myself"-- He stopt. Mrs. Dashwood was too much astonished to speak, and another pause succeeded. This was broken by Willoughby, who said with a faint smile, "It is folly to linger in this manner. I will not torment myself any longer by remaining among friends whose society it is impossible for me now to enjoy." He then hastily took leave of them all and left the room. They saw him step into his carriage, and in a minute it was out of sight. Mrs. Dashwood felt too much for speech, and instantly quitted the parlour to give way in solitude to the concern and alarm which this sudden departure occasioned. Elinor's uneasiness was at least equal to her mother's. She thought of what had just passed with anxiety and distrust. Willoughby's behaviour in taking leave of them, his embarrassment, and affectation of cheerfulness, and, above all, his unwillingness to accept her mother's invitation, a backwardness so unlike a lover, so unlike himself, greatly disturbed her. One moment she feared that no serious design had ever been formed on his side; and the next that some unfortunate quarrel had taken place between him and her sister;--the distress in which Marianne had quitted the room was such as a serious quarrel could most reasonably account for, though when she considered what Marianne's love for him was, a quarrel seemed almost impossible. But whatever might be the particulars of their separation, her sister's affliction was indubitable; and she thought with the tenderest compassion of that violent sorrow which Marianne was in all probability not merely giving way to as a relief, but feeding and encouraging as a duty. In about half an hour her mother returned, and though her eyes were red, her countenance was not uncheerful. "Our dear Willoughby is now some miles from Barton, Elinor," said she, as she sat down to work, "and with how heavy a heart does he travel?" "It is all very strange. So suddenly to be gone! It seems but the work of a moment. And last night he was with us so happy, so cheerful, so affectionate? And now, after only ten minutes notice--Gone too without intending to return!--Something more than what he owned to us must have happened. He did not speak, he did not behave like himself. YOU must have seen the difference as well as I. What can it be? Can they have quarrelled? Why else should he have shewn such unwillingness to accept your invitation here?"-- "It was not inclination that he wanted, Elinor; I could plainly see THAT. He had not the power of accepting it. I have thought it all over I assure you, and I can perfectly account for every thing that at first seemed strange to me as well as to you." "Can you, indeed!" "Yes. I have explained it to myself in the most satisfactory way;--but you, Elinor, who love to doubt where you can--it will not satisfy YOU, I know; but you shall not talk ME out of my trust in it. I am persuaded that Mrs. Smith suspects his regard for Marianne, disapproves of it, (perhaps because she has other views for him,) and on that account is eager to get him away;--and that the business which she sends him off to transact is invented as an excuse to dismiss him. This is what I believe to have happened. He is, moreover, aware that she DOES disapprove the connection, he dares not therefore at present confess to her his engagement with Marianne, and he feels himself obliged, from his dependent situation, to give into her schemes, and absent himself from Devonshire for a while. You will tell me, I know, that this may or may NOT have happened; but I will listen to no cavil, unless you can point out any other method of understanding the affair as satisfactory at this. And now, Elinor, what have you to say?" "Nothing, for you have anticipated my answer." "Then you would have told me, that it might or might not have happened. Oh, Elinor, how incomprehensible are your feelings! You had rather take evil upon credit than good. You had rather look out for misery for Marianne, and guilt for poor Willoughby, than an apology for the latter. You are resolved to think him blameable, because he took leave of us with less affection than his usual behaviour has shewn. And is no allowance to be made for inadvertence, or for spirits depressed by recent disappointment? Are no probabilities to be accepted, merely because they are not certainties? Is nothing due to the man whom we have all such reason to love, and no reason in the world to think ill of? To the possibility of motives unanswerable in themselves, though unavoidably secret for a while? And, after all, what is it you suspect him of?" "I can hardly tell myself. But suspicion of something unpleasant is the inevitable consequence of such an alteration as we just witnessed in him. There is great truth, however, in what you have now urged of the allowances which ought to be made for him, and it is my wish to be candid in my judgment of every body. Willoughby may undoubtedly have very sufficient reasons for his conduct, and I will hope that he has. But it would have been more like Willoughby to acknowledge them at once. Secrecy may be advisable; but still I cannot help wondering at its being practiced by him." "Do not blame him, however, for departing from his character, where the deviation is necessary. But you really do admit the justice of what I have said in his defence?--I am happy--and he is acquitted." "Not entirely. It may be proper to conceal their engagement (if they ARE engaged) from Mrs. Smith--and if that is the case, it must be highly expedient for Willoughby to be but little in Devonshire at present. But this is no excuse for their concealing it from us." "Concealing it from us! my dear child, do you accuse Willoughby and Marianne of concealment? This is strange indeed, when your eyes have been reproaching them every day for incautiousness." "I want no proof of their affection," said Elinor; "but of their engagement I do." "I am perfectly satisfied of both." "Yet not a syllable has been said to you on the subject, by either of them." "I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly. Has not his behaviour to Marianne and to all of us, for at least the last fortnight, declared that he loved and considered her as his future wife, and that he felt for us the attachment of the nearest relation? Have we not perfectly understood each other? Has not my consent been daily asked by his looks, his manner, his attentive and affectionate respect? My Elinor, is it possible to doubt their engagement? How could such a thought occur to you? How is it to be supposed that Willoughby, persuaded as he must be of your sister's love, should leave her, and leave her perhaps for months, without telling her of his affection;--that they should part without a mutual exchange of confidence?" "I confess," replied Elinor, "that every circumstance except ONE is in favour of their engagement; but that ONE is the total silence of both on the subject, and with me it almost outweighs every other." "How strange this is! You must think wretchedly indeed of Willoughby, if, after all that has openly passed between them, you can doubt the nature of the terms on which they are together. Has he been acting a part in his behaviour to your sister all this time? Do you suppose him really indifferent to her?" "No, I cannot think that. He must and does love her I am sure." "But with a strange kind of tenderness, if he can leave her with such indifference, such carelessness of the future, as you attribute to him." "You must remember, my dear mother, that I have never considered this matter as certain. I have had my doubts, I confess; but they are fainter than they were, and they may soon be entirely done away. If we find they correspond, every fear of mine will be removed." "A mighty concession indeed! If you were to see them at the altar, you would suppose they were going to be married. Ungracious girl! But I require no such proof. Nothing in my opinion has ever passed to justify doubt; no secrecy has been attempted; all has been uniformly open and unreserved. You cannot doubt your sister's wishes. It must be Willoughby therefore whom you suspect. But why? Is he not a man of honour and feeling? Has there been any inconsistency on his side to create alarm? can he be deceitful?" "I hope not, I believe not," cried Elinor. "I love Willoughby, sincerely love him; and suspicion of his integrity cannot be more painful to yourself than to me. It has been involuntary, and I will not encourage it. I was startled, I confess, by the alteration in his manners this morning;--he did not speak like himself, and did not return your kindness with any cordiality. But all this may be explained by such a situation of his affairs as you have supposed. He had just parted from my sister, had seen her leave him in the greatest affliction; and if he felt obliged, from a fear of offending Mrs. Smith, to resist the temptation of returning here soon, and yet aware that by declining your invitation, by saying that he was going away for some time, he should seem to act an ungenerous, a suspicious part by our family, he might well be embarrassed and disturbed. In such a case, a plain and open avowal of his difficulties would have been more to his honour I think, as well as more consistent with his general character;--but I will not raise objections against any one's conduct on so illiberal a foundation, as a difference in judgment from myself, or a deviation from what I may think right and consistent." "You speak very properly. Willoughby certainly does not deserve to be suspected. Though WE have not known him long, he is no stranger in this part of the world; and who has ever spoken to his disadvantage? Had he been in a situation to act independently and marry immediately, it might have been odd that he should leave us without acknowledging everything to me at once: but this is not the case. It is an engagement in some respects not prosperously begun, for their marriage must be at a very uncertain distance; and even secrecy, as far as it can be observed, may now be very advisable." They were interrupted by the entrance of Margaret; and Elinor was then at liberty to think over the representations of her mother, to acknowledge the probability of many, and hope for the justice of all. They saw nothing of Marianne till dinner time, when she entered the room and took her place at the table without saying a word. Her eyes were red and swollen; and it seemed as if her tears were even then restrained with difficulty. She avoided the looks of them all, could neither eat nor speak, and after some time, on her mother's silently pressing her hand with tender compassion, her small degree of fortitude was quite overcome, she burst into tears and left the room. This violent oppression of spirits continued the whole evening. She was without any power, because she was without any desire of command over herself. The slightest mention of anything relative to Willoughby overpowered her in an instant; and though her family were most anxiously attentive to her comfort, it was impossible for them, if they spoke at all, to keep clear of every subject which her feelings connected with him.

Chapter 15

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility30.asp

Puzzled about his hasty departure, Mrs. Jennings. shows concern for the Colonel. Elinor feels anxious about Marianne and wonders why she has not disclosed her engagement to her mother. Willoughby visits them everyday and displays his affection for Marianne. On one of his visits, he reveals his attachment to Barton Cottage and asks Mrs. Dashwood not to make changes there.

Notes A few more facts about Colonel Brandon are revealed. Mrs. Jennings talks about his estate at Delaford and about his relatives. Her dropping hints about the family and fortune of Colonel Brandon enhances the desire of the reader to know more about this elusive character. Elinor is concerned about Marianne and her relationship with Willoughby. Though she is aware of their mutual affection, she is not sure about the seriousness of their relationship; Marianne has not spoken about it to any one of them. Willoughby displays another facet of his personality. He can be very sentimental. He talks about his deep attachment to Barton Cottage and shows concern when Mrs. Dashwood expresses her desire to renovate it. He also expresses his gratitude towards them for their kindness. Through his words and actions, he hints at his emotional involvement with Marianne. CHAPTER 15 Summary Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor and Margaret make their customary visit to the Park. On their return, they are shocked to see Marianne looking dejected and flustered. Willoughby informs them about his decision to leave for London immediately. However, his explanation for this sudden departure does not convince Elinor. She suspects something more serious. Mrs. Dashwood is not so pessimistic. Marianne drowns herself in sorrow but refrains from talking about it. Notes The cheerful atmosphere of Barton Cottage is disrupted. Marianne, who had been blissful in the company of Willoughby, now looks miserable. Since she does not reveal anything about Willoughby's conversation with her before his departure to London, mystery shrouds their relationship. The incident casts a cloud over the family. Elinor is puzzled at Willoughby's change of behavior with Marianne and at his sudden plans to visit London. She suspects Willoughby's intentions and is doubtful of his integrity. Mrs. Dashwood, too, is disturbed although she does not share Elinor's view. Jane Austen frequently reminds the reader about Elinor's superior sense and reasoning ability. After observing Willoughby before his departure, she tries to analyze his behavior and his decision to take leave of them so abruptly. Willoughby, who had always spoken openly about all matters, could have revealed the real reason behind his visit to London unless he desperately needed to conceal something. Mrs. Dashwood, blinded by her faith in Willoughby, refuses to entertain negative thoughts about him. She feels sure of Willoughby's feelings for her daughter and hopes for the best. CHAPTER 16 Summary Marianne broods over her plight but hardly talks about Willoughby. Sometimes she inadvertently reveals her feelings for him. One morning, as they are walking in the countryside, they are surprised to encounter Edward Ferrars, who has arrived to visit them at Barton. Marianne is delighted to meet him and is glad for her sister. She welcomes Edward with open arms. Notes Marianne isolates herself from the others and becomes engulfed in a cloud of gloom. By sulking over her fate, she disturbs the peace of her family. She lacks restraint and has no regard for the others in her family. Willoughby exits from the scene and Edward enters. Willoughby's departure had disturbed the members of the Dashwood family, but Edward's visit gladdens them: Edward's arrival at Barton is like a streak of sunlight in an overcast sky. His presence even manages to lift Marianne out of her depression. She forgets her sorrow for the moment and welcomes him. His visit seems to offer her some consolation. She talks to him animatedly and asks him about Norland. Elinor is elated to see Edward but shows restraint in her behavior towards him. She keeps her emotions in control and tries to react normally to the situation.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/01.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Prince/section_1_part_0.txt

The Prince.chapter 1

chapter 1

{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-1", "summary": "Okay, here's how it is. There are two types of governments: republics and monarchies . Now, there are new monarchies or old ones, and new monarchies can be either totally new or sort of new . It looks kind of like this: RepublicsMonarchies New Monarchies Brand-spanking New MonarchiesSort of New MonarchiesOld Monarchies Republics Monarchies New Monarchies Brand-spanking New MonarchiesSort of New MonarchiesOld Monarchies New Monarchies Brand-spanking New MonarchiesSort of New Monarchies Brand-spanking New Monarchies Sort of New Monarchies Old Monarchies Now, when you're doing this whole conquering thing--yes, you, since only princes or rulers can read this book--there are a few things to keep in mind: the place you are conquering either already had a ruler or they are used to governing themselves. Also, when you conquer them, you can do it yourself or get someone else to do it; and you might be lucky or you might work hard. These are all of the ways to conquer a place. Got it? No? Well that's what the rest of the book is for.", "analysis": ""}

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.

Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-1

Okay, here's how it is. There are two types of governments: republics and monarchies . Now, there are new monarchies or old ones, and new monarchies can be either totally new or sort of new . It looks kind of like this: RepublicsMonarchies New Monarchies Brand-spanking New MonarchiesSort of New MonarchiesOld Monarchies Republics Monarchies New Monarchies Brand-spanking New MonarchiesSort of New MonarchiesOld Monarchies New Monarchies Brand-spanking New MonarchiesSort of New Monarchies Brand-spanking New Monarchies Sort of New Monarchies Old Monarchies Now, when you're doing this whole conquering thing--yes, you, since only princes or rulers can read this book--there are a few things to keep in mind: the place you are conquering either already had a ruler or they are used to governing themselves. Also, when you conquer them, you can do it yourself or get someone else to do it; and you might be lucky or you might work hard. These are all of the ways to conquer a place. Got it? No? Well that's what the rest of the book is for.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1130-chapters/35.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra/section_34_part_0.txt

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.act iv.scene x

act iv, scene x

{"name": "Act IV, Scene x", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iv-scene-x", "summary": "Antony discusses with Scarus that Caesar has prepared to meet them at sea. He would be willing to fight them in fire or the air, if they wanted, because he's so confident. They'll go to the hills to survey the fleet at water and be ready for them.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE X. Between the two camps Enter ANTONY and SCARUS, with their army ANTONY. Their preparation is to-day by sea; We please them not by land. SCARUS. For both, my lord. ANTONY. I would they'd fight i' th' fire or i' th' air; We'd fight there too. But this it is, our foot Upon the hills adjoining to the city Shall stay with us- Order for sea is given; They have put forth the haven- Where their appointment we may best discover And look on their endeavour. Exeunt ACT_4|SC_11

Act IV, Scene x

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iv-scene-x

Antony discusses with Scarus that Caesar has prepared to meet them at sea. He would be willing to fight them in fire or the air, if they wanted, because he's so confident. They'll go to the hills to survey the fleet at water and be ready for them.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/chapters_35_to_38.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_6_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapters 35-38

chapters 35-38

{"name": "Chapters 35 to 38", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210225000853/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/maddingcrowd/section7/", "summary": "Gabriel and Coggan learn of the secret marriage the next day, when Sergeant Troy appears, greeting them and throwing money at them patronizingly, to Gabriel's great distress. Gabriel's feelings are registered by Coggan's comment that his face is as white as a corpse's. Soon afterward, Gabriel runs into Boldwood and notices Boldwood's look of despair. He foresees much future misery resulting from the hasty wedding. The next scene occurs at night, when Gabriel begins to notice signs of bad weather. It is the night of the harvest supper and dance, and Bathsheba and Troy have invited all the workers to celebrate the harvest and their marriage. We see the festivities from Gabriel's perspective. Then, Troy announces that he wants the laborers to be served brandy and water. None of the laborers are used to hard liquor, and Bathsheba objects, but Troy overrules her. She leaves with the women and children, and Troy insists that the men drink brandy with him. Gabriel slips outside and sees yet more signs of a huge oncoming storm: The sheep are huddled together; toads and slugs are seeking shelter. He calculates that with the wheat ricks and barley ricks, Bathsheba has 750 pounds' worth of produce lying exposed to the rain, and he goes to the barn to get help in covering it. Every single one of the workers is lying passed out with Troy in the barn, inexperienced with hard liquor. Gabriel decides he will have to save the wheat and barley single-handedly before the storm arrives. He works heroically to cover the wheat and then heads for the barley. Chapter 37 gives a dramatic account of the powerful lightning storm that hits just as Gabriel works atop one of the ricks, thatching it to protect it from rain. As he struggles there in the dark, he sees a figure and realizes it is Bathsheba, coming to his aid. As they thatch side by side, in grave danger of being hit by lightning, she confesses that she did not go to Bath with the intention of marrying. This is yet another moment in the novel when Bathsheba and Gabriel engage in an intimate conversation in which she turns to him for guidance, and her confession provides us with our first insight into the motivation behind Bathsheba's mysterious acts. She explains that she had gone to Bath meaning to break off her engagement to Troy. However, upon arriving in Bath, Troy again fell to lavishing compliments on her and said that \"his constancy could not be counted on\" unless she at once married him. Bathsheba recounts that she was \"grieved and troubled,\" and married him in a state between \"jealousy and distraction.\" At seven in the morning, once he has sent Bathsheba home and covered the ricks in the rain, Gabriel finishes and heads home. He sees the farm workers just waking up from their excesses, unaware that the ricks were ever endangered, and then he runs across Boldwood. Gabriel asks after Boldwood's own ricks, only to find that he has left them all uncovered. Gabriel is intensely shocked at Boldwood's negligence: \"A few months earlier Boldwood's forgetting his husbandry would have been as preposterous an idea as a sailor forgetting he was in a ship.\" Boldwood ashamedly declares himself weak and foolish, unable to fend off his miserable grief.", "analysis": "Commentary Throughout this section, Gabriel acts as overseer and observer, the only truly sane man in a time of trouble. He is a stand-in for the reader, who also sees the folly of Bathsheba and Boldwood's actions but without being able to stop them. Through his sensibility, we are given a measure of the madness that has taken over the others, even the normally reliable, down-to-earth farm workers. The storm is one of the few catastrophes in the novel inflicted by the natural world. In this struggle with nature, we see how different people respond to forces beyond human control. Gabriel emerges as the person most attuned to the signals of nature and able to read what will happen and control it as well as he can. Chapter 36 gives an extraordinary account of a series of natural signs--a toad on the path, a slug crawling across the table, and sheep huddling together. Hardy first presents this information to us, though we don't know what it means, and then shows how Gabriel is able to interpret it correctly: Gabriel realizes that the sheep's position foretells a long and constant rain after the initial storm. The storm's destructive force symbolizes that of Troy upon the people around him, from Bathsheba and Boldwood to the laborers. Hardy depicts a world in which one must be constantly attentive and responsible in order to survive; that is the reality of farm life. Troy dismisses such attention to work and the natural world, but in this scene, we begin to realize why Gabriel's cautious, responsible qualities, while perhaps less beguiling than Troy's extravagantly romantic manner, are more valuable in the world of the novel. Bathsheba realizes this too. As he stands on the rick, saving it from the storm, Gabriel remembers the time eight months earlier when he saved a rick from the fire. By linking the two scenes, Hardy indicates how the characters and circumstances have changed since the first event. Similarly, Bathsheba's conversation with Gabriel is one of several she has with him alone, the first being the conversation in which Gabriel first proposes to her. In each of these talks, questions come up regarding marriage and the motivations for it. Gabriel is the one intelligent person in whom Bathsheba can confide. By isolating these conversations and studying their progression in series, a reader can see the transformations Bathsheba experiences over the course of the novel. Notice the suspense Hardy builds into this section as Gabriel wonders what has driven Bathsheba to marry. Just when a crucial event has occurred, Hardy removes the reader from Bathsheba's point of view, intentionally leaving us wondering."}

AT AN UPPER WINDOW It was very early the next morning--a time of sun and dew. The confused beginnings of many birds' songs spread into the healthy air, and the wan blue of the heaven was here and there coated with thin webs of incorporeal cloud which were of no effect in obscuring day. All the lights in the scene were yellow as to colour, and all the shadows were attenuated as to form. The creeping plants about the old manor-house were bowed with rows of heavy water drops, which had upon objects behind them the effect of minute lenses of high magnifying power. Just before the clock struck five Gabriel Oak and Coggan passed the village cross, and went on together to the fields. They were yet barely in view of their mistress's house, when Oak fancied he saw the opening of a casement in one of the upper windows. The two men were at this moment partially screened by an elder bush, now beginning to be enriched with black bunches of fruit, and they paused before emerging from its shade. A handsome man leaned idly from the lattice. He looked east and then west, in the manner of one who makes a first morning survey. The man was Sergeant Troy. His red jacket was loosely thrown on, but not buttoned, and he had altogether the relaxed bearing of a soldier taking his ease. Coggan spoke first, looking quietly at the window. "She has married him!" he said. Gabriel had previously beheld the sight, and he now stood with his back turned, making no reply. "I fancied we should know something to-day," continued Coggan. "I heard wheels pass my door just after dark--you were out somewhere." He glanced round upon Gabriel. "Good heavens above us, Oak, how white your face is; you look like a corpse!" "Do I?" said Oak, with a faint smile. "Lean on the gate: I'll wait a bit." "All right, all right." They stood by the gate awhile, Gabriel listlessly staring at the ground. His mind sped into the future, and saw there enacted in years of leisure the scenes of repentance that would ensue from this work of haste. That they were married he had instantly decided. Why had it been so mysteriously managed? It had become known that she had had a fearful journey to Bath, owing to her miscalculating the distance: that the horse had broken down, and that she had been more than two days getting there. It was not Bathsheba's way to do things furtively. With all her faults, she was candour itself. Could she have been entrapped? The union was not only an unutterable grief to him: it amazed him, notwithstanding that he had passed the preceding week in a suspicion that such might be the issue of Troy's meeting her away from home. Her quiet return with Liddy had to some extent dispersed the dread. Just as that imperceptible motion which appears like stillness is infinitely divided in its properties from stillness itself, so had his hope undistinguishable from despair differed from despair indeed. In a few minutes they moved on again towards the house. The sergeant still looked from the window. "Morning, comrades!" he shouted, in a cheery voice, when they came up. Coggan replied to the greeting. "Bain't ye going to answer the man?" he then said to Gabriel. "I'd say good morning--you needn't spend a hapenny of meaning upon it, and yet keep the man civil." Gabriel soon decided too that, since the deed was done, to put the best face upon the matter would be the greatest kindness to her he loved. "Good morning, Sergeant Troy," he returned, in a ghastly voice. "A rambling, gloomy house this," said Troy, smiling. "Why--they MAY not be married!" suggested Coggan. "Perhaps she's not there." Gabriel shook his head. The soldier turned a little towards the east, and the sun kindled his scarlet coat to an orange glow. "But it is a nice old house," responded Gabriel. "Yes--I suppose so; but I feel like new wine in an old bottle here. My notion is that sash-windows should be put throughout, and these old wainscoted walls brightened up a bit; or the oak cleared quite away, and the walls papered." "It would be a pity, I think." "Well, no. A philosopher once said in my hearing that the old builders, who worked when art was a living thing, had no respect for the work of builders who went before them, but pulled down and altered as they thought fit; and why shouldn't we? 'Creation and preservation don't do well together,' says he, 'and a million of antiquarians can't invent a style.' My mind exactly. I am for making this place more modern, that we may be cheerful whilst we can." The military man turned and surveyed the interior of the room, to assist his ideas of improvement in this direction. Gabriel and Coggan began to move on. "Oh, Coggan," said Troy, as if inspired by a recollection "do you know if insanity has ever appeared in Mr. Boldwood's family?" Jan reflected for a moment. "I once heard that an uncle of his was queer in his head, but I don't know the rights o't," he said. "It is of no importance," said Troy, lightly. "Well, I shall be down in the fields with you some time this week; but I have a few matters to attend to first. So good-day to you. We shall, of course, keep on just as friendly terms as usual. I'm not a proud man: nobody is ever able to say that of Sergeant Troy. However, what is must be, and here's half-a-crown to drink my health, men." Troy threw the coin dexterously across the front plot and over the fence towards Gabriel, who shunned it in its fall, his face turning to an angry red. Coggan twirled his eye, edged forward, and caught the money in its ricochet upon the road. "Very well--you keep it, Coggan," said Gabriel with disdain and almost fiercely. "As for me, I'll do without gifts from him!" "Don't show it too much," said Coggan, musingly. "For if he's married to her, mark my words, he'll buy his discharge and be our master here. Therefore 'tis well to say 'Friend' outwardly, though you say 'Troublehouse' within." "Well--perhaps it is best to be silent; but I can't go further than that. I can't flatter, and if my place here is only to be kept by smoothing him down, my place must be lost." A horseman, whom they had for some time seen in the distance, now appeared close beside them. "There's Mr. Boldwood," said Oak. "I wonder what Troy meant by his question." Coggan and Oak nodded respectfully to the farmer, just checked their paces to discover if they were wanted, and finding they were not stood back to let him pass on. The only signs of the terrible sorrow Boldwood had been combating through the night, and was combating now, were the want of colour in his well-defined face, the enlarged appearance of the veins in his forehead and temples, and the sharper lines about his mouth. The horse bore him away, and the very step of the animal seemed significant of dogged despair. Gabriel, for a minute, rose above his own grief in noticing Boldwood's. He saw the square figure sitting erect upon the horse, the head turned to neither side, the elbows steady by the hips, the brim of the hat level and undisturbed in its onward glide, until the keen edges of Boldwood's shape sank by degrees over the hill. To one who knew the man and his story there was something more striking in this immobility than in a collapse. The clash of discord between mood and matter here was forced painfully home to the heart; and, as in laughter there are more dreadful phases than in tears, so was there in the steadiness of this agonized man an expression deeper than a cry. WEALTH IN JEOPARDY--THE REVEL One night, at the end of August, when Bathsheba's experiences as a married woman were still new, and when the weather was yet dry and sultry, a man stood motionless in the stockyard of Weatherbury Upper Farm, looking at the moon and sky. The night had a sinister aspect. A heated breeze from the south slowly fanned the summits of lofty objects, and in the sky dashes of buoyant cloud were sailing in a course at right angles to that of another stratum, neither of them in the direction of the breeze below. The moon, as seen through these films, had a lurid metallic look. The fields were sallow with the impure light, and all were tinged in monochrome, as if beheld through stained glass. The same evening the sheep had trailed homeward head to tail, the behaviour of the rooks had been confused, and the horses had moved with timidity and caution. Thunder was imminent, and, taking some secondary appearances into consideration, it was likely to be followed by one of the lengthened rains which mark the close of dry weather for the season. Before twelve hours had passed a harvest atmosphere would be a bygone thing. Oak gazed with misgiving at eight naked and unprotected ricks, massive and heavy with the rich produce of one-half the farm for that year. He went on to the barn. This was the night which had been selected by Sergeant Troy--ruling now in the room of his wife--for giving the harvest supper and dance. As Oak approached the building the sound of violins and a tambourine, and the regular jigging of many feet, grew more distinct. He came close to the large doors, one of which stood slightly ajar, and looked in. The central space, together with the recess at one end, was emptied of all incumbrances, and this area, covering about two-thirds of the whole, was appropriated for the gathering, the remaining end, which was piled to the ceiling with oats, being screened off with sail-cloth. Tufts and garlands of green foliage decorated the walls, beams, and extemporized chandeliers, and immediately opposite to Oak a rostrum had been erected, bearing a table and chairs. Here sat three fiddlers, and beside them stood a frantic man with his hair on end, perspiration streaming down his cheeks, and a tambourine quivering in his hand. The dance ended, and on the black oak floor in the midst a new row of couples formed for another. "Now, ma'am, and no offence I hope, I ask what dance you would like next?" said the first violin. "Really, it makes no difference," said the clear voice of Bathsheba, who stood at the inner end of the building, observing the scene from behind a table covered with cups and viands. Troy was lolling beside her. "Then," said the fiddler, "I'll venture to name that the right and proper thing is 'The Soldier's Joy'--there being a gallant soldier married into the farm--hey, my sonnies, and gentlemen all?" "It shall be 'The Soldier's Joy,'" exclaimed a chorus. "Thanks for the compliment," said the sergeant gaily, taking Bathsheba by the hand and leading her to the top of the dance. "For though I have purchased my discharge from Her Most Gracious Majesty's regiment of cavalry the 11th Dragoon Guards, to attend to the new duties awaiting me here, I shall continue a soldier in spirit and feeling as long as I live." So the dance began. As to the merits of "The Soldier's Joy," there cannot be, and never were, two opinions. It has been observed in the musical circles of Weatherbury and its vicinity that this melody, at the end of three-quarters of an hour of thunderous footing, still possesses more stimulative properties for the heel and toe than the majority of other dances at their first opening. "The Soldier's Joy" has, too, an additional charm, in being so admirably adapted to the tambourine aforesaid--no mean instrument in the hands of a performer who understands the proper convulsions, spasms, St. Vitus's dances, and fearful frenzies necessary when exhibiting its tones in their highest perfection. The immortal tune ended, a fine DD rolling forth from the bass-viol with the sonorousness of a cannonade, and Gabriel delayed his entry no longer. He avoided Bathsheba, and got as near as possible to the platform, where Sergeant Troy was now seated, drinking brandy-and-water, though the others drank without exception cider and ale. Gabriel could not easily thrust himself within speaking distance of the sergeant, and he sent a message, asking him to come down for a moment. The sergeant said he could not attend. "Will you tell him, then," said Gabriel, "that I only stepped ath'art to say that a heavy rain is sure to fall soon, and that something should be done to protect the ricks?" "Mr. Troy says it will not rain," returned the messenger, "and he cannot stop to talk to you about such fidgets." In juxtaposition with Troy, Oak had a melancholy tendency to look like a candle beside gas, and ill at ease, he went out again, thinking he would go home; for, under the circumstances, he had no heart for the scene in the barn. At the door he paused for a moment: Troy was speaking. "Friends, it is not only the harvest home that we are celebrating to-night; but this is also a Wedding Feast. A short time ago I had the happiness to lead to the altar this lady, your mistress, and not until now have we been able to give any public flourish to the event in Weatherbury. That it may be thoroughly well done, and that every man may go happy to bed, I have ordered to be brought here some bottles of brandy and kettles of hot water. A treble-strong goblet will be handed round to each guest." Bathsheba put her hand upon his arm, and, with upturned pale face, said imploringly, "No--don't give it to them--pray don't, Frank! It will only do them harm: they have had enough of everything." "True--we don't wish for no more, thank ye," said one or two. "Pooh!" said the sergeant contemptuously, and raised his voice as if lighted up by a new idea. "Friends," he said, "we'll send the women-folk home! 'Tis time they were in bed. Then we cockbirds will have a jolly carouse to ourselves! If any of the men show the white feather, let them look elsewhere for a winter's work." Bathsheba indignantly left the barn, followed by all the women and children. The musicians, not looking upon themselves as "company," slipped quietly away to their spring waggon and put in the horse. Thus Troy and the men on the farm were left sole occupants of the place. Oak, not to appear unnecessarily disagreeable, stayed a little while; then he, too, arose and quietly took his departure, followed by a friendly oath from the sergeant for not staying to a second round of grog. Gabriel proceeded towards his home. In approaching the door, his toe kicked something which felt and sounded soft, leathery, and distended, like a boxing-glove. It was a large toad humbly travelling across the path. Oak took it up, thinking it might be better to kill the creature to save it from pain; but finding it uninjured, he placed it again among the grass. He knew what this direct message from the Great Mother meant. And soon came another. When he struck a light indoors there appeared upon the table a thin glistening streak, as if a brush of varnish had been lightly dragged across it. Oak's eyes followed the serpentine sheen to the other side, where it led up to a huge brown garden-slug, which had come indoors to-night for reasons of its own. It was Nature's second way of hinting to him that he was to prepare for foul weather. Oak sat down meditating for nearly an hour. During this time two black spiders, of the kind common in thatched houses, promenaded the ceiling, ultimately dropping to the floor. This reminded him that if there was one class of manifestation on this matter that he thoroughly understood, it was the instincts of sheep. He left the room, ran across two or three fields towards the flock, got upon a hedge, and looked over among them. They were crowded close together on the other side around some furze bushes, and the first peculiarity observable was that, on the sudden appearance of Oak's head over the fence, they did not stir or run away. They had now a terror of something greater than their terror of man. But this was not the most noteworthy feature: they were all grouped in such a way that their tails, without a single exception, were towards that half of the horizon from which the storm threatened. There was an inner circle closely huddled, and outside these they radiated wider apart, the pattern formed by the flock as a whole not being unlike a vandyked lace collar, to which the clump of furze-bushes stood in the position of a wearer's neck. This was enough to re-establish him in his original opinion. He knew now that he was right, and that Troy was wrong. Every voice in nature was unanimous in bespeaking change. But two distinct translations attached to these dumb expressions. Apparently there was to be a thunder-storm, and afterwards a cold continuous rain. The creeping things seemed to know all about the later rain, but little of the interpolated thunder-storm; whilst the sheep knew all about the thunder-storm and nothing of the later rain. This complication of weathers being uncommon, was all the more to be feared. Oak returned to the stack-yard. All was silent here, and the conical tips of the ricks jutted darkly into the sky. There were five wheat-ricks in this yard, and three stacks of barley. The wheat when threshed would average about thirty quarters to each stack; the barley, at least forty. Their value to Bathsheba, and indeed to anybody, Oak mentally estimated by the following simple calculation:-- 5 x 30 = 150 quarters = 500 L. 3 x 40 = 120 quarters = 250 L. ------- Total . . 750 L. Seven hundred and fifty pounds in the divinest form that money can wear--that of necessary food for man and beast: should the risk be run of deteriorating this bulk of corn to less than half its value, because of the instability of a woman? "Never, if I can prevent it!" said Gabriel. Such was the argument that Oak set outwardly before him. But man, even to himself, is a palimpsest, having an ostensible writing, and another beneath the lines. It is possible that there was this golden legend under the utilitarian one: "I will help to my last effort the woman I have loved so dearly." He went back to the barn to endeavour to obtain assistance for covering the ricks that very night. All was silent within, and he would have passed on in the belief that the party had broken up, had not a dim light, yellow as saffron by contrast with the greenish whiteness outside, streamed through a knot-hole in the folding doors. Gabriel looked in. An unusual picture met his eye. The candles suspended among the evergreens had burnt down to their sockets, and in some cases the leaves tied about them were scorched. Many of the lights had quite gone out, others smoked and stank, grease dropping from them upon the floor. Here, under the table, and leaning against forms and chairs in every conceivable attitude except the perpendicular, were the wretched persons of all the work-folk, the hair of their heads at such low levels being suggestive of mops and brooms. In the midst of these shone red and distinct the figure of Sergeant Troy, leaning back in a chair. Coggan was on his back, with his mouth open, huzzing forth snores, as were several others; the united breathings of the horizonal assemblage forming a subdued roar like London from a distance. Joseph Poorgrass was curled round in the fashion of a hedge-hog, apparently in attempts to present the least possible portion of his surface to the air; and behind him was dimly visible an unimportant remnant of William Smallbury. The glasses and cups still stood upon the table, a water-jug being overturned, from which a small rill, after tracing its course with marvellous precision down the centre of the long table, fell into the neck of the unconscious Mark Clark, in a steady, monotonous drip, like the dripping of a stalactite in a cave. Gabriel glanced hopelessly at the group, which, with one or two exceptions, composed all the able-bodied men upon the farm. He saw at once that if the ricks were to be saved that night, or even the next morning, he must save them with his own hands. A faint "ting-ting" resounded from under Coggan's waistcoat. It was Coggan's watch striking the hour of two. Oak went to the recumbent form of Matthew Moon, who usually undertook the rough thatching of the home-stead, and shook him. The shaking was without effect. Gabriel shouted in his ear, "where's your thatching-beetle and rick-stick and spars?" "Under the staddles," said Moon, mechanically, with the unconscious promptness of a medium. Gabriel let go his head, and it dropped upon the floor like a bowl. He then went to Susan Tall's husband. "Where's the key of the granary?" No answer. The question was repeated, with the same result. To be shouted to at night was evidently less of a novelty to Susan Tall's husband than to Matthew Moon. Oak flung down Tall's head into the corner again and turned away. To be just, the men were not greatly to blame for this painful and demoralizing termination to the evening's entertainment. Sergeant Troy had so strenuously insisted, glass in hand, that drinking should be the bond of their union, that those who wished to refuse hardly liked to be so unmannerly under the circumstances. Having from their youth up been entirely unaccustomed to any liquor stronger than cider or mild ale, it was no wonder that they had succumbed, one and all, with extraordinary uniformity, after the lapse of about an hour. Gabriel was greatly depressed. This debauch boded ill for that wilful and fascinating mistress whom the faithful man even now felt within him as the embodiment of all that was sweet and bright and hopeless. He put out the expiring lights, that the barn might not be endangered, closed the door upon the men in their deep and oblivious sleep, and went again into the lone night. A hot breeze, as if breathed from the parted lips of some dragon about to swallow the globe, fanned him from the south, while directly opposite in the north rose a grim misshapen body of cloud, in the very teeth of the wind. So unnaturally did it rise that one could fancy it to be lifted by machinery from below. Meanwhile the faint cloudlets had flown back into the south-east corner of the sky, as if in terror of the large cloud, like a young brood gazed in upon by some monster. Going on to the village, Oak flung a small stone against the window of Laban Tall's bedroom, expecting Susan to open it; but nobody stirred. He went round to the back door, which had been left unfastened for Laban's entry, and passed in to the foot of the staircase. "Mrs. Tall, I've come for the key of the granary, to get at the rick-cloths," said Oak, in a stentorian voice. "Is that you?" said Mrs. Susan Tall, half awake. "Yes," said Gabriel. "Come along to bed, do, you drawlatching rogue--keeping a body awake like this!" "It isn't Laban--'tis Gabriel Oak. I want the key of the granary." "Gabriel! What in the name of fortune did you pretend to be Laban for?" "I didn't. I thought you meant--" "Yes you did! What do you want here?" "The key of the granary." "Take it then. 'Tis on the nail. People coming disturbing women at this time of night ought--" Gabriel took the key, without waiting to hear the conclusion of the tirade. Ten minutes later his lonely figure might have been seen dragging four large water-proof coverings across the yard, and soon two of these heaps of treasure in grain were covered snug--two cloths to each. Two hundred pounds were secured. Three wheat-stacks remained open, and there were no more cloths. Oak looked under the staddles and found a fork. He mounted the third pile of wealth and began operating, adopting the plan of sloping the upper sheaves one over the other; and, in addition, filling the interstices with the material of some untied sheaves. So far all was well. By this hurried contrivance Bathsheba's property in wheat was safe for at any rate a week or two, provided always that there was not much wind. Next came the barley. This it was only possible to protect by systematic thatching. Time went on, and the moon vanished not to reappear. It was the farewell of the ambassador previous to war. The night had a haggard look, like a sick thing; and there came finally an utter expiration of air from the whole heaven in the form of a slow breeze, which might have been likened to a death. And now nothing was heard in the yard but the dull thuds of the beetle which drove in the spars, and the rustle of thatch in the intervals. THE STORM--THE TWO TOGETHER A light flapped over the scene, as if reflected from phosphorescent wings crossing the sky, and a rumble filled the air. It was the first move of the approaching storm. The second peal was noisy, with comparatively little visible lightning. Gabriel saw a candle shining in Bathsheba's bedroom, and soon a shadow swept to and fro upon the blind. Then there came a third flash. Manoeuvres of a most extraordinary kind were going on in the vast firmamental hollows overhead. The lightning now was the colour of silver, and gleamed in the heavens like a mailed army. Rumbles became rattles. Gabriel from his elevated position could see over the landscape at least half-a-dozen miles in front. Every hedge, bush, and tree was distinct as in a line engraving. In a paddock in the same direction was a herd of heifers, and the forms of these were visible at this moment in the act of galloping about in the wildest and maddest confusion, flinging their heels and tails high into the air, their heads to earth. A poplar in the immediate foreground was like an ink stroke on burnished tin. Then the picture vanished, leaving the darkness so intense that Gabriel worked entirely by feeling with his hands. He had stuck his ricking-rod, or poniard, as it was indifferently called--a long iron lance, polished by handling--into the stack, used to support the sheaves instead of the support called a groom used on houses. A blue light appeared in the zenith, and in some indescribable manner flickered down near the top of the rod. It was the fourth of the larger flashes. A moment later and there was a smack--smart, clear, and short. Gabriel felt his position to be anything but a safe one, and he resolved to descend. Not a drop of rain had fallen as yet. He wiped his weary brow, and looked again at the black forms of the unprotected stacks. Was his life so valuable to him after all? What were his prospects that he should be so chary of running risk, when important and urgent labour could not be carried on without such risk? He resolved to stick to the stack. However, he took a precaution. Under the staddles was a long tethering chain, used to prevent the escape of errant horses. This he carried up the ladder, and sticking his rod through the clog at one end, allowed the other end of the chain to trail upon the ground. The spike attached to it he drove in. Under the shadow of this extemporized lightning-conductor he felt himself comparatively safe. Before Oak had laid his hands upon his tools again out leapt the fifth flash, with the spring of a serpent and the shout of a fiend. It was green as an emerald, and the reverberation was stunning. What was this the light revealed to him? In the open ground before him, as he looked over the ridge of the rick, was a dark and apparently female form. Could it be that of the only venturesome woman in the parish--Bathsheba? The form moved on a step: then he could see no more. "Is that you, ma'am?" said Gabriel to the darkness. "Who is there?" said the voice of Bathsheba. "Gabriel. I am on the rick, thatching." "Oh, Gabriel!--and are you? I have come about them. The weather awoke me, and I thought of the corn. I am so distressed about it--can we save it anyhow? I cannot find my husband. Is he with you?" "He is not here." "Do you know where he is?" "Asleep in the barn." "He promised that the stacks should be seen to, and now they are all neglected! Can I do anything to help? Liddy is afraid to come out. Fancy finding you here at such an hour! Surely I can do something?" "You can bring up some reed-sheaves to me, one by one, ma'am; if you are not afraid to come up the ladder in the dark," said Gabriel. "Every moment is precious now, and that would save a good deal of time. It is not very dark when the lightning has been gone a bit." "I'll do anything!" she said, resolutely. She instantly took a sheaf upon her shoulder, clambered up close to his heels, placed it behind the rod, and descended for another. At her third ascent the rick suddenly brightened with the brazen glare of shining majolica--every knot in every straw was visible. On the slope in front of him appeared two human shapes, black as jet. The rick lost its sheen--the shapes vanished. Gabriel turned his head. It had been the sixth flash which had come from the east behind him, and the two dark forms on the slope had been the shadows of himself and Bathsheba. Then came the peal. It hardly was credible that such a heavenly light could be the parent of such a diabolical sound. "How terrible!" she exclaimed, and clutched him by the sleeve. Gabriel turned, and steadied her on her aerial perch by holding her arm. At the same moment, while he was still reversed in his attitude, there was more light, and he saw, as it were, a copy of the tall poplar tree on the hill drawn in black on the wall of the barn. It was the shadow of that tree, thrown across by a secondary flash in the west. The next flare came. Bathsheba was on the ground now, shouldering another sheaf, and she bore its dazzle without flinching--thunder and all--and again ascended with the load. There was then a silence everywhere for four or five minutes, and the crunch of the spars, as Gabriel hastily drove them in, could again be distinctly heard. He thought the crisis of the storm had passed. But there came a burst of light. "Hold on!" said Gabriel, taking the sheaf from her shoulder, and grasping her arm again. Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash was almost too novel for its inexpressibly dangerous nature to be at once realized, and they could only comprehend the magnificence of its beauty. It sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones--dancing, leaping, striding, racing around, and mingling altogether in unparalleled confusion. With these were intertwined undulating snakes of green, and behind these was a broad mass of lesser light. Simultaneously came from every part of the tumbling sky what may be called a shout; since, though no shout ever came near it, it was more of the nature of a shout than of anything else earthly. In the meantime one of the grisly forms had alighted upon the point of Gabriel's rod, to run invisibly down it, down the chain, and into the earth. Gabriel was almost blinded, and he could feel Bathsheba's warm arm tremble in his hand--a sensation novel and thrilling enough; but love, life, everything human, seemed small and trifling in such close juxtaposition with an infuriated universe. Oak had hardly time to gather up these impressions into a thought, and to see how strangely the red feather of her hat shone in this light, when the tall tree on the hill before mentioned seemed on fire to a white heat, and a new one among these terrible voices mingled with the last crash of those preceding. It was a stupefying blast, harsh and pitiless, and it fell upon their ears in a dead, flat blow, without that reverberation which lends the tones of a drum to more distant thunder. By the lustre reflected from every part of the earth and from the wide domical scoop above it, he saw that the tree was sliced down the whole length of its tall, straight stem, a huge riband of bark being apparently flung off. The other portion remained erect, and revealed the bared surface as a strip of white down the front. The lightning had struck the tree. A sulphurous smell filled the air; then all was silent, and black as a cave in Hinnom. "We had a narrow escape!" said Gabriel, hurriedly. "You had better go down." Bathsheba said nothing; but he could distinctly hear her rhythmical pants, and the recurrent rustle of the sheaf beside her in response to her frightened pulsations. She descended the ladder, and, on second thoughts, he followed her. The darkness was now impenetrable by the sharpest vision. They both stood still at the bottom, side by side. Bathsheba appeared to think only of the weather--Oak thought only of her just then. At last he said-- "The storm seems to have passed now, at any rate." "I think so too," said Bathsheba. "Though there are multitudes of gleams, look!" The sky was now filled with an incessant light, frequent repetition melting into complete continuity, as an unbroken sound results from the successive strokes on a gong. "Nothing serious," said he. "I cannot understand no rain falling. But Heaven be praised, it is all the better for us. I am now going up again." "Gabriel, you are kinder than I deserve! I will stay and help you yet. Oh, why are not some of the others here!" "They would have been here if they could," said Oak, in a hesitating way. "O, I know it all--all," she said, adding slowly: "They are all asleep in the barn, in a drunken sleep, and my husband among them. That's it, is it not? Don't think I am a timid woman and can't endure things." "I am not certain," said Gabriel. "I will go and see." He crossed to the barn, leaving her there alone. He looked through the chinks of the door. All was in total darkness, as he had left it, and there still arose, as at the former time, the steady buzz of many snores. He felt a zephyr curling about his cheek, and turned. It was Bathsheba's breath--she had followed him, and was looking into the same chink. He endeavoured to put off the immediate and painful subject of their thoughts by remarking gently, "If you'll come back again, miss--ma'am, and hand up a few more; it would save much time." Then Oak went back again, ascended to the top, stepped off the ladder for greater expedition, and went on thatching. She followed, but without a sheaf. "Gabriel," she said, in a strange and impressive voice. Oak looked up at her. She had not spoken since he left the barn. The soft and continual shimmer of the dying lightning showed a marble face high against the black sky of the opposite quarter. Bathsheba was sitting almost on the apex of the stack, her feet gathered up beneath her, and resting on the top round of the ladder. "Yes, mistress," he said. "I suppose you thought that when I galloped away to Bath that night it was on purpose to be married?" "I did at last--not at first," he answered, somewhat surprised at the abruptness with which this new subject was broached. "And others thought so, too?" "Yes." "And you blamed me for it?" "Well--a little." "I thought so. Now, I care a little for your good opinion, and I want to explain something--I have longed to do it ever since I returned, and you looked so gravely at me. For if I were to die--and I may die soon--it would be dreadful that you should always think mistakenly of me. Now, listen." Gabriel ceased his rustling. "I went to Bath that night in the full intention of breaking off my engagement to Mr. Troy. It was owing to circumstances which occurred after I got there that--that we were married. Now, do you see the matter in a new light?" "I do--somewhat." "I must, I suppose, say more, now that I have begun. And perhaps it's no harm, for you are certainly under no delusion that I ever loved you, or that I can have any object in speaking, more than that object I have mentioned. Well, I was alone in a strange city, and the horse was lame. And at last I didn't know what to do. I saw, when it was too late, that scandal might seize hold of me for meeting him alone in that way. But I was coming away, when he suddenly said he had that day seen a woman more beautiful than I, and that his constancy could not be counted on unless I at once became his.... And I was grieved and troubled--" She cleared her voice, and waited a moment, as if to gather breath. "And then, between jealousy and distraction, I married him!" she whispered with desperate impetuosity. Gabriel made no reply. "He was not to blame, for it was perfectly true about--about his seeing somebody else," she quickly added. "And now I don't wish for a single remark from you upon the subject--indeed, I forbid it. I only wanted you to know that misunderstood bit of my history before a time comes when you could never know it.--You want some more sheaves?" She went down the ladder, and the work proceeded. Gabriel soon perceived a languor in the movements of his mistress up and down, and he said to her, gently as a mother-- "I think you had better go indoors now, you are tired. I can finish the rest alone. If the wind does not change the rain is likely to keep off." "If I am useless I will go," said Bathsheba, in a flagging cadence. "But O, if your life should be lost!" "You are not useless; but I would rather not tire you longer. You have done well." "And you better!" she said, gratefully. "Thank you for your devotion, a thousand times, Gabriel! Goodnight--I know you are doing your very best for me." She diminished in the gloom, and vanished, and he heard the latch of the gate fall as she passed through. He worked in a reverie now, musing upon her story, and upon the contradictoriness of that feminine heart which had caused her to speak more warmly to him to-night than she ever had done whilst unmarried and free to speak as warmly as she chose. He was disturbed in his meditation by a grating noise from the coach-house. It was the vane on the roof turning round, and this change in the wind was the signal for a disastrous rain. RAIN--ONE SOLITARY MEETS ANOTHER It was now five o'clock, and the dawn was promising to break in hues of drab and ash. The air changed its temperature and stirred itself more vigorously. Cool breezes coursed in transparent eddies round Oak's face. The wind shifted yet a point or two and blew stronger. In ten minutes every wind of heaven seemed to be roaming at large. Some of the thatching on the wheat-stacks was now whirled fantastically aloft, and had to be replaced and weighted with some rails that lay near at hand. This done, Oak slaved away again at the barley. A huge drop of rain smote his face, the wind snarled round every corner, the trees rocked to the bases of their trunks, and the twigs clashed in strife. Driving in spars at any point and on any system, inch by inch he covered more and more safely from ruin this distracting impersonation of seven hundred pounds. The rain came on in earnest, and Oak soon felt the water to be tracking cold and clammy routes down his back. Ultimately he was reduced well-nigh to a homogeneous sop, and the dyes of his clothes trickled down and stood in a pool at the foot of the ladder. The rain stretched obliquely through the dull atmosphere in liquid spines, unbroken in continuity between their beginnings in the clouds and their points in him. Oak suddenly remembered that eight months before this time he had been fighting against fire in the same spot as desperately as he was fighting against water now--and for a futile love of the same woman. As for her--But Oak was generous and true, and dismissed his reflections. It was about seven o'clock in the dark leaden morning when Gabriel came down from the last stack, and thankfully exclaimed, "It is done!" He was drenched, weary, and sad, and yet not so sad as drenched and weary, for he was cheered by a sense of success in a good cause. Faint sounds came from the barn, and he looked that way. Figures stepped singly and in pairs through the doors--all walking awkwardly, and abashed, save the foremost, who wore a red jacket, and advanced with his hands in his pockets, whistling. The others shambled after with a conscience-stricken air: the whole procession was not unlike Flaxman's group of the suitors tottering on towards the infernal regions under the conduct of Mercury. The gnarled shapes passed into the village, Troy, their leader, entering the farmhouse. Not a single one of them had turned his face to the ricks, or apparently bestowed one thought upon their condition. Soon Oak too went homeward, by a different route from theirs. In front of him against the wet glazed surface of the lane he saw a person walking yet more slowly than himself under an umbrella. The man turned and plainly started; he was Boldwood. "How are you this morning, sir?" said Oak. "Yes, it is a wet day.--Oh, I am well, very well, I thank you; quite well." "I am glad to hear it, sir." Boldwood seemed to awake to the present by degrees. "You look tired and ill, Oak," he said then, desultorily regarding his companion. "I am tired. You look strangely altered, sir." "I? Not a bit of it: I am well enough. What put that into your head?" "I thought you didn't look quite so topping as you used to, that was all." "Indeed, then you are mistaken," said Boldwood, shortly. "Nothing hurts me. My constitution is an iron one." "I've been working hard to get our ricks covered, and was barely in time. Never had such a struggle in my life.... Yours of course are safe, sir." "Oh yes," Boldwood added, after an interval of silence: "What did you ask, Oak?" "Your ricks are all covered before this time?" "No." "At any rate, the large ones upon the stone staddles?" "They are not." "Them under the hedge?" "No. I forgot to tell the thatcher to set about it." "Nor the little one by the stile?" "Nor the little one by the stile. I overlooked the ricks this year." "Then not a tenth of your corn will come to measure, sir." "Possibly not." "Overlooked them," repeated Gabriel slowly to himself. It is difficult to describe the intensely dramatic effect that announcement had upon Oak at such a moment. All the night he had been feeling that the neglect he was labouring to repair was abnormal and isolated--the only instance of the kind within the circuit of the county. Yet at this very time, within the same parish, a greater waste had been going on, uncomplained of and disregarded. A few months earlier Boldwood's forgetting his husbandry would have been as preposterous an idea as a sailor forgetting he was in a ship. Oak was just thinking that whatever he himself might have suffered from Bathsheba's marriage, here was a man who had suffered more, when Boldwood spoke in a changed voice--that of one who yearned to make a confidence and relieve his heart by an outpouring. "Oak, you know as well as I that things have gone wrong with me lately. I may as well own it. I was going to get a little settled in life; but in some way my plan has come to nothing." "I thought my mistress would have married you," said Gabriel, not knowing enough of the full depths of Boldwood's love to keep silence on the farmer's account, and determined not to evade discipline by doing so on his own. "However, it is so sometimes, and nothing happens that we expect," he added, with the repose of a man whom misfortune had inured rather than subdued. "I daresay I am a joke about the parish," said Boldwood, as if the subject came irresistibly to his tongue, and with a miserable lightness meant to express his indifference. "Oh no--I don't think that." "--But the real truth of the matter is that there was not, as some fancy, any jilting on--her part. No engagement ever existed between me and Miss Everdene. People say so, but it is untrue: she never promised me!" Boldwood stood still now and turned his wild face to Oak. "Oh, Gabriel," he continued, "I am weak and foolish, and I don't know what, and I can't fend off my miserable grief! ... I had some faint belief in the mercy of God till I lost that woman. Yes, He prepared a gourd to shade me, and like the prophet I thanked Him and was glad. But the next day He prepared a worm to smite the gourd and wither it; and I feel it is better to die than to live!" A silence followed. Boldwood aroused himself from the momentary mood of confidence into which he had drifted, and walked on again, resuming his usual reserve. "No, Gabriel," he resumed, with a carelessness which was like the smile on the countenance of a skull: "it was made more of by other people than ever it was by us. I do feel a little regret occasionally, but no woman ever had power over me for any length of time. Well, good morning; I can trust you not to mention to others what has passed between us two here."

Chapters 35 to 38

https://web.archive.org/web/20210225000853/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/maddingcrowd/section7/

Gabriel and Coggan learn of the secret marriage the next day, when Sergeant Troy appears, greeting them and throwing money at them patronizingly, to Gabriel's great distress. Gabriel's feelings are registered by Coggan's comment that his face is as white as a corpse's. Soon afterward, Gabriel runs into Boldwood and notices Boldwood's look of despair. He foresees much future misery resulting from the hasty wedding. The next scene occurs at night, when Gabriel begins to notice signs of bad weather. It is the night of the harvest supper and dance, and Bathsheba and Troy have invited all the workers to celebrate the harvest and their marriage. We see the festivities from Gabriel's perspective. Then, Troy announces that he wants the laborers to be served brandy and water. None of the laborers are used to hard liquor, and Bathsheba objects, but Troy overrules her. She leaves with the women and children, and Troy insists that the men drink brandy with him. Gabriel slips outside and sees yet more signs of a huge oncoming storm: The sheep are huddled together; toads and slugs are seeking shelter. He calculates that with the wheat ricks and barley ricks, Bathsheba has 750 pounds' worth of produce lying exposed to the rain, and he goes to the barn to get help in covering it. Every single one of the workers is lying passed out with Troy in the barn, inexperienced with hard liquor. Gabriel decides he will have to save the wheat and barley single-handedly before the storm arrives. He works heroically to cover the wheat and then heads for the barley. Chapter 37 gives a dramatic account of the powerful lightning storm that hits just as Gabriel works atop one of the ricks, thatching it to protect it from rain. As he struggles there in the dark, he sees a figure and realizes it is Bathsheba, coming to his aid. As they thatch side by side, in grave danger of being hit by lightning, she confesses that she did not go to Bath with the intention of marrying. This is yet another moment in the novel when Bathsheba and Gabriel engage in an intimate conversation in which she turns to him for guidance, and her confession provides us with our first insight into the motivation behind Bathsheba's mysterious acts. She explains that she had gone to Bath meaning to break off her engagement to Troy. However, upon arriving in Bath, Troy again fell to lavishing compliments on her and said that "his constancy could not be counted on" unless she at once married him. Bathsheba recounts that she was "grieved and troubled," and married him in a state between "jealousy and distraction." At seven in the morning, once he has sent Bathsheba home and covered the ricks in the rain, Gabriel finishes and heads home. He sees the farm workers just waking up from their excesses, unaware that the ricks were ever endangered, and then he runs across Boldwood. Gabriel asks after Boldwood's own ricks, only to find that he has left them all uncovered. Gabriel is intensely shocked at Boldwood's negligence: "A few months earlier Boldwood's forgetting his husbandry would have been as preposterous an idea as a sailor forgetting he was in a ship." Boldwood ashamedly declares himself weak and foolish, unable to fend off his miserable grief.

Commentary Throughout this section, Gabriel acts as overseer and observer, the only truly sane man in a time of trouble. He is a stand-in for the reader, who also sees the folly of Bathsheba and Boldwood's actions but without being able to stop them. Through his sensibility, we are given a measure of the madness that has taken over the others, even the normally reliable, down-to-earth farm workers. The storm is one of the few catastrophes in the novel inflicted by the natural world. In this struggle with nature, we see how different people respond to forces beyond human control. Gabriel emerges as the person most attuned to the signals of nature and able to read what will happen and control it as well as he can. Chapter 36 gives an extraordinary account of a series of natural signs--a toad on the path, a slug crawling across the table, and sheep huddling together. Hardy first presents this information to us, though we don't know what it means, and then shows how Gabriel is able to interpret it correctly: Gabriel realizes that the sheep's position foretells a long and constant rain after the initial storm. The storm's destructive force symbolizes that of Troy upon the people around him, from Bathsheba and Boldwood to the laborers. Hardy depicts a world in which one must be constantly attentive and responsible in order to survive; that is the reality of farm life. Troy dismisses such attention to work and the natural world, but in this scene, we begin to realize why Gabriel's cautious, responsible qualities, while perhaps less beguiling than Troy's extravagantly romantic manner, are more valuable in the world of the novel. Bathsheba realizes this too. As he stands on the rick, saving it from the storm, Gabriel remembers the time eight months earlier when he saved a rick from the fire. By linking the two scenes, Hardy indicates how the characters and circumstances have changed since the first event. Similarly, Bathsheba's conversation with Gabriel is one of several she has with him alone, the first being the conversation in which Gabriel first proposes to her. In each of these talks, questions come up regarding marriage and the motivations for it. Gabriel is the one intelligent person in whom Bathsheba can confide. By isolating these conversations and studying their progression in series, a reader can see the transformations Bathsheba experiences over the course of the novel. Notice the suspense Hardy builds into this section as Gabriel wonders what has driven Bathsheba to marry. Just when a crucial event has occurred, Hardy removes the reader from Bathsheba's point of view, intentionally leaving us wondering.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/03.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Prince/section_1_part_3.txt

The Prince.chapter iii

chapter iii

{"name": "Chapter III", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section2/", "summary": "Mixed Principalities en must be either pampered or annihilated. Machiavelli explains why maintaining a new principality is more difficult than maintaining a hereditary state. In the first place, people will willingly trade one recently arrived ruler for another, hoping that a new ruler will be better than the present one. This expectation of improvement will induce people to take up arms against any relatively unestablished prince. Although the people may quickly realize that their revolt is ineffective, they will still create great disorder. Furthermore, when a prince takes over another prince's domain, he finds himself in a tricky situation with regard to the people who put him in power. He cannot maintain the support of these people because he cannot fulfill all of their expectations that their situation will improve. But he also cannot deal too harshly with them because he is in their debt. Immediately after taking power, the prince is in danger of losing his newly gained principality. When a prince successfully suppresses a revolt, however, the ruler can easily prevent further revolt by harshly punishing the rebels and decimating his opposition. The ruler can deal more harshly with his subjects in response to the revolt than he would be able to normally. It is much easier to maintain control over a new principality if the people share the same language and customs as the prince's own country. If this is the case, the prince has to do only two things: destroy the family of the former prince, and maintain the principality's laws and taxes. People will live quietly and peacefully so long as their old ways of life are undisturbed. New states that have different languages and customs from those of the prince are more difficult to maintain. One of the prince's most effective options is to take up residence in the new state. By living there, the prince can address problems quickly and efficiently. He can prevent the local officials from plundering his territory. The subjects will be in close contact with the prince. Therefore, those who are inclined to be good will have more reason to show their allegiance to the prince and those who are inclined to be bad will have more reason to fear him. Invaders will think twice before attempting to take over the state. Another effective method of dealing with linguistic and cultural differences is to establish colonies in the new state. It is less expensive to establish colonies than to maintain military occupation, and colonialism only harms inhabitants who pose no threat to the prince because they are scattered and poor. As a general rule, men must be either pampered or crushed. A prince should injure people only if he knows there is no threat of revenge. Setting up military bases throughout the new state will not effectively keep order. Instead, it will upset the people, and these people may turn into hostile enemies capable of causing great harm to the prince's regime. A prince who has occupied a state in a foreign country should dominate the neighboring states. He should weaken the strong ones and ensure that no other strong foreign power invades a neighboring state. Weaker powers will naturally side with the strongest power as long as they cannot grow strong themselves. The prince must remain master of the whole country to keep control of the state he has conquered. Princes should always act to solve problems before problems fully manifest themselves. Political disorders are easy to solve if the prince identifies them and acts early. If they are allowed to develop fully, it will be too late. Men naturally want to acquire more. When they succeed in acquiring more they are always praised, not condemned. But rulers who lack the ability to acquire, yet still try at the cost of their current state, should be condemned. In order to hold a state, a prince must understand statecraft and warcraft. The two are intertwined. War can be avoided by suppressing disorder. However, one can never escape a war: war can only be postponed to the enemy's advantage", "analysis": ""}

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 ill-treatment 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 1494 to 1500, and died in 1510. 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 self-government; 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 Aetolians; 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 Aetolians were kept friendly by them, the kingdom of Macedonia was humbled, Antiochus was driven out; yet the merits of the Achaeans and Aetolians 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 time:--Let us enjoy the benefits of the time--but 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 1462, died 1515. (+) Charles VIII, King of France, born 1470, died 1498. 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 there--seeing rather that every door was shut to him owing to the conduct of Charles--he 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 Sienese--everybody 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 two-thirds 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 1499 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 1460, died 1510. 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.

Chapter III

https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section2/

Mixed Principalities en must be either pampered or annihilated. Machiavelli explains why maintaining a new principality is more difficult than maintaining a hereditary state. In the first place, people will willingly trade one recently arrived ruler for another, hoping that a new ruler will be better than the present one. This expectation of improvement will induce people to take up arms against any relatively unestablished prince. Although the people may quickly realize that their revolt is ineffective, they will still create great disorder. Furthermore, when a prince takes over another prince's domain, he finds himself in a tricky situation with regard to the people who put him in power. He cannot maintain the support of these people because he cannot fulfill all of their expectations that their situation will improve. But he also cannot deal too harshly with them because he is in their debt. Immediately after taking power, the prince is in danger of losing his newly gained principality. When a prince successfully suppresses a revolt, however, the ruler can easily prevent further revolt by harshly punishing the rebels and decimating his opposition. The ruler can deal more harshly with his subjects in response to the revolt than he would be able to normally. It is much easier to maintain control over a new principality if the people share the same language and customs as the prince's own country. If this is the case, the prince has to do only two things: destroy the family of the former prince, and maintain the principality's laws and taxes. People will live quietly and peacefully so long as their old ways of life are undisturbed. New states that have different languages and customs from those of the prince are more difficult to maintain. One of the prince's most effective options is to take up residence in the new state. By living there, the prince can address problems quickly and efficiently. He can prevent the local officials from plundering his territory. The subjects will be in close contact with the prince. Therefore, those who are inclined to be good will have more reason to show their allegiance to the prince and those who are inclined to be bad will have more reason to fear him. Invaders will think twice before attempting to take over the state. Another effective method of dealing with linguistic and cultural differences is to establish colonies in the new state. It is less expensive to establish colonies than to maintain military occupation, and colonialism only harms inhabitants who pose no threat to the prince because they are scattered and poor. As a general rule, men must be either pampered or crushed. A prince should injure people only if he knows there is no threat of revenge. Setting up military bases throughout the new state will not effectively keep order. Instead, it will upset the people, and these people may turn into hostile enemies capable of causing great harm to the prince's regime. A prince who has occupied a state in a foreign country should dominate the neighboring states. He should weaken the strong ones and ensure that no other strong foreign power invades a neighboring state. Weaker powers will naturally side with the strongest power as long as they cannot grow strong themselves. The prince must remain master of the whole country to keep control of the state he has conquered. Princes should always act to solve problems before problems fully manifest themselves. Political disorders are easy to solve if the prince identifies them and acts early. If they are allowed to develop fully, it will be too late. Men naturally want to acquire more. When they succeed in acquiring more they are always praised, not condemned. But rulers who lack the ability to acquire, yet still try at the cost of their current state, should be condemned. In order to hold a state, a prince must understand statecraft and warcraft. The two are intertwined. War can be avoided by suppressing disorder. However, one can never escape a war: war can only be postponed to the enemy's advantage

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/23.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_22_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 23

chapter 23

{"name": "Chapter 23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-23", "summary": "The day Jim departs for Patusan is frantic. He rushes around getting ready. As a parting gift, Marlow gives Jim a revolver. For his gift, Stein gives Jim a ring and a letter of introduction to a friend of his, Doramin, who is a leader on the island. While Jim finishes packing, Marlow talks with him. He's starting to grow weary of the headstrong youth. Meanwhile Jim packs a volume of Shakespeare with him, which surprises Marlow. After a hasty farewell, Jim leaves, forgetting the bullets for his revolver. We see a goofy Jim enthusiastically waving his empty revolver around in the boat that's carrying him out to the ship that will take him to Patusan. The rowers of the boat don't realize that our Jim is a pretty hapless guy. They think the revolver is loaded, so they row faster than necessary, worried he might shoot them. Marlow rushes to catch Jim to give him the bullets he left behind. When he finally makes it aboard Jim's ship, the two say another goodbye and Jim sails away, waving.", "analysis": ""}

'He did not return till next morning. He had been kept to dinner and for the night. There never had been such a wonderful man as Mr. Stein. He had in his pocket a letter for Cornelius ("the Johnnie who's going to get the sack," he explained, with a momentary drop in his elation), and he exhibited with glee a silver ring, such as natives use, worn down very thin and showing faint traces of chasing. 'This was his introduction to an old chap called Doramin--one of the principal men out there--a big pot--who had been Mr. Stein's friend in that country where he had all these adventures. Mr. Stein called him "war-comrade." War-comrade was good. Wasn't it? And didn't Mr. Stein speak English wonderfully well? Said he had learned it in Celebes--of all places! That was awfully funny. Was it not? He did speak with an accent--a twang--did I notice? That chap Doramin had given him the ring. They had exchanged presents when they parted for the last time. Sort of promising eternal friendship. He called it fine--did I not? They had to make a dash for dear life out of the country when that Mohammed--Mohammed--What's-his-name had been killed. I knew the story, of course. Seemed a beastly shame, didn't it? . . . 'He ran on like this, forgetting his plate, with a knife and fork in hand (he had found me at tiffin), slightly flushed, and with his eyes darkened many shades, which was with him a sign of excitement. The ring was a sort of credential--("It's like something you read of in books," he threw in appreciatively)--and Doramin would do his best for him. Mr. Stein had been the means of saving that chap's life on some occasion; purely by accident, Mr. Stein had said, but he--Jim--had his own opinion about that. Mr. Stein was just the man to look out for such accidents. No matter. Accident or purpose, this would serve his turn immensely. Hoped to goodness the jolly old beggar had not gone off the hooks meantime. Mr. Stein could not tell. There had been no news for more than a year; they were kicking up no end of an all-fired row amongst themselves, and the river was closed. Jolly awkward, this; but, no fear; he would manage to find a crack to get in. 'He impressed, almost frightened, me with his elated rattle. He was voluble like a youngster on the eve of a long holiday with a prospect of delightful scrapes, and such an attitude of mind in a grown man and in this connection had in it something phenomenal, a little mad, dangerous, unsafe. I was on the point of entreating him to take things seriously when he dropped his knife and fork (he had begun eating, or rather swallowing food, as it were, unconsciously), and began a search all round his plate. The ring! The ring! Where the devil . . . Ah! Here it was . . . He closed his big hand on it, and tried all his pockets one after another. Jove! wouldn't do to lose the thing. He meditated gravely over his fist. Had it? Would hang the bally affair round his neck! And he proceeded to do this immediately, producing a string (which looked like a bit of a cotton shoe-lace) for the purpose. There! That would do the trick! It would be the deuce if . . . He seemed to catch sight of my face for the first time, and it steadied him a little. I probably didn't realise, he said with a naive gravity, how much importance he attached to that token. It meant a friend; and it is a good thing to have a friend. He knew something about that. He nodded at me expressively, but before my disclaiming gesture he leaned his head on his hand and for a while sat silent, playing thoughtfully with the bread-crumbs on the cloth . . . "Slam the door--that was jolly well put," he cried, and jumping up, began to pace the room, reminding me by the set of the shoulders, the turn of his head, the headlong and uneven stride, of that night when he had paced thus, confessing, explaining--what you will--but, in the last instance, living--living before me, under his own little cloud, with all his unconscious subtlety which could draw consolation from the very source of sorrow. It was the same mood, the same and different, like a fickle companion that to-day guiding you on the true path, with the same eyes, the same step, the same impulse, to-morrow will lead you hopelessly astray. His tread was assured, his straying, darkened eyes seemed to search the room for something. One of his footfalls somehow sounded louder than the other--the fault of his boots probably--and gave a curious impression of an invisible halt in his gait. One of his hands was rammed deep into his trousers' pocket, the other waved suddenly above his head. "Slam the door!" he shouted. "I've been waiting for that. I'll show yet . . . I'll . . . I'm ready for any confounded thing . . . I've been dreaming of it . . . Jove! Get out of this. Jove! This is luck at last . . . You wait. I'll . . ." 'He tossed his head fearlessly, and I confess that for the first and last time in our acquaintance I perceived myself unexpectedly to be thoroughly sick of him. Why these vapourings? He was stumping about the room flourishing his arm absurdly, and now and then feeling on his breast for the ring under his clothes. Where was the sense of such exaltation in a man appointed to be a trading-clerk, and in a place where there was no trade--at that? Why hurl defiance at the universe? This was not a proper frame of mind to approach any undertaking; an improper frame of mind not only for him, I said, but for any man. He stood still over me. Did I think so? he asked, by no means subdued, and with a smile in which I seemed to detect suddenly something insolent. But then I am twenty years his senior. Youth is insolent; it is its right--its necessity; it has got to assert itself, and all assertion in this world of doubts is a defiance, is an insolence. He went off into a far corner, and coming back, he, figuratively speaking, turned to rend me. I spoke like that because I--even I, who had been no end kind to him--even I remembered--remembered--against him--what--what had happened. And what about others--the--the--world? Where's the wonder he wanted to get out, meant to get out, meant to stay out--by heavens! And I talked about proper frames of mind! '"It is not I or the world who remember," I shouted. "It is you--you, who remember." 'He did not flinch, and went on with heat, "Forget everything, everybody, everybody." . . . His voice fell. . . "But you," he added. '"Yes--me too--if it would help," I said, also in a low tone. After this we remained silent and languid for a time as if exhausted. Then he began again, composedly, and told me that Mr. Stein had instructed him to wait for a month or so, to see whether it was possible for him to remain, before he began building a new house for himself, so as to avoid "vain expense." He did make use of funny expressions--Stein did. "Vain expense" was good. . . . Remain? Why! of course. He would hang on. Let him only get in--that's all; he would answer for it he would remain. Never get out. It was easy enough to remain. '"Don't be foolhardy," I said, rendered uneasy by his threatening tone. "If you only live long enough you will want to come back." '"Come back to what?" he asked absently, with his eyes fixed upon the face of a clock on the wall. 'I was silent for a while. "Is it to be never, then?" I said. "Never," he repeated dreamily without looking at me, and then flew into sudden activity. "Jove! Two o'clock, and I sail at four!" 'It was true. A brigantine of Stein's was leaving for the westward that afternoon, and he had been instructed to take his passage in her, only no orders to delay the sailing had been given. I suppose Stein forgot. He made a rush to get his things while I went aboard my ship, where he promised to call on his way to the outer roadstead. He turned up accordingly in a great hurry and with a small leather valise in his hand. This wouldn't do, and I offered him an old tin trunk of mine supposed to be water-tight, or at least damp-tight. He effected the transfer by the simple process of shooting out the contents of his valise as you would empty a sack of wheat. I saw three books in the tumble; two small, in dark covers, and a thick green-and-gold volume--a half-crown complete Shakespeare. "You read this?" I asked. "Yes. Best thing to cheer up a fellow," he said hastily. I was struck by this appreciation, but there was no time for Shakespearian talk. A heavy revolver and two small boxes of cartridges were lying on the cuddy-table. "Pray take this," I said. "It may help you to remain." No sooner were these words out of my mouth than I perceived what grim meaning they could bear. "May help you to get in," I corrected myself remorsefully. He however was not troubled by obscure meanings; he thanked me effusively and bolted out, calling Good-bye over his shoulder. I heard his voice through the ship's side urging his boatmen to give way, and looking out of the stern-port I saw the boat rounding under the counter. He sat in her leaning forward, exciting his men with voice and gestures; and as he had kept the revolver in his hand and seemed to be presenting it at their heads, I shall never forget the scared faces of the four Javanese, and the frantic swing of their stroke which snatched that vision from under my eyes. Then turning away, the first thing I saw were the two boxes of cartridges on the cuddy-table. He had forgotten to take them. 'I ordered my gig manned at once; but Jim's rowers, under the impression that their lives hung on a thread while they had that madman in the boat, made such excellent time that before I had traversed half the distance between the two vessels I caught sight of him clambering over the rail, and of his box being passed up. All the brigantine's canvas was loose, her mainsail was set, and the windlass was just beginning to clink as I stepped upon her deck: her master, a dapper little half-caste of forty or so, in a blue flannel suit, with lively eyes, his round face the colour of lemon-peel, and with a thin little black moustache drooping on each side of his thick, dark lips, came forward smirking. He turned out, notwithstanding his self-satisfied and cheery exterior, to be of a careworn temperament. In answer to a remark of mine (while Jim had gone below for a moment) he said, "Oh yes. Patusan." He was going to carry the gentleman to the mouth of the river, but would "never ascend." His flowing English seemed to be derived from a dictionary compiled by a lunatic. Had Mr. Stein desired him to "ascend," he would have "reverentially"--(I think he wanted to say respectfully--but devil only knows)--"reverentially made objects for the safety of properties." If disregarded, he would have presented "resignation to quit." Twelve months ago he had made his last voyage there, and though Mr. Cornelius "propitiated many offertories" to Mr. Rajah Allang and the "principal populations," on conditions which made the trade "a snare and ashes in the mouth," yet his ship had been fired upon from the woods by "irresponsive parties" all the way down the river; which causing his crew "from exposure to limb to remain silent in hidings," the brigantine was nearly stranded on a sandbank at the bar, where she "would have been perishable beyond the act of man." The angry disgust at the recollection, the pride of his fluency, to which he turned an attentive ear, struggled for the possession of his broad simple face. He scowled and beamed at me, and watched with satisfaction the undeniable effect of his phraseology. Dark frowns ran swiftly over the placid sea, and the brigantine, with her fore-topsail to the mast and her main-boom amidships, seemed bewildered amongst the cat's-paws. He told me further, gnashing his teeth, that the Rajah was a "laughable hyaena" (can't imagine how he got hold of hyaenas); while somebody else was many times falser than the "weapons of a crocodile." Keeping one eye on the movements of his crew forward, he let loose his volubility--comparing the place to a "cage of beasts made ravenous by long impenitence." I fancy he meant impunity. He had no intention, he cried, to "exhibit himself to be made attached purposefully to robbery." The long-drawn wails, giving the time for the pull of the men catting the anchor, came to an end, and he lowered his voice. "Plenty too much enough of Patusan," he concluded, with energy. 'I heard afterwards he had been so indiscreet as to get himself tied up by the neck with a rattan halter to a post planted in the middle of a mud-hole before the Rajah's house. He spent the best part of a day and a whole night in that unwholesome situation, but there is every reason to believe the thing had been meant as a sort of joke. He brooded for a while over that horrid memory, I suppose, and then addressed in a quarrelsome tone the man coming aft to the helm. When he turned to me again it was to speak judicially, without passion. He would take the gentleman to the mouth of the river at Batu Kring (Patusan town "being situated internally," he remarked, "thirty miles"). But in his eyes, he continued--a tone of bored, weary conviction replacing his previous voluble delivery--the gentleman was already "in the similitude of a corpse." "What? What do you say?" I asked. He assumed a startlingly ferocious demeanour, and imitated to perfection the act of stabbing from behind. "Already like the body of one deported," he explained, with the insufferably conceited air of his kind after what they imagine a display of cleverness. Behind him I perceived Jim smiling silently at me, and with a raised hand checking the exclamation on my lips. 'Then, while the half-caste, bursting with importance, shouted his orders, while the yards swung creaking and the heavy boom came surging over, Jim and I, alone as it were, to leeward of the mainsail, clasped each other's hands and exchanged the last hurried words. My heart was freed from that dull resentment which had existed side by side with interest in his fate. The absurd chatter of the half-caste had given more reality to the miserable dangers of his path than Stein's careful statements. On that occasion the sort of formality that had been always present in our intercourse vanished from our speech; I believe I called him "dear boy," and he tacked on the words "old man" to some half-uttered expression of gratitude, as though his risk set off against my years had made us more equal in age and in feeling. There was a moment of real and profound intimacy, unexpected and short-lived like a glimpse of some everlasting, of some saving truth. He exerted himself to soothe me as though he had been the more mature of the two. "All right, all right," he said, rapidly, and with feeling. "I promise to take care of myself. Yes; I won't take any risks. Not a single blessed risk. Of course not. I mean to hang out. Don't you worry. Jove! I feel as if nothing could touch me. Why! this is luck from the word Go. I wouldn't spoil such a magnificent chance!" . . . A magnificent chance! Well, it _was_ magnificent, but chances are what men make them, and how was I to know? As he had said, even I--even I remembered--his--his misfortune against him. It was true. And the best thing for him was to go. 'My gig had dropped in the wake of the brigantine, and I saw him aft detached upon the light of the westering sun, raising his cap high above his head. I heard an indistinct shout, "You--shall--hear--of--me." Of me, or from me, I don't know which. I think it must have been of me. My eyes were too dazzled by the glitter of the sea below his feet to see him clearly; I am fated never to see him clearly; but I can assure you no man could have appeared less "in the similitude of a corpse," as that half-caste croaker had put it. I could see the little wretch's face, the shape and colour of a ripe pumpkin, poked out somewhere under Jim's elbow. He, too, raised his arm as if for a downward thrust. Absit omen!'

Chapter 23

https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-23

The day Jim departs for Patusan is frantic. He rushes around getting ready. As a parting gift, Marlow gives Jim a revolver. For his gift, Stein gives Jim a ring and a letter of introduction to a friend of his, Doramin, who is a leader on the island. While Jim finishes packing, Marlow talks with him. He's starting to grow weary of the headstrong youth. Meanwhile Jim packs a volume of Shakespeare with him, which surprises Marlow. After a hasty farewell, Jim leaves, forgetting the bullets for his revolver. We see a goofy Jim enthusiastically waving his empty revolver around in the boat that's carrying him out to the ship that will take him to Patusan. The rowers of the boat don't realize that our Jim is a pretty hapless guy. They think the revolver is loaded, so they row faster than necessary, worried he might shoot them. Marlow rushes to catch Jim to give him the bullets he left behind. When he finally makes it aboard Jim's ship, the two say another goodbye and Jim sails away, waving.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/23042-chapters/5.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Tempest/section_4_part_0.txt

The Tempest.act 3.scene 1

scene 1

{"name": "Scene 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151049/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/the-tempest/summary-and-analysis/act-iii-scene-1", "summary": "Ferdinand enters carrying a log, which he claims would be an odious task except that he carries it to serve Miranda. His carrying of the logs is a punishment but one he willingly accepts because thoughts of Miranda make the work seem effortless. Miranda enters and, when Ferdinand will not rest, offers to take up his chore so that she might force him to rest, but Ferdinand refuses. Although she was instructed not to reveal her name, Miranda impulsively divulges it to Ferdinand. Ferdinand, for his part, has known other beautiful women, but he admits to having never known one as perfect as Miranda. Miranda confesses that she has known no other women, nor any other man, except for her father. Now, she would want no other man except for Ferdinand. At this, Miranda remembers that she has been instructed not to speak to their guest and momentarily falls silent. When Ferdinand avows that he would gladly serve her, Miranda asks if he loves her. At his affirmative reply, Miranda begins to weep. She tells Ferdinand that she is unworthy of him but will marry him if he wants her. He quickly agrees, and the couple finally touch, taking each other's hands, as they pledge their love. Prospero has been listening, unseen. He acknowledges Miranda and Ferdinand's natural match as being \"Of two most rare affections\" , but he has other plans that need his immediate attention, and so he turns to his books and other waiting business.", "analysis": "This scene leaves no doubt that Prospero is the absolute ruler of his small island. Ferdinand is set to the same task as Caliban, carrying logs. Although he is a prince, Ferdinand must bow to the same authority that Caliban, a slave, observes. Even Miranda is not exempt from Prospero's rule. She is not supposed to speak to Ferdinand. Moreover, she is not permitted to even give him her name, although she does. As part of Prospero's power, he must pretend to oppose the romance between Miranda and Ferdinand; however, the audience knows that Prospero is not opposed to such a union, and in fact, he had hoped that they would love one another. But Prospero must maintain the illusion that he is in absolute control, and so, he imposes rules to guarantee his authority. In part, Prospero is playing the role that any father must play when his daughter has a suitor. Protecting Miranda's worth is tied to protecting her virginity; thus, he watches the courtship, unseen. Miranda is an obedient daughter, as proved by her dismay when she forgets herself and reveals her name to Ferdinand. But she is also a young woman in love, and when her father is occupied, she immediately looks to release Ferdinand from his labors. Miranda has no experience with people. She has never seen another woman and does not know that she is beautiful. She has no experience with men, other than her father and Caliban. Because of her isolation, she has developed no artful skills at flirting, and when Ferdinand tells her that he loves her, Miranda weeps. Their love scene is sweet and tender, and without artifice. Prospero watches this exchange, not just to control its outcome, but to protect his only child. Miranda is more vulnerable than most young women, and she needs a strong father to protect her. As such a strong authority figure, Prospero is well suited to protect Miranda from any dangers that this new experience might present. But his watchful observances also recall the godlike control that he has exercised over every other individual being and every action that has occurred on the island. This loving scene serves as a bridge between two scenes of low comedy. Wedged just before and just after, this romantic interlude reminds Shakespeare's audience of the contrast between the pure and tender love of Ferdinand and Miranda and the debauchery of Caliban, Stefano, and Trinculo. Ferdinand's labors are willingly accepted, because Miranda's mere presence fills all his work with pleasure. This happy labor contrasts to the cursing that opened the previous scene, when Caliban also carried logs. Ferdinand and Miranda's love embodies an ideal love, one in keeping with the expectations of nature. There is gentle humor and genuine heartfelt feelings, and there are none of the artificial trappings of conventional courtship. Both Ferdinand and Miranda express their feelings honestly and with dignity. Their encounter adds something important that had been missing -- authentic nobility of manner. Their nature, or breeding, has led them to behave with deportment, as would be expected of the children of the aristocracy. Both young lovers behave in a responsible manner that was missing from their fathers' lives. Thus, Ferdinand and Miranda fulfill the promise of reconciliation, which is an important element of this play. The plotting and betrayal of the fathers is atoned for by their children. For this to work successfully, Alonso and Prospero's children must be elevated far above their fathers in both decorum and honor. Glossary hest a behest; a bidding; an order. Miranda was commanded not to reveal her name. foil to keep from being successful; thwart; frustrate. wooden slavery being compelled to carry wood. hollowly here, insincerely. maid here, handmaiden, a woman or girl servant or attendant."}

ACT III. SCENE I. _Before PROSPERO'S cell._ _Enter FERDINAND, bearing a log._ _Fer._ There be some sports are painful, and their labour Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters Point to rich ends. This my mean task Would be as heavy to me as odious, but 5 The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, And makes my labours pleasures: O, she is Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed. And he's composed of harshness. I must remove Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up, 10 Upon a sore injunction: my sweet mistress Weeps when she sees me work, and says, such baseness Had never like executor. I forget: But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours, Most busy lest, when I do it. _Enter MIRANDA; and PROSPERO at a distance, unseen._ _Mir._ Alas, now, pray you, 15 Work not so hard: I would the lightning had Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile! Pray, set it down, and rest you: when this burns, 'Twill weep for having wearied you. My father Is hard at study; pray, now, rest yourself; 20 He's safe for these three hours. _Fer._ O most dear mistress, The sun will set before I shall discharge What I must strive to do. _Mir._ If you'll sit down, I'll bear your logs the while: pray, give me that; I'll carry it to the pile. _Fer._ No, precious creature; 25 I had rather crack my sinews, break my back, Than you should such dishonour undergo, While I sit lazy by. _Mir._ It would become me As well as it does you: and I should do it With much more ease; for my good will is to it, 30 And yours it is against. _Pros._ Poor worm, thou art infected! This visitation shows it. _Mir._ You look wearily. _Fer._ No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me When you are by at night. I do beseech you,-- Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,-- 35 What is your name? _Mir._ Miranda. --O my father, I have broke your hest to say so! _Fer._ Admired Miranda! Indeed the top of admiration! worth What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard, and many a time 40 The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues Have I liked several women; never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, 45 And put it to the foil: but you, O you, So perfect and so peerless, are created Of every creature's best! _Mir._ I do not know One of my sex; no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen 50 More that I may call men than you, good friend, And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skilless of; but, by my modesty, The jewel in my dower, I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; 55 Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's precepts I therein do forget. _Fer._ I am, in my condition, A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king; 60 I would, not so!--and would no more endure This wooden slavery than to suffer The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak: The very instant that I saw you, did My heart fly to your service; there resides, 65 To make me slave to it; and for your sake Am I this patient log-man. _Mir._ Do you love me? _Fer._ O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound, And crown what I profess with kind event, If I speak true! if hollowly, invert 70 What best is boded me to mischief! I, Beyond all limit of what else i' the world, Do love, prize, honour you. _Mir._ I am a fool To weep at what I am glad of. _Pros._ Fair encounter Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace 75 On that which breeds between 'em! _Fer._ Wherefore weep you? _Mir._ At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer What I desire to give; and much less take What I shall die to want. But this is trifling; And all the more it seeks to hide itself, 80 The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning! And prompt me, plain and holy innocence! I am your wife, if you will marry me; If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow You may deny me; but I'll be your servant, 85 Whether you will or no. _Fer._ My mistress, dearest; And I thus humble ever. _Mir._ My husband, then? _Fer._ Ay, with a heart as willing As bondage e'er of freedom: here's my hand. _Mir._ And mine, with my heart in't: and now farewell 90 Till half an hour hence. _Fer._ A thousand thousand! [_Exeunt Fer. and Mir. severally._ _Pros._ So glad of this as they I cannot be, Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing At nothing can be more. I'll to my book; For yet, ere supper-time, must I perform 95 Much business appertaining. [_Exit._ Notes: III, 1. 1: _and_] _but_ Pope. 2: _sets_] Rowe. _set_ Ff. 4, 5: _my ... odious_] _my mean task would be As heavy to me as 'tis odious_ Pope. 9: _remove_] _move_ Pope. 14: _labours_] _labour_ Hanmer. 15: _Most busy lest_] F1. _Most busy least_ F2 F3 F4. _Least busy_ Pope. _Most busie-less_ Theobald._ Most busiest_ Holt White conj. _Most busy felt_ Staunton. _Most busy still_ Staunton conj. _Most busy-blest_ Collier MS. _Most busiliest_ Bullock conj. _Most busy lest, when I do_ (_doe_ F1 F2 F3) _it_] _Most busy when least I do it_ Brae conj. _Most busiest when idlest_ Spedding conj. _Most busy left when idlest_ Edd. conj. See note (XIII). at a distance, unseen] Rowe. 17: _you are_] F1. _thou art_ F2 F3 F4. 31: _it is_] _is it_ Steevens conj. (ed. 1, 2, and 3). om. Steevens (ed. 4) (Farmer conj.). 34, 35: _I do beseech you,--Chiefly_] _I do beseech you Chiefly_ Ff. 59: _I therein do_] _I do_ Pope. _Therein_ Steevens. 62: _wooden_] _wodden_ F1. _than to_] _than I would_ Pope. 72: _what else_] _aught else_ Malone conj. (withdrawn). 80: _seeks_] _seekd_ F3 F4. 88: _as_] F1. _so_ F2 F3 F4. 91: _severally_] Capell. 93: _withal_] Theobald. _with all_ Ff.

Scene 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151049/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/the-tempest/summary-and-analysis/act-iii-scene-1

Ferdinand enters carrying a log, which he claims would be an odious task except that he carries it to serve Miranda. His carrying of the logs is a punishment but one he willingly accepts because thoughts of Miranda make the work seem effortless. Miranda enters and, when Ferdinand will not rest, offers to take up his chore so that she might force him to rest, but Ferdinand refuses. Although she was instructed not to reveal her name, Miranda impulsively divulges it to Ferdinand. Ferdinand, for his part, has known other beautiful women, but he admits to having never known one as perfect as Miranda. Miranda confesses that she has known no other women, nor any other man, except for her father. Now, she would want no other man except for Ferdinand. At this, Miranda remembers that she has been instructed not to speak to their guest and momentarily falls silent. When Ferdinand avows that he would gladly serve her, Miranda asks if he loves her. At his affirmative reply, Miranda begins to weep. She tells Ferdinand that she is unworthy of him but will marry him if he wants her. He quickly agrees, and the couple finally touch, taking each other's hands, as they pledge their love. Prospero has been listening, unseen. He acknowledges Miranda and Ferdinand's natural match as being "Of two most rare affections" , but he has other plans that need his immediate attention, and so he turns to his books and other waiting business.

This scene leaves no doubt that Prospero is the absolute ruler of his small island. Ferdinand is set to the same task as Caliban, carrying logs. Although he is a prince, Ferdinand must bow to the same authority that Caliban, a slave, observes. Even Miranda is not exempt from Prospero's rule. She is not supposed to speak to Ferdinand. Moreover, she is not permitted to even give him her name, although she does. As part of Prospero's power, he must pretend to oppose the romance between Miranda and Ferdinand; however, the audience knows that Prospero is not opposed to such a union, and in fact, he had hoped that they would love one another. But Prospero must maintain the illusion that he is in absolute control, and so, he imposes rules to guarantee his authority. In part, Prospero is playing the role that any father must play when his daughter has a suitor. Protecting Miranda's worth is tied to protecting her virginity; thus, he watches the courtship, unseen. Miranda is an obedient daughter, as proved by her dismay when she forgets herself and reveals her name to Ferdinand. But she is also a young woman in love, and when her father is occupied, she immediately looks to release Ferdinand from his labors. Miranda has no experience with people. She has never seen another woman and does not know that she is beautiful. She has no experience with men, other than her father and Caliban. Because of her isolation, she has developed no artful skills at flirting, and when Ferdinand tells her that he loves her, Miranda weeps. Their love scene is sweet and tender, and without artifice. Prospero watches this exchange, not just to control its outcome, but to protect his only child. Miranda is more vulnerable than most young women, and she needs a strong father to protect her. As such a strong authority figure, Prospero is well suited to protect Miranda from any dangers that this new experience might present. But his watchful observances also recall the godlike control that he has exercised over every other individual being and every action that has occurred on the island. This loving scene serves as a bridge between two scenes of low comedy. Wedged just before and just after, this romantic interlude reminds Shakespeare's audience of the contrast between the pure and tender love of Ferdinand and Miranda and the debauchery of Caliban, Stefano, and Trinculo. Ferdinand's labors are willingly accepted, because Miranda's mere presence fills all his work with pleasure. This happy labor contrasts to the cursing that opened the previous scene, when Caliban also carried logs. Ferdinand and Miranda's love embodies an ideal love, one in keeping with the expectations of nature. There is gentle humor and genuine heartfelt feelings, and there are none of the artificial trappings of conventional courtship. Both Ferdinand and Miranda express their feelings honestly and with dignity. Their encounter adds something important that had been missing -- authentic nobility of manner. Their nature, or breeding, has led them to behave with deportment, as would be expected of the children of the aristocracy. Both young lovers behave in a responsible manner that was missing from their fathers' lives. Thus, Ferdinand and Miranda fulfill the promise of reconciliation, which is an important element of this play. The plotting and betrayal of the fathers is atoned for by their children. For this to work successfully, Alonso and Prospero's children must be elevated far above their fathers in both decorum and honor. Glossary hest a behest; a bidding; an order. Miranda was commanded not to reveal her name. foil to keep from being successful; thwart; frustrate. wooden slavery being compelled to carry wood. hollowly here, insincerely. maid here, handmaiden, a woman or girl servant or attendant.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_18_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 19

part 1, chapter 19

{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-19", "summary": "When the king's visit is over, Julien hangs around the room that the Marquis de La Mole stayed in. He finds a piece of folded paper that contains a note written by a guy to the Marquis who wants a government post that's about to open up. In the coming week, one of the biggest points of gossip in town is how Julien was allowed to ride with the Honor Guard. Even people who usually preach equality are furious with a carpenter's son being honored in this way. People suspect that Madame de Renal put in a good word for him because he's handsome. Soon afterward, Madame de Renal's son falls ill with a fever. She thinks that God is punishing her for having an affair with Julien. She tells Julien that she's going to spill her guts to her husband. Julien tells her not to. One day, Madame falls to her knees and tries to tell her husband that their son's illness is all her fault. But he thinks she's just being crazy and won't listen to her. Julien thinks about going away for a while. But he knows that Madame will tell her husband everything if he leaves. Julien has a long talk with Madame that ends with them both crying and swearing to stop their affair. Eventually, Madame's son regains his health. Madame's remorse stays strong though, now that she's accepted the sinfulness of what she's done. The servant Elisa becomes so frustrated that she one day goes into town and tells Monsieur de Renal's rival, Valenod, that Madame is sleeping with Julien Sorel. It's not clear whether she knows this for sure or is just talking out of suspicion. The news hurts Valenod's pride, since he has been trying to sleep with Madame de Renal for years. Next thing you know, Julien sees Monsieur de Renal reading an anonymous letter explaining everything going on between his wife and Julien. The man's face darkens as he reads.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER XIX THINKING PRODUCES SUFFERING The grotesqueness of every-day events conceals the real unhappiness of the passions.--_Barnave_. As he was replacing the usual furniture in the room which M. de la Mole had occupied, Julien found a piece of very strong paper folded in four. He read at the bottom of the first page "To His Excellency M. le Marquis de la Mole, peer of France, Chevalier of the Orders of the King, etc. etc." It was a petition in the rough hand-writing of a cook. "Monsieur le Marquis, I have had religious principles all my life. I was in Lyons exposed to the bombs at the time of the siege, in '93 of execrable memory. I communicate, I go to Mass every Sunday in the parochial church. I have never missed the paschal duty, even in '93 of execrable memory. My cook used to keep servants before the revolution, my cook fasts on Fridays. I am universally respected in Verrieres, and I venture to say I deserve to be so. I walk under the canopy in the processions at the side of the cure and of the mayor. On great occasions I carry a big candle, bought at my own expense. "I ask Monsieur the marquis for the lottery appointment of Verrieres, which in one way or another is bound to be vacant shortly as the beneficiary is very ill, and moreover votes on the wrong side at elections, etc. De Cholin." In the margin of this petition was a recommendation signed "de Moirod" which began with this line, "I have had the honour, the worthy person who makes this request." "So even that imbecile de Cholin shows me the way to go about things," said Julien to himself. Eight days after the passage of the King of ---- through Verrieres, the one question which predominated over the innumerable falsehoods, foolish conjectures, and ridiculous discussions, etc., etc., which had had successively for their object the king, the Marquis de la Mole, the ten thousand bottles of wine, the fall of poor de Moirod, who, hoping to win a cross, only left his room a week after his fall, was the absolute indecency of having _foisted_ Julien Sorel, a carpenter's son, into the Guard of Honour. You should have heard on this point the rich manufacturers of printed calico, the very persons who used to bawl themselves hoarse in preaching equality, morning and evening in the cafe. That haughty woman, Madame de Renal, was of course responsible for this abomination. The reason? The fine eyes and fresh complexion of the little abbe Sorel explained everything else. A short time after their return to Vergy, Stanislas, the youngest of the children, caught the fever; Madame de Renal was suddenly attacked by an awful remorse. For the first time she reproached herself for her love with some logic. She seemed to understand as though by a miracle the enormity of the sin into which she had let herself be swept. Up to that moment, although deeply religious, she had never thought of the greatness of her crime in the eyes of God. In former times she had loved God passionately in the Convent of the Sacred Heart; in the present circumstances, she feared him with equal intensity. The struggles which lacerated her soul were all the more awful in that her fear was quite irrational. Julien found that the least argument irritated instead of soothing her. She saw in the illness the language of hell. Moreover, Julien was himself very fond of the little Stanislas. It soon assumed a serious character. Then incessant remorse deprived Madame de Renal of even her power of sleep. She ensconced herself in a gloomy silence: if she had opened her mouth, it would only have been to confess her crime to God and mankind. "I urge you," said Julien to her, as soon as they got alone, "not to speak to anyone. Let me be the sole confidant of your sufferings. If you still love me, do not speak. Your words will not be able to take away our Stanislas' fever." But his consolations produced no effect. He did not know that Madame de Renal had got it into her head that, in order to appease the wrath of a jealous God, it was necessary either to hate Julien, or let her son die. It was because she felt she could not hate her lover that she was so unhappy. "Fly from me," she said one day to Julien. "In the name of God leave this house. It is your presence here which kills my son. God punishes me," she added in a low voice. "He is just. I admire his fairness. My crime is awful, and I was living without remorse," she exclaimed. "That was the first sign of my desertion of God: I ought to be doubly punished." Julien was profoundly touched. He could see in this neither hypocrisy nor exaggeration. "She thinks that she is killing her son by loving me, and all the same the unhappy woman loves me more than her son. I cannot doubt it. It is remorse for that which is killing her. Those sentiments of hers have real greatness. But how could I have inspired such a love, I who am so poor, so badly-educated, so ignorant, and sometimes so coarse in my manners?" One night the child was extremely ill. At about two o'clock in the morning, M. de Renal came to see it. The child consumed by fever, and extremely flushed, could not recognise its father. Suddenly Madame de Renal threw herself at her husband's feet; Julien saw that she was going to confess everything and ruin herself for ever. Fortunately this extraordinary proceeding annoyed M. de Renal. "Adieu! Adieu!" he said, going away. "No, listen to me," cried his wife on her knees before him, trying to hold him back. "Hear the whole truth. It is I who am killing my son. I gave him life, and I am taking it back. Heaven is punishing me. In the eyes of God I am guilty of murder. It is necessary that I should ruin and humiliate myself. Perhaps that sacrifice will appease the the Lord." If M. de Renal had been a man of any imagination, he would then have realized everything. "Romantic nonsense," he cried, moving his wife away as she tried to embrace his knees. "All that is romantic nonsense! Julien, go and fetch the doctor at daybreak," and he went back to bed. Madame de Renal fell on her knees half-fainting, repelling Julien's help with a hysterical gesture. Julien was astonished. "So this is what adultery is," he said to himself. "Is it possible that those scoundrels of priests should be right, that they who commit so many sins themselves should have the privilege of knowing the true theory of sin? How droll!" For twenty minutes after M. de Renal had gone back to bed, Julien saw the woman he loved with her head resting on her son's little bed, motionless, and almost unconscious. "There," he said to himself, "is a woman of superior temperament brought to the depths of unhappiness simply because she has known me." "Time moves quickly. What can I do for her? I must make up my mind. I have not got simply myself to consider now. What do I care for men and their buffooneries? What can I do for her? Leave her? But I should be leaving her alone and a prey to the most awful grief. That automaton of a husband is more harm to her than good. He is so coarse that he is bound to speak harshly to her. She may go mad and throw herself out of the window." "If I leave her, if I cease to watch over her, she will confess everything, and who knows, in spite of the legacy which she is bound to bring him, he will create a scandal. She may confess everything (great God) to that scoundrel of an abbe who makes the illness of a child of six an excuse for not budging from this house, and not without a purpose either. In her grief and her fear of God, she forgets all she knows of the man; she only sees the priest." "Go away," said Madame de Renal suddenly to him, opening her eyes. "I would give my life a thousand times to know what could be of most use to you," answered Julien. "I have never loved you so much, my dear angel, or rather it is only from this last moment that I begin to adore you as you deserve to be adored. What would become of me far from you, and with the consciousness that you are unhappy owing to what I have done? But don't let my suffering come into the matter. I will go--yes, my love! But if I leave you, dear; if I cease to watch over you, to be incessantly between you and your husband, you will tell him everything. You will ruin yourself. Remember that he will hound you out of his house in disgrace. Besancon will talk of the scandal. You will be said to be absolutely in the wrong. You will never lift up your head again after that shame." "That's what I ask," she cried, standing up. "I shall suffer, so much the better." "But you will also make him unhappy through that awful scandal." "But I shall be humiliating myself, throwing myself into the mire, and by those means, perhaps, I shall save my son. Such a humiliation in the eyes of all is perhaps to be regarded as a public penitence. So far as my weak judgment goes, is it not the greatest sacrifice that I can make to God?--perhaps He will deign to accept my humiliation, and to leave me my son. Show me another sacrifice which is more painful and I will rush to it." "Let me punish myself. I too am guilty. Do you wish me to retire to the Trappist Monastery? The austerity of that life may appease your God. Oh, heaven, why cannot I take Stanislas's illness upon myself?" "Ah, do you love him then," said Madame de Renal, getting up and throwing herself in his arms. At the same time she repelled him with horror. "I believe you! I believe you! Oh, my one friend," she cried falling on her knees again. "Why are you not the father of Stanislas? In that case it would not be a terrible sin to love you more than your son." "Won't you allow me to stay and love you henceforth like a brother? It is the only rational atonement. It may appease the wrath of the Most High." "Am I," she cried, getting up and taking Julien's head between her two hands, and holding it some distance from her. "Am I to love you as if you were a brother? Is it in my power to love you like that?" Julien melted into tears. "I will obey you," he said, falling at her feet. "I will obey you in whatever you order me. That is all there is left for me to do. My mind is struck with blindness. I do not see any course to take. If I leave you you will tell your husband everything. You will ruin yourself and him as well. He will never be nominated deputy after incurring such ridicule. If I stay, you will think I am the cause of your son's death, and you will die of grief. Do you wish to try the effect of my departure. If you wish, I will punish myself for our sin by leaving you for eight days. I will pass them in any retreat you like. In the abbey of Bray-le-Haut, for instance. But swear that you will say nothing to your husband during my absence. Remember that if you speak I shall never be able to come back." She promised and he left, but was called back at the end of two days. "It is impossible for me to keep my oath without you. I shall speak to my husband if you are not constantly there to enjoin me to silence by your looks. Every hour of this abominable life seems to last a day." Finally heaven had pity on this unfortunate mother. Little by little Stanislas got out of danger. But the ice was broken. Her reason had realised the extent of her sin. She could not recover her equilibrium again. Her pangs of remorse remained, and were what they ought to have been in so sincere a heart. Her life was heaven and hell: hell when she did not see Julien; heaven when she was at his feet. "I do not deceive myself any more," she would say to him, even during the moments when she dared to surrender herself to his full love. "I am damned, irrevocably damned. You are young, heaven may forgive you, but I, I am damned. I know it by a certain sign. I am afraid, who would not be afraid at the sight of hell? but at the bottom of my heart I do not repent at all. I would commit my sin over again if I had the opportunity. If heaven will only forbear to punish me in this world and through my children, I shall have more than I deserve. But you, at any rate, my Julien," she would cry at other moments, "are you happy? Do you think I love you enough?" The suspiciousness and morbid pride of Julien, who needed, above all, a self-sacrificing love, altogether vanished when he saw at every hour of the day so great and indisputable a sacrifice. He adored Madame de Renal. "It makes no difference her being noble, and my being a labourer's son. She loves me.... she does not regard me as a valet charged with the functions of a lover." That fear once dismissed, Julien fell into all the madness of love, into all its deadly uncertainties. "At any rate," she would cry, seeing his doubts of her love, "let me feel quite happy during the three days we still have together. Let us make haste; perhaps to-morrow will be too late. If heaven strikes me through my children, it will be in vain that I shall try only to live to love you, and to be blind to the fact that it is my crime which has killed them. I could not survive that blow. Even if I wished I could not; I should go mad." "Ah, if only I could take your sin on myself as you so generously offered to take Stanislas' burning fever!" This great moral crisis changed the character of the sentiment which united Julien and his mistress. His love was no longer simply admiration for her beauty, and the pride of possessing her. Henceforth their happiness was of a quite superior character. The flame which consumed them was more intense. They had transports filled with madness. Judged by the worldly standard their happiness would have appeared intensified. But they no longer found that delicious serenity, that cloudless happiness, that facile joy of the first period of their love, when Madame de Renal's only fear was that Julien did not love her enough. Their happiness had at times the complexion of crime. In their happiest and apparently their most tranquil moments, Madame de Renal would suddenly cry out, "Oh, great God, I see hell," as she pressed Julien's hand with a convulsive grasp. "What horrible tortures! I have well deserved them." She grasped him and hung on to him like ivy onto a wall. Julien would try in vain to calm that agitated soul. She would take his hand, cover it with kisses. Then, relapsing into a gloomy reverie, she would say, "Hell itself would be a blessing for me. I should still have some days to pass with him on this earth, but hell on earth, the death of my children. Still, perhaps my crime will be forgiven me at that price. Oh, great God, do not grant me my pardon at so great a price. These poor children have in no way transgressed against You. I, I am the only culprit. I love a man who is not my husband." Julien subsequently saw Madame de Renal attain what were apparently moments of tranquillity. She was endeavouring to control herself; she did not wish to poison the life of the man she loved. They found the days pass with the rapidity of lightning amid these alternating moods of love, remorse, and voluptuousness. Julien lost the habit of reflecting. Mademoiselle Elisa went to attend to a little lawsuit which she had at Verrieres. She found Valenod very piqued against Julien. She hated the tutor and would often speak about him. "You will ruin me, Monsieur, if I tell the truth," she said one day to Valenod. "All masters have an understanding amongst themselves with regard to matters of importance. There are certain disclosures which poor servants are never forgiven." After these stereotyped phrases, which his curiosity managed to cut short, Monsieur Valenod received some information extremely mortifying to his self-conceit. This woman, who was the most distinguished in the district, the woman on whom he had lavished so much attention in the last six years, and made no secret of it, more was the pity, this woman who was so proud, whose disdain had put him to the blush times without number, had just taken for her lover a little workman masquerading as a tutor. And to fill the cup of his jealousy, Madame de Renal adored that lover. "And," added the housemaid with a sigh, "Julien did not put himself out at all to make his conquest, his manner was as cold as ever, even with Madame." Elisa had only become certain in the country, but she believed that this intrigue dated from much further back. "That is no doubt the reason," she added spitefully, "why he refused to marry me. And to think what a fool I was when I went to consult Madame de Renal and begged her to speak to the tutor." The very same evening, M. de Renal received from the town, together with his paper, a long anonymous letter which apprised him in the greatest detail of what was taking place in his house. Julien saw him pale as he read this letter written on blue paper, and look at him with a malicious expression. During all that evening the mayor failed to throw off his trouble. It was in vain that Julien paid him court by asking for explanations about the genealogy of the best families in Burgundy.

Part 1, Chapter 19

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-19

When the king's visit is over, Julien hangs around the room that the Marquis de La Mole stayed in. He finds a piece of folded paper that contains a note written by a guy to the Marquis who wants a government post that's about to open up. In the coming week, one of the biggest points of gossip in town is how Julien was allowed to ride with the Honor Guard. Even people who usually preach equality are furious with a carpenter's son being honored in this way. People suspect that Madame de Renal put in a good word for him because he's handsome. Soon afterward, Madame de Renal's son falls ill with a fever. She thinks that God is punishing her for having an affair with Julien. She tells Julien that she's going to spill her guts to her husband. Julien tells her not to. One day, Madame falls to her knees and tries to tell her husband that their son's illness is all her fault. But he thinks she's just being crazy and won't listen to her. Julien thinks about going away for a while. But he knows that Madame will tell her husband everything if he leaves. Julien has a long talk with Madame that ends with them both crying and swearing to stop their affair. Eventually, Madame's son regains his health. Madame's remorse stays strong though, now that she's accepted the sinfulness of what she's done. The servant Elisa becomes so frustrated that she one day goes into town and tells Monsieur de Renal's rival, Valenod, that Madame is sleeping with Julien Sorel. It's not clear whether she knows this for sure or is just talking out of suspicion. The news hurts Valenod's pride, since he has been trying to sleep with Madame de Renal for years. Next thing you know, Julien sees Monsieur de Renal reading an anonymous letter explaining everything going on between his wife and Julien. The man's face darkens as he reads.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/book_x.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_13_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book x.chapter i-chapter vii

book x

{"name": "Book X", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-4-book-x", "summary": "Kolya Krassotkin, a widow's only child, is a mature and independent thirteen-year-old with a reputation for being exceptionally daring and imprudent. He is also the boy whom earlier Ilusha stabbed with a penknife; but, good-naturedly, Kolya has never held a grudge. He has been training a dog, Perezvon, to do complicated tricks. On the day before Dmitri's trial, young Kolya is staying with two children of his mother's tenant. He feels uneasy because he has an urgent errand to attend to and leaves as soon as the servant returns. His errand turns out to be a visit to Ilusha. Kolya knows that Alyosha has arranged for other boys to visit the dying Ilusha every day, but until today Kolya has never visited the boy. He arrives at Ilusha's with a friend, Smurov, and asks him to call Alyosha outside; he has a great curiosity to meet Alyosha. The two meet and immediately become good friends, especially because Alyosha treats Kolya as an equal. Kolya explains to his new friend about Ilusha's background and tells him that once they were fast friends, but when Kolya heard that Ilusha fed a dog a piece of bread with a pin in it, he tried to punish the boy. The punishment backfired, however, and Kolya was stabbed with the penknife. Since this happened, however, Ilusha has come to feel very bad about the dog, Zhutchka. Alyosha takes Kolya inside, and Ilusha is overjoyed to see his old friend again. Kolya, however, begins to tease Ilusha about the dog; then, before anyone can stop him, he calls in the dog he has been training. It turns out to be Zhutchka. Everyone is delighted, and the dying Ilusha sheds tears of happiness. Kolya explains that, until now, he has stayed away so that he could train the dog for Ilusha. A doctor from Moscow, whom Katerina has sent for, arrives to examine Ilusha, and the visitors reluctantly leave the room. As they wait outside, Kolya explains his views of life to Alyosha. Alyosha listens carefully, understanding the boy's real motives. He wants to impress Alyosha with his hodgepodge of other people's philosophies. Alyosha is sympathetic to him, though, and is especially drawn to the young boy when he confesses his weaknesses. As the doctor leaves, it is quite apparent that Ilusha has not long to live. Even Ilusha is aware that he is dying. He tries to comfort his father, and Kolya is deeply affected by this scene between father and son. He promises Alyosha that he will come often to visit the dying boy.", "analysis": "Some critics have complained that in a novel of such extreme complexity and length, Book X does not contribute to the novel's unity. The section has often been said to be superfluous and a flaw in construction. A reader, they say, is anxiously concerned about Dmitri at this point, not about Ilusha. But because of the heavy chapters of violence, passion, and murder, this section can be explained in terms of Dostoevsky's inserting a healthy bit of youthful fresh air. The reader is relieved from the strain of contemplating Dmitri's fate. This relief, however, does not explain all the charges leveled against this section of the novel. It does not, for example, explain an obvious change in tone. Here, Dostoevsky inserts the most overt sentimentality in the novel. He seems to play with the reader's emotions, and much of the pathetic background material of young Kolya's life is not central to the novel except in the very large perspective of establishing him as the person whom Alyosha will train and who will become one of Russia's future citizens, entrusted with the ideas of Father Zossima. Perhaps the real purpose of the section is this: Dostoevsky is showing Alyosha as he moves among Russian youth, quietly influencing their lives as a living example of Father Zossima's philosophy. The hope of Russia lies in the young and in the common people, and Alyosha teaches Kolya much in this section. He meets him as an equal and offers him understanding and trust; he teaches Kolya that one cannot judge Ilusha's father, saying that there are people of rare character who have been crushed by life. The buffoonery of Ilusha's father, he says, is only the man's way of being ironic toward those who have humiliated and intimidated him for years. Alyosha also instructs Kolya in what a man can learn from another. Because Alyosha accepts all as equals, even Kolya, he kindles a responsive chord of love. By his quiet examples, Alyosha corrects immature views without arousing animosity. He is, for example, careful not to denounce Kolya's potpourri of philosophy; instead, he simply explains that although he disagrees, he does not have contempt for Kolya's ideas. By the latter's response, it is obvious that he will become one of Alyosha's strongest disciples."}

PART IV Book X. The Boys Chapter I. Kolya Krassotkin It was the beginning of November. There had been a hard frost, eleven degrees Reaumur, 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 market-place. It was a dull morning, but the snow had ceased. Not far from the market-place, 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 nice-looking woman of thirty-two, 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, strong-willed, 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 instinctive--it 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, forty-five 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 pitch-dark 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 middle-aged 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 tender-hearted 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." Chapter II. Children 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 picture-book. 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 trace-horse. 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 kitchen-garden. 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 matter-of-fact 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 touch-hole, 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 awe-stricken 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 sha--all 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 rough-haired 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 small-pox, 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." "Good-by, 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!" Chapter III. The Schoolboy 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 market-place. When he reached the last house but one before the market-place 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 rosy-cheeked 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 well-to-do 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 was--if the reader has not forgotten--one 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 market-place. "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 non-existent. 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, smoky-looking 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 object--that'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, to-day. 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 again--they'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 to-morrow 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 Karamazov--there'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 sort--no 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 market-place, 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 naively 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 masters--far more, indeed. I repeat that, because I am convinced that there is far more foolishness among us. That's Rakitin's idea--a 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 motive-power. What a funny-looking peasant!" Kolya pointed to a tall peasant, with a good-natured 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. Good-by, Matvey." "Good-by." "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 of--sometimes." "Does it hurt?" "Well, yes, it does." "Ech, what a life!" The peasant heaved a sigh from the bottom of his heart. "Good-by, Matvey." "Good-by. 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 middle-aged market woman shouted at him. "I am so glad it's Marya. Good-by!" "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. Good-by!" "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 sturdy-looking 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." "Good-by, peasant!" "Good-by!" "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 half-past 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. Chapter IV. The Lost Dog 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 good-looking. 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 think--Tfoo! 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 pencil-mark 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 looking-glass, 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 looking-glass 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 well-cut 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 good-humored expression; but there was a gentleness and serenity in his good-humor. 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 is--a 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 now--that's what detained me to-day. 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 generation--to 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 father--it was before his death, of course--and he taught the little fool a silly trick--that 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 dogs--all--all 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 finger--but 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 him--that is, to make it up with him--when 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 him--a 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?" "Nikolay--Nikolay 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, fourteen--that 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. "Grown-up people go to the theater and there the adventures of all sorts of heroes are represented--sometimes there are robbers and battles, too--and 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." Chapter V. By Ilusha's Bedside 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 half-imbecile 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, terror-stricken 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 arm-chair, who was very ill-humored 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. "Ye--es," answered Ilusha in a long whisper, gasping for breath. "A black nose, that means he'll be fierce, a good house-dog," 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 free-and-easy 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 hind-legs 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' back-yard. 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 open-mouthed 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 to-day. 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 well-trained 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 business-like 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 book-case 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 touch-hole 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 made--twenty-four 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 sieve--that'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. "N--not 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 market-place 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 errand-boy 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, moon-faced 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 peasants--that's an axiom. I believe you are laughing, Karamazov?" "No, Heaven forbid, I am listening," said Alyosha with a most good-natured 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 up--do 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 third-class 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 important-looking 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..." "Sne-gi-ryov?" the doctor said loudly and pompously. "Mr. Snegiryov--is 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. Chapter VI. Precocity "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 to-day, 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 pseudo-great man. I think, too, that to leave one's own country and fly to America is mean, worse than mean--silly. 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 Pushkin--_Onyegin_, 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 to-day. '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 conceit--that'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 thought--I've thought several times since I've been here--that 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 fancied--just now, here--when 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!" Chapter VII. Ilusha 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 terror-stricken 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 be-ne-ficial 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 seen"--he spread out his hands, indicating his surroundings--"mamma and my family?" "N--no, 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?"(7) repeated the doctor, perplexed. "He hears the bell, but where it is he cannot tell. Good-by, 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 Krassotkin--this 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. "Good-by, 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. Good-by!" 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. "Good-by, 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.

Book X

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-4-book-x

Kolya Krassotkin, a widow's only child, is a mature and independent thirteen-year-old with a reputation for being exceptionally daring and imprudent. He is also the boy whom earlier Ilusha stabbed with a penknife; but, good-naturedly, Kolya has never held a grudge. He has been training a dog, Perezvon, to do complicated tricks. On the day before Dmitri's trial, young Kolya is staying with two children of his mother's tenant. He feels uneasy because he has an urgent errand to attend to and leaves as soon as the servant returns. His errand turns out to be a visit to Ilusha. Kolya knows that Alyosha has arranged for other boys to visit the dying Ilusha every day, but until today Kolya has never visited the boy. He arrives at Ilusha's with a friend, Smurov, and asks him to call Alyosha outside; he has a great curiosity to meet Alyosha. The two meet and immediately become good friends, especially because Alyosha treats Kolya as an equal. Kolya explains to his new friend about Ilusha's background and tells him that once they were fast friends, but when Kolya heard that Ilusha fed a dog a piece of bread with a pin in it, he tried to punish the boy. The punishment backfired, however, and Kolya was stabbed with the penknife. Since this happened, however, Ilusha has come to feel very bad about the dog, Zhutchka. Alyosha takes Kolya inside, and Ilusha is overjoyed to see his old friend again. Kolya, however, begins to tease Ilusha about the dog; then, before anyone can stop him, he calls in the dog he has been training. It turns out to be Zhutchka. Everyone is delighted, and the dying Ilusha sheds tears of happiness. Kolya explains that, until now, he has stayed away so that he could train the dog for Ilusha. A doctor from Moscow, whom Katerina has sent for, arrives to examine Ilusha, and the visitors reluctantly leave the room. As they wait outside, Kolya explains his views of life to Alyosha. Alyosha listens carefully, understanding the boy's real motives. He wants to impress Alyosha with his hodgepodge of other people's philosophies. Alyosha is sympathetic to him, though, and is especially drawn to the young boy when he confesses his weaknesses. As the doctor leaves, it is quite apparent that Ilusha has not long to live. Even Ilusha is aware that he is dying. He tries to comfort his father, and Kolya is deeply affected by this scene between father and son. He promises Alyosha that he will come often to visit the dying boy.

Some critics have complained that in a novel of such extreme complexity and length, Book X does not contribute to the novel's unity. The section has often been said to be superfluous and a flaw in construction. A reader, they say, is anxiously concerned about Dmitri at this point, not about Ilusha. But because of the heavy chapters of violence, passion, and murder, this section can be explained in terms of Dostoevsky's inserting a healthy bit of youthful fresh air. The reader is relieved from the strain of contemplating Dmitri's fate. This relief, however, does not explain all the charges leveled against this section of the novel. It does not, for example, explain an obvious change in tone. Here, Dostoevsky inserts the most overt sentimentality in the novel. He seems to play with the reader's emotions, and much of the pathetic background material of young Kolya's life is not central to the novel except in the very large perspective of establishing him as the person whom Alyosha will train and who will become one of Russia's future citizens, entrusted with the ideas of Father Zossima. Perhaps the real purpose of the section is this: Dostoevsky is showing Alyosha as he moves among Russian youth, quietly influencing their lives as a living example of Father Zossima's philosophy. The hope of Russia lies in the young and in the common people, and Alyosha teaches Kolya much in this section. He meets him as an equal and offers him understanding and trust; he teaches Kolya that one cannot judge Ilusha's father, saying that there are people of rare character who have been crushed by life. The buffoonery of Ilusha's father, he says, is only the man's way of being ironic toward those who have humiliated and intimidated him for years. Alyosha also instructs Kolya in what a man can learn from another. Because Alyosha accepts all as equals, even Kolya, he kindles a responsive chord of love. By his quiet examples, Alyosha corrects immature views without arousing animosity. He is, for example, careful not to denounce Kolya's potpourri of philosophy; instead, he simply explains that although he disagrees, he does not have contempt for Kolya's ideas. By the latter's response, it is obvious that he will become one of Alyosha's strongest disciples.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/61.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_53_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 54

chapter 54

{"name": "Chapter 54", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-54", "summary": "Boldwood, walking easily and steadily, arrived at the jail. He rang, said something to the porter in a low tone, and entered. \"The door was closed behind him, and he walked the world no more.\" When Gabriel heard of the catastrophe, he rushed to Boldwood's house, arriving some five minutes after Boldwood's departure. The scene was dreadful. Bathsheba sat on the floor beside the body, Troy's head pillowed in her lap. \"With one hand she held her handkerchief to his breast . . . though scarcely a single drop of blood had flowed, and with the other she tightly clasped one of his. The household convulsion had made her herself again. . . . Deeds of endurance which seem ordinary in philosophy are rare in conduct, and Bathsheba was astonishing all . . . for her philosophy was her conduct.\" She ordered Gabriel to ride for a surgeon. In town, Gabriel also stopped to notify the authorities and so learned of Boldwood's surrender. Meanwhile, Bathsheba had Troy moved home. Liddy admitted the doctor, telling him that Bathsheba had locked herself in the room with the body. She had left orders that the surgeon and Parson Thirdly were to be admitted. The surgeon found Troy's body lit by candles and draped in white. Returning to Oak and the parson, the doctor remarked in a subdued voice, \"It is all done. . . . this mere girl! She must have the nerve of a stoic!\" \"The heart of a wife, merely,\" Bathsheba whispered behind him. Then, silently, she sank to the floor. She had a series of fainting fits that for a time seemed serious, but the surgeon attended her. Liddy was told to watch over her during the night. She heard her mistress moan, \"O it is my fault -- how can I live!\"", "analysis": "Bathsheba's display of strength reminds the surgeon of the ancient stoics; it is also reminiscent of the great women of Greek tragedy. Then, having done what was required of her, Bathsheba can yield to weakness and faint away. This was a common frailty in the women of Victorian times, both in literature and in life. Bathsheba's stern conscience, which continues to trouble her, is another typical Victorian characteristic."}

AFTER THE SHOCK Boldwood passed into the high road and turned in the direction of Casterbridge. Here he walked at an even, steady pace over Yalbury Hill, along the dead level beyond, mounted Mellstock Hill, and between eleven and twelve o'clock crossed the Moor into the town. The streets were nearly deserted now, and the waving lamp-flames only lighted up rows of grey shop-shutters, and strips of white paving upon which his step echoed as his passed along. He turned to the right, and halted before an archway of heavy stonework, which was closed by an iron studded pair of doors. This was the entrance to the gaol, and over it a lamp was fixed, the light enabling the wretched traveller to find a bell-pull. The small wicket at last opened, and a porter appeared. Boldwood stepped forward, and said something in a low tone, when, after a delay, another man came. Boldwood entered, and the door was closed behind him, and he walked the world no more. Long before this time Weatherbury had been thoroughly aroused, and the wild deed which had terminated Boldwood's merrymaking became known to all. Of those out of the house Oak was one of the first to hear of the catastrophe, and when he entered the room, which was about five minutes after Boldwood's exit, the scene was terrible. All the female guests were huddled aghast against the walls like sheep in a storm, and the men were bewildered as to what to do. As for Bathsheba, she had changed. She was sitting on the floor beside the body of Troy, his head pillowed in her lap, where she had herself lifted it. With one hand she held her handkerchief to his breast and covered the wound, though scarcely a single drop of blood had flowed, and with the other she tightly clasped one of his. The household convulsion had made her herself again. The temporary coma had ceased, and activity had come with the necessity for it. Deeds of endurance, which seem ordinary in philosophy, are rare in conduct, and Bathsheba was astonishing all around her now, for her philosophy was her conduct, and she seldom thought practicable what she did not practise. She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises. Troy recumbent in his wife's lap formed now the sole spectacle in the middle of the spacious room. "Gabriel," she said, automatically, when he entered, turning up a face of which only the well-known lines remained to tell him it was hers, all else in the picture having faded quite. "Ride to Casterbridge instantly for a surgeon. It is, I believe, useless, but go. Mr. Boldwood has shot my husband." Her statement of the fact in such quiet and simple words came with more force than a tragic declamation, and had somewhat the effect of setting the distorted images in each mind present into proper focus. Oak, almost before he had comprehended anything beyond the briefest abstract of the event, hurried out of the room, saddled a horse and rode away. Not till he had ridden more than a mile did it occur to him that he would have done better by sending some other man on this errand, remaining himself in the house. What had become of Boldwood? He should have been looked after. Was he mad--had there been a quarrel? Then how had Troy got there? Where had he come from? How did this remarkable reappearance effect itself when he was supposed by many to be at the bottom of the sea? Oak had in some slight measure been prepared for the presence of Troy by hearing a rumour of his return just before entering Boldwood's house; but before he had weighed that information, this fatal event had been superimposed. However, it was too late now to think of sending another messenger, and he rode on, in the excitement of these self-inquiries not discerning, when about three miles from Casterbridge, a square-figured pedestrian passing along under the dark hedge in the same direction as his own. The miles necessary to be traversed, and other hindrances incidental to the lateness of the hour and the darkness of the night, delayed the arrival of Mr. Aldritch, the surgeon; and more than three hours passed between the time at which the shot was fired and that of his entering the house. Oak was additionally detained in Casterbridge through having to give notice to the authorities of what had happened; and he then found that Boldwood had also entered the town, and delivered himself up. In the meantime the surgeon, having hastened into the hall at Boldwood's, found it in darkness and quite deserted. He went on to the back of the house, where he discovered in the kitchen an old man, of whom he made inquiries. "She's had him took away to her own house, sir," said his informant. "Who has?" said the doctor. "Mrs. Troy. 'A was quite dead, sir." This was astonishing information. "She had no right to do that," said the doctor. "There will have to be an inquest, and she should have waited to know what to do." "Yes, sir; it was hinted to her that she had better wait till the law was known. But she said law was nothing to her, and she wouldn't let her dear husband's corpse bide neglected for folks to stare at for all the crowners in England." Mr. Aldritch drove at once back again up the hill to Bathsheba's. The first person he met was poor Liddy, who seemed literally to have dwindled smaller in these few latter hours. "What has been done?" he said. "I don't know, sir," said Liddy, with suspended breath. "My mistress has done it all." "Where is she?" "Upstairs with him, sir. When he was brought home and taken upstairs, she said she wanted no further help from the men. And then she called me, and made me fill the bath, and after that told me I had better go and lie down because I looked so ill. Then she locked herself into the room alone with him, and would not let a nurse come in, or anybody at all. But I thought I'd wait in the next room in case she should want me. I heard her moving about inside for more than an hour, but she only came out once, and that was for more candles, because hers had burnt down into the socket. She said we were to let her know when you or Mr. Thirdly came, sir." Oak entered with the parson at this moment, and they all went upstairs together, preceded by Liddy Smallbury. Everything was silent as the grave when they paused on the landing. Liddy knocked, and Bathsheba's dress was heard rustling across the room: the key turned in the lock, and she opened the door. Her looks were calm and nearly rigid, like a slightly animated bust of Melpomene. "Oh, Mr. Aldritch, you have come at last," she murmured from her lips merely, and threw back the door. "Ah, and Mr. Thirdly. Well, all is done, and anybody in the world may see him now." She then passed by him, crossed the landing, and entered another room. Looking into the chamber of death she had vacated they saw by the light of the candles which were on the drawers a tall straight shape lying at the further end of the bedroom, wrapped in white. Everything around was quite orderly. The doctor went in, and after a few minutes returned to the landing again, where Oak and the parson still waited. "It is all done, indeed, as she says," remarked Mr. Aldritch, in a subdued voice. "The body has been undressed and properly laid out in grave clothes. Gracious Heaven--this mere girl! She must have the nerve of a stoic!" "The heart of a wife merely," floated in a whisper about the ears of the three, and turning they saw Bathsheba in the midst of them. Then, as if at that instant to prove that her fortitude had been more of will than of spontaneity, she silently sank down between them and was a shapeless heap of drapery on the floor. The simple consciousness that superhuman strain was no longer required had at once put a period to her power to continue it. They took her away into a further room, and the medical attendance which had been useless in Troy's case was invaluable in Bathsheba's, who fell into a series of fainting-fits that had a serious aspect for a time. The sufferer was got to bed, and Oak, finding from the bulletins that nothing really dreadful was to be apprehended on her score, left the house. Liddy kept watch in Bathsheba's chamber, where she heard her mistress, moaning in whispers through the dull slow hours of that wretched night: "Oh it is my fault--how can I live! O Heaven, how can I live!"

Chapter 54

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-54

Boldwood, walking easily and steadily, arrived at the jail. He rang, said something to the porter in a low tone, and entered. "The door was closed behind him, and he walked the world no more." When Gabriel heard of the catastrophe, he rushed to Boldwood's house, arriving some five minutes after Boldwood's departure. The scene was dreadful. Bathsheba sat on the floor beside the body, Troy's head pillowed in her lap. "With one hand she held her handkerchief to his breast . . . though scarcely a single drop of blood had flowed, and with the other she tightly clasped one of his. The household convulsion had made her herself again. . . . Deeds of endurance which seem ordinary in philosophy are rare in conduct, and Bathsheba was astonishing all . . . for her philosophy was her conduct." She ordered Gabriel to ride for a surgeon. In town, Gabriel also stopped to notify the authorities and so learned of Boldwood's surrender. Meanwhile, Bathsheba had Troy moved home. Liddy admitted the doctor, telling him that Bathsheba had locked herself in the room with the body. She had left orders that the surgeon and Parson Thirdly were to be admitted. The surgeon found Troy's body lit by candles and draped in white. Returning to Oak and the parson, the doctor remarked in a subdued voice, "It is all done. . . . this mere girl! She must have the nerve of a stoic!" "The heart of a wife, merely," Bathsheba whispered behind him. Then, silently, she sank to the floor. She had a series of fainting fits that for a time seemed serious, but the surgeon attended her. Liddy was told to watch over her during the night. She heard her mistress moan, "O it is my fault -- how can I live!"

Bathsheba's display of strength reminds the surgeon of the ancient stoics; it is also reminiscent of the great women of Greek tragedy. Then, having done what was required of her, Bathsheba can yield to weakness and faint away. This was a common frailty in the women of Victorian times, both in literature and in life. Bathsheba's stern conscience, which continues to trouble her, is another typical Victorian characteristic.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/13.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_1_part_2.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 13

chapter 13

{"name": "Chapter 13", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-2-chapters-12-15", "summary": "Tess Durbeyfield's return to Marlott became the subject of gossip. In the course of several weeks Tess revived sufficiently to get to church. When she goes to church, she notices others around her staring at her and whispering; she knows what their whispers concern and feels that she cannot come to church anymore. The only exercise that Tess takes is after dark when she can be alone. She perceives herself as a figure of Guilt introducing into the haunts of Innocence.", "analysis": "Tess's return to Marlott becomes the subject of gossip in the town precisely because it is such a stunning reversal of fortune for the girl. Although she left to claim kinship with a noble family, she returns to Marlott in a lower social standing than before, unmarried yet pregnant with Alec d'Urberville's child. The weight of this disdain for Tess as well as her own personal guilt lead her to shrink from society, finding refuge only in the natural habitat around her. Hardy makes clear that Tess feels herself a sinner for what occurred to her and that her personal pain and regret outweigh any social opposition she may face"}

The event of Tess Durbeyfield's return from the manor of her bogus kinsfolk was rumoured abroad, if rumour be not too large a word for a space of a square mile. In the afternoon several young girls of Marlott, former schoolfellows and acquaintances of Tess, called to see her, arriving dressed in their best starched and ironed, as became visitors to a person who had made a transcendent conquest (as they supposed), and sat round the room looking at her with great curiosity. For the fact that it was this said thirty-first cousin, Mr d'Urberville, who had fallen in love with her, a gentleman not altogether local, whose reputation as a reckless gallant and heartbreaker was beginning to spread beyond the immediate boundaries of Trantridge, lent Tess's supposed position, by its fearsomeness, a far higher fascination that it would have exercised if unhazardous. Their interest was so deep that the younger ones whispered when her back was turned-- "How pretty she is; and how that best frock do set her off! I believe it cost an immense deal, and that it was a gift from him." Tess, who was reaching up to get the tea-things from the corner-cupboard, did not hear these commentaries. If she had heard them, she might soon have set her friends right on the matter. But her mother heard, and Joan's simple vanity, having been denied the hope of a dashing marriage, fed itself as well as it could upon the sensation of a dashing flirtation. Upon the whole she felt gratified, even though such a limited and evanescent triumph should involve her daughter's reputation; it might end in marriage yet, and in the warmth of her responsiveness to their admiration she invited her visitors to stay to tea. Their chatter, their laughter, their good-humoured innuendoes, above all, their flashes and flickerings of envy, revived Tess's spirits also; and, as the evening wore on, she caught the infection of their excitement, and grew almost gay. The marble hardness left her face, she moved with something of her old bounding step, and flushed in all her young beauty. At moments, in spite of thought, she would reply to their inquiries with a manner of superiority, as if recognizing that her experiences in the field of courtship had, indeed, been slightly enviable. But so far was she from being, in the words of Robert South, "in love with her own ruin," that the illusion was transient as lightning; cold reason came back to mock her spasmodic weakness; the ghastliness of her momentary pride would convict her, and recall her to reserved listlessness again. And the despondency of the next morning's dawn, when it was no longer Sunday, but Monday; and no best clothes; and the laughing visitors were gone, and she awoke alone in her old bed, the innocent younger children breathing softly around her. In place of the excitement of her return, and the interest it had inspired, she saw before her a long and stony highway which she had to tread, without aid, and with little sympathy. Her depression was then terrible, and she could have hidden herself in a tomb. In the course of a few weeks Tess revived sufficiently to show herself so far as was necessary to get to church one Sunday morning. She liked to hear the chanting--such as it was--and the old Psalms, and to join in the Morning Hymn. That innate love of melody, which she had inherited from her ballad-singing mother, gave the simplest music a power over her which could well-nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times. To be as much out of observation as possible for reasons of her own, and to escape the gallantries of the young men, she set out before the chiming began, and took a back seat under the gallery, close to the lumber, where only old men and women came, and where the bier stood on end among the churchyard tools. Parishioners dropped in by twos and threes, deposited themselves in rows before her, rested three-quarters of a minute on their foreheads as if they were praying, though they were not; then sat up, and looked around. When the chants came on, one of her favourites happened to be chosen among the rest--the old double chant "Langdon"--but she did not know what it was called, though she would much have liked to know. She thought, without exactly wording the thought, how strange and god-like was a composer's power, who from the grave could lead through sequences of emotion, which he alone had felt at first, a girl like her who had never heard of his name, and never would have a clue to his personality. The people who had turned their heads turned them again as the service proceeded; and at last observing her, they whispered to each other. She knew what their whispers were about, grew sick at heart, and felt that she could come to church no more. The bedroom which she shared with some of the children formed her retreat more continually than ever. Here, under her few square yards of thatch, she watched winds, and snows, and rains, gorgeous sunsets, and successive moons at their full. So close kept she that at length almost everybody thought she had gone away. The only exercise that Tess took at this time was after dark; and it was then, when out in the woods, that she seemed least solitary. She knew how to hit to a hair's-breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind--or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units. On these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather they became a part of it; for the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were. The midnight airs and gusts, moaning amongst the tightly-wrapped buds and bark of the winter twigs, were formulae of bitter reproach. A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as any other. But this encompassment of her own characterization, based on shreds of convention, peopled by phantoms and voices antipathetic to her, was a sorry and mistaken creation of Tess's fancy--a cloud of moral hobgoblins by which she was terrified without reason. It was they that were out of harmony with the actual world, not she. Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching the skipping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under a pheasant-laden bough, she looked upon herself as a figure of Guilt intruding into the haunts of Innocence. But all the while she was making a distinction where there was no difference. Feeling herself in antagonism, she was quite in accord. She had been made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly.

Chapter 13

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-2-chapters-12-15

Tess Durbeyfield's return to Marlott became the subject of gossip. In the course of several weeks Tess revived sufficiently to get to church. When she goes to church, she notices others around her staring at her and whispering; she knows what their whispers concern and feels that she cannot come to church anymore. The only exercise that Tess takes is after dark when she can be alone. She perceives herself as a figure of Guilt introducing into the haunts of Innocence.

Tess's return to Marlott becomes the subject of gossip in the town precisely because it is such a stunning reversal of fortune for the girl. Although she left to claim kinship with a noble family, she returns to Marlott in a lower social standing than before, unmarried yet pregnant with Alec d'Urberville's child. The weight of this disdain for Tess as well as her own personal guilt lead her to shrink from society, finding refuge only in the natural habitat around her. Hardy makes clear that Tess feels herself a sinner for what occurred to her and that her personal pain and regret outweigh any social opposition she may face

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1130-chapters/23.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra/section_22_part_0.txt

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.act iii.scene xi

act iii, scene xi

{"name": "Act III, Scene xi", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iii-scene-xi", "summary": "Antony, back at Cleopatra's palace in Alexandria, cries out in shame. He laments that he's lost to the world forever, and insists that his friends go to a ship he has left full of gold, divide up the spoils, and follow his example by fleeing. He says his lesser parts have defeated his nobler intuitions, and he has lost command . Overall, he's kind of a wreck. Cleopatra enters. Antony is busy recounting what a noble soldier he used to be, like that time he oversaw the death of Brutus and Cassius. These victories are mitigated by his present shame. Cleopatra goes to comfort him, with her head hung and looking the very picture of shame. He asks her how she could lead him to this, and she is full of apologies--she ran away because she was frightened, and never thought he would follow her. He responds in despair. His heart was tied to her rudder; he had to follow because his love for her rules his spirit. She's really sorry, it seems, but Antony now has to worry about seeking pardon from Caesar, which is sad since not too long ago he ruled half the world. Still, Cleopatra has power over him; he asks her for a kiss, as this will repay him for all the wrongs. He calls for wine and is determined to make merry. Antony chooses to deliberately ignore all the signs that the entire endeavor against Caesar is cursed.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE XI. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace Enter ANTONY With attendants ANTONY. Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't; It is asham'd to bear me. Friends, come hither. I am so lated in the world that I Have lost my way for ever. I have a ship Laden with gold; take that; divide it. Fly, And make your peace with Caesar. ALL. Fly? Not we! ANTONY. I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone; I have myself resolv'd upon a course Which has no need of you; be gone. My treasure's in the harbour, take it. O, I follow'd that I blush to look upon. My very hairs do mutiny; for the white Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them For fear and doting. Friends, be gone; you shall Have letters from me to some friends that will Sweep your way for you. Pray you look not sad, Nor make replies of loathness; take the hint Which my despair proclaims. Let that be left Which leaves itself. To the sea-side straight way. I will possess you of that ship and treasure. Leave me, I pray, a little; pray you now; Nay, do so, for indeed I have lost command; Therefore I pray you. I'll see you by and by. [Sits down] Enter CLEOPATRA, led by CHARMIAN and IRAS, EROS following EROS. Nay, gentle madam, to him! Comfort him. IRAS. Do, most dear Queen. CHARMIAN. Do? Why, what else? CLEOPATRA. Let me sit down. O Juno! ANTONY. No, no, no, no, no. EROS. See you here, sir? ANTONY. O, fie, fie, fie! CHARMIAN. Madam! IRAS. Madam, O good Empress! EROS. Sir, sir! ANTONY. Yes, my lord, yes. He at Philippi kept His sword e'en like a dancer, while I struck The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I That the mad Brutus ended; he alone Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had In the brave squares of war. Yet now- no matter. CLEOPATRA. Ah, stand by! EROS. The Queen, my lord, the Queen! IRAS. Go to him, madam, speak to him. He is unqualitied with very shame. CLEOPATRA. Well then, sustain me. O! EROS. Most noble sir, arise; the Queen approaches. Her head's declin'd, and death will seize her but Your comfort makes the rescue. ANTONY. I have offended reputation- A most unnoble swerving. EROS. Sir, the Queen. ANTONY. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See How I convey my shame out of thine eyes By looking back what I have left behind 'Stroy'd in dishonour. CLEOPATRA. O my lord, my lord, Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought You would have followed. ANTONY. Egypt, thou knew'st too well My heart was to thy rudder tied by th' strings, And thou shouldst tow me after. O'er my spirit Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods Command me. CLEOPATRA. O, my pardon! ANTONY. Now I must To the young man send humble treaties, dodge And palter in the shifts of lowness, who With half the bulk o' th' world play'd as I pleas'd, Making and marring fortunes. You did know How much you were my conqueror, and that My sword, made weak by my affection, would Obey it on all cause. CLEOPATRA. Pardon, pardon! ANTONY. Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss; Even this repays me. We sent our schoolmaster; is 'a come back? Love, I am full of lead. Some wine, Within there, and our viands! Fortune knows We scorn her most when most she offers blows. Exeunt ACT_3|SC_12

Act III, Scene xi

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iii-scene-xi

Antony, back at Cleopatra's palace in Alexandria, cries out in shame. He laments that he's lost to the world forever, and insists that his friends go to a ship he has left full of gold, divide up the spoils, and follow his example by fleeing. He says his lesser parts have defeated his nobler intuitions, and he has lost command . Overall, he's kind of a wreck. Cleopatra enters. Antony is busy recounting what a noble soldier he used to be, like that time he oversaw the death of Brutus and Cassius. These victories are mitigated by his present shame. Cleopatra goes to comfort him, with her head hung and looking the very picture of shame. He asks her how she could lead him to this, and she is full of apologies--she ran away because she was frightened, and never thought he would follow her. He responds in despair. His heart was tied to her rudder; he had to follow because his love for her rules his spirit. She's really sorry, it seems, but Antony now has to worry about seeking pardon from Caesar, which is sad since not too long ago he ruled half the world. Still, Cleopatra has power over him; he asks her for a kiss, as this will repay him for all the wrongs. He calls for wine and is determined to make merry. Antony chooses to deliberately ignore all the signs that the entire endeavor against Caesar is cursed.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1130-chapters/20.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra/section_19_part_0.txt

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.act iii.scene viii

act iii, scene viii

{"name": "Act III, Scene viii", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iii-scene-viii", "summary": "Now at Actium, Caesar gives instruction to his lieutenant, Taurus. They're not to engage Antony's side on land until the sea battle is over. He's convinced all their fortunes rest on this one decision.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE VIII. A plain near Actium Enter CAESAR, with his army, marching CAESAR. Taurus! TAURUS. My lord? CAESAR. Strike not by land; keep whole; provoke not battle Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed The prescript of this scroll. Our fortune lies Upon this jump. Exeunt ACT_3|SC_9

Act III, Scene viii

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iii-scene-viii

Now at Actium, Caesar gives instruction to his lieutenant, Taurus. They're not to engage Antony's side on land until the sea battle is over. He's convinced all their fortunes rest on this one decision.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1526-chapters/13.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Twelfth Night, or What You Will/section_12_part_0.txt

Twelfth Night, or What You Will.act 3.scene 3

act 3, scene 3

{"name": "Act 3, Scene 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210415161814/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/twelfth-night/summary/act-3-scene-3", "summary": "Meanwhile, Sebastian has rolled up in Illyria and stands in a street chatting with Antonio, who, apparently, has insisted on following his beloved Sebastian. Antonio says his desire drove him to follow Sebastian to Illyria, even though he's afraid of the dangers that he might face. Sebastian says something like, \"Thanks a million. Should we catch the sights?\" Antonio doesn't want to play tourist and suggests that they go back to the motel, but Sebastian's not having any of that and wants to do some sightseeing. Antonio reveals that he's not really supposed to be in Illyria since he's kind of a pirate and helped steal some money from Duke Orsino. He also doesn't have enough money to pay off the authorities if he's caught in Illyria. Sebastian asks if Antonio killed a bunch of men and Antonio says no, but the skirmish cost the Duke a lot of money. Then Antonio gives Sebastian a little money and tells him to buy himself something nice, Antonio's treat. Sebastian takes the money and says he's going to shop for about an hour and then he'll meet Antonio back at the Inn .", "analysis": ""}

SCENE III. A street. [Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.] SEBASTIAN. I would not by my will have troubled you; But since you make your pleasure of your pains, I will no further chide you. ANTONIO. I could not stay behind you: my desire, More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth; And not all love to see you,--though so much, As might have drawn one to a longer voyage,-- But jealousy what might befall your travel, Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger, Unguided and unfriended, often prove Rough and unhospitable. My willing love, The rather by these arguments of fear, Set forth in your pursuit. SEBASTIAN. My kind Antonio, I can no other answer make but thanks, And thanks, and ever thanks. Often good turns Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay; But were my worth, as is my conscience, firm, You should find better dealing. What's to do? Shall we go see the reliques of this town? ANTONIO. To-morrow, sir; best, first, go see your lodging. SEBASTIAN. I am not weary, and 'tis long to night; I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes With the memorials and the things of fame That do renown this city. ANTONIO. Would you'd pardon me; I do not without danger walk these streets: Once in a sea-fight, 'gainst the count, his galleys, I did some service; of such note, indeed, That, were I ta'en here, it would scarce be answered. SEBASTIAN. Belike you slew great number of his people. ANTONIO. The offence is not of such a bloody nature; Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel Might well have given us bloody argument. It might have since been answered in repaying What we took from them; which, for traffic's sake, Most of our city did: only myself stood out; For which, if I be lapsed in this place, I shall pay dear. SEBASTIAN. Do not then walk too open. ANTONIO. It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse; In the south suburbs, at the Elephant, Is best to lodge: I will bespeak our diet Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge With viewing of the town; there shall you have me. SEBASTIAN. Why I your purse? ANTONIO. Haply your eye shall light upon some toy You have desire to purchase; and your store, I think, is not for idle markets, sir. SEBASTIAN. I'll be your purse-bearer, and leave you for an hour. ANTONIO. To the Elephant.-- SEBASTIAN. I do remember. [Exeunt.]

Act 3, Scene 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20210415161814/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/twelfth-night/summary/act-3-scene-3

Meanwhile, Sebastian has rolled up in Illyria and stands in a street chatting with Antonio, who, apparently, has insisted on following his beloved Sebastian. Antonio says his desire drove him to follow Sebastian to Illyria, even though he's afraid of the dangers that he might face. Sebastian says something like, "Thanks a million. Should we catch the sights?" Antonio doesn't want to play tourist and suggests that they go back to the motel, but Sebastian's not having any of that and wants to do some sightseeing. Antonio reveals that he's not really supposed to be in Illyria since he's kind of a pirate and helped steal some money from Duke Orsino. He also doesn't have enough money to pay off the authorities if he's caught in Illyria. Sebastian asks if Antonio killed a bunch of men and Antonio says no, but the skirmish cost the Duke a lot of money. Then Antonio gives Sebastian a little money and tells him to buy himself something nice, Antonio's treat. Sebastian takes the money and says he's going to shop for about an hour and then he'll meet Antonio back at the Inn .

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/23046-chapters/1.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Comedy of Errors/section_0_part_0.txt

The Comedy of Errors.act i.scene i

act i, scene i

{"name": "Act I, Scene i", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219160210/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/comedy-of-errors/summary/act-i-scene-i", "summary": "Our comedy begins at the Ephesian marketplace, where Solinas, the Duke of Ephesus, is explaining why poor Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, must die. Solinus says that merchants from Ephesus have been forbidden to enter Syracuse, and merchants from Syracuse have been forbidden to enter Ephesus. The punishment for disobeying? Death, of course. It's harsh, yes, but Solinas wants everyone to know that the Duke of Syracuse started it. Of course, there's a monetary loophole. Egeon can get out of the death sentence by paying a thousand marks. But Duke Solinus comments that Egeon doesn't appear to be worth even 100 marks. Way to kick him when he's down, Solinus. To the Duke's surprise, Egeon says he finds the idea of death comforting. This piques Duke Solinus's curiosity, so he asks how and why Egeon left Syracuse for Ephesus. Egeon declares his grief to be unspeakable, and then immediately begins to talk about it. Egeon wants to clear up that he does not want to die because of some heinous crime he's committed. Rather, his death wish is kind of a natural result of grief, which he's had a lot of in his life. He'll even tell you about it, in great length and detail. Egeon was born in Syracuse, and lived comfortably there with his wife. He made a lot of money traveling between Syracuse and Epidamium as a merchant. When his agent died, he had to stay in Epidamium and take care of business himself. Egeon's wife, who was pregnant at the time, decided to join him. Egeon's wife soon gave birth to identical twin boys, who looked so similar that their names were their only distinguishing feature. As literary devices would have it, a poor woman staying at the very same inn, during the very same hour, happened to also give birth to identical twin boys. Because she was too poor to raise the babies, she sold her children to Egeon, who wanted to raise the boys as companions and attendants for his twin boys. Egeon's wife then started to nag him, saying they should all go home. But, as soon as the family got on the ship to head back to Syracuse, a terrible storm rolls in, threatening to kill everyone. The wife and babes wept, the sailors abandoned ship and ran off in Egeon's lifeboat, and it seemed that nothing could save them. Egeon's wife, worried for the younger of the twins, tied him and one of the servant twins to a small spare mast. Egeon did the same with the other two older boys. Then, Egeon and his wife guarded either end of the mast, each with their respective pair of babies . When the storm started to calm, the family saw two ships approach--one from Corinth, the other from Epidaurus. To make the situation even more of a logic puzzle, Egeon's boat ran into a big rock. The boat was torn in two, separating the two parents . The wife and two babies were rescued by the Corinthian ship, while Egeon and his two boys were picked up by the other. Sadly, the ship that Egeon was in was slow, and headed for home instead of catching up with the ship from Corinth. Thus, Egeon never saw his wife, younger twin son, or his servant ever again. Egeon explains to the Duke that when his son and servant turned eighteen, they got itchy to find their long lost twin brothers, and left Egeon alone. Egeon's son and servant have been gone for five summers, in which time Egeon has roamed around the farthest reaches of Asia trying to find both lost sets of boys. His travels finally brought him to Ephesus. He knows that he risks death by entering Ephesus, but would rather risk death than not look for the boys here. Thus he's lost a wife and two sets of kids, but has acquired a loneliness that's priceless. The Duke basically says to him, \"I can't bend the rules, so you're still sentenced to die.\" Still, he gives Egeon one day to try to raise the 1,000 marks for his bail by begging and borrowing from the folks of Ephesus. Duke Solinus then sends a fairly hopeless Egeon off with the jailer.", "analysis": ""}

ACT I. SCENE I. A hall in the DUKE'S palace._ _Enter DUKE, AEGEON, _Gaoler_, _Officers_, and other _Attendants_._ _Aege._ Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall, And by the doom of death end woes and all. _Duke._ Merchant of Syracusa, plead no more; I am not partial to infringe our laws: The enmity and discord which of late 5 Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen, Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives, Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods, Excludes all pity from our threatening looks. 10 For, since the mortal and intestine jars 'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us, It hath in solemn synods been decreed, Both by the Syracusians and ourselves, To admit no traffic to our adverse towns: 15 Nay, more, If any born at Ephesus be seen At any Syracusian marts and fairs; Again: if any Syracusian born Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies, 20 His goods confiscate to the duke's dispose; Unless a thousand marks be levied, To quit the penalty and to ransom him. Thy substance, valued at the highest rate, Cannot amount unto a hundred marks; 25 Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die. _Aege._ Yet this my comfort: when your words are done, My woes end likewise with the evening sun. _Duke._ Well, Syracusian, say, in brief, the cause Why thou departed'st from thy native home, 30 And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus. _Aege._ A heavier task could not have been imposed Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable: Yet, that the world may witness that my end Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence, 35 I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave. In Syracusa was I born; and wed Unto a woman, happy but for me, And by me, had not our hap been bad. With her I lived in joy; our wealth increased 40 By prosperous voyages I often made To Epidamnum; till my factor's death, And the great care of goods at random left, Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse: From whom my absence was not six months old, 45 Before herself, almost at fainting under The pleasing punishment that women bear, Had made provision for her following me, And soon and safe arrived where I was. There had she not been long but she became 50 A joyful mother of two goodly sons; And, which was strange, the one so like the other As could not be distinguish'd but by names. That very hour, and in the self-same inn, A meaner woman was delivered 55 Of such a burden, male twins, both alike: Those, for their parents were exceeding poor, I bought, and brought up to attend my sons. My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys, Made daily motions for our home return: 60 Unwilling I agreed; alas! too soon We came aboard. A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd, Before the always-wind-obeying deep Gave any tragic instance of our harm: 65 But longer did we not retain much hope; For what obscured light the heavens did grant Did but convey unto our fearful minds A doubtful warrant of immediate death; Which though myself would gladly have embraced, 70 Yet the incessant weepings of my wife, Weeping before for what she saw must come, And piteous plainings of the pretty babes, That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear, Forced me to seek delays for them and me. 75 And this it was, for other means was none: The sailors sought for safety by our boat, And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us: My wife, more careful for the latter-born, Had fasten'd him unto a small spare mast, 80 Such as seafaring men provide for storms; To him one of the other twins was bound, Whilst I had been like heedful of the other: The children thus disposed, my wife and I, Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd, 85 Fasten'd ourselves at either end the mast; And floating straight, obedient to the stream, Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought. At length the sun, gazing upon the earth, Dispersed those vapours that offended us; 90 And, by the benefit of his wished light, The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered Two ships from far making amain to us, Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this: But ere they came,--O, let me say no more! 95 Gather the sequel by that went before. _Duke._ Nay, forward, old man; do not break off so; For we may pity, though not pardon thee. _Aege._ O, had the gods done so, I had not now Worthily term'd them merciless to us! 100 For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues, We were encounter'd by a mighty rock; Which being violently borne upon, Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst; So that, in this unjust divorce of us, 105 Fortune had left to both of us alike What to delight in, what to sorrow for. Her part, poor soul! seeming as burdened With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe, Was carried with more speed before the wind; 110 And in our sight they three were taken up By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought. At length, another ship had seized on us; And, knowing whom it was their hap to save, Gave healthful welcome to their shipwreck'd guests; 115 And would have reft the fishers of their prey, Had not their bark been very slow of sail; And therefore homeward did they bend their course. Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss; That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd, 120 To tell sad stories of my own mishaps. _Duke._ And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest for, Do me the favour to dilate at full What hath befall'n of them and thee till now. _Aege._ My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care, 125 At eighteen years became inquisitive After his brother: and importuned me That his attendant--so his case was like, Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-- Might bear him company in the quest of him: 130 Whom whilst I labour'd of a love to see, I hazarded the loss of whom I loved. Five summers have I spent in furthest Greece, Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia, And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus; 135 Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought Or that, or any place that harbours men. But here must end the story of my life; And happy were I in my timely death, Could all my travels warrant me they live. 140 _Duke._ Hapless Aegeon, whom the fates have mark'd To bear the extremity of dire mishap! Now, trust me, were it not against our laws, Against my crown, my oath, my dignity, Which princes, would they, may not disannul, 145 My soul should sue as advocate for thee. But, though thou art adjudged to the death, And passed sentence may not be recall'd But to our honour's great disparagement, Yet will I favour thee in what I can. 150 Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day To seek thy help by beneficial help: Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus; Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum, And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die. 155 Gaoler, take him to thy custody. _Gaol._ I will, my lord. _Aege._ Hopeless and helpless doth Aegeon wend, But to procrastinate his lifeless end. [_Exeunt._ NOTES: I, 1. A hall ... palace.] Malone. The Duke's palace. Theobald. A publick Place. Capell. AEGEON,] Rowe. with the Merchant of Siracusa, Ff. Officers,] Capell. Officer, Staunton. om. Ff. 1: _Solinus_] F1. _Salinus_ F2 F3 F4. 10: _looks_] _books_ Anon. conj. 14: _Syracusians_] F4. _Siracusians_ F1 F2 F3. _Syracusans_ Pope. See note (I). 16, 17, 18: _Nay more If ... seen At any_] Malone. _Nay, more, if ... Ephesus Be seen at any_ Ff. 18: _any_] om. Pope. 23: _to ransom_] F1. _ ransom_ F2 F3 F4. 27: _this_] _'tis_ Hanmer. 33: _griefs_] F1. _griefe_ F2. _grief_ F3 F4. 35: _nature_] _fortune_ Collier MS. 39: _by me_] F1. _by me too_ F2 F3 F4. 42: _Epidamnum_] Pope. _Epidamium_ Ff. _Epidamnium_ Rowe. See note (I). 43: _the_] _then_ Edd. conj. _the ... care ... left_] Theobald. _he ... care ... left_ F1. _he ... store ... leaving_ F2 F3 F4. _heed ... caves ... left_ Jackson conj. _random_] F3 F4. _randone_ F1 F2. 50: _had she_] Ff. _she had_ Rowe. 55: _meaner_] Delius (S. Walker conj.). _meane_ F1. _poor meane_ F2. _poor mean_ F3 F4. 56: _burden, male twins_] _burthen male, twins_ F1. 61, 62: So Pope. One line in Ff. 61: _soon_] _soon!_] Pope. _soon._ Capell. 70: _gladly_] _gently_ Collier MS. 71: _weepings_] F1. _weeping_ F2 F3 F4. 76: _this_] _thus_ Collier MS. 79: _latter-_] _elder-_ Rowe. 86: _either end the mast_] _th' end of either mast_ Hanmer. 87, 88: _And ... Was_] Ff. _And ... Were_ Rowe. _Which ... Was_ Capell. 91: _wished_] F1. _wish'd_ F2 F3 F4. 92: _seas wax'd_] _seas waxt_ F1. _seas waxe_ F2. _seas wax_ F3. _seas was_ F4. _sea was_ Rowe. 94: _Epidaurus_] _Epidarus_ F1. _Epidamnus_ Theobald conj. 103: _upon_] Pope. _up_ F1 _up upon_ F2 F3 F4. 104: _helpful_] _helpless_ Rowe. 113: _another_] _the other_ Hanmer. 115: _healthful_] F1. _helpful_ F2 F3 F4. 117: _bark_] _backe_ F1. 120: _That_] _Thus_ Hanmer. _Yet_ Anon. conj. 122: _sake_] F1. _sakes_ F2 F3 F4. 124: _hath ... thee_] _have ... they_ F1. _of_] om. F4. 128: _so_] F1. _for_ F2 F3 F4. 130: _the_] om. Pope. 131: _I labour'd of a_] _he labour'd of all_ Collier MS. 144, 145: These lines inverted by Hanmer. 145: _princes, would they, may_] Hanmer. _Princes would they may_ F1. _Princes would, they may_ F2 F3 F4. 151: _Therefore, merchant, I'll_] Ff. _Therefore merchant, I_ Rowe. _I, therefore, merchant_ Pope. _I'll, therefore, merchant_ Capell. 152: _help ... help_] Ff. _life ... help_ Pope. _help ... means_ Steevens conj. _hope ... help_ Collier. _fine ... help_ Singer. _by_] _thy_ Jackson conj. 155: _no_] _not_ Rowe. 156: _Gaoler,_] _Jailor, now_ Hanmer. _So, jailer,_ Capell. 159: _lifeless_] Warburton. _liveless_ Ff.

Act I, Scene i

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219160210/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/comedy-of-errors/summary/act-i-scene-i

Our comedy begins at the Ephesian marketplace, where Solinas, the Duke of Ephesus, is explaining why poor Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, must die. Solinus says that merchants from Ephesus have been forbidden to enter Syracuse, and merchants from Syracuse have been forbidden to enter Ephesus. The punishment for disobeying? Death, of course. It's harsh, yes, but Solinas wants everyone to know that the Duke of Syracuse started it. Of course, there's a monetary loophole. Egeon can get out of the death sentence by paying a thousand marks. But Duke Solinus comments that Egeon doesn't appear to be worth even 100 marks. Way to kick him when he's down, Solinus. To the Duke's surprise, Egeon says he finds the idea of death comforting. This piques Duke Solinus's curiosity, so he asks how and why Egeon left Syracuse for Ephesus. Egeon declares his grief to be unspeakable, and then immediately begins to talk about it. Egeon wants to clear up that he does not want to die because of some heinous crime he's committed. Rather, his death wish is kind of a natural result of grief, which he's had a lot of in his life. He'll even tell you about it, in great length and detail. Egeon was born in Syracuse, and lived comfortably there with his wife. He made a lot of money traveling between Syracuse and Epidamium as a merchant. When his agent died, he had to stay in Epidamium and take care of business himself. Egeon's wife, who was pregnant at the time, decided to join him. Egeon's wife soon gave birth to identical twin boys, who looked so similar that their names were their only distinguishing feature. As literary devices would have it, a poor woman staying at the very same inn, during the very same hour, happened to also give birth to identical twin boys. Because she was too poor to raise the babies, she sold her children to Egeon, who wanted to raise the boys as companions and attendants for his twin boys. Egeon's wife then started to nag him, saying they should all go home. But, as soon as the family got on the ship to head back to Syracuse, a terrible storm rolls in, threatening to kill everyone. The wife and babes wept, the sailors abandoned ship and ran off in Egeon's lifeboat, and it seemed that nothing could save them. Egeon's wife, worried for the younger of the twins, tied him and one of the servant twins to a small spare mast. Egeon did the same with the other two older boys. Then, Egeon and his wife guarded either end of the mast, each with their respective pair of babies . When the storm started to calm, the family saw two ships approach--one from Corinth, the other from Epidaurus. To make the situation even more of a logic puzzle, Egeon's boat ran into a big rock. The boat was torn in two, separating the two parents . The wife and two babies were rescued by the Corinthian ship, while Egeon and his two boys were picked up by the other. Sadly, the ship that Egeon was in was slow, and headed for home instead of catching up with the ship from Corinth. Thus, Egeon never saw his wife, younger twin son, or his servant ever again. Egeon explains to the Duke that when his son and servant turned eighteen, they got itchy to find their long lost twin brothers, and left Egeon alone. Egeon's son and servant have been gone for five summers, in which time Egeon has roamed around the farthest reaches of Asia trying to find both lost sets of boys. His travels finally brought him to Ephesus. He knows that he risks death by entering Ephesus, but would rather risk death than not look for the boys here. Thus he's lost a wife and two sets of kids, but has acquired a loneliness that's priceless. The Duke basically says to him, "I can't bend the rules, so you're still sentenced to die." Still, he gives Egeon one day to try to raise the 1,000 marks for his bail by begging and borrowing from the folks of Ephesus. Duke Solinus then sends a fairly hopeless Egeon off with the jailer.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/23046-chapters/act_4_chapters_3_to_4.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Comedy of Errors/section_4_part_0.txt

The Comedy of Errors.act 4.scenes 3-4

act 4, scenes 3-4

{"name": "Act IV, scenes iii-iv", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210224233119/https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/errors/section5/", "summary": "Antipholus of Syracuse, exploring the city, remarks that people he has never met are continually greeting him, thanking him for favors, showing him goods he has ordered, and so on. Dromio of Syracuse dashes up to him, carrying the gold that Adriana sent to free Antipholus of Ephesus from jail. This Antipholus, of course, has no idea why his servant is bringing him money and immediately asks Dromio whether there are ships in the harbor on which they can book passage out of Ephesus. As master and slave converse, the Courtesan, at whose home Antipholus of Ephesus ate dinner, comes upon them and asks Antipholus S. for a ring that he borrowed from her during the meal. He and Dromio decide that she is a witch and flee, leaving the Courtesan convinced that he is mad. She resolves to go to Adriana's home and tell her that her husband has stolen the ring and demand repayment. Meanwhile, Dromio of Ephesus encounters Antipholus of Ephesus in an officer's custody. His master demands to know where the money is to pay his way out of jail; Dromio, baffled, replies that he has brought the rope's end that Antipholus had earlier sent him to buy. Antipholus flies into a rage and tries to assault his slave, halting only at the sudden appearance of Adriana, Luciana, the Courtesan, and a would-be sorcerer named Doctor Pinch. The women plan to have the doctor use exorcism to cure Antipholus' supposed madness. Antipholus protests, and he argues with Adriana: she claims that he dined at home, while her husband tells her that he was shut out of his own house. Pinch declares that both master and slave are mad, and they are bound and taken to Adriana's house; Adriana promises the officer to make good all her husband's debts. He tells her that Antipholus owes money to Angelo the goldsmith for a gold chain, and the Courtesan says that she saw Antipholus with the item; Adriana, of course, has never seen the chain. As they talk, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse rush in with drawn swords, and everyone else flees, mistaking them for Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus, who, they assume, have escaped from Pinch. Remarking that even witches are afraid of swords, the Syracusan Antipholus orders his slave to take their belongings on board a ship.", "analysis": "iv - Commentary The portrait of Ephesus as a place of enchantments continues through these scenes. Antipholus of Ephesus' bafflement at being hailed on the street by complete strangers leads him to comment that \"sure, these are but imaginary wiles, / and Lapland sorcerers inhabit here .\" His decision to blame \"Lapland sorcerers,\" however, seems to mask a deeper insecurity, since his reference to \"imaginary wiles\" suggests that he may be beginning to doubt his own sanity. As his sense of self erodes, his hysteria mounts and his panic at the Courtesan's rather innocuous words and subsequent decision to run around with a drawn sword suggests a man teetering on the brink of panic. But, as the confusing events multiply and the conflicting stories offered by Antipholus of Ephesus and Adriana come into conflict , even the Ephesians themselves become convinced that magic is afoot--or, rather, madness that can be cured by magic. The magic is absurd rather than sinister, however: Antipholus of Syracuse's forebodings about sorcerers and witches are realized only in the ludicrous mountebank Doctor Pinch, whose incantation ) reminds the audience of the blurred lines that define the setting--he offers a Christian prayer in a supposedly pre-Christian city. The character of the Doctor--who is described, somewhat oddly, as a schoolmaster and a conjurer--defines the comic tone of the play. In Shakespeare's tragedies , magic is a destructive force; here, sorcery is a hobby of schoolteachers and, ultimately, a sham."}

SCENE III. A public place. _Enter _ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse_._ _Ant. S._ There's not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend; And every one doth call me by my name. Some tender money to me; some invite me; Some other give me thanks for kindnesses; 5 Some offer me commodities to buy;-- Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop, And show'd me silks that he had bought for me, And therewithal took measure of my body. Sure, these are but imaginary wiles, 10 And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here. _Enter _DROMIO of Syracuse_._ _Dro. S._ Master, here's the gold you sent me for.-- What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparelled? _Ant. S._ What gold is this? what Adam dost thou mean? _Dro. S._ Not that Adam that kept the Paradise, but that 15 Adam that keeps the prison: he that goes in the calf's skin that was killed for the Prodigal; he that came behind you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty. _Ant. S._ I understand thee not. _Dro. S._ No? why, 'tis a plain case: he that went, like a 20 base-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir, that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob, and 'rests them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men, and gives them suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more exploits with his mace than a morris-pike. 25 _Ant. S._ What, thou meanest an officer? _Dro. S._ Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band; he that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; one that thinks a man always going to bed, and says, 'God give you good rest!' 30 _Ant. S._ Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is there any ship puts forth to-night? may we be gone? _Dro. S._ Why, sir, I brought you word an hour since, that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and then were you hindered by the sergeant, to tarry for the hoy Delay. 35 Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver you. _Ant. S._ The fellow is distract, and so am I; And here we wander in illusions: Some blessed power deliver us from hence! _Enter a _Courtezan_._ _Cour._ Well met, well met, Master Antipholus. 40 I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now: Is that the chain you promised me to-day? _Ant. S._ Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not. _Dro. S._ Master, is this Mistress Satan? _Ant. S._ It is the devil. 45 _Dro. S._ Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's dam; and here she comes in the habit of a light wench: and thereof comes that the wenches say, 'God damn me;' that's as much to say, 'God make me a light wench.' It is written, they appear to men like angels of light: light is an effect of 50 fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn. Come not near her. _Cour._ Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir. Will you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here? _Dro. S._ Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat; or bespeak 55 a long spoon. _Ant. S._ Why, Dromio? _Dro. S._ Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil. _Ant. S._ Avoid then, fiend! what tell'st thou me of supping? 60 Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress: I conjure thee to leave me and be gone. _Cour._ Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner, Or, for my diamond, the chain you promised, And I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you. 65 _Dro. S._ Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail, A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin, A nut, a cherry-stone; But she, more covetous, would have a chain. Master, be wise: an if you give it her, 70 The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it. _Cour._ I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain: I hope you do not mean to cheat me so. _Ant. S._ Avaunt, thou witch! --Come, Dromio, let us go. _Dro. S._ 'Fly pride,' says the peacock: mistress, that you know. [_Exeunt Ant. S. and Dro. S._ 75 _Cour._ Now, out of doubt Antipholus is mad, Else would he never so demean himself. A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats, And for the same he promised me a chain: Both one and other he denies me now. 80 The reason that I gather he is mad,-- Besides this present instance of his rage,-- Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner, Of his own doors being shut against his entrance. Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits, 85 On purpose shut the doors against his way. My way is now to his home to his house, And tell his wife that, being lunatic, He rush'd into my house, and took perforce My ring away. This course I fittest choose; 90 For forty ducats is too much to lose. [_Exit._ NOTES: IV, 3. SCENE III.] SCENE V. Pope. 13: _What, have_] Pope. _What have_ Ff. _got_] _got rid of_ Theobald. _not_ Anon. conj. 16: _calf's skin_] _calves-skin_ Ff. 22: _sob_] _fob_ Rowe. _bob_ Hanmer. _sop_ Dyce conj. _stop_ Grant White. _'rests_] Warburton. _rests_ Ff. 25: _morris_] _Moris_ Ff. _Maurice_ Hanmer (Warburton). 28: _band_] _bond_ Rowe. 29: _says_] Capell. _saies_ F1. _saieth_ F2. _saith_ F3 F4. 32: _ship_] F2 F3 F4. _ships_ F1. 34: _put_] _puts_ Pope. 40: SCENE VI. Pope. 44-62: Put in the margin as spurious by Pope. 47-49: _and ... wench.'_] Marked as spurious by Capell, MS. 48, 49: _as much_] _as much as_ Pope. 54: _me? ... here?_] _me, ... here?_ Ff. _me? ... here._ Steevens. 55: _if you do, expect_] F2 F3 F4. _if do expect_ F1. _or_] om. Rowe. _so_ Capell. _either stay away, or_ Malone conj. _and_ Ritson conj. _Oh!_ Anon. conj. 60: _then_] F1 F2 F3. _thou_ F4. _thee_ Dyce. 61: _are all_] _all are_ Boswell. 66-71: Printed as prose by Ff, as verse by Capell, ending the third line at _covetous_. 75: Put in the margin as spurious by Pope. 76: SCENE VII. Pope. 84: _doors_] _door_ Johnson. SCENE IV. A street. _Enter _ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus_ and the _Officer_._ _Ant. E._ Fear me not, man; I will not break away: I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money, To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for. My wife is in a wayward mood to-day, And will not lightly trust the messenger. 5 That I should be attach'd in Ephesus, I tell you, 'twill sound harshly in her ears. _Enter _DROMIO of Ephesus_ with a ropes-end._ Here comes my man; I think he brings the money. How now, sir! have you that I sent you for? _Dro. E._ Here's that, I warrant you, will pay them all. 10 _Ant. E._ But where's the money? _Dro. E._ Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope. _Ant. E._ Five hundred ducats, villain, for a rope? _Dro. E._ I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate. _Ant. E._ To what end did I bid thee hie thee home? 15 _Dro. E._ To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I returned. _Ant. E._ And to that end, sir, I will welcome you. [_Beating him._ _Off._ Good sir, be patient. _Dro. E._ Nay, 'tis for me to be patient; I am in adversity. 20 _Off._ Good, now, hold thy tongue. _Dro. E._ Nay, rather persuade him to hold his hands. _Ant. E._ Thou whoreson, senseless villain! _Dro. E._ I would I were senseless, sir, that I might not feel your blows. 25 _Ant. E._ Thou art sensible in nothing but blows, and so is an ass. _Dro. E._ I am an ass, indeed; you may prove it by my long ears. I have served him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service 30 but blows. When I am cold, he heats me with beating; when I am warm, he cools me with beating: I am waked with it when I sleep; raised with it when I sit; driven out of doors with it when I go from home; welcomed home with it when I return: nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as 35 a beggar wont her brat; and, I think, when he hath lamed me, I shall beg with it from door to door. _Ant. E._ Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder. _Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the _Courtezan_, and PINCH._ _Dro. E._ Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end; or rather, the prophecy like the parrot, 'beware the rope's-end.' 40 _Ant. E._ Wilt thou still talk? [_Beating him._ _Cour._ How say you now? is not your husband mad? _Adr._ His incivility confirms no less. Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer; Establish him in his true sense again, 45 And I will please you what you will demand. _Luc._ Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks! _Cour._ Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy! _Pinch._ Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse. _Ant. E._ There is my hand, and let it feel your ear. 50 [_Striking him._ _Pinch._ I charge thee, Satan, housed within this man, To yield possession to my holy prayers, And to thy state of darkness his thee straight: I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven! _Ant. E._ Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad. 55 _Adr._ O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul! _Ant. E._ You minion, you, are these your customers? Did this companion with the saffron face Revel and feast it at my house to-day, Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut, 60 And I denied to enter in my house? _Adr._ O husband, God doth know you dined at home; Where would you had remain'd until this time, Free from these slanders and this open shame! _Ant. E._ Dined at home!--Thou villain, what sayest thou? 65 _Dro. E._ Sir, sooth to say, you did not dine at home. _Ant. E._ Were not my doors lock'd up, and I shut out? _Dro. E._ Perdie, your doors were lock'd, and you shut out. _Ant. E._ And did not she herself revile me there? _Dro. E._ Sans fable, she herself reviled you there. 70 _Ant. E._ Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me? _Dro. E._ Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you. _Ant. E._ And did not I in rage depart from thence? _Dro. E._ In verity you did; my bones bear witness, That since have felt the vigour of his rage. 75 _Adr._ Is't good to soothe him in these contraries? _Pinch._ It is no shame: the fellow finds his vein, And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy. _Ant. E._ Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest me. _Adr._ Alas, I sent you money to redeem you, 80 By Dromio here, who came in haste for it. _Dro. E._ Money by me! heart and good-will you might; But surely, master, not a rag of money. _Ant. E._ Went'st not thou to her for a purse of ducats? _Adr._ He came to me, and I deliver'd it. 85 _Luc._ And I am witness with her that she did. _Dro. E._ God and the rope-maker bear me witness That I was sent for nothing but a rope! _Pinch._ Mistress, both man and master is possess'd; I know it by their pale and deadly looks: 90 They must be bound, and laid in some dark room. _Ant. E._ Say, wherefore didst them lock me forth to-day? And why dost thou deny the bag of gold? _Adr._ I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth. _Dro. E._ And, gentle master, I received no gold; 95 But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out. _Adr._ Dissembling villain, them speak'st false in both. _Ant. E._ Dissembling harlot, them art false in all, And art confederate with a damned pack To make a loathsome abject scorn of me: 100 But with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes, That would behold in me this shameful sport. _Enter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives._ _Adr._ O, bind him, bind him! let him not come near me. _Pinch._ More company! The fiend is strong within him. _Luc._ Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks! 105 _Ant. E._ What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler, thou, I am thy prisoner: wilt thou suffer them To make a rescue? _Off._ Masters, let him go: He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him. _Pinch._ Go bind this man, for he is frantic too. 110 [_They offer to bind Dro. E._ _Adr._ What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer? Hast thou delight to see a wretched man Do outrage and displeasure to himself? _Off._ He is my prisoner: if I let him go, The debt he owes will be required of me. 115 _Adr._ I will discharge thee ere I go from thee: Bear me forthwith unto his creditor, And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it. Good master doctor, see him safe convey'd Home to my house. O most unhappy day! 120 _Ant. E._ O most unhappy strumpet! _Dro. E._ Master, I am here entered in bond for you. _Ant. E._ Out on thee, villain! wherefore dost thou mad me? _Dro. E._ Will you be bound for nothing? be mad, good master: cry, The devil! 125 _Luc._ God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk! _Adr._ Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me. [_Exeunt all but Adriana, Luciana, Officer and Courtezan._] Say now; whose suit is he arrested at? _Off._ One Angelo, a goldsmith: do you know him? _Adr._ I know the man. What is the sum he owes? 130 _Off._ Two hundred ducats. _Adr._ Say, how grows it due? _Off._ Due for a chain your husband had of him. _Adr._ He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not. _Cour._ When as your husband, all in rage, to-day Came to my house, and took away my ring,-- 135 The ring I saw upon his finger now,-- Straight after did I meet him with a chain. _Adr._ It may be so, but I did never see it. Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is: I long to know the truth hereof at large. 140 _Enter _ANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse_ with his rapier drawn, and _DROMIO of Syracuse_._ _Luc._ God, for thy mercy! they are loose again. _Adr._ And come with naked swords. Let's call more help to have them bound again. _Off._ Away! they'll kill us. [_Exeunt all but Ant. S. and Dro. S._ _Ant. S._ I see these witches are afraid of swords. 145 _Dro. S._ She that would be your wife now ran from you. _Ant. S._ Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence: I long that we were safe and sound aboard. _Dro. S._ Faith, stay here this night; they will surely do us no harm: you saw they speak us fair, give us gold: 150 methinks they are such a gentle nation, that, but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me, I could find in my heart to stay here still, and turn witch. _Ant. S._ I will not stay to-night for all the town; Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard. [_Exeunt._ 155 NOTES: IV, 4. SCENE IV.] SCENE VIII. Pope. and the Officer.] Capell. with a Jailor. Ff. 5, 6: _messenger. That ... Ephesus,_] Rowe. _messenger, That ... Ephesus,_ F1 F2 F3. _messenger; That ... Ephesus,_ F4. _messenger, That ... Ephesus:_ Capell. 14: Dro. E.] Off. Edd. conj. 15: _hie_] _high_ F2. 17: _returned_] _come_ Anon. conj. 18: [Beating him.] Capell. [Beats Dro. Pope. om. Ff. 29: _ears_] See note (VII). 38: SCENE IX. Pope. The stage direction 'Enter ... Pinch,' precedes line 38 in Ff, and all editions till Dyce's. Pinch.] a schoolmaster, call'd Pinch. Ff. 40: _the prophecy_] _the prophesie_ F1 F2 F3 F4. _prophesie_ Rowe. _to prophesy_ Dyce. 39-41: _or rather ... talk?_] _or rather, 'prospice funem,' beware the rope's end._ Ant. E. _Wilt thou still talk like the parrot?_ Edd. conj. 41: [Beating him.] [Beats Dro. Ff. 46: _what_] _in what_ Hanmer. 65: _Dined_] _Din'd I_ Theobald. _I din'd_ Capell. 72: _Certes_] Pope. _certis_ Ff. 74: _bear_] _beares_ F1. 75: _vigour_] _rigour_ Collier MS. _his_] _your_ Pope. 83: _master_] _mistress_ Dyce conj. _rag_] _bag_ Becket conj. 84: _not thou_] _thou not_ Capell. 87: _bear_] _do bear_ Pope. _now bear_ Collier MS. 89: _is_] _are_ Rowe. 101: _these false_] Ff. _those false_ Rowe. 102: [Flying at his wife. Capell. Enter ...] The stage direction is transferred by Dyce to follow 105. 106: _me? Thou ... thou,_] Rowe. _me, thou ... thou?_ Ff. 110: [They ... Dro. E.] Edd. om. Ff. 117: [They bind ANT. and DRO. Rowe. 124: _nothing?_] _nothing thus?_ Hanmer, reading as verse. 126: _help, poor_] Theobald. _help poor_ Ff. _idly_] Pope. _idlely_ Ff. 127: _go_] _stay_ Pope. [Exeunt all but ...] Exeunt. Manet ... Ff (after line 128). 129: SCENE X. Pope. 133: _for me_] om. Hanmer. 141: SCENE XI. Pope. 143: [Runne all out. Ff. 144: [Exeunt ...] Exeunt omnes, as fast as may be, frighted. Ff. 150: _saw ... speak us ... give_] F1. _saw ... spake us ... give_ F2 F3 F4. _saw ... spake to us ... give_ Rowe. _saw ... spake us ... gave_ Pope. _see ... speak us ... give_ Capell.

Act IV, scenes iii-iv

https://web.archive.org/web/20210224233119/https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/errors/section5/

Antipholus of Syracuse, exploring the city, remarks that people he has never met are continually greeting him, thanking him for favors, showing him goods he has ordered, and so on. Dromio of Syracuse dashes up to him, carrying the gold that Adriana sent to free Antipholus of Ephesus from jail. This Antipholus, of course, has no idea why his servant is bringing him money and immediately asks Dromio whether there are ships in the harbor on which they can book passage out of Ephesus. As master and slave converse, the Courtesan, at whose home Antipholus of Ephesus ate dinner, comes upon them and asks Antipholus S. for a ring that he borrowed from her during the meal. He and Dromio decide that she is a witch and flee, leaving the Courtesan convinced that he is mad. She resolves to go to Adriana's home and tell her that her husband has stolen the ring and demand repayment. Meanwhile, Dromio of Ephesus encounters Antipholus of Ephesus in an officer's custody. His master demands to know where the money is to pay his way out of jail; Dromio, baffled, replies that he has brought the rope's end that Antipholus had earlier sent him to buy. Antipholus flies into a rage and tries to assault his slave, halting only at the sudden appearance of Adriana, Luciana, the Courtesan, and a would-be sorcerer named Doctor Pinch. The women plan to have the doctor use exorcism to cure Antipholus' supposed madness. Antipholus protests, and he argues with Adriana: she claims that he dined at home, while her husband tells her that he was shut out of his own house. Pinch declares that both master and slave are mad, and they are bound and taken to Adriana's house; Adriana promises the officer to make good all her husband's debts. He tells her that Antipholus owes money to Angelo the goldsmith for a gold chain, and the Courtesan says that she saw Antipholus with the item; Adriana, of course, has never seen the chain. As they talk, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse rush in with drawn swords, and everyone else flees, mistaking them for Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus, who, they assume, have escaped from Pinch. Remarking that even witches are afraid of swords, the Syracusan Antipholus orders his slave to take their belongings on board a ship.

iv - Commentary The portrait of Ephesus as a place of enchantments continues through these scenes. Antipholus of Ephesus' bafflement at being hailed on the street by complete strangers leads him to comment that "sure, these are but imaginary wiles, / and Lapland sorcerers inhabit here ." His decision to blame "Lapland sorcerers," however, seems to mask a deeper insecurity, since his reference to "imaginary wiles" suggests that he may be beginning to doubt his own sanity. As his sense of self erodes, his hysteria mounts and his panic at the Courtesan's rather innocuous words and subsequent decision to run around with a drawn sword suggests a man teetering on the brink of panic. But, as the confusing events multiply and the conflicting stories offered by Antipholus of Ephesus and Adriana come into conflict , even the Ephesians themselves become convinced that magic is afoot--or, rather, madness that can be cured by magic. The magic is absurd rather than sinister, however: Antipholus of Syracuse's forebodings about sorcerers and witches are realized only in the ludicrous mountebank Doctor Pinch, whose incantation ) reminds the audience of the blurred lines that define the setting--he offers a Christian prayer in a supposedly pre-Christian city. The character of the Doctor--who is described, somewhat oddly, as a schoolmaster and a conjurer--defines the comic tone of the play. In Shakespeare's tragedies , magic is a destructive force; here, sorcery is a hobby of schoolteachers and, ultimately, a sham.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/14.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Sense and Sensibility/section_13_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 14

chapter 14

{"name": "Chapter 14", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility30.asp", "summary": "Puzzled about his hasty departure, Mrs. Jennings. shows concern for the Colonel. Elinor feels anxious about Marianne and wonders why she has not disclosed her engagement to her mother. Willoughby visits them everyday and displays his affection for Marianne. On one of his visits, he reveals his attachment to Barton Cottage and asks Mrs. Dashwood not to make changes there.", "analysis": "Notes A few more facts about Colonel Brandon are revealed. Mrs. Jennings talks about his estate at Delaford and about his relatives. Her dropping hints about the family and fortune of Colonel Brandon enhances the desire of the reader to know more about this elusive character. Elinor is concerned about Marianne and her relationship with Willoughby. Though she is aware of their mutual affection, she is not sure about the seriousness of their relationship; Marianne has not spoken about it to any one of them. Willoughby displays another facet of his personality. He can be very sentimental. He talks about his deep attachment to Barton Cottage and shows concern when Mrs. Dashwood expresses her desire to renovate it. He also expresses his gratitude towards them for their kindness. Through his words and actions, he hints at his emotional involvement with Marianne. CHAPTER 15 Summary Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor and Margaret make their customary visit to the Park. On their return, they are shocked to see Marianne looking dejected and flustered. Willoughby informs them about his decision to leave for London immediately. However, his explanation for this sudden departure does not convince Elinor. She suspects something more serious. Mrs. Dashwood is not so pessimistic. Marianne drowns herself in sorrow but refrains from talking about it. Notes The cheerful atmosphere of Barton Cottage is disrupted. Marianne, who had been blissful in the company of Willoughby, now looks miserable. Since she does not reveal anything about Willoughby's conversation with her before his departure to London, mystery shrouds their relationship. The incident casts a cloud over the family. Elinor is puzzled at Willoughby's change of behavior with Marianne and at his sudden plans to visit London. She suspects Willoughby's intentions and is doubtful of his integrity. Mrs. Dashwood, too, is disturbed although she does not share Elinor's view. Jane Austen frequently reminds the reader about Elinor's superior sense and reasoning ability. After observing Willoughby before his departure, she tries to analyze his behavior and his decision to take leave of them so abruptly. Willoughby, who had always spoken openly about all matters, could have revealed the real reason behind his visit to London unless he desperately needed to conceal something. Mrs. Dashwood, blinded by her faith in Willoughby, refuses to entertain negative thoughts about him. She feels sure of Willoughby's feelings for her daughter and hopes for the best. CHAPTER 16 Summary Marianne broods over her plight but hardly talks about Willoughby. Sometimes she inadvertently reveals her feelings for him. One morning, as they are walking in the countryside, they are surprised to encounter Edward Ferrars, who has arrived to visit them at Barton. Marianne is delighted to meet him and is glad for her sister. She welcomes Edward with open arms. Notes Marianne isolates herself from the others and becomes engulfed in a cloud of gloom. By sulking over her fate, she disturbs the peace of her family. She lacks restraint and has no regard for the others in her family. Willoughby exits from the scene and Edward enters. Willoughby's departure had disturbed the members of the Dashwood family, but Edward's visit gladdens them: Edward's arrival at Barton is like a streak of sunlight in an overcast sky. His presence even manages to lift Marianne out of her depression. She forgets her sorrow for the moment and welcomes him. His visit seems to offer her some consolation. She talks to him animatedly and asks him about Norland. Elinor is elated to see Edward but shows restraint in her behavior towards him. She keeps her emotions in control and tries to react normally to the situation."}

The sudden termination of Colonel Brandon's visit at the park, with his steadiness in concealing its cause, filled the mind, and raised the wonder of Mrs. Jennings for two or three days; she was a great wonderer, as every one must be who takes a very lively interest in all the comings and goings of all their acquaintance. She wondered, with little intermission what could be the reason of it; was sure there must be some bad news, and thought over every kind of distress that could have befallen him, with a fixed determination that he should not escape them all. "Something very melancholy must be the matter, I am sure," said she. "I could see it in his face. Poor man! I am afraid his circumstances may be bad. The estate at Delaford was never reckoned more than two thousand a year, and his brother left everything sadly involved. I do think he must have been sent for about money matters, for what else can it be? I wonder whether it is so. I would give anything to know the truth of it. Perhaps it is about Miss Williams and, by the bye, I dare say it is, because he looked so conscious when I mentioned her. May be she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a notion she is always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about Miss Williams. It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his circumstances NOW, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must have cleared the estate by this time. I wonder what it can be! May be his sister is worse at Avignon, and has sent for him over. His setting off in such a hurry seems very like it. Well, I wish him out of all his trouble with all my heart, and a good wife into the bargain." So wondered, so talked Mrs. Jennings. Her opinion varying with every fresh conjecture, and all seeming equally probable as they arose. Elinor, though she felt really interested in the welfare of Colonel Brandon, could not bestow all the wonder on his going so suddenly away, which Mrs. Jennings was desirous of her feeling; for besides that the circumstance did not in her opinion justify such lasting amazement or variety of speculation, her wonder was otherwise disposed of. It was engrossed by the extraordinary silence of her sister and Willoughby on the subject, which they must know to be peculiarly interesting to them all. As this silence continued, every day made it appear more strange and more incompatible with the disposition of both. Why they should not openly acknowledge to her mother and herself, what their constant behaviour to each other declared to have taken place, Elinor could not imagine. She could easily conceive that marriage might not be immediately in their power; for though Willoughby was independent, there was no reason to believe him rich. His estate had been rated by Sir John at about six or seven hundred a year; but he lived at an expense to which that income could hardly be equal, and he had himself often complained of his poverty. But for this strange kind of secrecy maintained by them relative to their engagement, which in fact concealed nothing at all, she could not account; and it was so wholly contradictory to their general opinions and practice, that a doubt sometimes entered her mind of their being really engaged, and this doubt was enough to prevent her making any inquiry of Marianne. Nothing could be more expressive of attachment to them all, than Willoughby's behaviour. To Marianne it had all the distinguishing tenderness which a lover's heart could give, and to the rest of the family it was the affectionate attention of a son and a brother. The cottage seemed to be considered and loved by him as his home; many more of his hours were spent there than at Allenham; and if no general engagement collected them at the park, the exercise which called him out in the morning was almost certain of ending there, where the rest of the day was spent by himself at the side of Marianne, and by his favourite pointer at her feet. One evening in particular, about a week after Colonel Brandon left the country, his heart seemed more than usually open to every feeling of attachment to the objects around him; and on Mrs. Dashwood's happening to mention her design of improving the cottage in the spring, he warmly opposed every alteration of a place which affection had established as perfect with him. "What!" he exclaimed--"Improve this dear cottage! No. THAT I will never consent to. Not a stone must be added to its walls, not an inch to its size, if my feelings are regarded." "Do not be alarmed," said Miss Dashwood, "nothing of the kind will be done; for my mother will never have money enough to attempt it." "I am heartily glad of it," he cried. "May she always be poor, if she can employ her riches no better." "Thank you, Willoughby. But you may be assured that I would not sacrifice one sentiment of local attachment of yours, or of any one whom I loved, for all the improvements in the world. Depend upon it that whatever unemployed sum may remain, when I make up my accounts in the spring, I would even rather lay it uselessly by than dispose of it in a manner so painful to you. But are you really so attached to this place as to see no defect in it?" "I am," said he. "To me it is faultless. Nay, more, I consider it as the only form of building in which happiness is attainable, and were I rich enough I would instantly pull Combe down, and build it up again in the exact plan of this cottage." "With dark narrow stairs and a kitchen that smokes, I suppose," said Elinor. "Yes," cried he in the same eager tone, "with all and every thing belonging to it;--in no one convenience or INconvenience about it, should the least variation be perceptible. Then, and then only, under such a roof, I might perhaps be as happy at Combe as I have been at Barton." "I flatter myself," replied Elinor, "that even under the disadvantage of better rooms and a broader staircase, you will hereafter find your own house as faultless as you now do this." "There certainly are circumstances," said Willoughby, "which might greatly endear it to me; but this place will always have one claim of my affection, which no other can possibly share." Mrs. Dashwood looked with pleasure at Marianne, whose fine eyes were fixed so expressively on Willoughby, as plainly denoted how well she understood him. "How often did I wish," added he, "when I was at Allenham this time twelvemonth, that Barton cottage were inhabited! I never passed within view of it without admiring its situation, and grieving that no one should live in it. How little did I then think that the very first news I should hear from Mrs. Smith, when I next came into the country, would be that Barton cottage was taken: and I felt an immediate satisfaction and interest in the event, which nothing but a kind of prescience of what happiness I should experience from it, can account for. Must it not have been so, Marianne?" speaking to her in a lowered voice. Then continuing his former tone, he said, "And yet this house you would spoil, Mrs. Dashwood? You would rob it of its simplicity by imaginary improvement! and this dear parlour in which our acquaintance first began, and in which so many happy hours have been since spent by us together, you would degrade to the condition of a common entrance, and every body would be eager to pass through the room which has hitherto contained within itself more real accommodation and comfort than any other apartment of the handsomest dimensions in the world could possibly afford." Mrs. Dashwood again assured him that no alteration of the kind should be attempted. "You are a good woman," he warmly replied. "Your promise makes me easy. Extend it a little farther, and it will make me happy. Tell me that not only your house will remain the same, but that I shall ever find you and yours as unchanged as your dwelling; and that you will always consider me with the kindness which has made everything belonging to you so dear to me." The promise was readily given, and Willoughby's behaviour during the whole of the evening declared at once his affection and happiness. "Shall we see you tomorrow to dinner?" said Mrs. Dashwood, when he was leaving them. "I do not ask you to come in the morning, for we must walk to the park, to call on Lady Middleton." He engaged to be with them by four o'clock.

Chapter 14

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility30.asp

Puzzled about his hasty departure, Mrs. Jennings. shows concern for the Colonel. Elinor feels anxious about Marianne and wonders why she has not disclosed her engagement to her mother. Willoughby visits them everyday and displays his affection for Marianne. On one of his visits, he reveals his attachment to Barton Cottage and asks Mrs. Dashwood not to make changes there.

Notes A few more facts about Colonel Brandon are revealed. Mrs. Jennings talks about his estate at Delaford and about his relatives. Her dropping hints about the family and fortune of Colonel Brandon enhances the desire of the reader to know more about this elusive character. Elinor is concerned about Marianne and her relationship with Willoughby. Though she is aware of their mutual affection, she is not sure about the seriousness of their relationship; Marianne has not spoken about it to any one of them. Willoughby displays another facet of his personality. He can be very sentimental. He talks about his deep attachment to Barton Cottage and shows concern when Mrs. Dashwood expresses her desire to renovate it. He also expresses his gratitude towards them for their kindness. Through his words and actions, he hints at his emotional involvement with Marianne. CHAPTER 15 Summary Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor and Margaret make their customary visit to the Park. On their return, they are shocked to see Marianne looking dejected and flustered. Willoughby informs them about his decision to leave for London immediately. However, his explanation for this sudden departure does not convince Elinor. She suspects something more serious. Mrs. Dashwood is not so pessimistic. Marianne drowns herself in sorrow but refrains from talking about it. Notes The cheerful atmosphere of Barton Cottage is disrupted. Marianne, who had been blissful in the company of Willoughby, now looks miserable. Since she does not reveal anything about Willoughby's conversation with her before his departure to London, mystery shrouds their relationship. The incident casts a cloud over the family. Elinor is puzzled at Willoughby's change of behavior with Marianne and at his sudden plans to visit London. She suspects Willoughby's intentions and is doubtful of his integrity. Mrs. Dashwood, too, is disturbed although she does not share Elinor's view. Jane Austen frequently reminds the reader about Elinor's superior sense and reasoning ability. After observing Willoughby before his departure, she tries to analyze his behavior and his decision to take leave of them so abruptly. Willoughby, who had always spoken openly about all matters, could have revealed the real reason behind his visit to London unless he desperately needed to conceal something. Mrs. Dashwood, blinded by her faith in Willoughby, refuses to entertain negative thoughts about him. She feels sure of Willoughby's feelings for her daughter and hopes for the best. CHAPTER 16 Summary Marianne broods over her plight but hardly talks about Willoughby. Sometimes she inadvertently reveals her feelings for him. One morning, as they are walking in the countryside, they are surprised to encounter Edward Ferrars, who has arrived to visit them at Barton. Marianne is delighted to meet him and is glad for her sister. She welcomes Edward with open arms. Notes Marianne isolates herself from the others and becomes engulfed in a cloud of gloom. By sulking over her fate, she disturbs the peace of her family. She lacks restraint and has no regard for the others in her family. Willoughby exits from the scene and Edward enters. Willoughby's departure had disturbed the members of the Dashwood family, but Edward's visit gladdens them: Edward's arrival at Barton is like a streak of sunlight in an overcast sky. His presence even manages to lift Marianne out of her depression. She forgets her sorrow for the moment and welcomes him. His visit seems to offer her some consolation. She talks to him animatedly and asks him about Norland. Elinor is elated to see Edward but shows restraint in her behavior towards him. She keeps her emotions in control and tries to react normally to the situation.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_2_part_4.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 19

chapter 19

{"name": "Chapter 19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-3-chapters-16-24", "summary": "Since cows tend to show a fondness for particular milkers, Dairyman Crick insists on breaking down these partialities by constant interchange, yet the milkers themselves prefer to stay with particular cows. Angel Clare begins to arrange the cows so that Tess may milk her favorite ones. She mentions this to Angel, yet later regrets that she disclosed to him that she learned of his kindness. Tess hears Angel playing at his harp, and when she finds him she admits that she has no fear of the wilderness, but has more indoor fears. Angel admits that he thinks that the hobble of being alive is rather serious. Tess cannot understand why a man of clerical family and good education should look upon it as a mishap to be alive. She realizes that he is at the dairy so that he may become a rich dairyman. Angel asks Tess if she would like to take up a course of study, but she tells him that sometimes she does not want to know anything more about history than she actually does. Later, Tess learns from Dairyman Crick that Angel has scorn for the descendants of many noble families. After hearing this caricature of Clare's opinions Tess is glad that she had not said a word about her family.", "analysis": "The romance between Angel Clare and Tess Durbeyfield begins to develop this chapter, a flirtation that stands in stark contrast to the combative pursuit of Tess by Alec d'Urberville. Angel does not make any physical advances toward her, only bestowing upon Tess small favors such as arranging the cows so that she may milk her favorites. The situation between the two is intensely chaste; both seem barely able to openly acknowledge their mutual affection. Angel even begins to exhibit characteristics appropriate to his name; Tess finds him playing the harp, thus recalling a literal angel. Nevertheless, even within this idealistic and serene romance Hardy develops darker undercurrents that foreshadow later difficulties. Tess finds that she must keep certain information secretive, both her relatively lofty status as a d'Urberville and her equally lowly status as a mother of an illegitimate child. Furthermore, Hardy develops the darker imperfections of Angel Clare's character in this chapter, demonstrating that he has the capability of being obstinate and judgmental. Although Angel has great moral convictions, he appears to have little flexibility or foresight. Angel has a particular scorn for the type of person that Tess represents, thus foreshadowing great conflict once he inevitably realizes her family history and perhaps details of her personal life"}

In general the cows were milked as they presented themselves, without fancy or choice. But certain cows will show a fondness for a particular pair of hands, sometimes carrying this predilection so far as to refuse to stand at all except to their favourite, the pail of a stranger being unceremoniously kicked over. It was Dairyman Crick's rule to insist on breaking down these partialities and aversions by constant interchange, since otherwise, in the event of a milkman or maid going away from the dairy, he was placed in a difficulty. The maids' private aims, however, were the reverse of the dairyman's rule, the daily selection by each damsel of the eight or ten cows to which she had grown accustomed rendering the operation on their willing udders surprisingly easy and effortless. Tess, like her compeers, soon discovered which of the cows had a preference for her style of manipulation, and her fingers having become delicate from the long domiciliary imprisonments to which she had subjected herself at intervals during the last two or three years, she would have been glad to meet the milchers' views in this respect. Out of the whole ninety-five there were eight in particular--Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young Pretty, Tidy, and Loud--who, though the teats of one or two were as hard as carrots, gave down to her with a readiness that made her work on them a mere touch of the fingers. Knowing, however, the dairyman's wish, she endeavoured conscientiously to take the animals just as they came, excepting the very hard yielders which she could not yet manage. But she soon found a curious correspondence between the ostensibly chance position of the cows and her wishes in this matter, till she felt that their order could not be the result of accident. The dairyman's pupil had lent a hand in getting the cows together of late, and at the fifth or sixth time she turned her eyes, as she rested against the cow, full of sly inquiry upon him. "Mr Clare, you have ranged the cows!" she said, blushing; and in making the accusation, symptoms of a smile gently lifted her upper lip in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower lip remaining severely still. "Well, it makes no difference," said he. "You will always be here to milk them." "Do you think so? I HOPE I shall! But I don't KNOW." She was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of her grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her meaning. She had spoken so earnestly to him, as if his presence were somehow a factor in her wish. Her misgiving was such that at dusk, when the milking was over, she walked in the garden alone, to continue her regrets that she had disclosed to him her discovery of his considerateness. It was a typical summer evening in June, the atmosphere being in such delicate equilibrium and so transmissive that inanimate objects seemed endowed with two or three senses, if not five. There was no distinction between the near and the far, and an auditor felt close to everything within the horizon. The soundlessness impressed her as a positive entity rather than as the mere negation of noise. It was broken by the strumming of strings. Tess had heard those notes in the attic above her head. Dim, flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed to her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark quality like that of nudity. To speak absolutely, both instrument and execution were poor; but the relative is all, and as she listened Tess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot. Far from leaving she drew up towards the performer, keeping behind the hedge that he might not guess her presence. The outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been left uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with juicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall blooming weeds emitting offensive smells--weeds whose red and yellow and purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that of cultivated flowers. She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that were underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime, and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him. Tess was conscious of neither time nor space. The exaltation which she had described as being producible at will by gazing at a star came now without any determination of hers; she undulated upon the thin notes of the second-hand harp, and their harmonies passed like breezes through her, bringing tears into her eyes. The floating pollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of the garden the weeping of the garden's sensibility. Though near nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not close for intentness, and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of sound. The light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in the western bank of cloud; it was like a piece of day left behind by accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere. He concluded his plaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great skill; and she waited, thinking another might be begun. But, tired of playing, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was rambling up behind her. Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if hardly moving at all. Angel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low tones reaching her, though he was some distance off. "What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?" said he. "Are you afraid?" "Oh no, sir--not of outdoor things; especially just now when the apple-blooth is falling, and everything is so green." "But you have your indoor fears--eh?" "Well--yes, sir." "What of?" "I couldn't quite say." "The milk turning sour?" "No." "Life in general?" "Yes, sir." "Ah--so have I, very often. This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don't you think so?" "It is--now you put it that way." "All the same, I shouldn't have expected a young girl like you to see it so just yet. How is it you do?" She maintained a hesitating silence. "Come, Tess, tell me in confidence." She thought that he meant what were the aspects of things to her, and replied shyly-- "The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they?--that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,--'Why do ye trouble me with your looks?' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand farther away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!' ... But YOU, sir, can raise up dreams with your music, and drive all such horrid fancies away!" He was surprised to find this young woman--who though but a milkmaid had just that touch of rarity about her which might make her the envied of her housemates--shaping such sad imaginings. She was expressing in her own native phrases--assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training--feelings which might almost have been called those of the age--the ache of modernism. The perception arrested him less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition--a more accurate expression, by words in _logy_ and _ism_, of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries. Still, it was strange that they should have come to her while yet so young; more than strange; it was impressive, interesting, pathetic. Not guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration. Tess's passing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest. Tess, on her part, could not understand why a man of clerical family and good education, and above physical want, should look upon it as a mishap to be alive. For the unhappy pilgrim herself there was very good reason. But how could this admirable and poetic man ever have descended into the Valley of Humiliation, have felt with the man of Uz--as she herself had felt two or three years ago--"My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway." It was true that he was at present out of his class. But she knew that was only because, like Peter the Great in a shipwright's yard, he was studying what he wanted to know. He did not milk cows because he was obliged to milk cows, but because he was learning to be a rich and prosperous dairyman, landowner, agriculturist, and breeder of cattle. He would become an American or Australian Abraham, commanding like a monarch his flocks and his herds, his spotted and his ring-straked, his men-servants and his maids. At times, nevertheless, it did seem unaccountable to her that a decidedly bookish, musical, thinking young man should have chosen deliberately to be a farmer, and not a clergyman, like his father and brothers. Thus, neither having the clue to the other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and mood without attempting to pry into each other's history. Every day, every hour, brought to him one more little stroke of her nature, and to her one more of his. Tess was trying to lead a repressed life, but she little divined the strength of her own vitality. At first Tess seemed to regard Angel Clare as an intelligence rather than as a man. As such she compared him with herself; and at every discovery of the abundance of his illuminations, of the distance between her own modest mental standpoint and the unmeasurable, Andean altitude of his, she became quite dejected, disheartened from all further effort on her own part whatever. He observed her dejection one day, when he had casually mentioned something to her about pastoral life in ancient Greece. She was gathering the buds called "lords and ladies" from the bank while he spoke. "Why do you look so woebegone all of a sudden?" he asked. "Oh, 'tis only--about my own self," she said, with a frail laugh of sadness, fitfully beginning to peel "a lady" meanwhile. "Just a sense of what might have been with me! My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am! I'm like the poor Queen of Sheba who lived in the Bible. There is no more spirit in me." "Bless my soul, don't go troubling about that! Why," he said with some enthusiasm, "I should be only too glad, my dear Tess, to help you to anything in the way of history, or any line of reading you would like to take up--" "It is a lady again," interrupted she, holding out the bud she had peeled. "What?" "I meant that there are always more ladies than lords when you come to peel them." "Never mind about the lords and ladies. Would you like to take up any course of study--history, for example?" "Sometimes I feel I don't want to know anything more about it than I know already." "Why not?" "Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only--finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember that your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings 'll be like thousands's and thousands'." "What, really, then, you don't want to learn anything?" "I shouldn't mind learning why--why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike," she answered, with a slight quaver in her voice. "But that's what books will not tell me." "Tess, fie for such bitterness!" Of course he spoke with a conventional sense of duty only, for that sort of wondering had not been unknown to himself in bygone days. And as he looked at the unpracticed mouth and lips, he thought that such a daughter of the soil could only have caught up the sentiment by rote. She went on peeling the lords and ladies till Clare, regarding for a moment the wave-like curl of her lashes as they dropped with her bent gaze on her soft cheek, lingeringly went away. When he was gone she stood awhile, thoughtfully peeling the last bud; and then, awakening from her reverie, flung it and all the crowd of floral nobility impatiently on the ground, in an ebullition of displeasure with herself for her _niaiserie_, and with a quickening warmth in her heart of hearts. How stupid he must think her! In an access of hunger for his good opinion she bethought herself of what she had latterly endeavoured to forget, so unpleasant had been its issues--the identity of her family with that of the knightly d'Urbervilles. Barren attribute as it was, disastrous as its discovery had been in many ways to her, perhaps Mr Clare, as a gentleman and a student of history, would respect her sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords and ladies if he knew that those Purbeck-marble and alabaster people in Kingsbere Church really represented her own lineal forefathers; that she was no spurious d'Urberville, compounded of money and ambition like those at Trantridge, but true d'Urberville to the bone. But, before venturing to make the revelation, dubious Tess indirectly sounded the dairyman as to its possible effect upon Mr Clare, by asking the former if Mr Clare had any great respect for old county families when they had lost all their money and land. "Mr Clare," said the dairyman emphatically, "is one of the most rebellest rozums you ever knowed--not a bit like the rest of his family; and if there's one thing that he do hate more than another 'tis the notion of what's called a' old family. He says that it stands to reason that old families have done their spurt of work in past days, and can't have anything left in 'em now. There's the Billets and the Drenkhards and the Greys and the St Quintins and the Hardys and the Goulds, who used to own the lands for miles down this valley; you could buy 'em all up now for an old song a'most. Why, our little Retty Priddle here, you know, is one of the Paridelles--the old family that used to own lots o' the lands out by King's Hintock, now owned by the Earl o' Wessex, afore even he or his was heard of. Well, Mr Clare found this out, and spoke quite scornful to the poor girl for days. 'Ah!' he says to her, 'you'll never make a good dairymaid! All your skill was used up ages ago in Palestine, and you must lie fallow for a thousand years to git strength for more deeds!' A boy came here t'other day asking for a job, and said his name was Matt, and when we asked him his surname he said he'd never heard that 'a had any surname, and when we asked why, he said he supposed his folks hadn't been 'stablished long enough. 'Ah! you're the very boy I want!' says Mr Clare, jumping up and shaking hands wi'en; 'I've great hopes of you;' and gave him half-a-crown. O no! he can't stomach old families!" After hearing this caricature of Clare's opinion poor Tess was glad that she had not said a word in a weak moment about her family--even though it was so unusually old almost to have gone round the circle and become a new one. Besides, another diary-girl was as good as she, it seemed, in that respect. She held her tongue about the d'Urberville vault and the Knight of the Conqueror whose name she bore. The insight afforded into Clare's character suggested to her that it was largely owing to her supposed untraditional newness that she had won interest in his eyes.

Chapter 19

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-3-chapters-16-24

Since cows tend to show a fondness for particular milkers, Dairyman Crick insists on breaking down these partialities by constant interchange, yet the milkers themselves prefer to stay with particular cows. Angel Clare begins to arrange the cows so that Tess may milk her favorite ones. She mentions this to Angel, yet later regrets that she disclosed to him that she learned of his kindness. Tess hears Angel playing at his harp, and when she finds him she admits that she has no fear of the wilderness, but has more indoor fears. Angel admits that he thinks that the hobble of being alive is rather serious. Tess cannot understand why a man of clerical family and good education should look upon it as a mishap to be alive. She realizes that he is at the dairy so that he may become a rich dairyman. Angel asks Tess if she would like to take up a course of study, but she tells him that sometimes she does not want to know anything more about history than she actually does. Later, Tess learns from Dairyman Crick that Angel has scorn for the descendants of many noble families. After hearing this caricature of Clare's opinions Tess is glad that she had not said a word about her family.

The romance between Angel Clare and Tess Durbeyfield begins to develop this chapter, a flirtation that stands in stark contrast to the combative pursuit of Tess by Alec d'Urberville. Angel does not make any physical advances toward her, only bestowing upon Tess small favors such as arranging the cows so that she may milk her favorites. The situation between the two is intensely chaste; both seem barely able to openly acknowledge their mutual affection. Angel even begins to exhibit characteristics appropriate to his name; Tess finds him playing the harp, thus recalling a literal angel. Nevertheless, even within this idealistic and serene romance Hardy develops darker undercurrents that foreshadow later difficulties. Tess finds that she must keep certain information secretive, both her relatively lofty status as a d'Urberville and her equally lowly status as a mother of an illegitimate child. Furthermore, Hardy develops the darker imperfections of Angel Clare's character in this chapter, demonstrating that he has the capability of being obstinate and judgmental. Although Angel has great moral convictions, he appears to have little flexibility or foresight. Angel has a particular scorn for the type of person that Tess represents, thus foreshadowing great conflict once he inevitably realizes her family history and perhaps details of her personal life

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/3.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_2_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 3

part 1, chapter 3

{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-3", "summary": "We look in on a guy named Monsieur Appert, who has been sent from Paris to meet with a local priest named Father Chelan. It sounds like the two of them need to visit the prison on some mysterious business. The Father seems especially annoyed about something that's going on. Monsieur Appert visits the prisons with Chelan. He never says a word the whole time. When the two of them visit the prison a second time that day, the guard says he's received orders not to let them in. Father Chelan scolds him until he lets them pass. Meanwhile, we find out that the mayor, Monsieur de Renal, and another man named Valenod want to get Chelan removed from the district because he doesn't play ball with them politically. When the two tell Chelan the news, he answers that he'll never leave the community. He'll live there even in retirement just to shame de Renal and Valenod about what they've done. For crying out loud, the guy is 80 years old. Later on, the mayor's wife asks him what harm it could do to let Chelan keep his job. But the conversation quickly turns to the fact that the mayor wants a special tutor to teach their children. It's a matter of pride, since having a private tutor is a symbol of wealth just like owning a Porsche or a big house. The mayor is eager to have the town talking about how well off he is. The person the mayor wants to hire is the son of the sawmill owner, Sorel. The narrator gives us a short description of Madame de Renal, telling us that she's a beautiful woman who can't admit to herself that she finds her husband boring. She has never known anything other than obedience and shyness, so she can't even imagine what love is supposed to look like.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER III THE POOR FUND A virtuous cure who does not intrigue is a providence for the village.--_Fleury_ It should be mentioned that the cure of Verrieres, an old man of ninety, who owed to the bracing mountain air an iron constitution and an iron character, had the right to visit the prison, the hospital and the workhouse at any hour. It had been at precisely six o'clock in the morning that M. Appert, who had a Paris recommendation to the cure, had been shrewd enough to arrive at a little inquisitive town. He had immediately gone on to the cure's house. The cure Chelan became pensive as he read the letter written to him by the M. le Marquis de La Mole, Peer of France, and the richest landed proprietor of the province. "I am old and beloved here," he said to himself in a whisper, "they would not dare!" Then he suddenly turned to the gentleman from Paris, with eyes, which in spite of his great age, shone with that sacred fire which betokens the delight of doing a fine but slightly dangerous act. "Come with me, sir," he said, "but please do not express any opinion of the things which we shall see, in the presence of the jailer, and above all not in the presence of the superintendents of the workhouse." M. Appert realised that he had to do with a man of spirit. He followed the venerable cure, visited the hospital and workhouse, put a lot of questions, but in spite of somewhat extraordinary answers, did not indulge in the slightest expression of censure. This visit lasted several hours; the cure invited M. Appert to dine, but the latter made the excuse of having some letters to write; as a matter of fact, he did not wish to compromise his generous companion to any further extent. About three o'clock these gentlemen went to finish their inspection of the workhouse and then returned to the prison. There they found the jailer by the gate, a kind of giant, six feet high, with bow legs. His ignoble face had become hideous by reason of his terror. "Ah, monsieur," he said to the cure as soon as he saw him, "is not the gentleman whom I see there, M. Appert?" "What does that matter?" said the cure. "The reason is that I received yesterday the most specific orders, and M. the Prefect sent a message by a gendarme who must have galloped during the whole of the night, that M. Appert was not to be allowed in the prisons." "I can tell you, M. Noiroud," said the cure, "that the traveller who is with me is M. Appert, but do you or do you not admit that I have the right to enter the prison at any hour of the day or night accompanied by anybody I choose?" "Yes, M. the cure," said the jailer in a low voice, lowering his head like a bull-dog, induced to a grudging obedience by fear of the stick, "only, M. the cure, I have a wife and children, and shall be turned out if they inform against me. I only have my place to live on." "I, too, should be sorry enough to lose mine," answered the good cure, with increasing emotion in his voice. "What a difference!" answered the jailer keenly. "As for you, M. le cure, we all know that you have eight hundred francs a year, good solid money." Such were the facts which, commented upon and exaggerated in twenty different ways, had been agitating for the last two days all the odious passions of the little town of Verrieres. At the present time they served as the text for the little discussion which M. de Renal was having with his wife. He had visited the cure earlier in the morning accompanied by M. Valenod, the director of the workhouse, in order to convey their most emphatic displeasure. M. Chelan had no protector, and felt all the weight of their words. "Well, gentlemen, I shall be the third cure of eighty years of age who has been turned out in this district. I have been here for fifty-six years. I have baptized nearly all the inhabitants of the town, which was only a hamlet when I came to it. Every day I marry young people whose grandparents I have married in days gone by. Verrieres is my family, but I said to myself when I saw the stranger, 'This man from Paris may as a matter of fact be a Liberal, there are only too many of them about, but what harm can he do to our poor and to our prisoners?'" The reproaches of M. de Renal, and above all, those of M. Valenod, the director of the workhouse, became more and more animated. "Well, gentlemen, turn me out then," the old cure exclaimed in a trembling voice; "I shall still continue to live in the district. As you know, I inherited forty-eight years ago a piece of land that brings in eight hundred francs a year; I shall live on that income. I do not save anything out of my living, gentlemen; and that is perhaps why, when you talk to me about it, I am not particularly frightened." M. de Renal always got on very well with his wife, but he did not know what to answer when she timidly repeated the phrase of M. le cure, "What harm can this Paris gentleman do the prisoners?" He was on the point of quite losing his temper when she gave a cry. Her second son had mounted the parapet of the terrace wall and was running along it, although the wall was raised to a height of more than twenty feet above the vineyard on the other side. The fear of frightening her son and making him fall prevented Madame de Renal speaking to him. But at last the child, who was smiling at his own pluck, looked at his mother, saw her pallor, jumped down on to the walk and ran to her. He was well scolded. This little event changed the course of the conversation. "I really mean to take Sorel, the son of the sawyer, into the house," said M. de Renal; "he will look after the children, who are getting too naughty for us to manage. He is a young priest, or as good as one, a good Latin scholar, and will make the children get on. According to the cure, he has a steady character. I will give him three hundred francs a year and his board. I have some doubts as to his morality, for he used to be the favourite of that old Surgeon-Major, Member of the Legion of Honour, who went to board with the Sorels, on the pretext that he was their cousin. It is quite possible that that man was really simply a secret agent of the Liberals. He said that the mountain air did his asthma good, but that is something which has never been proved. He has gone through all _Buonaparte's_ campaigns in Italy, and had even, it was said, voted against the Empire in the plebiscite. This Liberal taught the Sorel boy Latin, and left him a number of books which he had brought with him. Of course, in the ordinary way, I should have never thought of allowing a carpenter's son to come into contact with our children, but the cure told me, the very day before the scene which has just estranged us for ever, that Sorel has been studying theology for three years with the intention of entering a seminary. He is, consequently, not a Liberal, and he certainly is a good Latin scholar. "This arrangement will be convenient in more than one way," continued M. de Renal, looking at his wife with a diplomatic air. "That Valenod is proud enough of his two fine Norman horses which he has just bought for his carriage, but he hasn't a tutor for his children." "He might take this one away from us." "You approve of my plan, then?" said M. de Renal, thanking his wife with a smile for the excellent idea which she had just had. "Well, that's settled." "Good gracious, my dear, how quickly you make up your mind!" "It is because I'm a man of character, as the cure found out right enough. Don't let us deceive ourselves; we are surrounded by Liberals in this place. All those cloth merchants are jealous of me, I am certain of it; two or three are becoming rich men. Well, I should rather fancy it for them to see M. de Renal's children pass along the street as they go out for their walk, escorted by _their tutor_. It will impress people. My grandfather often used to tell us that he had a tutor when he was young. It may run me into a hundred crowns, but that ought to be looked upon as an expense necessary for keeping up our position." This sudden resolution left Madame de Renal quite pensive. She was a big, well-made woman, who had been the beauty of the country, to use the local expression. She had a certain air of simplicity and youthfulness in her deportment. This naive grace, with its innocence and its vivacity, might even have recalled to a Parisian some suggestion of the sweets he had left behind him. If she had realised this particular phase of her success, Madame de Renal would have been quite ashamed of it. All coquetry, all affectation, were absolutely alien to her temperament. M. Valenod, the rich director of the workhouse, had the reputation of having paid her court, a fact which had cast a singular glamour over her virtue; for this M. Valenod, a big young man with a square, sturdy frame, florid face, and big, black whiskers, was one of those coarse, blustering, and noisy people who pass in the provinces for a "fine man." Madame de Renal, who had a very shy, and apparently a very uneven temperament, was particularly shocked by M. Valenod's lack of repose, and by his boisterous loudness. Her aloofness from what, in the Verrieres' jargon, was called "having a good time," had earned her the reputation of being very proud of her birth. In fact, she never thought about it, but she had been extremely glad to find the inhabitants of the town visit her less frequently. We shall not deny that she passed for a fool in the eyes of _their_ good ladies because she did not wheedle her husband, and allowed herself to miss the most splendid opportunities of getting fine hats from Paris or Besancon. Provided she was allowed to wander in her beautiful garden, she never complained. She was a naive soul, who had never educated herself up to the point of judging her husband and confessing to herself that he bored her. She supposed, without actually formulating the thought, that there was no greater sweetness in the relationship between husband and wife than she herself had experienced. She loved M. de Renal most when he talked about his projects for their children. The elder he had destined for the army, the second for the law, and the third for the Church. To sum up, she found M. de Renal much less boring than all the other men of her acquaintance. This conjugal opinion was quite sound. The Mayor of Verrieres had a reputation for wit, and above all, a reputation for good form, on the strength of half-a-dozen "chestnuts" which he had inherited from an uncle. Old Captain de Renal had served, before the Revolution, in the infantry regiment of M. the Duke of Orleans, and was admitted to the Prince's salons when he went to Paris. He had seen Madame de Montesson, the famous Madame de Genlis, M. Ducret, the inventor, of the Palais-Royal. These personages would crop up only too frequently in M. de Renal's anecdotes. He found it, however, more and more of a strain to remember stories which required such delicacy in the telling, and for some time past it had only been on great occasions that he would trot out his anecdotes concerning the House of Orleans. As, moreover, he was extremely polite, except on money matters, he passed, and justly so, for the most aristocratic personage in Verrieres.

Part 1, Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-3

We look in on a guy named Monsieur Appert, who has been sent from Paris to meet with a local priest named Father Chelan. It sounds like the two of them need to visit the prison on some mysterious business. The Father seems especially annoyed about something that's going on. Monsieur Appert visits the prisons with Chelan. He never says a word the whole time. When the two of them visit the prison a second time that day, the guard says he's received orders not to let them in. Father Chelan scolds him until he lets them pass. Meanwhile, we find out that the mayor, Monsieur de Renal, and another man named Valenod want to get Chelan removed from the district because he doesn't play ball with them politically. When the two tell Chelan the news, he answers that he'll never leave the community. He'll live there even in retirement just to shame de Renal and Valenod about what they've done. For crying out loud, the guy is 80 years old. Later on, the mayor's wife asks him what harm it could do to let Chelan keep his job. But the conversation quickly turns to the fact that the mayor wants a special tutor to teach their children. It's a matter of pride, since having a private tutor is a symbol of wealth just like owning a Porsche or a big house. The mayor is eager to have the town talking about how well off he is. The person the mayor wants to hire is the son of the sawmill owner, Sorel. The narrator gives us a short description of Madame de Renal, telling us that she's a beautiful woman who can't admit to herself that she finds her husband boring. She has never known anything other than obedience and shyness, so she can't even imagine what love is supposed to look like.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/08.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_7_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 8

chapter 8

{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8", "summary": "The malthouse was \"inwrapped with ivy\" and had a cupola on the roof and one window, which formed a small square in the door. Inside, the room glowed with light from the hearth. \"The stone-flag floor was worn into a path from the doorway to the kiln, and into undulations everywhere.\" At one side were a curved settle and a small bedstead. The fragrance of malt filled the room. As Gabriel entered, everyone turned to look at him. An old maltster recognized Gabriel's name; he had known Oak's father and grandfather, and he launched into a garrulous account of them. This made Gabriel seem less of a stranger. He was offered a drink from the \"God-forgive-me,\" a tall, two-handled mug standing among the coals. Gabriel rejected an offer to get him a cleaner cup, and, thus, drinking with the group, he was accepted by them. There were many country types present, including men of all sorts -- the old and decrepit, the scroungers, the cheerful, the shy, and the aggressive. They recalled other drinking bouts and discussed Miss Everdene's family. Her late uncle, who had left her the farm, and her father, a \"celebrated bankrupt,\" fickle and romantic, were properly gone over. Bathsheba had become a beauty, they thought. And her bailiff was dishonest. Gossip was rampant, and all was punctuated by the reminiscences of the ancient maltster. Gabriel's flute showed from his pocket, and the men asked for a tune. He obliged, confessing that he was down on his luck and the flute had served to earn him a little money. When the men began leaving, Gabriel went off with Jan Coggan, who had offered him a room. Shortly, a man came running in with the news that Miss Everdene had caught her bailiff stealing and had dismissed him, and that Fanny Robin, the mistress's youngest employee, had disappeared. Bathsheba sent word that she would like to talk with one or two of the men, and those who were left in the malthouse went to see her. On their arrival, she spoke to them from an upper window, instructing them to make inquiries about Fanny the next day in the neighboring villages. Someone reported that Fanny had a soldier friend in Casterbridge. Gabriel, in a bed at last, lay awake thinking of Bathsheba, delighted to have seen her again. He resolved to fetch his belongings, which consisted mostly of the few books which \"constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves.\"", "analysis": "The malthouse chapter is important to Hardy's project of depicting his Wessex world. Besides offering some fine sketches of local figures, Hardy presents the atmosphere of the old malthouse, showing us country customs and affording us a general insight into the variety of characters composing this \"simple\" world. There is a veritable gallery of personality types, all speaking variations of the local dialect, and all charming in their idiosyncrasies. They serve as foils for each other and also as the medium for disseminating background information. Most important, together they function as a collective commentator on country life and current events."}

THE MALTHOUSE--THE CHAT--NEWS Warren's Malthouse was enclosed by an old wall inwrapped with ivy, and though not much of the exterior was visible at this hour, the character and purposes of the building were clearly enough shown by its outline upon the sky. From the walls an overhanging thatched roof sloped up to a point in the centre, upon which rose a small wooden lantern, fitted with louvre-boards on all the four sides, and from these openings a mist was dimly perceived to be escaping into the night air. There was no window in front; but a square hole in the door was glazed with a single pane, through which red, comfortable rays now stretched out upon the ivied wall in front. Voices were to be heard inside. Oak's hand skimmed the surface of the door with fingers extended to an Elymas-the-Sorcerer pattern, till he found a leathern strap, which he pulled. This lifted a wooden latch, and the door swung open. The room inside was lighted only by the ruddy glow from the kiln mouth, which shone over the floor with the streaming horizontality of the setting sun, and threw upwards the shadows of all facial irregularities in those assembled around. The stone-flag floor was worn into a path from the doorway to the kiln, and into undulations everywhere. A curved settle of unplaned oak stretched along one side, and in a remote corner was a small bed and bedstead, the owner and frequent occupier of which was the maltster. This aged man was now sitting opposite the fire, his frosty white hair and beard overgrowing his gnarled figure like the grey moss and lichen upon a leafless apple-tree. He wore breeches and the laced-up shoes called ankle-jacks; he kept his eyes fixed upon the fire. Gabriel's nose was greeted by an atmosphere laden with the sweet smell of new malt. The conversation (which seemed to have been concerning the origin of the fire) immediately ceased, and every one ocularly criticised him to the degree expressed by contracting the flesh of their foreheads and looking at him with narrowed eyelids, as if he had been a light too strong for their sight. Several exclaimed meditatively, after this operation had been completed:-- "Oh, 'tis the new shepherd, 'a b'lieve." "We thought we heard a hand pawing about the door for the bobbin, but weren't sure 'twere not a dead leaf blowed across," said another. "Come in, shepherd; sure ye be welcome, though we don't know yer name." "Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbours." The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned at this--his turning being as the turning of a rusty crane. "That's never Gable Oak's grandson over at Norcombe--never!" he said, as a formula expressive of surprise, which nobody was supposed for a moment to take literally. "My father and my grandfather were old men of the name of Gabriel," said the shepherd, placidly. "Thought I knowed the man's face as I seed him on the rick!--thought I did! And where be ye trading o't to now, shepherd?" "I'm thinking of biding here," said Mr. Oak. "Knowed yer grandfather for years and years!" continued the maltster, the words coming forth of their own accord as if the momentum previously imparted had been sufficient. "Ah--and did you!" "Knowed yer grandmother." "And her too!" "Likewise knowed yer father when he was a child. Why, my boy Jacob there and your father were sworn brothers--that they were sure--weren't ye, Jacob?" "Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with a semi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his upper jaw, which made much of itself by standing prominent, like a milestone in a bank. "But 'twas Joe had most to do with him. However, my son William must have knowed the very man afore us--didn't ye, Billy, afore ye left Norcombe?" "No, 'twas Andrew," said Jacob's son Billy, a child of forty, or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a cheerful soul in a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assuming a chinchilla shade here and there. "I can mind Andrew," said Oak, "as being a man in the place when I was quite a child." "Ay--the other day I and my youngest daughter, Liddy, were over at my grandson's christening," continued Billy. "We were talking about this very family, and 'twas only last Purification Day in this very world, when the use-money is gied away to the second-best poor folk, you know, shepherd, and I can mind the day because they all had to traypse up to the vestry--yes, this very man's family." "Come, shepherd, and drink. 'Tis gape and swaller with us--a drap of sommit, but not of much account," said the maltster, removing from the fire his eyes, which were vermilion-red and bleared by gazing into it for so many years. "Take up the God-forgive-me, Jacob. See if 'tis warm, Jacob." Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled tall mug standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat: it was rather furred with extraneous matter about the outside, especially in the crevices of the handles, the innermost curves of which may not have seen daylight for several years by reason of this encrustation thereon--formed of ashes accidentally wetted with cider and baked hard; but to the mind of any sensible drinker the cup was no worse for that, being incontestably clean on the inside and about the rim. It may be observed that such a class of mug is called a God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and its vicinity for uncertain reasons; probably because its size makes any given toper feel ashamed of himself when he sees its bottom in drinking it empty. Jacob, on receiving the order to see if the liquor was warm enough, placidly dipped his forefinger into it by way of thermometer, and having pronounced it nearly of the proper degree, raised the cup and very civilly attempted to dust some of the ashes from the bottom with the skirt of his smock-frock, because Shepherd Oak was a stranger. "A clane cup for the shepherd," said the maltster commandingly. "No--not at all," said Gabriel, in a reproving tone of considerateness. "I never fuss about dirt in its pure state, and when I know what sort it is." Taking the mug he drank an inch or more from the depth of its contents, and duly passed it to the next man. "I wouldn't think of giving such trouble to neighbours in washing up when there's so much work to be done in the world already." continued Oak in a moister tone, after recovering from the stoppage of breath which is occasioned by pulls at large mugs. "A right sensible man," said Jacob. "True, true; it can't be gainsaid!" observed a brisk young man--Mark Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman, whom to meet anywhere in your travels was to know, to know was to drink with, and to drink with was, unfortunately, to pay for. "And here's a mouthful of bread and bacon that mis'ess have sent, shepherd. The cider will go down better with a bit of victuals. Don't ye chaw quite close, shepherd, for I let the bacon fall in the road outside as I was bringing it along, and may be 'tis rather gritty. There, 'tis clane dirt; and we all know what that is, as you say, and you bain't a particular man we see, shepherd." "True, true--not at all," said the friendly Oak. "Don't let your teeth quite meet, and you won't feel the sandiness at all. Ah! 'tis wonderful what can be done by contrivance!" "My own mind exactly, neighbour." "Ah, he's his grandfer's own grandson!--his grandfer were just such a nice unparticular man!" said the maltster. "Drink, Henry Fray--drink," magnanimously said Jan Coggan, a person who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and share alike where liquor was concerned, as the vessel showed signs of approaching him in its gradual revolution among them. Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful gaze into mid-air, Henry did not refuse. He was a man of more than middle age, with eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it down that the law of the world was bad, with a long-suffering look through his listeners at the world alluded to, as it presented itself to his imagination. He always signed his name "Henery"--strenuously insisting upon that spelling, and if any passing schoolmaster ventured to remark that the second "e" was superfluous and old-fashioned, he received the reply that "H-e-n-e-r-y" was the name he was christened and the name he would stick to--in the tone of one to whom orthographical differences were matters which had a great deal to do with personal character. Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henery, was a crimson man with a spacious countenance and private glimmer in his eye, whose name had appeared on the marriage register of Weatherbury and neighbouring parishes as best man and chief witness in countless unions of the previous twenty years; he also very frequently filled the post of head godfather in baptisms of the subtly-jovial kind. "Come, Mark Clark--come. Ther's plenty more in the barrel," said Jan. "Ay--that I will, 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark, who, twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the same orbit. He secreted mirth on all occasions for special discharge at popular parties. "Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop!" said Mr. Coggan to a self-conscious man in the background, thrusting the cup towards him. "Such a modest man as he is!" said Jacob Smallbury. "Why, ye've hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young mis'ess's face, so I hear, Joseph?" All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach. "No--I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph, reducing his body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek sense of undue prominence. "And when I seed her, 'twas nothing but blushes with me!" "Poor feller," said Mr. Clark. "'Tis a curious nature for a man," said Jan Coggan. "Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass--his shyness, which was so painful as a defect, filling him with a mild complacency now that it was regarded as an interesting study. "'Twere blush, blush, blush with me every minute of the time, when she was speaking to me." "I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a very bashful man." "'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the maltster. "And how long have ye have suffered from it, Joseph?" [a] [Transcriber's note a: Alternate text, appears in all three editions on hand: "'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the maltster. "And ye have suffered from it a long time, we know." "Ay, ever since..."] "Oh, ever since I was a boy. Yes--mother was concerned to her heart about it--yes. But 'twas all nought." "Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it, Joseph Poorgrass?" "Oh ay, tried all sorts o' company. They took me to Greenhill Fair, and into a great gay jerry-go-nimble show, where there were women-folk riding round--standing upon horses, with hardly anything on but their smocks; but it didn't cure me a morsel. And then I was put errand-man at the Women's Skittle Alley at the back of the Tailor's Arms in Casterbridge. 'Twas a horrible sinful situation, and a very curious place for a good man. I had to stand and look ba'dy people in the face from morning till night; but 'twas no use--I was just as bad as ever after all. Blushes hev been in the family for generations. There, 'tis a happy providence that I be no worse." "True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a profounder view of the subject. "'Tis a thought to look at, that ye might have been worse; but even as you be, 'tis a very bad affliction for 'ee, Joseph. For ye see, shepherd, though 'tis very well for a woman, dang it all, 'tis awkward for a man like him, poor feller?" "'Tis--'tis," said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation. "Yes, very awkward for the man." "Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan Coggan. "Once he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home-along through Yalbury Wood, didn't ye, Master Poorgrass?" "No, no, no; not that story!" expostulated the modest man, forcing a laugh to bury his concern. "--And so 'a lost himself quite," continued Mr. Coggan, with an impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like time and tide, must run its course and would respect no man. "And as he was coming along in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not able to find his way out of the trees nohow, 'a cried out, 'Man-a-lost! man-a-lost!' A owl in a tree happened to be crying 'Whoo-whoo-whoo!' as owls do, you know, shepherd" (Gabriel nodded), "and Joseph, all in a tremble, said, 'Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!'" "No, no, now--that's too much!" said the timid man, becoming a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. "I didn't say SIR. I'll take my oath I didn't say 'Joseph Poorgrass o' Weatherbury, sir.' No, no; what's right is right, and I never said sir to the bird, knowing very well that no man of a gentleman's rank would be hollering there at that time o' night. 'Joseph Poorgrass of Weatherbury,'--that's every word I said, and I shouldn't ha' said that if 't hadn't been for Keeper Day's metheglin.... There, 'twas a merciful thing it ended where it did." The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the company, Jan went on meditatively:-- "And he's the fearfullest man, bain't ye, Joseph? Ay, another time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye, Joseph?" "I was," replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions too serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being one. "Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate would not open, try how he would, and knowing there was the Devil's hand in it, he kneeled down." "Ay," said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of the fire, the cider, and a perception of the narrative capabilities of the experience alluded to. "My heart died within me, that time; but I kneeled down and said the Lord's Prayer, and then the Belief right through, and then the Ten Commandments, in earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn't open; and then I went on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and, thinks I, this makes four, and 'tis all I know out of book, and if this don't do it nothing will, and I'm a lost man. Well, when I got to Saying After Me, I rose from my knees and found the gate would open--yes, neighbours, the gate opened the same as ever." A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all, and during its continuance each directed his vision into the ashpit, which glowed like a desert in the tropics under a vertical sun, shaping their eyes long and liny, partly because of the light, partly from the depth of the subject discussed. Gabriel broke the silence. "What sort of a place is this to live at, and what sort of a mis'ess is she to work under?" Gabriel's bosom thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice of the assembly the inner-most subject of his heart. "We d' know little of her--nothing. She only showed herself a few days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor was called with his world-wide skill; but he couldn't save the man. As I take it, she's going to keep on the farm. "That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve," said Jan Coggan. "Ay, 'tis a very good family. I'd as soon be under 'em as under one here and there. Her uncle was a very fair sort of man. Did ye know en, shepherd--a bachelor-man?" "Not at all." "I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife, Charlotte, who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were Farmer Everdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was allowed to call and see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but not to carry away any--outside my skin I mane of course." "Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning." "And so you see 'twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value his kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered as to drink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting the man's generosity--" "True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corroborated Mark Clark. "--And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and then by the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket--so thorough dry that that ale would slip down--ah, 'twould slip down sweet! Happy times! Heavenly times! Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that house! You can mind, Jacob? You used to go wi' me sometimes." "I can--I can," said Jacob. "That one, too, that we had at Buck's Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple." "'Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that brought you no nearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun, there was none like those in Farmer Everdene's kitchen. Not a single damn allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good old word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great relief to a merry soul." "True," said the maltster. "Nater requires her swearing at the regular times, or she's not herself; and unholy exclamations is a necessity of life." "But Charlotte," continued Coggan--"not a word of the sort would Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking in vain.... Ay, poor Charlotte, I wonder if she had the good fortune to get into Heaven when 'a died! But 'a was never much in luck's way, and perhaps 'a went downwards after all, poor soul." "And did any of you know Miss Everdene's father and mother?" inquired the shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping the conversation in the desired channel. "I knew them a little," said Jacob Smallbury; "but they were townsfolk, and didn't live here. They've been dead for years. Father, what sort of people were mis'ess' father and mother?" "Well," said the maltster, "he wasn't much to look at; but she was a lovely woman. He was fond enough of her as his sweetheart." "Used to kiss her scores and long-hundreds o' times, so 'twas said," observed Coggan. "He was very proud of her, too, when they were married, as I've been told," said the maltster. "Ay," said Coggan. "He admired her so much that he used to light the candle three times a night to look at her." "Boundless love; I shouldn't have supposed it in the universe!" murmured Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale in his moral reflections. "Well, to be sure," said Gabriel. "Oh, 'tis true enough. I knowed the man and woman both well. Levi Everdene--that was the man's name, sure. 'Man,' saith I in my hurry, but he were of a higher circle of life than that--'a was a gentleman-tailor really, worth scores of pounds. And he became a very celebrated bankrupt two or three times." "Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!" said Joseph. "Oh no, no! That man failed for heaps of money; hundreds in gold and silver." The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan, after absently scrutinising a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up the narrative, with a private twirl of his eye:-- "Well, now, you'd hardly believe it, but that man--our Miss Everdene's father--was one of the ficklest husbands alive, after a while. Understand? 'a didn't want to be fickle, but he couldn't help it. The pore feller were faithful and true enough to her in his wish, but his heart would rove, do what he would. He spoke to me in real tribulation about it once. 'Coggan,' he said, 'I could never wish for a handsomer woman than I've got, but feeling she's ticketed as my lawful wife, I can't help my wicked heart wandering, do what I will.' But at last I believe he cured it by making her take off her wedding-ring and calling her by her maiden name as they sat together after the shop was shut, and so 'a would get to fancy she was only his sweetheart, and not married to him at all. And as soon as he could thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing the seventh, 'a got to like her as well as ever, and they lived on a perfect picture of mutel love." "Well, 'twas a most ungodly remedy," murmured Joseph Poorgrass; "but we ought to feel deep cheerfulness that a happy Providence kept it from being any worse. You see, he might have gone the bad road and given his eyes to unlawfulness entirely--yes, gross unlawfulness, so to say it." "You see," said Billy Smallbury, "The man's will was to do right, sure enough, but his heart didn't chime in." "He got so much better, that he was quite godly in his later years, wasn't he, Jan?" said Joseph Poorgrass. "He got himself confirmed over again in a more serious way, and took to saying 'Amen' almost as loud as the clerk, and he liked to copy comforting verses from the tombstones. He used, too, to hold the money-plate at Let Your Light so Shine, and stand godfather to poor little come-by-chance children; and he kept a missionary box upon his table to nab folks unawares when they called; yes, and he would box the charity-boys' ears, if they laughed in church, till they could hardly stand upright, and do other deeds of piety natural to the saintly inclined." "Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but high things," added Billy Smallbury. "One day Parson Thirdly met him and said, 'Good-Morning, Mister Everdene; 'tis a fine day!' 'Amen' said Everdene, quite absent-like, thinking only of religion when he seed a parson. Yes, he was a very Christian man." "Their daughter was not at all a pretty chiel at that time," said Henery Fray. "Never should have thought she'd have growed up such a handsome body as she is." "'Tis to be hoped her temper is as good as her face." "Well, yes; but the baily will have most to do with the business and ourselves. Ah!" Henery gazed into the ashpit, and smiled volumes of ironical knowledge. "A queer Christian, like the Devil's head in a cowl, [1] as the saying is," volunteered Mark Clark. [Footnote 1: This phrase is a conjectural emendation of the unintelligible expression, "as the Devil said to the Owl," used by the natives.] "He is," said Henery, implying that irony must cease at a certain point. "Between we two, man and man, I believe that man would as soon tell a lie Sundays as working-days--that I do so." "Good faith, you do talk!" said Gabriel. "True enough," said the man of bitter moods, looking round upon the company with the antithetic laughter that comes from a keener appreciation of the miseries of life than ordinary men are capable of. "Ah, there's people of one sort, and people of another, but that man--bless your souls!" Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. "You must be a very aged man, malter, to have sons growed mild and ancient," he remarked. "Father's so old that 'a can't mind his age, can ye, father?" interposed Jacob. "And he's growed terrible crooked too, lately," Jacob continued, surveying his father's figure, which was rather more bowed than his own. "Really one may say that father there is three-double." "Crooked folk will last a long while," said the maltster, grimly, and not in the best humour. "Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of yer life, father-- wouldn't ye, shepherd?" "Ay that I should," said Gabriel with the heartiness of a man who had longed to hear it for several months. "What may your age be, malter?" The maltster cleared his throat in an exaggerated form for emphasis, and elongating his gaze to the remotest point of the ashpit, said, in the slow speech justifiable when the importance of a subject is so generally felt that any mannerism must be tolerated in getting at it, "Well, I don't mind the year I were born in, but perhaps I can reckon up the places I've lived at, and so get it that way. I bode at Upper Longpuddle across there" (nodding to the north) "till I were eleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the east) "where I took to malting. I went therefrom to Norcombe, and malted there two-and-twenty years, and-two-and-twenty years I was there turnip-hoeing and harvesting. Ah, I knowed that old place, Norcombe, years afore you were thought of, Master Oak" (Oak smiled sincere belief in the fact). "Then I malted at Durnover four year, and four year turnip-hoeing; and I was fourteen times eleven months at Millpond St. Jude's" (nodding north-west-by-north). "Old Twills wouldn't hire me for more than eleven months at a time, to keep me from being chargeable to the parish if so be I was disabled. Then I was three year at Mellstock, and I've been here one-and-thirty year come Candlemas. How much is that?" "Hundred and seventeen," chuckled another old gentleman, given to mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hitherto sat unobserved in a corner. "Well, then, that's my age," said the maltster, emphatically. "O no, father!" said Jacob. "Your turnip-hoeing were in the summer and your malting in the winter of the same years, and ye don't ought to count-both halves, father." "Chok' it all! I lived through the summers, didn't I? That's my question. I suppose ye'll say next I be no age at all to speak of?" "Sure we shan't," said Gabriel, soothingly. "Ye be a very old aged person, malter," attested Jan Coggan, also soothingly. "We all know that, and ye must have a wonderful talented constitution to be able to live so long, mustn't he, neighbours?" "True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful," said the meeting unanimously. The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough to voluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having lived a great many years, by mentioning that the cup they were drinking out of was three years older than he. While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak's flute became visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery Fray exclaimed, "Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a great flute by now at Casterbridge?" "You did," said Gabriel, blushing faintly. "I've been in great trouble, neighbours, and was driven to it. I used not to be so poor as I be now." "Never mind, heart!" said Mark Clark. "You should take it careless-like, shepherd, and your time will come. But we could thank ye for a tune, if ye bain't too tired?" "Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard since Christmas," said Jan Coggan. "Come, raise a tune, Master Oak!" "Ay, that I will," said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and putting it together. "A poor tool, neighbours; but such as I can do ye shall have and welcome." Oak then struck up "Jockey to the Fair," and played that sparkling melody three times through, accenting the notes in the third round in a most artistic and lively manner by bending his body in small jerks and tapping with his foot to beat time. "He can blow the flute very well--that 'a can," said a young married man, who having no individuality worth mentioning was known as "Susan Tall's husband." He continued, "I'd as lief as not be able to blow into a flute as well as that." "He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort for us to have such a shepherd," murmured Joseph Poorgrass, in a soft cadence. "We ought to feel full o' thanksgiving that he's not a player of ba'dy songs instead of these merry tunes; for 'twould have been just as easy for God to have made the shepherd a loose low man--a man of iniquity, so to speak it--as what he is. Yes, for our wives' and daughters' sakes we should feel real thanksgiving." "True, true,--real thanksgiving!" dashed in Mark Clark conclusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion that he had only heard about a word and three-quarters of what Joseph had said. "Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the Bible; "for evil do thrive so in these times that ye may be as much deceived in the cleanest shaved and whitest shirted man as in the raggedest tramp upon the turnpike, if I may term it so." "Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd," said Henery Fray, criticising Gabriel with misty eyes as he entered upon his second tune. "Yes--now I see 'ee blowing into the flute I know 'ee to be the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for yer mouth were scrimped up and yer eyes a-staring out like a strangled man's--just as they be now." "'Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look such a scarecrow," observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional criticism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter person jerking out, with the ghastly grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of "Dame Durden:"-- 'Twas Moll' and Bet', and Doll' and Kate', And Dor'-othy Drag'-gle Tail'. "I hope you don't mind that young man's bad manners in naming your features?" whispered Joseph to Gabriel. "Not at all," said Mr. Oak. "For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd," continued Joseph Poorgrass, with winning sauvity. "Ay, that ye be, shepard," said the company. "Thank you very much," said Oak, in the modest tone good manners demanded, thinking, however, that he would never let Bathsheba see him playing the flute; in this resolve showing a discretion equal to that related to its sagacious inventress, the divine Minerva herself. "Ah, when I and my wife were married at Norcombe Church," said the old maltster, not pleased at finding himself left out of the subject, "we were called the handsomest couple in the neighbourhood--everybody said so." "Danged if ye bain't altered now, malter," said a voice with the vigour natural to the enunciation of a remarkably evident truism. It came from the old man in the background, whose offensiveness and spiteful ways were barely atoned for by the occasional chuckle he contributed to general laughs. "O no, no," said Gabriel. "Don't ye play no more shepherd" said Susan Tall's husband, the young married man who had spoken once before. "I must be moving and when there's tunes going on I seem as if hung in wires. If I thought after I'd left that music was still playing, and I not there, I should be quite melancholy-like." "What's yer hurry then, Laban?" inquired Coggan. "You used to bide as late as the latest." "Well, ye see, neighbours, I was lately married to a woman, and she's my vocation now, and so ye see--" The young man halted lamely. "New Lords new laws, as the saying is, I suppose," remarked Coggan. "Ay, 'a b'lieve--ha, ha!" said Susan Tall's husband, in a tone intended to imply his habitual reception of jokes without minding them at all. The young man then wished them good-night and withdrew. Henery Fray was the first to follow. Then Gabriel arose and went off with Jan Coggan, who had offered him a lodging. A few minutes later, when the remaining ones were on their legs and about to depart, Fray came back again in a hurry. Flourishing his finger ominously he threw a gaze teeming with tidings just where his eye alighted by accident, which happened to be in Joseph Poorgrass's face. "O--what's the matter, what's the matter, Henery?" said Joseph, starting back. "What's a-brewing, Henrey?" asked Jacob and Mark Clark. "Baily Pennyways--Baily Pennyways--I said so; yes, I said so!" "What, found out stealing anything?" "Stealing it is. The news is, that after Miss Everdene got home she went out again to see all was safe, as she usually do, and coming in found Baily Pennyways creeping down the granary steps with half a a bushel of barley. She fleed at him like a cat--never such a tomboy as she is--of course I speak with closed doors?" "You do--you do, Henery." "She fleed at him, and, to cut a long story short, he owned to having carried off five sack altogether, upon her promising not to persecute him. Well, he's turned out neck and crop, and my question is, who's going to be baily now?" The question was such a profound one that Henery was obliged to drink there and then from the large cup till the bottom was distinctly visible inside. Before he had replaced it on the table, in came the young man, Susan Tall's husband, in a still greater hurry. "Have ye heard the news that's all over parish?" "About Baily Pennyways?" "But besides that?" "No--not a morsel of it!" they replied, looking into the very midst of Laban Tall as if to meet his words half-way down his throat. "What a night of horrors!" murmured Joseph Poorgrass, waving his hands spasmodically. "I've had the news-bell ringing in my left ear quite bad enough for a murder, and I've seen a magpie all alone!" "Fanny Robin--Miss Everdene's youngest servant--can't be found. They've been wanting to lock up the door these two hours, but she isn't come in. And they don't know what to do about going to bed for fear of locking her out. They wouldn't be so concerned if she hadn't been noticed in such low spirits these last few days, and Maryann d' think the beginning of a crowner's inquest has happened to the poor girl." "Oh--'tis burned--'tis burned!" came from Joseph Poorgrass's dry lips. "No--'tis drowned!" said Tall. "Or 'tis her father's razor!" suggested Billy Smallbury, with a vivid sense of detail. "Well--Miss Everdene wants to speak to one or two of us before we go to bed. What with this trouble about the baily, and now about the girl, mis'ess is almost wild." They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse, excepting the old maltster, whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder could draw from his hole. There, as the others' footsteps died away he sat down again and continued gazing as usual into the furnace with his red, bleared eyes. From the bedroom window above their heads Bathsheba's head and shoulders, robed in mystic white, were dimly seen extended into the air. "Are any of my men among you?" she said anxiously. "Yes, ma'am, several," said Susan Tall's husband. "To-morrow morning I wish two or three of you to make inquiries in the villages round if they have seen such a person as Fanny Robin. Do it quietly; there is no reason for alarm as yet. She must have left whilst we were all at the fire." "I beg yer pardon, but had she any young man courting her in the parish, ma'am?" asked Jacob Smallbury. "I don't know," said Bathsheba. "I've never heard of any such thing, ma'am," said two or three. "It is hardly likely, either," continued Bathsheba. "For any lover of hers might have come to the house if he had been a respectable lad. The most mysterious matter connected with her absence--indeed, the only thing which gives me serious alarm--is that she was seen to go out of the house by Maryann with only her indoor working gown on--not even a bonnet." "And you mean, ma'am, excusing my words, that a young woman would hardly go to see her young man without dressing up," said Jacob, turning his mental vision upon past experiences. "That's true--she would not, ma'am." "She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn't see very well," said a female voice from another window, which seemed that of Maryann. "But she had no young man about here. Hers lives in Casterbridge, and I believe he's a soldier." "Do you know his name?" Bathsheba said. "No, mistress; she was very close about it." "Perhaps I might be able to find out if I went to Casterbridge barracks," said William Smallbury. "Very well; if she doesn't return to-morrow, mind you go there and try to discover which man it is, and see him. I feel more responsible than I should if she had had any friends or relations alive. I do hope she has come to no harm through a man of that kind.... And then there's this disgraceful affair of the bailiff--but I can't speak of him now." Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness that it seemed she did not think it worth while to dwell upon any particular one. "Do as I told you, then," she said in conclusion, closing the casement. "Ay, ay, mistress; we will," they replied, and moved away. That night at Coggan's, Gabriel Oak, beneath the screen of closed eyelids, was busy with fancies, and full of movement, like a river flowing rapidly under its ice. Night had always been the time at which he saw Bathsheba most vividly, and through the slow hours of shadow he tenderly regarded her image now. It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness, but they possibly did with Oak to-night, for the delight of merely seeing her effaced for the time his perception of the great difference between seeing and possessing. He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from Norcombe. _The Young Man's Best Companion_, _The Farrier's Sure Guide_, _The Veterinary Surgeon_, _Paradise Lost_, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, _Robinson Crusoe_, Ash's _Dictionary_, and Walkingame's _Arithmetic_, constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves.

Chapter 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8

The malthouse was "inwrapped with ivy" and had a cupola on the roof and one window, which formed a small square in the door. Inside, the room glowed with light from the hearth. "The stone-flag floor was worn into a path from the doorway to the kiln, and into undulations everywhere." At one side were a curved settle and a small bedstead. The fragrance of malt filled the room. As Gabriel entered, everyone turned to look at him. An old maltster recognized Gabriel's name; he had known Oak's father and grandfather, and he launched into a garrulous account of them. This made Gabriel seem less of a stranger. He was offered a drink from the "God-forgive-me," a tall, two-handled mug standing among the coals. Gabriel rejected an offer to get him a cleaner cup, and, thus, drinking with the group, he was accepted by them. There were many country types present, including men of all sorts -- the old and decrepit, the scroungers, the cheerful, the shy, and the aggressive. They recalled other drinking bouts and discussed Miss Everdene's family. Her late uncle, who had left her the farm, and her father, a "celebrated bankrupt," fickle and romantic, were properly gone over. Bathsheba had become a beauty, they thought. And her bailiff was dishonest. Gossip was rampant, and all was punctuated by the reminiscences of the ancient maltster. Gabriel's flute showed from his pocket, and the men asked for a tune. He obliged, confessing that he was down on his luck and the flute had served to earn him a little money. When the men began leaving, Gabriel went off with Jan Coggan, who had offered him a room. Shortly, a man came running in with the news that Miss Everdene had caught her bailiff stealing and had dismissed him, and that Fanny Robin, the mistress's youngest employee, had disappeared. Bathsheba sent word that she would like to talk with one or two of the men, and those who were left in the malthouse went to see her. On their arrival, she spoke to them from an upper window, instructing them to make inquiries about Fanny the next day in the neighboring villages. Someone reported that Fanny had a soldier friend in Casterbridge. Gabriel, in a bed at last, lay awake thinking of Bathsheba, delighted to have seen her again. He resolved to fetch his belongings, which consisted mostly of the few books which "constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves."

The malthouse chapter is important to Hardy's project of depicting his Wessex world. Besides offering some fine sketches of local figures, Hardy presents the atmosphere of the old malthouse, showing us country customs and affording us a general insight into the variety of characters composing this "simple" world. There is a veritable gallery of personality types, all speaking variations of the local dialect, and all charming in their idiosyncrasies. They serve as foils for each other and also as the medium for disseminating background information. Most important, together they function as a collective commentator on country life and current events.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/76.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_13_part_8.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 11.chapter 7

book 11, chapter 7

{"name": "book 11, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section14/", "summary": "The Second Visit to Smerdyakov During Ivan's second visit, Smerdyakov says that he believes Ivan wished Fyodor Pavlovich to die so that he would inherit a large portion of his wealth. After this visit, Ivan is suddenly forced to accept that he bears part of the blame for the murder. He goes to visit Katerina, and she shows him a letter in which Dmitri promises to kill Fyodor Pavlovich if necessary to repay her 3,000 rubles. This reassures Ivan that Dmitri is responsible for the murder, and that he himself bears no responsibility for it", "analysis": ""}

Chapter VII. The Second Visit To Smerdyakov 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 exercise-book 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 parti-colored, wadded dressing-gown, 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 once--most 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 above-board; 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, too--that'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's-breadth: 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 Tchermashnya--and 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 lock-up 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 lock-up 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 exercise-book 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 writing-table, 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: To-morrow 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! To-morrow 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 to-day, 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 does--I 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 escape--a 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.

book 11, Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section14/

The Second Visit to Smerdyakov During Ivan's second visit, Smerdyakov says that he believes Ivan wished Fyodor Pavlovich to die so that he would inherit a large portion of his wealth. After this visit, Ivan is suddenly forced to accept that he bears part of the blame for the murder. He goes to visit Katerina, and she shows him a letter in which Dmitri promises to kill Fyodor Pavlovich if necessary to repay her 3,000 rubles. This reassures Ivan that Dmitri is responsible for the murder, and that he himself bears no responsibility for it

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/30.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_3_part_6.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 30

chapter 30

{"name": "Chapter 30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34", "summary": "Tess and Angel travel together on the carriage to the station. Tess considers the various Londoners and such who will drink the milk that they are bringing to the station. Angel once again asks Tess to marry him. Tess finally begins to tell Angel her history. She tells him that she is not a Durbeyfield, but a d'Urberville. He dismisses that information as insignificant. He claims that he hates the aristocratic principle of blood, but is interested in this news. Angel claims that he rejoices in the d'Urberville descent, for Tess's sake. Angel vows to spell Tess's name correctly from this very day, and calls her Teresa d'Urberville. Tess finally assents to marry Angel. Angel realizes when he saw Tess first, at the dance at Marlott.", "analysis": "Hardy postpones a tragic encounter between Angel Clare and Tess Durbeyfield in this chapter, as Tess reveals the more palatable secret about her family origin to Angel Clare. The ease with which Angel accepts this facet of Tess's history, however, is more unsettling than cause for relief. Angel frames the information about her d'Urberville ancestry as greater evidence of Tess's perfection. Tess becomes simultaneously the simple and decent milkmaid and a respectable, noble lady to Angel. This therefore gives more dramatic weight to the inevitable revelation that Tess has had a quite imperfect history"}

In the diminishing daylight they went along the level roadway through the meads, which stretched away into gray miles, and were backed in the extreme edge of distance by the swarthy and abrupt slopes of Egdon Heath. On its summit stood clumps and stretches of fir-trees, whose notched tips appeared like battlemented towers crowning black-fronted castles of enchantment. They were so absorbed in the sense of being close to each other that they did not begin talking for a long while, the silence being broken only by the clucking of the milk in the tall cans behind them. The lane they followed was so solitary that the hazel nuts had remained on the boughs till they slipped from their shells, and the blackberries hung in heavy clusters. Every now and then Angel would fling the lash of his whip round one of these, pluck it off, and give it to his companion. The dull sky soon began to tell its meaning by sending down herald-drops of rain, and the stagnant air of the day changed into a fitful breeze which played about their faces. The quick-silvery glaze on the rivers and pools vanished; from broad mirrors of light they changed to lustreless sheets of lead, with a surface like a rasp. But that spectacle did not affect her preoccupation. Her countenance, a natural carnation slightly embrowned by the season, had deepened its tinge with the beating of the rain-drops; and her hair, which the pressure of the cows' flanks had, as usual, caused to tumble down from its fastenings and stray beyond the curtain of her calico bonnet, was made clammy by the moisture, till it hardly was better than seaweed. "I ought not to have come, I suppose," she murmured, looking at the sky. "I am sorry for the rain," said he. "But how glad I am to have you here!" Remote Egdon disappeared by degree behind the liquid gauze. The evening grew darker, and the roads being crossed by gates, it was not safe to drive faster than at a walking pace. The air was rather chill. "I am so afraid you will get cold, with nothing upon your arms and shoulders," he said. "Creep close to me, and perhaps the drizzle won't hurt you much. I should be sorrier still if I did not think that the rain might be helping me." She imperceptibly crept closer, and he wrapped round them both a large piece of sail-cloth, which was sometimes used to keep the sun off the milk-cans. Tess held it from slipping off him as well as herself, Clare's hands being occupied. "Now we are all right again. Ah--no we are not! It runs down into my neck a little, and it must still more into yours. That's better. Your arms are like wet marble, Tess. Wipe them in the cloth. Now, if you stay quiet, you will not get another drop. Well, dear--about that question of mine--that long-standing question?" The only reply that he could hear for a little while was the smack of the horse's hoofs on the moistening road, and the cluck of the milk in the cans behind them. "Do you remember what you said?" "I do," she replied. "Before we get home, mind." "I'll try." He said no more then. As they drove on, the fragment of an old manor house of Caroline date rose against the sky, and was in due course passed and left behind. "That," he observed, to entertain her, "is an interesting old place--one of the several seats which belonged to an ancient Norman family formerly of great influence in this county, the d'Urbervilles. I never pass one of their residences without thinking of them. There is something very sad in the extinction of a family of renown, even if it was fierce, domineering, feudal renown." "Yes," said Tess. They crept along towards a point in the expanse of shade just at hand at which a feeble light was beginning to assert its presence, a spot where, by day, a fitful white streak of steam at intervals upon the dark green background denoted intermittent moments of contact between their secluded world and modern life. Modern life stretched out its steam feeler to this point three or four times a day, touched the native existences, and quickly withdrew its feeler again, as if what it touched had been uncongenial. They reached the feeble light, which came from the smoky lamp of a little railway station; a poor enough terrestrial star, yet in one sense of more importance to Talbothays Dairy and mankind than the celestial ones to which it stood in such humiliating contrast. The cans of new milk were unladen in the rain, Tess getting a little shelter from a neighbouring holly tree. Then there was the hissing of a train, which drew up almost silently upon the wet rails, and the milk was rapidly swung can by can into the truck. The light of the engine flashed for a second upon Tess Durbeyfield's figure, motionless under the great holly tree. No object could have looked more foreign to the gleaming cranks and wheels than this unsophisticated girl, with the round bare arms, the rainy face and hair, the suspended attitude of a friendly leopard at pause, the print gown of no date or fashion, and the cotton bonnet drooping on her brow. She mounted again beside her lover, with a mute obedience characteristic of impassioned natures at times, and when they had wrapped themselves up over head and ears in the sailcloth again, they plunged back into the now thick night. Tess was so receptive that the few minutes of contact with the whirl of material progress lingered in her thought. "Londoners will drink it at their breakfasts to-morrow, won't they?" she asked. "Strange people that we have never seen." "Yes--I suppose they will. Though not as we send it. When its strength has been lowered, so that it may not get up into their heads." "Noble men and noble women, ambassadors and centurions, ladies and tradeswomen, and babies who have never seen a cow." "Well, yes; perhaps; particularly centurions." "Who don't know anything of us, and where it comes from; or think how we two drove miles across the moor to-night in the rain that it might reach 'em in time?" "We did not drive entirely on account of these precious Londoners; we drove a little on our own--on account of that anxious matter which you will, I am sure, set at rest, dear Tess. Now, permit me to put it in this way. You belong to me already, you know; your heart, I mean. Does it not?" "You know as well as I. O yes--yes!" "Then, if your heart does, why not your hand?" "My only reason was on account of you--on account of a question. I have something to tell you--" "But suppose it to be entirely for my happiness, and my worldly convenience also?" "O yes; if it is for your happiness and worldly convenience. But my life before I came here--I want--" "Well, it is for my convenience as well as my happiness. If I have a very large farm, either English or colonial, you will be invaluable as a wife to me; better than a woman out of the largest mansion in the country. So please--please, dear Tessy, disabuse your mind of the feeling that you will stand in my way." "But my history. I want you to know it--you must let me tell you--you will not like me so well!" "Tell it if you wish to, dearest. This precious history then. Yes, I was born at so and so, Anno Domini--" "I was born at Marlott," she said, catching at his words as a help, lightly as they were spoken. "And I grew up there. And I was in the Sixth Standard when I left school, and they said I had great aptness, and should make a good teacher, so it was settled that I should be one. But there was trouble in my family; father was not very industrious, and he drank a little." "Yes, yes. Poor child! Nothing new." He pressed her more closely to his side. "And then--there is something very unusual about it--about me. I--I was--" Tess's breath quickened. "Yes, dearest. Never mind." "I--I--am not a Durbeyfield, but a d'Urberville--a descendant of the same family as those that owned the old house we passed. And--we are all gone to nothing!" "A d'Urberville!--Indeed! And is that all the trouble, dear Tess?" "Yes," she answered faintly. "Well--why should I love you less after knowing this?" "I was told by the dairyman that you hated old families." He laughed. "Well, it is true, in one sense. I do hate the aristocratic principle of blood before everything, and do think that as reasoners the only pedigrees we ought to respect are those spiritual ones of the wise and virtuous, without regard to corporal paternity. But I am extremely interested in this news--you can have no idea how interested I am! Are you not interested yourself in being one of that well-known line?" "No. I have thought it sad--especially since coming here, and knowing that many of the hills and fields I see once belonged to my father's people. But other hills and field belonged to Retty's people, and perhaps others to Marian's, so that I don't value it particularly." "Yes--it is surprising how many of the present tillers of the soil were once owners of it, and I sometimes wonder that a certain school of politicians don't make capital of the circumstance; but they don't seem to know it... I wonder that I did not see the resemblance of your name to d'Urberville, and trace the manifest corruption. And this was the carking secret!" She had not told. At the last moment her courage had failed her; she feared his blame for not telling him sooner; and her instinct of self-preservation was stronger than her candour. "Of course," continued the unwitting Clare, "I should have been glad to know you to be descended exclusively from the long-suffering, dumb, unrecorded rank and file of the English nation, and not from the self-seeking few who made themselves powerful at the expense of the rest. But I am corrupted away from that by my affection for you, Tess (he laughed as he spoke), and made selfish likewise. For your own sake I rejoice in your descent. Society is hopelessly snobbish, and this fact of your extraction may make an appreciable difference to its acceptance of you as my wife, after I have made you the well-read woman that I mean to make you. My mother too, poor soul, will think so much better of you on account of it. Tess, you must spell your name correctly--d'Urberville--from this very day." "I like the other way rather best." "But you MUST, dearest! Good heavens, why dozens of mushroom millionaires would jump at such a possession! By the bye, there's one of that kidney who has taken the name--where have I heard of him?--Up in the neighbourhood of The Chase, I think. Why, he is the very man who had that rumpus with my father I told you of. What an odd coincidence!" "Angel, I think I would rather not take the name! It is unlucky, perhaps!" She was agitated. "Now then, Mistress Teresa d'Urberville, I have you. Take my name, and so you will escape yours! The secret is out, so why should you any longer refuse me?" "If it is SURE to make you happy to have me as your wife, and you feel that you do wish to marry me, VERY, VERY much--" "I do, dearest, of course!" "I mean, that it is only your wanting me very much, and being hardly able to keep alive without me, whatever my offences, that would make me feel I ought to say I will." "You will--you do say it, I know! You will be mine for ever and ever." He clasped her close and kissed her. "Yes!" She had no sooner said it than she burst into a dry hard sobbing, so violent that it seemed to rend her. Tess was not a hysterical girl by any means, and he was surprised. "Why do you cry, dearest?" "I can't tell--quite!--I am so glad to think--of being yours, and making you happy!" "But this does not seem very much like gladness, my Tessy!" "I mean--I cry because I have broken down in my vow! I said I would die unmarried!" "But, if you love me you would like me to be your husband?" "Yes, yes, yes! But O, I sometimes wish I had never been born!" "Now, my dear Tess, if I did not know that you are very much excited, and very inexperienced, I should say that remark was not very complimentary. How came you to wish that if you care for me? Do you care for me? I wish you would prove it in some way." "How can I prove it more than I have done?" she cried, in a distraction of tenderness. "Will this prove it more?" She clasped his neck, and for the first time Clare learnt what an impassioned woman's kisses were like upon the lips of one whom she loved with all her heart and soul, as Tess loved him. "There--now do you believe?" she asked, flushed, and wiping her eyes. "Yes. I never really doubted--never, never!" So they drove on through the gloom, forming one bundle inside the sail-cloth, the horse going as he would, and the rain driving against them. She had consented. She might as well have agreed at first. The "appetite for joy" which pervades all creation, that tremendous force which sways humanity to its purpose, as the tide sways the helpless weed, was not to be controlled by vague lucubrations over the social rubric. "I must write to my mother," she said. "You don't mind my doing that?" "Of course not, dear child. You are a child to me, Tess, not to know how very proper it is to write to your mother at such a time, and how wrong it would be in me to object. Where does she live?" "At the same place--Marlott. On the further side of Blackmoor Vale." "Ah, then I HAVE seen you before this summer--" "Yes; at that dance on the green; but you would not dance with me. O, I hope that is of no ill-omen for us now!"

Chapter 30

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34

Tess and Angel travel together on the carriage to the station. Tess considers the various Londoners and such who will drink the milk that they are bringing to the station. Angel once again asks Tess to marry him. Tess finally begins to tell Angel her history. She tells him that she is not a Durbeyfield, but a d'Urberville. He dismisses that information as insignificant. He claims that he hates the aristocratic principle of blood, but is interested in this news. Angel claims that he rejoices in the d'Urberville descent, for Tess's sake. Angel vows to spell Tess's name correctly from this very day, and calls her Teresa d'Urberville. Tess finally assents to marry Angel. Angel realizes when he saw Tess first, at the dance at Marlott.

Hardy postpones a tragic encounter between Angel Clare and Tess Durbeyfield in this chapter, as Tess reveals the more palatable secret about her family origin to Angel Clare. The ease with which Angel accepts this facet of Tess's history, however, is more unsettling than cause for relief. Angel frames the information about her d'Urberville ancestry as greater evidence of Tess's perfection. Tess becomes simultaneously the simple and decent milkmaid and a respectable, noble lady to Angel. This therefore gives more dramatic weight to the inevitable revelation that Tess has had a quite imperfect history

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/chapters_10_to_11.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_9_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapters 10-11

chapters 10-11

{"name": "Chapters 10-11", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1011", "summary": "Bobbing violently in the pitch blackness and the pelting rain, the lifeboat drifted away from the Patna. Jim remembered that he heard the sea \"hissing like twenty thousand kettles.\" He was so horrified that finally he jumped to save himself. He left 800 helpless Moslems to drown in the black smoke, the scalding steam, and the freezing sea. In his imagination, the Patna's engines had already exploded and the shipful of praying religious pilgrims had already perished. Jim also remembered that dawn lightened the sky above the tiny lifeboat. The rain ceased, and he saw the masthead light of the Patna. It did not sink. The other crewmen also saw the Patna's light, as well, and they also saw Jim. During the confusion of the night, they had believed that it was their fellow crewman George, the \"donkey-man,\" who escaped from the ship. They were enraged to see Jim; he was not one of them. He had stood apart while they struggled with the lifeboat, and during the night, he had overheard them plotting their alibis for deserting the ship. Jim would tell; he was a witness to their cowardice. They threatened to kill him, and Jim had to grab a tiller to ward off their advances. The light from the Patna suddenly vanished. Survival gave Jim no happiness. His thoughts were continually darkened by a sense of the \"irrational that lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion.\" Next morning, he sat guardedly on the edge of the lifeboat, as if daring fate -- or the scruffy, enraged crewmen, or the sea -- to topple him over. If he could, he would swim back, witness the wreckage, and then drown himself along with the Moslems. He heard the other men absurdly feigning friendship for him and attempting all the while to rationalize their escape from the Patna. He was horrified when they tried to convince him that he was \"one of them.\" He was not one of them. They chose to jump; Jim did not choose to jump. They chose for him. They called to him. \"It was their doing as plainly as if they had reached up with a boathook and pulled over.\" On the verandah, Marlow is aware of the mist gathering around them, the darkness beyond, and the flickering candlelight, and he ponders how very alike truth and illusion are when compared to the mist and the candlelight and the darkness. How difficult it is to ultimately know what is \"right.\" Even Jim said that there was not \"the thickness of a sheet of paper between the right and wrong of this affair.\" Jim related to Marlow his thoughts about suicide, and Marlow thinks that it is ironic that Jim should think of suicide; no one died because of Jim's actions. Suicide, Jim concluded finally, \"would have ended nothing.\" He could also have allowed himself to be killed by the crewmen, but that would have only served their alibis of half-truths. Jim suddenly asked Marlow for his opinion: did Marlow believe that Jim was innocent or guilty? Marlow was too stunned at the suddenness of Jim's question to answer him. The only thing -- the best thing -- to do now, Jim said, was to wait -- wait for another chance to prove his worth \"another chance -- to find out . . .\"", "analysis": "Chapter 10 presents the immediate horrors of Jim's jumping, and it opens with Marlow's confirming Jim's assertion at the end of Chapter 9 that Jim \"had indeed jumped into an everlasting deep hole. He had tumbled from a height he could never scale again.\" The first horror which Jim faces as a result of his jump is that he finds himself among the dastardly people who also deserted the ship. Jim's deepest instincts tell him that he is, if not superior, at least different from these horrible, depraved cowards, yet he too did desert the ship, and thus he is \"one of them.\" They all are literally and metaphorically in the same boat, and ironically, they misidentify Jim as George, the third engineer who died of a heart attack. This mistaken identity further aligns Jim with the others until they discover that it is Jim and begin to curse him. But their animosity, hatred, and threats to take his life allow Jim to again see himself as a being entirely apart from these unethical monsters, especially as they continually call him a coward or a \"murdering coward.\" Jim sums up the first horror of jumping as the discovery that he had joined these horrible companions. He says, \"Oh yes, I know very well -- I jumped. Certainly, I jumped! I told you I jumped; but I tell you they were too much for any man.\" A short time after he jumped, Jim could still see the masthead light, and it terrified him to see that the ship had not sunk. Then, when he and the others saw the light disappear, they all assumed that the ship had sunk. As we are later to hear from Captain Brierly, what happened was that the squall simply turned the ship around so that the light was no longer visible. Still, Jim had a deep desire to escape from the accursed lifeboat -- to swim back and see for himself because the horror of being with the captain and the others was more horrible than possible death. In Chapter 11, Jim again brings Marlow and us back to the matter of guilt by asking again if we wouldn't act the same as he did: \"Suppose I had stuck to the ship? Well. How much longer? Say a minute half a minute. Come. In thirty seconds, as it seemed certain then, I would have been overboard; and do you think I would not have laid hold of the first thing that came in my way -- oar, life-buoy, grating anything? Wouldn't you?\" And now if Marlow even uses a euphemism, such as \"And so you cleared out,\" Jim emphatically corrects him: \"Jumped . . . jumped, mind you.\" At the end of Chapter 11, Jim is waiting \"for another chance,\" and thus, the remainder of the novel will deal with Jim's search for another chance to prove himself to himself."}

'He locked his fingers together and tore them apart. Nothing could be more true: he had indeed jumped into an everlasting deep hole. He had tumbled from a height he could never scale again. By that time the boat had gone driving forward past the bows. It was too dark just then for them to see each other, and, moreover, they were blinded and half drowned with rain. He told me it was like being swept by a flood through a cavern. They turned their backs to the squall; the skipper, it seems, got an oar over the stern to keep the boat before it, and for two or three minutes the end of the world had come through a deluge in a pitchy blackness. The sea hissed "like twenty thousand kettles." That's his simile, not mine. I fancy there was not much wind after the first gust; and he himself had admitted at the inquiry that the sea never got up that night to any extent. He crouched down in the bows and stole a furtive glance back. He saw just one yellow gleam of the mast-head light high up and blurred like a last star ready to dissolve. "It terrified me to see it still there," he said. That's what he said. What terrified him was the thought that the drowning was not over yet. No doubt he wanted to be done with that abomination as quickly as possible. Nobody in the boat made a sound. In the dark she seemed to fly, but of course she could not have had much way. Then the shower swept ahead, and the great, distracting, hissing noise followed the rain into distance and died out. There was nothing to be heard then but the slight wash about the boat's sides. Somebody's teeth were chattering violently. A hand touched his back. A faint voice said, "You there?" Another cried out shakily, "She's gone!" and they all stood up together to look astern. They saw no lights. All was black. A thin cold drizzle was driving into their faces. The boat lurched slightly. The teeth chattered faster, stopped, and began again twice before the man could master his shiver sufficiently to say, "Ju-ju-st in ti-ti-me. . . . Brrrr." He recognised the voice of the chief engineer saying surlily, "I saw her go down. I happened to turn my head." The wind had dropped almost completely. 'They watched in the dark with their heads half turned to windward as if expecting to hear cries. At first he was thankful the night had covered up the scene before his eyes, and then to know of it and yet to have seen and heard nothing appeared somehow the culminating point of an awful misfortune. "Strange, isn't it?" he murmured, interrupting himself in his disjointed narrative. 'It did not seem so strange to me. He must have had an unconscious conviction that the reality could not be half as bad, not half as anguishing, appalling, and vengeful as the created terror of his imagination. I believe that, in this first moment, his heart was wrung with all the suffering, that his soul knew the accumulated savour of all the fear, all the horror, all the despair of eight hundred human beings pounced upon in the night by a sudden and violent death, else why should he have said, "It seemed to me that I must jump out of that accursed boat and swim back to see--half a mile--more--any distance--to the very spot . . ."? Why this impulse? Do you see the significance? Why back to the very spot? Why not drown alongside--if he meant drowning? Why back to the very spot, to see--as if his imagination had to be soothed by the assurance that all was over before death could bring relief? I defy any one of you to offer another explanation. It was one of those bizarre and exciting glimpses through the fog. It was an extraordinary disclosure. He let it out as the most natural thing one could say. He fought down that impulse and then he became conscious of the silence. He mentioned this to me. A silence of the sea, of the sky, merged into one indefinite immensity still as death around these saved, palpitating lives. "You might have heard a pin drop in the boat," he said with a queer contraction of his lips, like a man trying to master his sensibilities while relating some extremely moving fact. A silence! God alone, who had willed him as he was, knows what he made of it in his heart. "I didn't think any spot on earth could be so still," he said. "You couldn't distinguish the sea from the sky; there was nothing to see and nothing to hear. Not a glimmer, not a shape, not a sound. You could have believed that every bit of dry land had gone to the bottom; that every man on earth but I and these beggars in the boat had got drowned." He leaned over the table with his knuckles propped amongst coffee-cups, liqueur-glasses, cigar-ends. "I seemed to believe it. Everything was gone and--all was over . . ." he fetched a deep sigh . . . "with me."' Marlow sat up abruptly and flung away his cheroot with force. It made a darting red trail like a toy rocket fired through the drapery of creepers. Nobody stirred. 'Hey, what do you think of it?' he cried with sudden animation. 'Wasn't he true to himself, wasn't he? His saved life was over for want of ground under his feet, for want of sights for his eyes, for want of voices in his ears. Annihilation--hey! And all the time it was only a clouded sky, a sea that did not break, the air that did not stir. Only a night; only a silence. 'It lasted for a while, and then they were suddenly and unanimously moved to make a noise over their escape. "I knew from the first she would go." "Not a minute too soon." "A narrow squeak, b'gosh!" He said nothing, but the breeze that had dropped came back, a gentle draught freshened steadily, and the sea joined its murmuring voice to this talkative reaction succeeding the dumb moments of awe. She was gone! She was gone! Not a doubt of it. Nobody could have helped. They repeated the same words over and over again as though they couldn't stop themselves. Never doubted she would go. The lights were gone. No mistake. The lights were gone. Couldn't expect anything else. She had to go. . . . He noticed that they talked as though they had left behind them nothing but an empty ship. They concluded she would not have been long when she once started. It seemed to cause them some sort of satisfaction. They assured each other that she couldn't have been long about it--"Just shot down like a flat-iron." The chief engineer declared that the mast-head light at the moment of sinking seemed to drop "like a lighted match you throw down." At this the second laughed hysterically. "I am g-g-glad, I am gla-a-a-d." His teeth went on "like an electric rattle," said Jim, "and all at once he began to cry. He wept and blubbered like a child, catching his breath and sobbing 'Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!' He would be quiet for a while and start suddenly, 'Oh, my poor arm! oh, my poor a-a-a-arm!' I felt I could knock him down. Some of them sat in the stern-sheets. I could just make out their shapes. Voices came to me, mumble, mumble, grunt, grunt. All this seemed very hard to bear. I was cold too. And I could do nothing. I thought that if I moved I would have to go over the side and . . ." 'His hand groped stealthily, came in contact with a liqueur-glass, and was withdrawn suddenly as if it had touched a red-hot coal. I pushed the bottle slightly. "Won't you have some more?" I asked. He looked at me angrily. "Don't you think I can tell you what there is to tell without screwing myself up?" he asked. The squad of globe-trotters had gone to bed. We were alone but for a vague white form erect in the shadow, that, being looked at, cringed forward, hesitated, backed away silently. It was getting late, but I did not hurry my guest. 'In the midst of his forlorn state he heard his companions begin to abuse some one. "What kept you from jumping, you lunatic?" said a scolding voice. The chief engineer left the stern-sheets, and could be heard clambering forward as if with hostile intentions against "the greatest idiot that ever was." The skipper shouted with rasping effort offensive epithets from where he sat at the oar. He lifted his head at that uproar, and heard the name "George," while a hand in the dark struck him on the breast. "What have you got to say for yourself, you fool?" queried somebody, with a sort of virtuous fury. "They were after me," he said. "They were abusing me--abusing me . . . by the name of George." 'He paused to stare, tried to smile, turned his eyes away and went on. "That little second puts his head right under my nose, 'Why, it's that blasted mate!' 'What!' howls the skipper from the other end of the boat. 'No!' shrieks the chief. And he too stooped to look at my face." 'The wind had left the boat suddenly. The rain began to fall again, and the soft, uninterrupted, a little mysterious sound with which the sea receives a shower arose on all sides in the night. "They were too taken aback to say anything more at first," he narrated steadily, "and what could I have to say to them?" He faltered for a moment, and made an effort to go on. "They called me horrible names." His voice, sinking to a whisper, now and then would leap up suddenly, hardened by the passion of scorn, as though he had been talking of secret abominations. "Never mind what they called me," he said grimly. "I could hear hate in their voices. A good thing too. They could not forgive me for being in that boat. They hated it. It made them mad. . . ." He laughed short. . . . "But it kept me from--Look! I was sitting with my arms crossed, on the gunwale! . . ." He perched himself smartly on the edge of the table and crossed his arms. . . . "Like this--see? One little tilt backwards and I would have been gone--after the others. One little tilt--the least bit--the least bit." He frowned, and tapping his forehead with the tip of his middle finger, "It was there all the time," he said impressively. "All the time--that notion. And the rain--cold, thick, cold as melted snow--colder--on my thin cotton clothes--I'll never be so cold again in my life, I know. And the sky was black too--all black. Not a star, not a light anywhere. Nothing outside that confounded boat and those two yapping before me like a couple of mean mongrels at a tree'd thief. Yap! yap! 'What you doing here? You're a fine sort! Too much of a bloomin' gentleman to put your hand to it. Come out of your trance, did you? To sneak in? Did you?' Yap! yap! 'You ain't fit to live!' Yap! yap! Two of them together trying to out-bark each other. The other would bay from the stern through the rain--couldn't see him--couldn't make it out--some of his filthy jargon. Yap! yap! Bow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Yap! yap! It was sweet to hear them; it kept me alive, I tell you. It saved my life. At it they went, as if trying to drive me overboard with the noise! . . . 'I wonder you had pluck enough to jump. You ain't wanted here. If I had known who it was, I would have tipped you over--you skunk! What have you done with the other? Where did you get the pluck to jump--you coward? What's to prevent us three from firing you overboard?' . . . They were out of breath; the shower passed away upon the sea. Then nothing. There was nothing round the boat, not even a sound. Wanted to see me overboard, did they? Upon my soul! I think they would have had their wish if they had only kept quiet. Fire me overboard! Would they? 'Try,' I said. 'I would for twopence.' 'Too good for you,' they screeched together. It was so dark that it was only when one or the other of them moved that I was quite sure of seeing him. By heavens! I only wish they had tried." 'I couldn't help exclaiming, "What an extraordinary affair!" '"Not bad--eh?" he said, as if in some sort astounded. "They pretended to think I had done away with that donkey-man for some reason or other. Why should I? And how the devil was I to know? Didn't I get somehow into that boat? into that boat--I . . ." The muscles round his lips contracted into an unconscious grimace that tore through the mask of his usual expression--something violent, short-lived and illuminating like a twist of lightning that admits the eye for an instant into the secret convolutions of a cloud. "I did. I was plainly there with them--wasn't I? Isn't it awful a man should be driven to do a thing like that--and be responsible? What did I know about their George they were howling after? I remembered I had seen him curled up on the deck. 'Murdering coward!' the chief kept on calling me. He didn't seem able to remember any other two words. I didn't care, only his noise began to worry me. 'Shut up,' I said. At that he collected himself for a confounded screech. 'You killed him! You killed him!' 'No,' I shouted, 'but I will kill you directly.' I jumped up, and he fell backwards over a thwart with an awful loud thump. I don't know why. Too dark. Tried to step back I suppose. I stood still facing aft, and the wretched little second began to whine, 'You ain't going to hit a chap with a broken arm--and you call yourself a gentleman, too.' I heard a heavy tramp--one--two--and wheezy grunting. The other beast was coming at me, clattering his oar over the stern. I saw him moving, big, big--as you see a man in a mist, in a dream. 'Come on,' I cried. I would have tumbled him over like a bale of shakings. He stopped, muttered to himself, and went back. Perhaps he had heard the wind. I didn't. It was the last heavy gust we had. He went back to his oar. I was sorry. I would have tried to--to . . ." 'He opened and closed his curved fingers, and his hands had an eager and cruel flutter. "Steady, steady," I murmured. '"Eh? What? I am not excited," he remonstrated, awfully hurt, and with a convulsive jerk of his elbow knocked over the cognac bottle. I started forward, scraping my chair. He bounced off the table as if a mine had been exploded behind his back, and half turned before he alighted, crouching on his feet to show me a startled pair of eyes and a face white about the nostrils. A look of intense annoyance succeeded. "Awfully sorry. How clumsy of me!" he mumbled, very vexed, while the pungent odour of spilt alcohol enveloped us suddenly with an atmosphere of a low drinking-bout in the cool, pure darkness of the night. The lights had been put out in the dining-hall; our candle glimmered solitary in the long gallery, and the columns had turned black from pediment to capital. On the vivid stars the high corner of the Harbour Office stood out distinct across the Esplanade, as though the sombre pile had glided nearer to see and hear. 'He assumed an air of indifference. '"I dare say I am less calm now than I was then. I was ready for anything. These were trifles. . . ." '"You had a lively time of it in that boat," I remarked '"I was ready," he repeated. "After the ship's lights had gone, anything might have happened in that boat--anything in the world--and the world no wiser. I felt this, and I was pleased. It was just dark enough too. We were like men walled up quick in a roomy grave. No concern with anything on earth. Nobody to pass an opinion. Nothing mattered." For the third time during this conversation he laughed harshly, but there was no one about to suspect him of being only drunk. "No fear, no law, no sounds, no eyes--not even our own, till--till sunrise at least." 'I was struck by the suggestive truth of his words. There is something peculiar in a small boat upon the wide sea. Over the lives borne from under the shadow of death there seems to fall the shadow of madness. When your ship fails you, your whole world seems to fail you; the world that made you, restrained you, took care of you. It is as if the souls of men floating on an abyss and in touch with immensity had been set free for any excess of heroism, absurdity, or abomination. Of course, as with belief, thought, love, hate, conviction, or even the visual aspect of material things, there are as many shipwrecks as there are men, and in this one there was something abject which made the isolation more complete--there was a villainy of circumstances that cut these men off more completely from the rest of mankind, whose ideal of conduct had never undergone the trial of a fiendish and appalling joke. They were exasperated with him for being a half-hearted shirker: he focussed on them his hatred of the whole thing; he would have liked to take a signal revenge for the abhorrent opportunity they had put in his way. Trust a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrational that lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion. It was part of the burlesque meanness pervading that particular disaster at sea that they did not come to blows. It was all threats, all a terribly effective feint, a sham from beginning to end, planned by the tremendous disdain of the Dark Powers whose real terrors, always on the verge of triumph, are perpetually foiled by the steadfastness of men. I asked, after waiting for a while, "Well, what happened?" A futile question. I knew too much already to hope for the grace of a single uplifting touch, for the favour of hinted madness, of shadowed horror. "Nothing," he said. "I meant business, but they meant noise only. Nothing happened." 'And the rising sun found him just as he had jumped up first in the bows of the boat. What a persistence of readiness! He had been holding the tiller in his hand, too, all the night. They had dropped the rudder overboard while attempting to ship it, and I suppose the tiller got kicked forward somehow while they were rushing up and down that boat trying to do all sorts of things at once so as to get clear of the side. It was a long heavy piece of hard wood, and apparently he had been clutching it for six hours or so. If you don't call that being ready! Can you imagine him, silent and on his feet half the night, his face to the gusts of rain, staring at sombre forms watchful of vague movements, straining his ears to catch rare low murmurs in the stern-sheets! Firmness of courage or effort of fear? What do you think? And the endurance is undeniable too. Six hours more or less on the defensive; six hours of alert immobility while the boat drove slowly or floated arrested, according to the caprice of the wind; while the sea, calmed, slept at last; while the clouds passed above his head; while the sky from an immensity lustreless and black, diminished to a sombre and lustrous vault, scintillated with a greater brilliance, faded to the east, paled at the zenith; while the dark shapes blotting the low stars astern got outlines, relief became shoulders, heads, faces, features,--confronted him with dreary stares, had dishevelled hair, torn clothes, blinked red eyelids at the white dawn. "They looked as though they had been knocking about drunk in gutters for a week," he described graphically; and then he muttered something about the sunrise being of a kind that foretells a calm day. You know that sailor habit of referring to the weather in every connection. And on my side his few mumbled words were enough to make me see the lower limb of the sun clearing the line of the horizon, the tremble of a vast ripple running over all the visible expanse of the sea, as if the waters had shuddered, giving birth to the globe of light, while the last puff of the breeze would stir the air in a sigh of relief. '"They sat in the stern shoulder to shoulder, with the skipper in the middle, like three dirty owls, and stared at me," I heard him say with an intention of hate that distilled a corrosive virtue into the commonplace words like a drop of powerful poison falling into a glass of water; but my thoughts dwelt upon that sunrise. I could imagine under the pellucid emptiness of the sky these four men imprisoned in the solitude of the sea, the lonely sun, regardless of the speck of life, ascending the clear curve of the heaven as if to gaze ardently from a greater height at his own splendour reflected in the still ocean. "They called out to me from aft," said Jim, "as though we had been chums together. I heard them. They were begging me to be sensible and drop that 'blooming piece of wood.' Why _would_ I carry on so? They hadn't done me any harm--had they? There had been no harm. . . . No harm!" 'His face crimsoned as though he could not get rid of the air in his lungs. '"No harm!" he burst out. "I leave it to you. You can understand. Can't you? You see it--don't you? No harm! Good God! What more could they have done? Oh yes, I know very well--I jumped. Certainly. I jumped! I told you I jumped; but I tell you they were too much for any man. It was their doing as plainly as if they had reached up with a boat-hook and pulled me over. Can't you see it? You must see it. Come. Speak--straight out." 'His uneasy eyes fastened upon mine, questioned, begged, challenged, entreated. For the life of me I couldn't help murmuring, "You've been tried." "More than is fair," he caught up swiftly. "I wasn't given half a chance--with a gang like that. And now they were friendly--oh, so damnably friendly! Chums, shipmates. All in the same boat. Make the best of it. They hadn't meant anything. They didn't care a hang for George. George had gone back to his berth for something at the last moment and got caught. The man was a manifest fool. Very sad, of course. . . . Their eyes looked at me; their lips moved; they wagged their heads at the other end of the boat--three of them; they beckoned--to me. Why not? Hadn't I jumped? I said nothing. There are no words for the sort of things I wanted to say. If I had opened my lips just then I would have simply howled like an animal. I was asking myself when I would wake up. They urged me aloud to come aft and hear quietly what the skipper had to say. We were sure to be picked up before the evening--right in the track of all the Canal traffic; there was smoke to the north-west now. '"It gave me an awful shock to see this faint, faint blur, this low trail of brown mist through which you could see the boundary of sea and sky. I called out to them that I could hear very well where I was. The skipper started swearing, as hoarse as a crow. He wasn't going to talk at the top of his voice for _my_ accommodation. 'Are you afraid they will hear you on shore?' I asked. He glared as if he would have liked to claw me to pieces. The chief engineer advised him to humour me. He said I wasn't right in my head yet. The other rose astern, like a thick pillar of flesh--and talked--talked. . . ." 'Jim remained thoughtful. "Well?" I said. "What did I care what story they agreed to make up?" he cried recklessly. "They could tell what they jolly well liked. It was their business. I knew the story. Nothing they could make people believe could alter it for me. I let him talk, argue--talk, argue. He went on and on and on. Suddenly I felt my legs give way under me. I was sick, tired--tired to death. I let fall the tiller, turned my back on them, and sat down on the foremost thwart. I had enough. They called to me to know if I understood--wasn't it true, every word of it? It was true, by God! after their fashion. I did not turn my head. I heard them palavering together. 'The silly ass won't say anything.' 'Oh, he understands well enough.' 'Let him be; he will be all right.' 'What can he do?' What could I do? Weren't we all in the same boat? I tried to be deaf. The smoke had disappeared to the northward. It was a dead calm. They had a drink from the water-breaker, and I drank too. Afterwards they made a great business of spreading the boat-sail over the gunwales. Would I keep a look-out? They crept under, out of my sight, thank God! I felt weary, weary, done up, as if I hadn't had one hour's sleep since the day I was born. I couldn't see the water for the glitter of the sunshine. From time to time one of them would creep out, stand up to take a look all round, and get under again. I could hear spells of snoring below the sail. Some of them could sleep. One of them at least. I couldn't! All was light, light, and the boat seemed to be falling through it. Now and then I would feel quite surprised to find myself sitting on a thwart. . . ." 'He began to walk with measured steps to and fro before my chair, one hand in his trousers-pocket, his head bent thoughtfully, and his right arm at long intervals raised for a gesture that seemed to put out of his way an invisible intruder. '"I suppose you think I was going mad," he began in a changed tone. "And well you may, if you remember I had lost my cap. The sun crept all the way from east to west over my bare head, but that day I could not come to any harm, I suppose. The sun could not make me mad. . . ." His right arm put aside the idea of madness. . . . "Neither could it kill me. . . ." Again his arm repulsed a shadow. . . . "_That_ rested with me." '"Did it?" I said, inexpressibly amazed at this new turn, and I looked at him with the same sort of feeling I might be fairly conceived to experience had he, after spinning round on his heel, presented an altogether new face. '"I didn't get brain fever, I did not drop dead either," he went on. "I didn't bother myself at all about the sun over my head. I was thinking as coolly as any man that ever sat thinking in the shade. That greasy beast of a skipper poked his big cropped head from under the canvas and screwed his fishy eyes up at me. 'Donnerwetter! you will die,' he growled, and drew in like a turtle. I had seen him. I had heard him. He didn't interrupt me. I was thinking just then that I wouldn't." 'He tried to sound my thought with an attentive glance dropped on me in passing. "Do you mean to say you had been deliberating with yourself whether you would die?" I asked in as impenetrable a tone as I could command. He nodded without stopping. "Yes, it had come to that as I sat there alone," he said. He passed on a few steps to the imaginary end of his beat, and when he flung round to come back both his hands were thrust deep into his pockets. He stopped short in front of my chair and looked down. "Don't you believe it?" he inquired with tense curiosity. I was moved to make a solemn declaration of my readiness to believe implicitly anything he thought fit to tell me.' 'He heard me out with his head on one side, and I had another glimpse through a rent in the mist in which he moved and had his being. The dim candle spluttered within the ball of glass, and that was all I had to see him by; at his back was the dark night with the clear stars, whose distant glitter disposed in retreating planes lured the eye into the depths of a greater darkness; and yet a mysterious light seemed to show me his boyish head, as if in that moment the youth within him had, for a moment, glowed and expired. "You are an awful good sort to listen like this," he said. "It does me good. You don't know what it is to me. You don't" . . . words seemed to fail him. It was a distinct glimpse. He was a youngster of the sort you like to see about you; of the sort you like to imagine yourself to have been; of the sort whose appearance claims the fellowship of these illusions you had thought gone out, extinct, cold, and which, as if rekindled at the approach of another flame, give a flutter deep, deep down somewhere, give a flutter of light . . . of heat! . . . Yes; I had a glimpse of him then . . . and it was not the last of that kind. . . . "You don't know what it is for a fellow in my position to be believed--make a clean breast of it to an elder man. It is so difficult--so awfully unfair--so hard to understand." 'The mists were closing again. I don't know how old I appeared to him--and how much wise. Not half as old as I felt just then; not half as uselessly wise as I knew myself to be. Surely in no other craft as in that of the sea do the hearts of those already launched to sink or swim go out so much to the youth on the brink, looking with shining eyes upon that glitter of the vast surface which is only a reflection of his own glances full of fire. There is such magnificent vagueness in the expectations that had driven each of us to sea, such a glorious indefiniteness, such a beautiful greed of adventures that are their own and only reward. What we get--well, we won't talk of that; but can one of us restrain a smile? In no other kind of life is the illusion more wide of reality--in no other is the beginning _all_ illusion--the disenchantment more swift--the subjugation more complete. Hadn't we all commenced with the same desire, ended with the same knowledge, carried the memory of the same cherished glamour through the sordid days of imprecation? What wonder that when some heavy prod gets home the bond is found to be close; that besides the fellowship of the craft there is felt the strength of a wider feeling--the feeling that binds a man to a child. He was there before me, believing that age and wisdom can find a remedy against the pain of truth, giving me a glimpse of himself as a young fellow in a scrape that is the very devil of a scrape, the sort of scrape greybeards wag at solemnly while they hide a smile. And he had been deliberating upon death--confound him! He had found that to meditate about because he thought he had saved his life, while all its glamour had gone with the ship in the night. What more natural! It was tragic enough and funny enough in all conscience to call aloud for compassion, and in what was I better than the rest of us to refuse him my pity? And even as I looked at him the mists rolled into the rent, and his voice spoke-- '"I was so lost, you know. It was the sort of thing one does not expect to happen to one. It was not like a fight, for instance." '"It was not," I admitted. He appeared changed, as if he had suddenly matured. '"One couldn't be sure," he muttered. '"Ah! You were not sure," I said, and was placated by the sound of a faint sigh that passed between us like the flight of a bird in the night. '"Well, I wasn't," he said courageously. "It was something like that wretched story they made up. It was not a lie--but it wasn't truth all the same. It was something. . . . One knows a downright lie. There was not the thickness of a sheet of paper between the right and the wrong of this affair." '"How much more did you want?" I asked; but I think I spoke so low that he did not catch what I said. He had advanced his argument as though life had been a network of paths separated by chasms. His voice sounded reasonable. '"Suppose I had not--I mean to say, suppose I had stuck to the ship? Well. How much longer? Say a minute--half a minute. Come. In thirty seconds, as it seemed certain then, I would have been overboard; and do you think I would not have laid hold of the first thing that came in my way--oar, life-buoy, grating--anything? Wouldn't you?" '"And be saved," I interjected. '"I would have meant to be," he retorted. "And that's more than I meant when I" . . . he shivered as if about to swallow some nauseous drug . . . "jumped," he pronounced with a convulsive effort, whose stress, as if propagated by the waves of the air, made my body stir a little in the chair. He fixed me with lowering eyes. "Don't you believe me?" he cried. "I swear! . . . Confound it! You got me here to talk, and . . . You must! . . . You said you would believe." "Of course I do," I protested, in a matter-of-fact tone which produced a calming effect. "Forgive me," he said. "Of course I wouldn't have talked to you about all this if you had not been a gentleman. I ought to have known . . . I am--I am--a gentleman too . . ." "Yes, yes," I said hastily. He was looking me squarely in the face, and withdrew his gaze slowly. "Now you understand why I didn't after all . . . didn't go out in that way. I wasn't going to be frightened at what I had done. And, anyhow, if I had stuck to the ship I would have done my best to be saved. Men have been known to float for hours--in the open sea--and be picked up not much the worse for it. I might have lasted it out better than many others. There's nothing the matter with my heart." He withdrew his right fist from his pocket, and the blow he struck on his chest resounded like a muffled detonation in the night. '"No," I said. He meditated, with his legs slightly apart and his chin sunk. "A hair's-breadth," he muttered. "Not the breadth of a hair between this and that. And at the time . . ." '"It is difficult to see a hair at midnight," I put in, a little viciously I fear. Don't you see what I mean by the solidarity of the craft? I was aggrieved against him, as though he had cheated me--me!--of a splendid opportunity to keep up the illusion of my beginnings, as though he had robbed our common life of the last spark of its glamour. "And so you cleared out--at once." '"Jumped," he corrected me incisively. "Jumped--mind!" he repeated, and I wondered at the evident but obscure intention. "Well, yes! Perhaps I could not see then. But I had plenty of time and any amount of light in that boat. And I could think, too. Nobody would know, of course, but this did not make it any easier for me. You've got to believe that, too. I did not want all this talk. . . . No . . . Yes . . . I won't lie . . . I wanted it: it is the very thing I wanted--there. Do you think you or anybody could have made me if I . . . I am--I am not afraid to tell. And I wasn't afraid to think either. I looked it in the face. I wasn't going to run away. At first--at night, if it hadn't been for those fellows I might have . . . No! by heavens! I was not going to give them that satisfaction. They had done enough. They made up a story, and believed it for all I know. But I knew the truth, and I would live it down--alone, with myself. I wasn't going to give in to such a beastly unfair thing. What did it prove after all? I was confoundedly cut up. Sick of life--to tell you the truth; but what would have been the good to shirk it--in--in--that way? That was not the way. I believe--I believe it would have--it would have ended--nothing." 'He had been walking up and down, but with the last word he turned short at me. '"What do _you_ believe?" he asked with violence. A pause ensued, and suddenly I felt myself overcome by a profound and hopeless fatigue, as though his voice had startled me out of a dream of wandering through empty spaces whose immensity had harassed my soul and exhausted my body. '". . . Would have ended nothing," he muttered over me obstinately, after a little while. "No! the proper thing was to face it out--alone for myself--wait for another chance--find out . . ."'

Chapters 10-11

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1011

Bobbing violently in the pitch blackness and the pelting rain, the lifeboat drifted away from the Patna. Jim remembered that he heard the sea "hissing like twenty thousand kettles." He was so horrified that finally he jumped to save himself. He left 800 helpless Moslems to drown in the black smoke, the scalding steam, and the freezing sea. In his imagination, the Patna's engines had already exploded and the shipful of praying religious pilgrims had already perished. Jim also remembered that dawn lightened the sky above the tiny lifeboat. The rain ceased, and he saw the masthead light of the Patna. It did not sink. The other crewmen also saw the Patna's light, as well, and they also saw Jim. During the confusion of the night, they had believed that it was their fellow crewman George, the "donkey-man," who escaped from the ship. They were enraged to see Jim; he was not one of them. He had stood apart while they struggled with the lifeboat, and during the night, he had overheard them plotting their alibis for deserting the ship. Jim would tell; he was a witness to their cowardice. They threatened to kill him, and Jim had to grab a tiller to ward off their advances. The light from the Patna suddenly vanished. Survival gave Jim no happiness. His thoughts were continually darkened by a sense of the "irrational that lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion." Next morning, he sat guardedly on the edge of the lifeboat, as if daring fate -- or the scruffy, enraged crewmen, or the sea -- to topple him over. If he could, he would swim back, witness the wreckage, and then drown himself along with the Moslems. He heard the other men absurdly feigning friendship for him and attempting all the while to rationalize their escape from the Patna. He was horrified when they tried to convince him that he was "one of them." He was not one of them. They chose to jump; Jim did not choose to jump. They chose for him. They called to him. "It was their doing as plainly as if they had reached up with a boathook and pulled over." On the verandah, Marlow is aware of the mist gathering around them, the darkness beyond, and the flickering candlelight, and he ponders how very alike truth and illusion are when compared to the mist and the candlelight and the darkness. How difficult it is to ultimately know what is "right." Even Jim said that there was not "the thickness of a sheet of paper between the right and wrong of this affair." Jim related to Marlow his thoughts about suicide, and Marlow thinks that it is ironic that Jim should think of suicide; no one died because of Jim's actions. Suicide, Jim concluded finally, "would have ended nothing." He could also have allowed himself to be killed by the crewmen, but that would have only served their alibis of half-truths. Jim suddenly asked Marlow for his opinion: did Marlow believe that Jim was innocent or guilty? Marlow was too stunned at the suddenness of Jim's question to answer him. The only thing -- the best thing -- to do now, Jim said, was to wait -- wait for another chance to prove his worth "another chance -- to find out . . ."

Chapter 10 presents the immediate horrors of Jim's jumping, and it opens with Marlow's confirming Jim's assertion at the end of Chapter 9 that Jim "had indeed jumped into an everlasting deep hole. He had tumbled from a height he could never scale again." The first horror which Jim faces as a result of his jump is that he finds himself among the dastardly people who also deserted the ship. Jim's deepest instincts tell him that he is, if not superior, at least different from these horrible, depraved cowards, yet he too did desert the ship, and thus he is "one of them." They all are literally and metaphorically in the same boat, and ironically, they misidentify Jim as George, the third engineer who died of a heart attack. This mistaken identity further aligns Jim with the others until they discover that it is Jim and begin to curse him. But their animosity, hatred, and threats to take his life allow Jim to again see himself as a being entirely apart from these unethical monsters, especially as they continually call him a coward or a "murdering coward." Jim sums up the first horror of jumping as the discovery that he had joined these horrible companions. He says, "Oh yes, I know very well -- I jumped. Certainly, I jumped! I told you I jumped; but I tell you they were too much for any man." A short time after he jumped, Jim could still see the masthead light, and it terrified him to see that the ship had not sunk. Then, when he and the others saw the light disappear, they all assumed that the ship had sunk. As we are later to hear from Captain Brierly, what happened was that the squall simply turned the ship around so that the light was no longer visible. Still, Jim had a deep desire to escape from the accursed lifeboat -- to swim back and see for himself because the horror of being with the captain and the others was more horrible than possible death. In Chapter 11, Jim again brings Marlow and us back to the matter of guilt by asking again if we wouldn't act the same as he did: "Suppose I had stuck to the ship? Well. How much longer? Say a minute half a minute. Come. In thirty seconds, as it seemed certain then, I would have been overboard; and do you think I would not have laid hold of the first thing that came in my way -- oar, life-buoy, grating anything? Wouldn't you?" And now if Marlow even uses a euphemism, such as "And so you cleared out," Jim emphatically corrects him: "Jumped . . . jumped, mind you." At the end of Chapter 11, Jim is waiting "for another chance," and thus, the remainder of the novel will deal with Jim's search for another chance to prove himself to himself.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/151-chapters/6.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Rime of the Ancient Mariner/section_5_part_0.txt

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.part 6

part 6

{"name": "Part 6", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422155712/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/summary-part-6", "summary": "Part 6 opens with a dialogue between the two voices: the first voice, the Ancient Mariner says, asked the second voice to remind it what moved the Ancient Mariner's ship along so fast, and the second voice postulated that the moon must be controlling the ocean. The first voice asked again what could be driving the ship, and the second voice replied that the air was pushing the ship from behind in lieu of wind. After this declaration, the voices disappeared. The Ancient Mariner awoke at night to find the dead sailors clustered on the deck, again cursing him with their eyes. They mesmerized him, until suddenly the spell broke and they too disappeared. The Ancient Mariner, however, was not relieved; he knew that the dead men would come back to haunt him over and over again. Just then, a wind began to blow and the ship sailed quickly and smoothly until the Ancient Mariner could see the shore of his own country. As moonlight illuminated the glassy harbor, lighthouse, and church he sobbed and prayed, happy to be either alive or in heaven. Suddenly, crimson shapes began to rise from the water in front of the ship. When the Ancient Mariner looked down at the deck, he saw an angel standing over each dead man's corpse. The angels waved their hands silently, serving as beacons to guide the ship into port. The Ancient Mariner heard voices: a Pilot, the Pilot's boy, and a Hermit were approaching the ship in a boat. The Ancient Mariner was overjoyed to see other living human beings and wanted the Hermit to wipe him clean of his sin, to \"wash away the Albatross's blood.\"", "analysis": "In Part 6, the two voices offer a narrative and stylistic break in the poem. Whereas before the text was unbroken, their speech is structured much as in the script of a play. The voices are also omniscient in that they know everything that has happened up until now, and are able to offer the Ancient Mariner a more complete explanation of his situation. The manner in which the voices are presented lends a didactic, narratorial feel to their words. The voices leave because, like the Wedding Guest, they have somewhere to be; the second voice urges the first: \"Fly, brother, fly! More high, more high! / Or we shall be belated.\" Yet unlike the Wedding Guest, the voices are not riveted by the Ancient Mariner's tale and can continue on to their destination after briefly stopping to consider him. They are like the two other guests walking with the Wedding Guest when the Ancient Mariner stops him; while his tale may interest them, they are not compelled to hear it. When the Ancient Mariner is out in the open ocean, Coleridge's imagery is heavily visual and tactile, but also focuses on sound: the noises of the wedding merriment interrupt the Ancient Mariner's tale, \"voices in a swound\" fill the \"rime\", there is a terrible silence that abounds when the men are unable to speak, and the glorious music created by the ship and the sailors implies that fortune has once again smiled on the Ancient Mariner. Indeed, in Part 6 sounds are especially important. We know of the two voices only because they speak; they have no visible presence. If they are indeed spirits, then they are discernable to humans only because of the sounds that they make. Furthermore, the Ancient Mariner hears his rescuers before he sees them, although he does not cry out to them. Coleridge's focus on sound connects us to the fact that the Ancient Mariner is telling a story to the Wedding Guest. While readers must view the story on the page, the tale is being told aloud, and is meant to be passed on in this manner, much like a sermon. As the ship enters the harbor, we once again get the sense that the Ancient Mariner will be redeemed, although we know that he is doomed to be haunted by the dead men indefinitely: The ship is now in the safety of the harbor, and home is in sight; two hundred angels, one for each dead man, silently guide the ship into shore, acting as beacons that attract the Ancient Mariner's rescuers. Not only are the Pilot and Pilot's Boy coming to rescue the Ancient Mariner, but a Hermit has come out of the woods to help them. By definition, a hermit is someone who lives in seclusion in a natural setting, making the natural world his shrine and living place. He does not venture out into society, and certainly not on the ocean. The Hermit that the Ancient Mariner meets is joyous and social, urging the Pilot and Pilot's Boy on even though they are afraid of the tattered ship. Although at the end of Part 6 the Ancient Mariner knows that he will soon be home and believes that the Hermit can absolve him of his sin, the reader can't help but suspect that more horror is in store."}

PART THE SIXTH. FIRST VOICE. But tell me, tell me! speak again, Thy soft response renewing-- What makes that ship drive on so fast? What is the OCEAN doing? SECOND VOICE. Still as a slave before his lord, The OCEAN hath no blast; His great bright eye most silently Up to the Moon is cast-- If he may know which way to go; For she guides him smooth or grim See, brother, see! how graciously She looketh down on him. FIRST VOICE. But why drives on that ship so fast, Without or wave or wind? SECOND VOICE. The air is cut away before, And closes from behind. Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high Or we shall be belated: For slow and slow that ship will go, When the Mariner's trance is abated. I woke, and we were sailing on As in a gentle weather: 'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high; The dead men stood together. All stood together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: All fixed on me their stony eyes, That in the Moon did glitter. The pang, the curse, with which they died, Had never passed away: I could not draw my eyes from theirs, Nor turn them up to pray. And now this spell was snapt: once more I viewed the ocean green. And looked far forth, yet little saw Of what had else been seen-- Like one that on a lonesome 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. But soon there breathed a wind on me, Nor sound nor motion made: Its path was not upon the sea, In ripple or in shade. It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek Like a meadow-gale of spring-- It mingled strangely with my fears, Yet it felt like a welcoming. Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sailed softly too: Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze-- On me alone it blew. Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed The light-house top I see? Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Is this mine own countree! We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, And I with sobs did pray-- O let me be awake, my God! Or let me sleep alway. The harbour-bay was clear as glass, So smoothly it was strewn! And on the bay the moonlight lay, And the shadow of the moon. The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, That stands above the rock: The moonlight steeped in silentness The steady weathercock. And the bay was white with silent light, Till rising from the same, Full many shapes, that shadows were, In crimson colours came. A little distance from the prow Those crimson shadows were: I turned my eyes upon the deck-- Oh, Christ! what saw I there! Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, And, by the holy rood! A man all light, a seraph-man, On every corse there stood. This seraph band, each waved his hand: It was a heavenly sight! They stood as signals to the land, Each one a lovely light: This seraph-band, each waved his hand, No voice did they impart-- No voice; but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart. But soon I heard the dash of oars; I heard the Pilot's cheer; My head was turned perforce away, And I saw a boat appear. The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy, I heard them coming fast: Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy The dead men could not blast. I saw a third--I heard his voice: It is the Hermit good! He singeth loud his godly hymns That he makes in the wood. He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood.

Part 6

https://web.archive.org/web/20210422155712/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/summary-part-6

Part 6 opens with a dialogue between the two voices: the first voice, the Ancient Mariner says, asked the second voice to remind it what moved the Ancient Mariner's ship along so fast, and the second voice postulated that the moon must be controlling the ocean. The first voice asked again what could be driving the ship, and the second voice replied that the air was pushing the ship from behind in lieu of wind. After this declaration, the voices disappeared. The Ancient Mariner awoke at night to find the dead sailors clustered on the deck, again cursing him with their eyes. They mesmerized him, until suddenly the spell broke and they too disappeared. The Ancient Mariner, however, was not relieved; he knew that the dead men would come back to haunt him over and over again. Just then, a wind began to blow and the ship sailed quickly and smoothly until the Ancient Mariner could see the shore of his own country. As moonlight illuminated the glassy harbor, lighthouse, and church he sobbed and prayed, happy to be either alive or in heaven. Suddenly, crimson shapes began to rise from the water in front of the ship. When the Ancient Mariner looked down at the deck, he saw an angel standing over each dead man's corpse. The angels waved their hands silently, serving as beacons to guide the ship into port. The Ancient Mariner heard voices: a Pilot, the Pilot's boy, and a Hermit were approaching the ship in a boat. The Ancient Mariner was overjoyed to see other living human beings and wanted the Hermit to wipe him clean of his sin, to "wash away the Albatross's blood."

In Part 6, the two voices offer a narrative and stylistic break in the poem. Whereas before the text was unbroken, their speech is structured much as in the script of a play. The voices are also omniscient in that they know everything that has happened up until now, and are able to offer the Ancient Mariner a more complete explanation of his situation. The manner in which the voices are presented lends a didactic, narratorial feel to their words. The voices leave because, like the Wedding Guest, they have somewhere to be; the second voice urges the first: "Fly, brother, fly! More high, more high! / Or we shall be belated." Yet unlike the Wedding Guest, the voices are not riveted by the Ancient Mariner's tale and can continue on to their destination after briefly stopping to consider him. They are like the two other guests walking with the Wedding Guest when the Ancient Mariner stops him; while his tale may interest them, they are not compelled to hear it. When the Ancient Mariner is out in the open ocean, Coleridge's imagery is heavily visual and tactile, but also focuses on sound: the noises of the wedding merriment interrupt the Ancient Mariner's tale, "voices in a swound" fill the "rime", there is a terrible silence that abounds when the men are unable to speak, and the glorious music created by the ship and the sailors implies that fortune has once again smiled on the Ancient Mariner. Indeed, in Part 6 sounds are especially important. We know of the two voices only because they speak; they have no visible presence. If they are indeed spirits, then they are discernable to humans only because of the sounds that they make. Furthermore, the Ancient Mariner hears his rescuers before he sees them, although he does not cry out to them. Coleridge's focus on sound connects us to the fact that the Ancient Mariner is telling a story to the Wedding Guest. While readers must view the story on the page, the tale is being told aloud, and is meant to be passed on in this manner, much like a sermon. As the ship enters the harbor, we once again get the sense that the Ancient Mariner will be redeemed, although we know that he is doomed to be haunted by the dead men indefinitely: The ship is now in the safety of the harbor, and home is in sight; two hundred angels, one for each dead man, silently guide the ship into shore, acting as beacons that attract the Ancient Mariner's rescuers. Not only are the Pilot and Pilot's Boy coming to rescue the Ancient Mariner, but a Hermit has come out of the woods to help them. By definition, a hermit is someone who lives in seclusion in a natural setting, making the natural world his shrine and living place. He does not venture out into society, and certainly not on the ocean. The Hermit that the Ancient Mariner meets is joyous and social, urging the Pilot and Pilot's Boy on even though they are afraid of the tattered ship. Although at the end of Part 6 the Ancient Mariner knows that he will soon be home and believes that the Hermit can absolve him of his sin, the reader can't help but suspect that more horror is in store.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/44.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_16_part_2.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 43

chapter 43

{"name": "CHAPTER 43", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD52.asp", "summary": "At Flintcomb-Ash Farm, life is difficult for Tess. She learns that her employer is the Trantridge man, who is particularly hard on her. She and Marian are forced to work in the fields, through wind, rain, and cold, digging up rutabagas. When the snow begins, they are transferred into the barns, where the work is even more difficult. During the winter, Izz Huett comes to the farm and is also employed. She tells Marian about her encounter with Angel and the invitation that he offered her. When Tess hears the story, she decides she must write to Angel in Brazil.", "analysis": "Notes The only happiness that Tess experiences at Flintcomb-Ash is the memories of Talbothay's and the company of Marian. Everything else is dreary -- the work, the landscape, the weather, and the atmosphere. Fate makes those things even worse, for Tess's employer turns out to be the man from Trantridge, who delights in making her life even harder"}

There was no exaggeration in Marian's definition of Flintcomb-Ash farm as a starve-acre place. The single fat thing on the soil was Marian herself; and she was an importation. Of the three classes of village, the village cared for by its lord, the village cared for by itself, and the village uncared for either by itself or by its lord (in other words, the village of a resident squires's tenantry, the village of free- or copy-holders, and the absentee-owner's village, farmed with the land) this place, Flintcomb-Ash, was the third. But Tess set to work. Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity, was now no longer a minor feature in Mrs Angel Clare; and it sustained her. The swede-field in which she and her companion were set hacking was a stretch of a hundred odd acres in one patch, on the highest ground of the farm, rising above stony lanchets or lynchets--the outcrop of siliceous veins in the chalk formation, composed of myriads of loose white flints in bulbous, cusped, and phallic shapes. The upper half of each turnip had been eaten off by the live-stock, and it was the business of the two women to grub up the lower or earthy half of the root with a hooked fork called a hacker, that it might be eaten also. Every leaf of the vegetable having already been consumed, the whole field was in colour a desolate drab; it was a complexion without features, as if a face, from chin to brow, should be only an expanse of skin. The sky wore, in another colour, the same likeness; a white vacuity of countenance with the lineaments gone. So these two upper and nether visages confronted each other all day long, the white face looking down on the brown face, and the brown face looking up at the white face, without anything standing between them but the two girls crawling over the surface of the former like flies. Nobody came near them, and their movements showed a mechanical regularity; their forms standing enshrouded in Hessian "wroppers"-- sleeved brown pinafores, tied behind to the bottom, to keep their gowns from blowing about--scant skirts revealing boots that reached high up the ankles, and yellow sheepskin gloves with gauntlets. The pensive character which the curtained hood lent to their bent heads would have reminded the observer of some early Italian conception of the two Marys. They worked on hour after hour, unconscious of the forlorn aspect they bore in the landscape, not thinking of the justice or injustice of their lot. Even in such a position as theirs it was possible to exist in a dream. In the afternoon the rain came on again, and Marian said that they need not work any more. But if they did not work they would not be paid; so they worked on. It was so high a situation, this field, that the rain had no occasion to fall, but raced along horizontally upon the yelling wind, sticking into them like glass splinters till they were wet through. Tess had not known till now what was really meant by that. There are degrees of dampness, and a very little is called being wet through in common talk. But to stand working slowly in a field, and feel the creep of rain-water, first in legs and shoulders, then on hips and head, then at back, front, and sides, and yet to work on till the leaden light diminishes and marks that the sun is down, demands a distinct modicum of stoicism, even of valour. Yet they did not feel the wetness so much as might be supposed. They were both young, and they were talking of the time when they lived and loved together at Talbothays Dairy, that happy green tract of land where summer had been liberal in her gifts; in substance to all, emotionally to these. Tess would fain not have conversed with Marian of the man who was legally, if not actually, her husband; but the irresistible fascination of the subject betrayed her into reciprocating Marian's remarks. And thus, as has been said, though the damp curtains of their bonnets flapped smartly into their faces, and their wrappers clung about them to wearisomeness, they lived all this afternoon in memories of green, sunny, romantic Talbothays. "You can see a gleam of a hill within a few miles o' Froom Valley from here when 'tis fine," said Marian. "Ah! Can you?" said Tess, awake to the new value of this locality. So the two forces were at work here as everywhere, the inherent will to enjoy, and the circumstantial will against enjoyment. Marian's will had a method of assisting itself by taking from her pocket as the afternoon wore on a pint bottle corked with white rag, from which she invited Tess to drink. Tess's unassisted power of dreaming, however, being enough for her sublimation at present, she declined except the merest sip, and then Marian took a pull from the spirits. "I've got used to it," she said, "and can't leave it off now. 'Tis my only comfort--You see I lost him: you didn't; and you can do without it perhaps." Tess thought her loss as great as Marian's, but upheld by the dignity of being Angel's wife, in the letter at least, she accepted Marian's differentiation. Amid this scene Tess slaved in the morning frosts and in the afternoon rains. When it was not swede-grubbing it was swede-trimming, in which process they sliced off the earth and the fibres with a bill-hook before storing the roots for future use. At this occupation they could shelter themselves by a thatched hurdle if it rained; but if it was frosty even their thick leather gloves could not prevent the frozen masses they handled from biting their fingers. Still Tess hoped. She had a conviction that sooner or later the magnanimity which she persisted in reckoning as a chief ingredient of Clare's character would lead him to rejoin her. Marian, primed to a humorous mood, would discover the queer-shaped flints aforesaid, and shriek with laughter, Tess remaining severely obtuse. They often looked across the country to where the Var or Froom was know to stretch, even though they might not be able to see it; and, fixing their eyes on the cloaking gray mist, imagined the old times they had spent out there. "Ah," said Marian, "how I should like another or two of our old set to come here! Then we could bring up Talbothays every day here afield, and talk of he, and of what nice times we had there, and o' the old things we used to know, and make it all come back a'most, in seeming!" Marian's eyes softened, and her voice grew vague as the visions returned. "I'll write to Izz Huett," she said. "She's biding at home doing nothing now, I know, and I'll tell her we be here, and ask her to come; and perhaps Retty is well enough now." Tess had nothing to say against the proposal, and the next she heard of this plan for importing old Talbothays' joys was two or three days later, when Marian informed her that Izz had replied to her inquiry, and had promised to come if she could. There had not been such a winter for years. It came on in stealthy and measured glides, like the moves of a chess-player. One morning the few lonely trees and the thorns of the hedgerows appeared as if they had put off a vegetable for an animal integument. Every twig was covered with a white nap as of fur grown from the rind during the night, giving it four times its usual stoutness; the whole bush or tree forming a staring sketch in white lines on the mournful gray of the sky and horizon. Cobwebs revealed their presence on sheds and walls where none had ever been observed till brought out into visibility by the crystallizing atmosphere, hanging like loops of white worsted from salient points of the out-houses, posts, and gates. After this season of congealed dampness came a spell of dry frost, when strange birds from behind the North Pole began to arrive silently on the upland of Flintcomb-Ash; gaunt spectral creatures with tragical eyes--eyes which had witnessed scenes of cataclysmal horror in inaccessible polar regions of a magnitude such as no human being had ever conceived, in curdling temperatures that no man could endure; which had beheld the crash of icebergs and the slide of snow-hills by the shooting light of the Aurora; been half blinded by the whirl of colossal storms and terraqueous distortions; and retained the expression of feature that such scenes had engendered. These nameless birds came quite near to Tess and Marian, but of all they had seen which humanity would never see, they brought no account. The traveller's ambition to tell was not theirs, and, with dumb impassivity, they dismissed experiences which they did not value for the immediate incidents of this homely upland--the trivial movements of the two girls in disturbing the clods with their hackers so as to uncover something or other that these visitants relished as food. Then one day a peculiar quality invaded the air of this open country. There came a moisture which was not of rain, and a cold which was not of frost. It chilled the eyeballs of the twain, made their brows ache, penetrated to their skeletons, affecting the surface of the body less than its core. They knew that it meant snow, and in the night the snow came. Tess, who continued to live at the cottage with the warm gable that cheered any lonely pedestrian who paused beside it, awoke in the night, and heard above the thatch noises which seemed to signify that the roof had turned itself into a gymnasium of all the winds. When she lit her lamp to get up in the morning she found that the snow had blown through a chink in the casement, forming a white cone of the finest powder against the inside, and had also come down the chimney, so that it lay sole-deep upon the floor, on which her shoes left tracks when she moved about. Without, the storm drove so fast as to create a snow-mist in the kitchen; but as yet it was too dark out-of-doors to see anything. Tess knew that it was impossible to go on with the swedes; and by the time she had finished breakfast beside the solitary little lamp, Marian arrived to tell her that they were to join the rest of the women at reed-drawing in the barn till the weather changed. As soon, therefore, as the uniform cloak of darkness without began to turn to a disordered medley of grays, they blew out the lamp, wrapped themselves up in their thickest pinners, tied their woollen cravats round their necks and across their chests, and started for the barn. The snow had followed the birds from the polar basin as a white pillar of a cloud, and individual flakes could not be seen. The blast smelt of icebergs, arctic seas, whales, and white bears, carrying the snow so that it licked the land but did not deepen on it. They trudged onwards with slanted bodies through the flossy fields, keeping as well as they could in the shelter of hedges, which, however, acted as strainers rather than screens. The air, afflicted to pallor with the hoary multitudes that infested it, twisted and spun them eccentrically, suggesting an achromatic chaos of things. But both the young women were fairly cheerful; such weather on a dry upland is not in itself dispiriting. "Ha-ha! the cunning northern birds knew this was coming," said Marian. "Depend upon't, they keep just in front o't all the way from the North Star. Your husband, my dear, is, I make no doubt, having scorching weather all this time. Lord, if he could only see his pretty wife now! Not that this weather hurts your beauty at all--in fact, it rather does it good." "You mustn't talk about him to me, Marian," said Tess severely. "Well, but--surely you care for'n! Do you?" Instead of answering, Tess, with tears in her eyes, impulsively faced in the direction in which she imagined South America to lie, and, putting up her lips, blew out a passionate kiss upon the snowy wind. "Well, well, I know you do. But 'pon my body, it is a rum life for a married couple! There--I won't say another word! Well, as for the weather, it won't hurt us in the wheat-barn; but reed-drawing is fearful hard work--worse than swede-hacking. I can stand it because I'm stout; but you be slimmer than I. I can't think why maister should have set 'ee at it." They reached the wheat-barn and entered it. One end of the long structure was full of corn; the middle was where the reed-drawing was carried on, and there had already been placed in the reed-press the evening before as many sheaves of wheat as would be sufficient for the women to draw from during the day. "Why, here's Izz!" said Marian. Izz it was, and she came forward. She had walked all the way from her mother's home on the previous afternoon, and, not deeming the distance so great, had been belated, arriving, however, just before the snow began, and sleeping at the alehouse. The farmer had agreed with her mother at market to take her on if she came to-day, and she had been afraid to disappoint him by delay. In addition to Tess, Marian, and Izz, there were two women from a neighbouring village; two Amazonian sisters, whom Tess with a start remembered as Dark Car, the Queen of Spades, and her junior, the Queen of Diamonds--those who had tried to fight with her in the midnight quarrel at Trantridge. They showed no recognition of her, and possibly had none, for they had been under the influence of liquor on that occasion, and were only temporary sojourners there as here. They did all kinds of men's work by preference, including well-sinking, hedging, ditching, and excavating, without any sense of fatigue. Noted reed-drawers were they too, and looked round upon the other three with some superciliousness. Putting on their gloves, all set to work in a row in front of the press, an erection formed of two posts connected by a cross-beam, under which the sheaves to be drawn from were laid ears outward, the beam being pegged down by pins in the uprights, and lowered as the sheaves diminished. The day hardened in colour, the light coming in at the barndoors upwards from the snow instead of downwards from the sky. The girls pulled handful after handful from the press; but by reason of the presence of the strange women, who were recounting scandals, Marian and Izz could not at first talk of old times as they wished to do. Presently they heard the muffled tread of a horse, and the farmer rode up to the barndoor. When he had dismounted he came close to Tess, and remained looking musingly at the side of her face. She had not turned at first, but his fixed attitude led her to look round, when she perceived that her employer was the native of Trantridge from whom she had taken flight on the high-road because of his allusion to her history. He waited till she had carried the drawn bundles to the pile outside, when he said, "So you be the young woman who took my civility in such ill part? Be drowned if I didn't think you might be as soon as I heard of your being hired! Well, you thought you had got the better of me the first time at the inn with your fancy-man, and the second time on the road, when you bolted; but now I think I've got the better you." He concluded with a hard laugh. Tess, between the Amazons and the farmer, like a bird caught in a clap-net, returned no answer, continuing to pull the straw. She could read character sufficiently well to know by this time that she had nothing to fear from her employer's gallantry; it was rather the tyranny induced by his mortification at Clare's treatment of him. Upon the whole she preferred that sentiment in man and felt brave enough to endure it. "You thought I was in love with 'ee I suppose? Some women are such fools, to take every look as serious earnest. But there's nothing like a winter afield for taking that nonsense out o' young wenches' heads; and you've signed and agreed till Lady-Day. Now, are you going to beg my pardon?" "I think you ought to beg mine." "Very well--as you like. But we'll see which is master here. Be they all the sheaves you've done to-day?" "Yes, sir." "'Tis a very poor show. Just see what they've done over there" (pointing to the two stalwart women). "The rest, too, have done better than you." "They've all practised it before, and I have not. And I thought it made no difference to you as it is task work, and we are only paid for what we do." "Oh, but it does. I want the barn cleared." "I am going to work all the afternoon instead of leaving at two as the others will do." He looked sullenly at her and went away. Tess felt that she could not have come to a much worse place; but anything was better than gallantry. When two o'clock arrived the professional reed-drawers tossed off the last half-pint in their flagon, put down their hooks, tied their last sheaves, and went away. Marian and Izz would have done likewise, but on hearing that Tess meant to stay, to make up by longer hours for her lack of skill, they would not leave her. Looking out at the snow, which still fell, Marian exclaimed, "Now, we've got it all to ourselves." And so at last the conversation turned to their old experiences at the dairy; and, of course, the incidents of their affection for Angel Clare. "Izz and Marian," said Mrs Angel Clare, with a dignity which was extremely touching, seeing how very little of a wife she was: "I can't join in talk with you now, as I used to do, about Mr Clare; you will see that I cannot; because, although he is gone away from me for the present, he is my husband." Izz was by nature the sauciest and most caustic of all the four girls who had loved Clare. "He was a very splendid lover, no doubt," she said; "but I don't think he is a too fond husband to go away from you so soon." "He had to go--he was obliged to go, to see about the land over there!" pleaded Tess. "He might have tided 'ee over the winter." "Ah--that's owing to an accident--a misunderstanding; and we won't argue it," Tess answered, with tearfulness in her words. "Perhaps there's a good deal to be said for him! He did not go away, like some husbands, without telling me; and I can always find out where he is." After this they continued for some long time in a reverie, as they went on seizing the ears of corn, drawing out the straw, gathering it under their arms, and cutting off the ears with their bill-hooks, nothing sounding in the barn but the swish of the straw and the crunch of the hook. Then Tess suddenly flagged, and sank down upon the heap of wheat-ears at her feet. "I knew you wouldn't be able to stand it!" cried Marian. "It wants harder flesh than yours for this work." Just then the farmer entered. "Oh, that's how you get on when I am away," he said to her. "But it is my own loss," she pleaded. "Not yours." "I want it finished," he said doggedly, as he crossed the barn and went out at the other door. "Don't 'ee mind him, there's a dear," said Marian. "I've worked here before. Now you go and lie down there, and Izz and I will make up your number." "I don't like to let you do that. I'm taller than you, too." However, she was so overcome that she consented to lie down awhile, and reclined on a heap of pull-tails--the refuse after the straight straw had been drawn--thrown up at the further side of the barn. Her succumbing had been as largely owning to agitation at the re-opening the subject of her separation from her husband as to the hard work. She lay in a state of percipience without volition, and the rustle of the straw and the cutting of the ears by the others had the weight of bodily touches. She could hear from her corner, in addition to these noises, the murmur of their voices. She felt certain that they were continuing the subject already broached, but their voices were so low that she could not catch the words. At last Tess grew more and more anxious to know what they were saying, and, persuading herself that she felt better, she got up and resumed work. Then Izz Huett broke down. She had walked more than a dozen miles the previous evening, had gone to bed at midnight, and had risen again at five o'clock. Marian alone, thanks to her bottle of liquor and her stoutness of build, stood the strain upon back and arms without suffering. Tess urged Izz to leave off, agreeing, as she felt better, to finish the day without her, and make equal division of the number of sheaves. Izz accepted the offer gratefully, and disappeared through the great door into the snowy track to her lodging. Marian, as was the case every afternoon at this time on account of the bottle, began to feel in a romantic vein. "I should not have thought it of him--never!" she said in a dreamy tone. "And I loved him so! I didn't mind his having YOU. But this about Izz is too bad!" Tess, in her start at the words, narrowly missed cutting off a finger with the bill-hook. "Is it about my husband?" she stammered. "Well, yes. Izz said, 'Don't 'ee tell her'; but I am sure I can't help it! It was what he wanted Izz to do. He wanted her to go off to Brazil with him." Tess's face faded as white as the scene without, and its curves straightened. "And did Izz refuse to go?" she asked. "I don't know. Anyhow he changed his mind." "Pooh--then he didn't mean it! 'Twas just a man's jest!" "Yes he did; for he drove her a good-ways towards the station." "He didn't take her!" They pulled on in silence till Tess, without any premonitory symptoms, burst out crying. "There!" said Marian. "Now I wish I hadn't told 'ee!" "No. It is a very good thing that you have done! I have been living on in a thirtover, lackaday way, and have not seen what it may lead to! I ought to have sent him a letter oftener. He said I could not go to him, but he didn't say I was not to write as often as I liked. I won't dally like this any longer! I have been very wrong and neglectful in leaving everything to be done by him!" The dim light in the barn grew dimmer, and they could see to work no longer. When Tess had reached home that evening, and had entered into the privacy of her little white-washed chamber, she began impetuously writing a letter to Clare. But falling into doubt, she could not finish it. Afterwards she took the ring from the ribbon on which she wore it next her heart, and retained it on her finger all night, as if to fortify herself in the sensation that she was really the wife of this elusive lover of hers, who could propose that Izz should go with him abroad, so shortly after he had left her. Knowing that, how could she write entreaties to him, or show that she cared for him any more?

CHAPTER 43

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD52.asp

At Flintcomb-Ash Farm, life is difficult for Tess. She learns that her employer is the Trantridge man, who is particularly hard on her. She and Marian are forced to work in the fields, through wind, rain, and cold, digging up rutabagas. When the snow begins, they are transferred into the barns, where the work is even more difficult. During the winter, Izz Huett comes to the farm and is also employed. She tells Marian about her encounter with Angel and the invitation that he offered her. When Tess hears the story, she decides she must write to Angel in Brazil.

Notes The only happiness that Tess experiences at Flintcomb-Ash is the memories of Talbothay's and the company of Marian. Everything else is dreary -- the work, the landscape, the weather, and the atmosphere. Fate makes those things even worse, for Tess's employer turns out to be the man from Trantridge, who delights in making her life even harder

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/07.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Sense and Sensibility/section_6_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 7

chapter 7

{"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility22.asp", "summary": "The Dashwoods take possession of their cottage in the fertile Barton Valley, which is \"well wooded and rich in pasture. \" Their new house is quite comfortable. Although Mrs. Dashwood is not completely satisfied with the cottage, she is happy that it can be turned into a suitable dwelling with just a few changes. Shortly after reaching their new home, they are welcomed by their landlord, Sir John Middleton. Later, they meet Lady Middleton and her children. John Middleton is spontaneous and warm, while his wife is cold and reserved. They both invite the Dashwoods to their house the next day.", "analysis": "Notes The scene shifts to the countryside. Barton Cottage is small, but it is surrounded by a beautiful landscape. The Dashwood girls approve of the cottage and admire its lush green environment. The place gives its inhabitants a sense of freedom. The people, too, are very welcoming. John Middleton's face \"was thoroughly good-humored; and his manners were as friendly as the style of his letter. \" He is concerned and helpful. He does everything to make his new tenants feel comfortable in their surroundings. His wife is not as cordial as her husband, but to please him, she extends the hand of friendship to Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters. Jane Austen creates an irony of circumstance here. At Norland Estate, Mrs. Dashwood and her girls had been living in a familiar setting, yet they felt like strangers. At Barton, they find themselves in a strange setting, but they feel comfortable. Mr. John Dashwood, as the only brother to the Dashwood girls, was expected to see to their comfort and provide them security, but he failed to fulfill his responsibilities. But Sir John Middleton, distantly related to Mrs. Dashwood and almost a stranger to her daughters, treats them like a brother. He welcomes them to the estate, helps them to settle down and invites them to the Park. CHAPTER 7 Summary The chapter is devoted to the introduction of John Middleton's family. John Middleton is a happy-go-lucky man, whose lack of taste is compensated by his lively spirits and generous heart. He is a sportsman who spends his spare time in entertaining friends and acquaintances. He feels pride in cultivating friendship with cultured people like the Dashwoods. His fashionable wife is busy looking after her children and is always contented to talk about them. The Dashwoods are welcomed heartily by John Middleton when they arrive at the Park. He introduces them to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, and Colonel Brandon. Mrs. Jennings is as delighted to meet the Dashwood family as John Middleton was, and she tries to entertain them to the best of her ability. Colonel Brandon keeps to himself. Marianne plays the piano and wins everyone's heart through her talent. Notes Jane Austen is at her ironic best when she describes John Middleton and his wife. The Middletons have different interests but resemble each other in their lack of taste and talent. In the words of Austen, \"Sir John was a sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she humored her children, and these were their only resources. Lady Middleton had the advantage of being able to spoil her children all the year round, while Sir John's independent employments were in existence only half the time. Continual engagements at home and abroad, however, supplied all the deficiencies of nature and education, supported the good spirits of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good breeding of his wife. \" The passage is full of subtle humor. Both Sir John and Lady Middleton are busy doing nothing. Just as hunting is a sport for John Middleton, mothering is a sport for Lady Middleton. While Sir John spends his time pursuing his hunting, his wife occupies herself by spoiling her children. Two more characters are introduced in the chapter. Mrs. Jennings is a merry old woman, who takes pleasure in joking with young ladies and gentleman. Colonel Brandon is placed in striking contrast to her. Unlike her, he is sober, self-restrained and reserved. He appreciates talent but refrains from voicing compliments. He is a perfect foil to Lady Jennings; they balance each other in the atmosphere of the scene. In this chapter Colonel Brandon meets Marianne, listens to her singing and falls in love with her. Marianne is unaware of his feelings for her. She ignores him, as she considers him too old for her company."}

Barton Park was about half a mile from the cottage. The ladies had passed near it in their way along the valley, but it was screened from their view at home by the projection of a hill. The house was large and handsome; and the Middletons lived in a style of equal hospitality and elegance. The former was for Sir John's gratification, the latter for that of his lady. They were scarcely ever without some friends staying with them in the house, and they kept more company of every kind than any other family in the neighbourhood. It was necessary to the happiness of both; for however dissimilar in temper and outward behaviour, they strongly resembled each other in that total want of talent and taste which confined their employments, unconnected with such as society produced, within a very narrow compass. Sir John was a sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she humoured her children; and these were their only resources. Lady Middleton had the advantage of being able to spoil her children all the year round, while Sir John's independent employments were in existence only half the time. Continual engagements at home and abroad, however, supplied all the deficiencies of nature and education; supported the good spirits of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good breeding of his wife. Lady Middleton piqued herself upon the elegance of her table, and of all her domestic arrangements; and from this kind of vanity was her greatest enjoyment in any of their parties. But Sir John's satisfaction in society was much more real; he delighted in collecting about him more young people than his house would hold, and the noisier they were the better was he pleased. He was a blessing to all the juvenile part of the neighbourhood, for in summer he was for ever forming parties to eat cold ham and chicken out of doors, and in winter his private balls were numerous enough for any young lady who was not suffering under the unsatiable appetite of fifteen. The arrival of a new family in the country was always a matter of joy to him, and in every point of view he was charmed with the inhabitants he had now procured for his cottage at Barton. The Miss Dashwoods were young, pretty, and unaffected. It was enough to secure his good opinion; for to be unaffected was all that a pretty girl could want to make her mind as captivating as her person. The friendliness of his disposition made him happy in accommodating those, whose situation might be considered, in comparison with the past, as unfortunate. In showing kindness to his cousins therefore he had the real satisfaction of a good heart; and in settling a family of females only in his cottage, he had all the satisfaction of a sportsman; for a sportsman, though he esteems only those of his sex who are sportsmen likewise, is not often desirous of encouraging their taste by admitting them to a residence within his own manor. Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were met at the door of the house by Sir John, who welcomed them to Barton Park with unaffected sincerity; and as he attended them to the drawing room repeated to the young ladies the concern which the same subject had drawn from him the day before, at being unable to get any smart young men to meet them. They would see, he said, only one gentleman there besides himself; a particular friend who was staying at the park, but who was neither very young nor very gay. He hoped they would all excuse the smallness of the party, and could assure them it should never happen so again. He had been to several families that morning in hopes of procuring some addition to their number, but it was moonlight and every body was full of engagements. Luckily Lady Middleton's mother had arrived at Barton within the last hour, and as she was a very cheerful agreeable woman, he hoped the young ladies would not find it so very dull as they might imagine. The young ladies, as well as their mother, were perfectly satisfied with having two entire strangers of the party, and wished for no more. Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton's mother, was a good-humoured, merry, fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal, seemed very happy, and rather vulgar. She was full of jokes and laughter, and before dinner was over had said many witty things on the subject of lovers and husbands; hoped they had not left their hearts behind them in Sussex, and pretended to see them blush whether they did or not. Marianne was vexed at it for her sister's sake, and turned her eyes towards Elinor to see how she bore these attacks, with an earnestness which gave Elinor far more pain than could arise from such common-place raillery as Mrs. Jennings's. Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John, seemed no more adapted by resemblance of manner to be his friend, than Lady Middleton was to be his wife, or Mrs. Jennings to be Lady Middleton's mother. He was silent and grave. His appearance however was not unpleasing, in spite of his being in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret an absolute old bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty; but though his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike. There was nothing in any of the party which could recommend them as companions to the Dashwoods; but the cold insipidity of Lady Middleton was so particularly repulsive, that in comparison of it the gravity of Colonel Brandon, and even the boisterous mirth of Sir John and his mother-in-law was interesting. Lady Middleton seemed to be roused to enjoyment only by the entrance of her four noisy children after dinner, who pulled her about, tore her clothes, and put an end to every kind of discourse except what related to themselves. In the evening, as Marianne was discovered to be musical, she was invited to play. The instrument was unlocked, every body prepared to be charmed, and Marianne, who sang very well, at their request went through the chief of the songs which Lady Middleton had brought into the family on her marriage, and which perhaps had lain ever since in the same position on the pianoforte, for her ladyship had celebrated that event by giving up music, although by her mother's account, she had played extremely well, and by her own was very fond of it. Marianne's performance was highly applauded. Sir John was loud in his admiration at the end of every song, and as loud in his conversation with the others while every song lasted. Lady Middleton frequently called him to order, wondered how any one's attention could be diverted from music for a moment, and asked Marianne to sing a particular song which Marianne had just finished. Colonel Brandon alone, of all the party, heard her without being in raptures. He paid her only the compliment of attention; and she felt a respect for him on the occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameless want of taste. His pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that ecstatic delight which alone could sympathize with her own, was estimable when contrasted against the horrible insensibility of the others; and she was reasonable enough to allow that a man of five and thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every exquisite power of enjoyment. She was perfectly disposed to make every allowance for the colonel's advanced state of life which humanity required.

Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility22.asp

The Dashwoods take possession of their cottage in the fertile Barton Valley, which is "well wooded and rich in pasture. " Their new house is quite comfortable. Although Mrs. Dashwood is not completely satisfied with the cottage, she is happy that it can be turned into a suitable dwelling with just a few changes. Shortly after reaching their new home, they are welcomed by their landlord, Sir John Middleton. Later, they meet Lady Middleton and her children. John Middleton is spontaneous and warm, while his wife is cold and reserved. They both invite the Dashwoods to their house the next day.

Notes The scene shifts to the countryside. Barton Cottage is small, but it is surrounded by a beautiful landscape. The Dashwood girls approve of the cottage and admire its lush green environment. The place gives its inhabitants a sense of freedom. The people, too, are very welcoming. John Middleton's face "was thoroughly good-humored; and his manners were as friendly as the style of his letter. " He is concerned and helpful. He does everything to make his new tenants feel comfortable in their surroundings. His wife is not as cordial as her husband, but to please him, she extends the hand of friendship to Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters. Jane Austen creates an irony of circumstance here. At Norland Estate, Mrs. Dashwood and her girls had been living in a familiar setting, yet they felt like strangers. At Barton, they find themselves in a strange setting, but they feel comfortable. Mr. John Dashwood, as the only brother to the Dashwood girls, was expected to see to their comfort and provide them security, but he failed to fulfill his responsibilities. But Sir John Middleton, distantly related to Mrs. Dashwood and almost a stranger to her daughters, treats them like a brother. He welcomes them to the estate, helps them to settle down and invites them to the Park. CHAPTER 7 Summary The chapter is devoted to the introduction of John Middleton's family. John Middleton is a happy-go-lucky man, whose lack of taste is compensated by his lively spirits and generous heart. He is a sportsman who spends his spare time in entertaining friends and acquaintances. He feels pride in cultivating friendship with cultured people like the Dashwoods. His fashionable wife is busy looking after her children and is always contented to talk about them. The Dashwoods are welcomed heartily by John Middleton when they arrive at the Park. He introduces them to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, and Colonel Brandon. Mrs. Jennings is as delighted to meet the Dashwood family as John Middleton was, and she tries to entertain them to the best of her ability. Colonel Brandon keeps to himself. Marianne plays the piano and wins everyone's heart through her talent. Notes Jane Austen is at her ironic best when she describes John Middleton and his wife. The Middletons have different interests but resemble each other in their lack of taste and talent. In the words of Austen, "Sir John was a sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she humored her children, and these were their only resources. Lady Middleton had the advantage of being able to spoil her children all the year round, while Sir John's independent employments were in existence only half the time. Continual engagements at home and abroad, however, supplied all the deficiencies of nature and education, supported the good spirits of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good breeding of his wife. " The passage is full of subtle humor. Both Sir John and Lady Middleton are busy doing nothing. Just as hunting is a sport for John Middleton, mothering is a sport for Lady Middleton. While Sir John spends his time pursuing his hunting, his wife occupies herself by spoiling her children. Two more characters are introduced in the chapter. Mrs. Jennings is a merry old woman, who takes pleasure in joking with young ladies and gentleman. Colonel Brandon is placed in striking contrast to her. Unlike her, he is sober, self-restrained and reserved. He appreciates talent but refrains from voicing compliments. He is a perfect foil to Lady Jennings; they balance each other in the atmosphere of the scene. In this chapter Colonel Brandon meets Marianne, listens to her singing and falls in love with her. Marianne is unaware of his feelings for her. She ignores him, as she considers him too old for her company.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/book_10.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Brothers Karamazov/section_9_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 10.chapter 1-chapter 7

book 10

{"name": "Book 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422052201/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-brothers-karamazov/study-guide/summary-book-10", "summary": "Kolya Krassotkin is Ilusha's friend. He is a young, headstrong boy who gets teased at school for being a \"mummy's boy\" because his mother helps him with all his schoolwork and introduces herself to all his friends and teachers. But Kolya is unafraid of being bullied, and he is known for being \"terribly strong.\" Instead of playing with his fellow schoolchildren, he is fond of reading. His mother sometimes accuses him of being very cold toward her because he detests \"that sickening slobbery stuff.\" He loves his mother very much, though. He also has a mischievous streak, pushing his mother and his superiors at school--but he usually stops before he incurs any real punishment. One day, he decides to lie down as an oncoming train approaches in order to prove his bravery and daring to the other boys. This earns him their respect, and they begin to call him a \"desperado.\" This stunt upsets his mother greatly. She pleads with him never to do such a thing again, and they both become overcome with emotion. After this episode, Kolya returns to being sullen and aloof with his mother. One day, Ilusha stabs Kolya with a pen knife because Kolya is teasing him, and their friendship becomes strained. Ilusha falls ill with consumption. The day before Dmitri's trial, Kolya goes to visit him in the hospital. He sees a friend named Smurov, and the two talk about Ilusha's condition. Smurov tells Kolya that his classmates have been visiting Ilusha in the hospital every day and that it seems as if Ilusha will not live much longer. He says that Alyosha has been spending time at the hospital even though his brother is going to trial. Smurov says that he wishes that Kolya's dog Perezvon was another dog named Zhuchka. This would make Ilusha happy. Kolya shows off his intellect: he begins to criticize doctors, he says there is more stupidity among men than among dogs, and he comments on man's tendency to form habits. He tells Smurov, \"one has to know how to talk to the uneducated.\" The boys walk toward the hospital, causing mischief with the townspeople along the way. When they reach the hospital, Kolya says he would like to wait outside to meet Alyosha. Smurov thinks this is a silly idea; he tells Kolya he should simply come in and meet Alyosha inside. Kolya tells Smurov he has his own reasons for meeting Alyosha in the bitter cold; he smirks, \"we must sniff at each other first.\" Smurov goes inside, and Kolya waits outside for Alyosha. This is Kolya's first visit to the hospital, though other boys have been visiting Kolya ever since Alyosha urged them to do so. Outside the hospital, Kolya feels nervous about meeting Alyosha. He has heard much about this remarkable man, and he wants to make a good impression on him as an intelligent, independent young man. When Alyosha comes out to meet the boy, he is smiling profusely. Kolya is put off by Alyosha's good-natured disposition, but he continues talking with him openly. Kolya tells Alyosha about his relationship with Ilusha, saying that he and Ilusha have been good friends for some time. Kolya felt bad for Ilusha, and he protected him from the boys who would beat him up. One day, in a fit of mischievous childishness, Ilusha fed a dog a piece of bread with a pin in it. Smerdyakov had taught him how to do this, but when he saw the dog yelping and running around, he regretted the prank immediately. He told Kolya what had happened, and Kolya saw that he felt contrite. Even so, Kolya punished Ilusha by ignoring him. Ilusha became very angry at Kolya over this, and he sent a message to Kolya saying he would feed pins to all the dogs in town. Then, when the boys at school were taunting Ilusha, Kolya did not step in to protect his estranged friend. Ilusha became incensed and rushed at Kolya, which is when he stabbed his Kolya with his pen knife. Their relationship remained strained, which is why the two boys did not see each other until this day. Alyosha and Kolya visit Ilusha, and Kolya brings his dog Perezvon. Then, he reveals that his dog is indeed Zhuchka, the very dog that Ilusha fed the pin. He has been training the dog, and he did not want to visit Ilusha until the dog was fully trained. This peace offering makes Ilusha very happy, and the boys' friendship is restored, though in unhappy and dire circumstances. Kolya then produces a small cannon, which he gives to Ilusha as a present. Ilusha's demented mother demands the present for herself, and the boys concede that she may have it. Kolya and Alyosha step outside when the doctors come to see Ilusha, and Kolya tells Alyosha his theories about life. He loves man but does not want to \"coddle\" him. He very much hates all forms of sentimentality. He says he is a socialist, and he quotes from many texts he has read. Instead of being impressed, Alyosha tells him he is surprised that a boy so young could already be swayed by such \"wicked nonsense.\" They discuss matters of the mind and of the heart for a while longer and, since Alyosha treats the boy as an intellectual equal, they become good friends. The doctors come back, and all who see them know that Ilusha is doomed, including Ilusha himself. While Ilusha is talking to his father, Kolya is touched, and he tells Alyosha that he will visit Ilusha more often.", "analysis": "This book focuses on a younger generation. In addition to Ilusha, whom Alyosha met earlier, there is Kolya, a willful and precocious classmate of Ilusha. They are the youngest characters in the novel, and this is the first book devoted mostly to them. After the murder-the most important event in the novel-the focus shifts to a new storyline. This acts as a breath of relief from the heaviness of the murder trial, though this is by no means a section with a great deal of levity, for young Ilusha is dying. His death will be a parallel to Father Zossima's death. As Zossima slowly passes away in his deathbed, he is surrounded by his followers. Fyodor's death is another thing altogether. Ilusha is also surrounded by his friends and family in his last days, and his bravery is inspiring to them all. Father Zossima was an old man when he died, but Ilusha is quite young to be on his deathbed. The suffering of such a young boy reminds the reader of Ivan's outrage at the suffering of innocents. The juxtaposition of this section with the one focusing on Dmitri's unfortunate arrest calls into question Dmitri's guilt. If an innocent child like Ilusha can suffer without reason, then suffering is not necessarily related to justice. Perhaps Dmitri is not being punished for some share of his guilt for the murder; sometimes people suffer without a discernible reason. This is one way to understand the juxtaposition of these books. Another route to pursue is to wonder if Ilusha is not innocent after all. He has become tough and defensive from the strife he has encountered in his life, and he has tortured a dog. But unlike Fyodor, who is never good or thoughtful to anyone, Ilusha has a good heart and feels remorse. He even comforts his father, putting his own suffering below his father's peace of mind. Ilusha does seem to be innocent in that he is good at heart, even if he has made mistakes. In this way he is similar to Dmitri. Both characters suffer, but neither one has committed a crime worthy of the suffering. It seems that fate is indiscriminate; that is, there is no guarantee that virtue leads to happiness or that vice leads to suffering. The Karamazovs do not seem to be able to extricate themselves from their past. For Fyodor there is no redemption. He dies, never changing his ways or apologizing for his sins. His sons cannot escape the specter of tragedy either. Ivan is the best example of this phenomenon. Despite hating his father, he tries not to quarrel with him. He leaves the house so as not to be around him, and he tries to leave town to extricate himself from his own family drama. But despite his best efforts, he finds himself mired in guilt over the very tragedy he tried to avoid. Even Alyosha finds himself with his brothers, dealing with the fallout from the murder. Redemption is hard to find, and even if it is difficult for the Karamazov brothers to attain, perhaps a younger generation can find it. Kolya is healthy; he has his entire life in front of him. Alyosha gives him so much attention because Kolya represents hope. While one generation can feel the weight of sin and guilt from a previous generation, it also can break free from this cycle of suffering. While the Karamazov brothers are already caught up in their own family tragedy, finding it difficult to rid themselves of their father's shadow, Kolya has a chance at living a life free from this burden. This opportunity creates the feeling that life is more than a person or a family. Life encompasses generation after generation. Alyosha cannot help every single person in the world. He focuses on a younger generation, as many teachers do, because he realizes that they are Russia's hope. Though he did not save his father, he can save Russia, or at least he can do something toward that goal. Just as Father Zossima was a teacher and something of a celebrity to Alyosha, Alyosha is an idol to the young boys of the town. They revere him and listen to his every word. Kolya is scared to meet him, and he tries his hardest to impress this wise and important man about which he has heard so much. Alyosha has become an important figure in the lives of the younger generation, and he became close with this generation by choosing to teach rather than spend all of his time with his brothers. Father Zossima told Alyosha to stay with his brothers during their time of need, but Alyosha expanded this request. Father Zossima meant that Alyosha should spend his time where it is most needed, not where Alyosha has the most attachment. Thus, as Alyosha chose to help his brothers instead of staying with Father Zossima during his last days, Alyosha now decides that his calling lies with the boys of the town who are the future of Russia, not his literal brothers. This is a large shift for Alyosha, for his family is very important to him. Perhaps he has taken Father Zossima's words to heart, separating his heart from his choices. It is difficult to follow one's heart to help others while denying one's heart in other ways in order to ensure that one is not swayed from helping those most in need. Ilusha and Kolya are an interesting pair. Both boys have a defiant streak, and both are very complicated persons. Each has committed an act that weighs on him. Ilusha fed a dog a pin and still feels guilty. Kolya does not protect his weaker friend when the other boys jeer at him, mostly because he is trying to teach Ilusha a lesson for his treatment of the dog. Ilusha confesses his guilt to Kolya, being honest about what he has done but expressing regret for his actions. Kolya, on the other hand, does not directly tell Alyosha how guilty he feels for letting Ilusha get attacked by the other schoolboys. Still, he is very transparent, and his fixation on the topic belies his preoccupation with it. Kolya has a strong connection to Ilusha, however, and despite their violent dispute, Kolya spends hours training the recovered dog and brings him to Ilusha as a present. Kolya still feels protective of Ilusha, and Ilusha still feels close to Kolya, despite his fierce individualism. Both boys seem equally prone to spite and love. Alyosha tips the scales on this count; he encourages the boys to love one another and do good for one another, setting an example by visiting the dying boy even though his own brother is being tried for murder. The boys are connected because they share a similar struggle between good and evil. If Alyosha did not come along, these conflicted boys could very well have been swayed negatively by others. Alyosha's choices in a fallen world lead him to triage, that is, those who can survive without help are left alone while those who cannot be helped are also, sadly, left alone, leaving time to help those for whom help can make a difference. Although in Alyosha's Christian tradition every person deserves help, Alyosha has limited time and must act like a surgeon, spending his time on those whom he can save, not on those who are already doomed."}

PART IV Book X. The Boys Chapter I. Kolya Krassotkin It was the beginning of November. There had been a hard frost, eleven degrees Reaumur, 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 market-place. It was a dull morning, but the snow had ceased. Not far from the market-place, 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 nice-looking woman of thirty-two, 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, strong-willed, 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 instinctive--it 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, forty-five 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 pitch-dark 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 middle-aged 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 tender-hearted 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." Chapter II. Children 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 picture-book. 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 trace-horse. 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 kitchen-garden. 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 matter-of-fact 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 touch-hole, 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 awe-stricken 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 sha--all 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 rough-haired 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 small-pox, 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." "Good-by, 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!" Chapter III. The Schoolboy 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 market-place. When he reached the last house but one before the market-place 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 rosy-cheeked 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 well-to-do 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 was--if the reader has not forgotten--one 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 market-place. "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 non-existent. 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, smoky-looking 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 object--that'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, to-day. 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 again--they'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 to-morrow 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 Karamazov--there'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 sort--no 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 market-place, 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 naively 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 masters--far more, indeed. I repeat that, because I am convinced that there is far more foolishness among us. That's Rakitin's idea--a 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 motive-power. What a funny-looking peasant!" Kolya pointed to a tall peasant, with a good-natured 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. Good-by, Matvey." "Good-by." "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 of--sometimes." "Does it hurt?" "Well, yes, it does." "Ech, what a life!" The peasant heaved a sigh from the bottom of his heart. "Good-by, Matvey." "Good-by. 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 middle-aged market woman shouted at him. "I am so glad it's Marya. Good-by!" "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. Good-by!" "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 sturdy-looking 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." "Good-by, peasant!" "Good-by!" "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 half-past 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. Chapter IV. The Lost Dog 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 good-looking. 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 think--Tfoo! 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 pencil-mark 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 looking-glass, 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 looking-glass 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 well-cut 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 good-humored expression; but there was a gentleness and serenity in his good-humor. 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 is--a 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 now--that's what detained me to-day. 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 generation--to 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 father--it was before his death, of course--and he taught the little fool a silly trick--that 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 dogs--all--all 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 finger--but 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 him--that is, to make it up with him--when 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 him--a 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?" "Nikolay--Nikolay 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, fourteen--that 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. "Grown-up people go to the theater and there the adventures of all sorts of heroes are represented--sometimes there are robbers and battles, too--and 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." Chapter V. By Ilusha's Bedside 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 half-imbecile 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, terror-stricken 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 arm-chair, who was very ill-humored 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. "Ye--es," answered Ilusha in a long whisper, gasping for breath. "A black nose, that means he'll be fierce, a good house-dog," 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 free-and-easy 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 hind-legs 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' back-yard. 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 open-mouthed 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 to-day. 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 well-trained 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 business-like 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 book-case 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 touch-hole 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 made--twenty-four 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 sieve--that'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. "N--not 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 market-place 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 errand-boy 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, moon-faced 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 peasants--that's an axiom. I believe you are laughing, Karamazov?" "No, Heaven forbid, I am listening," said Alyosha with a most good-natured 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 up--do 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 third-class 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 important-looking 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..." "Sne-gi-ryov?" the doctor said loudly and pompously. "Mr. Snegiryov--is 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. Chapter VI. Precocity "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 to-day, 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 pseudo-great man. I think, too, that to leave one's own country and fly to America is mean, worse than mean--silly. 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 Pushkin--_Onyegin_, 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 to-day. '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 conceit--that'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 thought--I've thought several times since I've been here--that 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 fancied--just now, here--when 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!" Chapter VII. Ilusha 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 terror-stricken 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 be-ne-ficial 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 seen"--he spread out his hands, indicating his surroundings--"mamma and my family?" "N--no, 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?"(7) repeated the doctor, perplexed. "He hears the bell, but where it is he cannot tell. Good-by, 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 Krassotkin--this 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. "Good-by, 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. Good-by!" 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. "Good-by, 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.

Book 10

https://web.archive.org/web/20210422052201/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-brothers-karamazov/study-guide/summary-book-10

Kolya Krassotkin is Ilusha's friend. He is a young, headstrong boy who gets teased at school for being a "mummy's boy" because his mother helps him with all his schoolwork and introduces herself to all his friends and teachers. But Kolya is unafraid of being bullied, and he is known for being "terribly strong." Instead of playing with his fellow schoolchildren, he is fond of reading. His mother sometimes accuses him of being very cold toward her because he detests "that sickening slobbery stuff." He loves his mother very much, though. He also has a mischievous streak, pushing his mother and his superiors at school--but he usually stops before he incurs any real punishment. One day, he decides to lie down as an oncoming train approaches in order to prove his bravery and daring to the other boys. This earns him their respect, and they begin to call him a "desperado." This stunt upsets his mother greatly. She pleads with him never to do such a thing again, and they both become overcome with emotion. After this episode, Kolya returns to being sullen and aloof with his mother. One day, Ilusha stabs Kolya with a pen knife because Kolya is teasing him, and their friendship becomes strained. Ilusha falls ill with consumption. The day before Dmitri's trial, Kolya goes to visit him in the hospital. He sees a friend named Smurov, and the two talk about Ilusha's condition. Smurov tells Kolya that his classmates have been visiting Ilusha in the hospital every day and that it seems as if Ilusha will not live much longer. He says that Alyosha has been spending time at the hospital even though his brother is going to trial. Smurov says that he wishes that Kolya's dog Perezvon was another dog named Zhuchka. This would make Ilusha happy. Kolya shows off his intellect: he begins to criticize doctors, he says there is more stupidity among men than among dogs, and he comments on man's tendency to form habits. He tells Smurov, "one has to know how to talk to the uneducated." The boys walk toward the hospital, causing mischief with the townspeople along the way. When they reach the hospital, Kolya says he would like to wait outside to meet Alyosha. Smurov thinks this is a silly idea; he tells Kolya he should simply come in and meet Alyosha inside. Kolya tells Smurov he has his own reasons for meeting Alyosha in the bitter cold; he smirks, "we must sniff at each other first." Smurov goes inside, and Kolya waits outside for Alyosha. This is Kolya's first visit to the hospital, though other boys have been visiting Kolya ever since Alyosha urged them to do so. Outside the hospital, Kolya feels nervous about meeting Alyosha. He has heard much about this remarkable man, and he wants to make a good impression on him as an intelligent, independent young man. When Alyosha comes out to meet the boy, he is smiling profusely. Kolya is put off by Alyosha's good-natured disposition, but he continues talking with him openly. Kolya tells Alyosha about his relationship with Ilusha, saying that he and Ilusha have been good friends for some time. Kolya felt bad for Ilusha, and he protected him from the boys who would beat him up. One day, in a fit of mischievous childishness, Ilusha fed a dog a piece of bread with a pin in it. Smerdyakov had taught him how to do this, but when he saw the dog yelping and running around, he regretted the prank immediately. He told Kolya what had happened, and Kolya saw that he felt contrite. Even so, Kolya punished Ilusha by ignoring him. Ilusha became very angry at Kolya over this, and he sent a message to Kolya saying he would feed pins to all the dogs in town. Then, when the boys at school were taunting Ilusha, Kolya did not step in to protect his estranged friend. Ilusha became incensed and rushed at Kolya, which is when he stabbed his Kolya with his pen knife. Their relationship remained strained, which is why the two boys did not see each other until this day. Alyosha and Kolya visit Ilusha, and Kolya brings his dog Perezvon. Then, he reveals that his dog is indeed Zhuchka, the very dog that Ilusha fed the pin. He has been training the dog, and he did not want to visit Ilusha until the dog was fully trained. This peace offering makes Ilusha very happy, and the boys' friendship is restored, though in unhappy and dire circumstances. Kolya then produces a small cannon, which he gives to Ilusha as a present. Ilusha's demented mother demands the present for herself, and the boys concede that she may have it. Kolya and Alyosha step outside when the doctors come to see Ilusha, and Kolya tells Alyosha his theories about life. He loves man but does not want to "coddle" him. He very much hates all forms of sentimentality. He says he is a socialist, and he quotes from many texts he has read. Instead of being impressed, Alyosha tells him he is surprised that a boy so young could already be swayed by such "wicked nonsense." They discuss matters of the mind and of the heart for a while longer and, since Alyosha treats the boy as an intellectual equal, they become good friends. The doctors come back, and all who see them know that Ilusha is doomed, including Ilusha himself. While Ilusha is talking to his father, Kolya is touched, and he tells Alyosha that he will visit Ilusha more often.

This book focuses on a younger generation. In addition to Ilusha, whom Alyosha met earlier, there is Kolya, a willful and precocious classmate of Ilusha. They are the youngest characters in the novel, and this is the first book devoted mostly to them. After the murder-the most important event in the novel-the focus shifts to a new storyline. This acts as a breath of relief from the heaviness of the murder trial, though this is by no means a section with a great deal of levity, for young Ilusha is dying. His death will be a parallel to Father Zossima's death. As Zossima slowly passes away in his deathbed, he is surrounded by his followers. Fyodor's death is another thing altogether. Ilusha is also surrounded by his friends and family in his last days, and his bravery is inspiring to them all. Father Zossima was an old man when he died, but Ilusha is quite young to be on his deathbed. The suffering of such a young boy reminds the reader of Ivan's outrage at the suffering of innocents. The juxtaposition of this section with the one focusing on Dmitri's unfortunate arrest calls into question Dmitri's guilt. If an innocent child like Ilusha can suffer without reason, then suffering is not necessarily related to justice. Perhaps Dmitri is not being punished for some share of his guilt for the murder; sometimes people suffer without a discernible reason. This is one way to understand the juxtaposition of these books. Another route to pursue is to wonder if Ilusha is not innocent after all. He has become tough and defensive from the strife he has encountered in his life, and he has tortured a dog. But unlike Fyodor, who is never good or thoughtful to anyone, Ilusha has a good heart and feels remorse. He even comforts his father, putting his own suffering below his father's peace of mind. Ilusha does seem to be innocent in that he is good at heart, even if he has made mistakes. In this way he is similar to Dmitri. Both characters suffer, but neither one has committed a crime worthy of the suffering. It seems that fate is indiscriminate; that is, there is no guarantee that virtue leads to happiness or that vice leads to suffering. The Karamazovs do not seem to be able to extricate themselves from their past. For Fyodor there is no redemption. He dies, never changing his ways or apologizing for his sins. His sons cannot escape the specter of tragedy either. Ivan is the best example of this phenomenon. Despite hating his father, he tries not to quarrel with him. He leaves the house so as not to be around him, and he tries to leave town to extricate himself from his own family drama. But despite his best efforts, he finds himself mired in guilt over the very tragedy he tried to avoid. Even Alyosha finds himself with his brothers, dealing with the fallout from the murder. Redemption is hard to find, and even if it is difficult for the Karamazov brothers to attain, perhaps a younger generation can find it. Kolya is healthy; he has his entire life in front of him. Alyosha gives him so much attention because Kolya represents hope. While one generation can feel the weight of sin and guilt from a previous generation, it also can break free from this cycle of suffering. While the Karamazov brothers are already caught up in their own family tragedy, finding it difficult to rid themselves of their father's shadow, Kolya has a chance at living a life free from this burden. This opportunity creates the feeling that life is more than a person or a family. Life encompasses generation after generation. Alyosha cannot help every single person in the world. He focuses on a younger generation, as many teachers do, because he realizes that they are Russia's hope. Though he did not save his father, he can save Russia, or at least he can do something toward that goal. Just as Father Zossima was a teacher and something of a celebrity to Alyosha, Alyosha is an idol to the young boys of the town. They revere him and listen to his every word. Kolya is scared to meet him, and he tries his hardest to impress this wise and important man about which he has heard so much. Alyosha has become an important figure in the lives of the younger generation, and he became close with this generation by choosing to teach rather than spend all of his time with his brothers. Father Zossima told Alyosha to stay with his brothers during their time of need, but Alyosha expanded this request. Father Zossima meant that Alyosha should spend his time where it is most needed, not where Alyosha has the most attachment. Thus, as Alyosha chose to help his brothers instead of staying with Father Zossima during his last days, Alyosha now decides that his calling lies with the boys of the town who are the future of Russia, not his literal brothers. This is a large shift for Alyosha, for his family is very important to him. Perhaps he has taken Father Zossima's words to heart, separating his heart from his choices. It is difficult to follow one's heart to help others while denying one's heart in other ways in order to ensure that one is not swayed from helping those most in need. Ilusha and Kolya are an interesting pair. Both boys have a defiant streak, and both are very complicated persons. Each has committed an act that weighs on him. Ilusha fed a dog a pin and still feels guilty. Kolya does not protect his weaker friend when the other boys jeer at him, mostly because he is trying to teach Ilusha a lesson for his treatment of the dog. Ilusha confesses his guilt to Kolya, being honest about what he has done but expressing regret for his actions. Kolya, on the other hand, does not directly tell Alyosha how guilty he feels for letting Ilusha get attacked by the other schoolboys. Still, he is very transparent, and his fixation on the topic belies his preoccupation with it. Kolya has a strong connection to Ilusha, however, and despite their violent dispute, Kolya spends hours training the recovered dog and brings him to Ilusha as a present. Kolya still feels protective of Ilusha, and Ilusha still feels close to Kolya, despite his fierce individualism. Both boys seem equally prone to spite and love. Alyosha tips the scales on this count; he encourages the boys to love one another and do good for one another, setting an example by visiting the dying boy even though his own brother is being tried for murder. The boys are connected because they share a similar struggle between good and evil. If Alyosha did not come along, these conflicted boys could very well have been swayed negatively by others. Alyosha's choices in a fallen world lead him to triage, that is, those who can survive without help are left alone while those who cannot be helped are also, sadly, left alone, leaving time to help those for whom help can make a difference. Although in Alyosha's Christian tradition every person deserves help, Alyosha has limited time and must act like a surgeon, spending his time on those whom he can save, not on those who are already doomed.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/45.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_44_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 7.chapter 4

book 7, chapter 4

{"name": "Book 7, Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-7-chapter-4", "summary": "Alyosha gets back to the monastery at 9 in the evening and visits Zosima's cell, where Father Paissy continues to read from the Gospels over Zosima's coffin. Alyosha kneels to pray and finds that instead of all of those conflicting emotions he felt earlier, he just feels a kind of \"sweetness.\" Father Paissy is reading the story of the marriage at Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle of transforming water into wine. As Alyosha drifts in and out of sleep, still praying, he enters into a kind of a trance, in which snippets of Paissy's reading mingle with his own scattered impressions of the day's events. While in this trance-like state, he sees Zosima himself appear before him, filled with joy. Zosima tells Alyosha that everyone - presumably in heaven - is at the wedding feast, everyone who gave just an onion. Suddenly Alyosha is filled with rapture and wakes up. He goes outside and falls to ground, kissing it. Three days later, Alyosha leaves the monastery as Zosima had directed him.", "analysis": ""}

Chapter IV. Cana Of Galilee It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosha returned to the hermitage; the door-keeper let him in by a special entrance. It had struck nine o'clock--the 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 things--something steadfast and comforting--and 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 Paissy 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 Paissy. "_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 each--only 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 to-day. 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 Paissy without his noticing it. Father Paissy 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 mind--and 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."

Book 7, Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-7-chapter-4

Alyosha gets back to the monastery at 9 in the evening and visits Zosima's cell, where Father Paissy continues to read from the Gospels over Zosima's coffin. Alyosha kneels to pray and finds that instead of all of those conflicting emotions he felt earlier, he just feels a kind of "sweetness." Father Paissy is reading the story of the marriage at Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle of transforming water into wine. As Alyosha drifts in and out of sleep, still praying, he enters into a kind of a trance, in which snippets of Paissy's reading mingle with his own scattered impressions of the day's events. While in this trance-like state, he sees Zosima himself appear before him, filled with joy. Zosima tells Alyosha that everyone - presumably in heaven - is at the wedding feast, everyone who gave just an onion. Suddenly Alyosha is filled with rapture and wakes up. He goes outside and falls to ground, kissing it. Three days later, Alyosha leaves the monastery as Zosima had directed him.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/01.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_0_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 1

chapter 1

{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-1", "summary": "We begin with a history of the Dashwood family of Sussex, England: the head of the family, old Mr. Dashwood, dies and distributes his estate among his surviving relatives: his nephew, Henry Dashwood, and his children. The children include one son, John, from a first marriage, and three daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, from his second. Even though John and his wife already have plenty of money, old Mr. Dashwood bequeaths the family estate, Norland, to the couple's young son. However, it seems that everything will be fine for Henry and his family, since they receive a good share of the fortune. Tragically, this arrangement doesn't last long - Henry Dashwood dies, and his estate, including the money he'd recently inherited from his uncle, is re-distributed amongst his wife and children. John and his wife step in here to take control of Norland. Though his father urged him to take care of his stepmother and half-sisters, John's greedy wife convinces him to give the women as little financial help as possible. Basically, John Dashwood and his wife move right in to Norland after the funeral, and give Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters no choice but to leave their home and find a new one. Mrs. Dashwood, who, it must be said, is something of a flighty lady, wants to storm off right away, but her sensible eldest daughter, Elinor, convinces her to stay until they can figure out a new situation. The middle daughter, Marianne, is just as clever as her older sister, but she's far more emotional - no degree of cleverness can keep her romantic notions in check. About the youngest girl, Margaret, not much as said - she's as emotional as Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne, but nowhere near as smart.", "analysis": ""}

The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish to his existence. By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son: by his present lady, three daughters. The son, a steady respectable young man, was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been large, and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age. By his own marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he added to his wealth. To him therefore the succession to the Norland estate was not so really important as to his sisters; for their fortune, independent of what might arise to them from their father's inheriting that property, could be but small. Their mother had nothing, and their father only seven thousand pounds in his own disposal; for the remaining moiety of his first wife's fortune was also secured to her child, and he had only a life-interest in it. The old gentleman died: his will was read, and like almost every other will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure. He was neither so unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew;--but he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest. Mr. Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife and daughters than for himself or his son;--but to his son, and his son's son, a child of four years old, it was secured, in such a way, as to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear to him, and who most needed a provision by any charge on the estate, or by any sale of its valuable woods. The whole was tied up for the benefit of this child, who, in occasional visits with his father and mother at Norland, had so far gained on the affections of his uncle, by such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh all the value of all the attention which, for years, he had received from his niece and her daughters. He meant not to be unkind, however, and, as a mark of his affection for the three girls, he left them a thousand pounds a-piece. Mr. Dashwood's disappointment was, at first, severe; but his temper was cheerful and sanguine; and he might reasonably hope to live many years, and by living economically, lay by a considerable sum from the produce of an estate already large, and capable of almost immediate improvement. But the fortune, which had been so tardy in coming, was his only one twelvemonth. He survived his uncle no longer; and ten thousand pounds, including the late legacies, was all that remained for his widow and daughters. His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him Mr. Dashwood recommended, with all the strength and urgency which illness could command, the interest of his mother-in-law and sisters. Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at such a time, and he promised to do every thing in his power to make them comfortable. His father was rendered easy by such an assurance, and Mr. John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how much there might prudently be in his power to do for them. He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted and rather selfish is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties. Had he married a more amiable woman, he might have been made still more respectable than he was:--he might even have been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and very fond of his wife. But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature of himself;--more narrow-minded and selfish. When he gave his promise to his father, he meditated within himself to increase the fortunes of his sisters by the present of a thousand pounds a-piece. He then really thought himself equal to it. The prospect of four thousand a-year, in addition to his present income, besides the remaining half of his own mother's fortune, warmed his heart, and made him feel capable of generosity.-- "Yes, he would give them three thousand pounds: it would be liberal and handsome! It would be enough to make them completely easy. Three thousand pounds! he could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience."-- He thought of it all day long, and for many days successively, and he did not repent. No sooner was his father's funeral over, than Mrs. John Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law, arrived with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her right to come; the house was her husband's from the moment of his father's decease; but the indelicacy of her conduct was so much the greater, and to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood's situation, with only common feelings, must have been highly unpleasing;--but in HER mind there was a sense of honor so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of the kind, by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of immovable disgust. Mrs. John Dashwood had never been a favourite with any of her husband's family; but she had had no opportunity, till the present, of shewing them with how little attention to the comfort of other people she could act when occasion required it. So acutely did Mrs. Dashwood feel this ungracious behaviour, and so earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the arrival of the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had not the entreaty of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the propriety of going, and her own tender love for all her three children determined her afterwards to stay, and for their sakes avoid a breach with their brother. Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence. She had an excellent heart;--her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn; and which one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught. Marianne's abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor's. She was sensible and clever; but eager in everything: her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, interesting: she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between her and her mother was strikingly great. Elinor saw, with concern, the excess of her sister's sensibility; but by Mrs. Dashwood it was valued and cherished. They encouraged each other now in the violence of their affliction. The agony of grief which overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was sought for, was created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future. Elinor, too, was deeply afflicted; but still she could struggle, she could exert herself. She could consult with her brother, could receive her sister-in-law on her arrival, and treat her with proper attention; and could strive to rouse her mother to similar exertion, and encourage her to similar forbearance. Margaret, the other sister, was a good-humored, well-disposed girl; but as she had already imbibed a good deal of Marianne's romance, without having much of her sense, she did not, at thirteen, bid fair to equal her sisters at a more advanced period of life.

Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-1

We begin with a history of the Dashwood family of Sussex, England: the head of the family, old Mr. Dashwood, dies and distributes his estate among his surviving relatives: his nephew, Henry Dashwood, and his children. The children include one son, John, from a first marriage, and three daughters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, from his second. Even though John and his wife already have plenty of money, old Mr. Dashwood bequeaths the family estate, Norland, to the couple's young son. However, it seems that everything will be fine for Henry and his family, since they receive a good share of the fortune. Tragically, this arrangement doesn't last long - Henry Dashwood dies, and his estate, including the money he'd recently inherited from his uncle, is re-distributed amongst his wife and children. John and his wife step in here to take control of Norland. Though his father urged him to take care of his stepmother and half-sisters, John's greedy wife convinces him to give the women as little financial help as possible. Basically, John Dashwood and his wife move right in to Norland after the funeral, and give Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters no choice but to leave their home and find a new one. Mrs. Dashwood, who, it must be said, is something of a flighty lady, wants to storm off right away, but her sensible eldest daughter, Elinor, convinces her to stay until they can figure out a new situation. The middle daughter, Marianne, is just as clever as her older sister, but she's far more emotional - no degree of cleverness can keep her romantic notions in check. About the youngest girl, Margaret, not much as said - she's as emotional as Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne, but nowhere near as smart.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/part_2_chapters_29_to_32.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_17_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 29-32

chapters 29-32

{"name": "Chapters 29-32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-2932", "summary": "Mme. de Fervaques is beginning to respond and finally answers Julien's letters. Ultimately, she is writing him a letter daily, which Julien doesn't open and answers with the letters from Korasov. Mathilde, finding the present state of affairs unbearable, encounters Julien one day in the library. She reproaches him from having neglected her, his wife, then collapses in tears. Julien initiates no action in the way of response. Mathilde then reproaches herself for having forgotten her pride, and finding Mme. de Fervaques' letters to Julien all unopened, she is beside herself with rage, insults him, then confessing her love, begs for mercy, and faints at his feet. Julien has triumphed. Mathilde asks Julien if Mme. de Fervaques has shown him proof of her love. Julien answers no, indirectly and diplomatically. He demands guarantees from Mathilde that she will not continue this cruel game with him. She has nothing but the \"intensity of her love and her unhappiness if he no longer loves her.\" Julien withdraws respectfully, requesting time to reflect. Mathilde has found happiness in renouncing her pride. Julien feels obligated to appear in Mme. de Fervaques' box at the opera. The latter mistakenly believes that the tears in Julien's eyes are shed for her. Julien catches sight of Mathilde in another box, weeping. Going to her box, Julien hears Mathilde murmur tearfully \"guarantees.\" Giving himself over to the expansive joy of his love in the solitude of his room, Julien hits upon a new stratagem to perpetuate Mathilde's love: He must frighten her. The next day, she offers to elope with him. He rejects the offer, reminding her that this mood would soon pass. Walking in the garden with Mathilde, Julien confesses how he used to watch for her there, but he then denies immediately the truth of this avowal. He continues to write to Mme. de Fervaques despite Mathilde's disapproval. Mathilde is now truly in love. She acts recklessly, but Julien maintains caution. She announces triumphantly, to Julien's consternation, that she is pregnant and that this is the guarantee which he demanded. She insists on informing her father but defers to Julien's view that it would be better to delay in writing the letter. In her letter, Mathilde assumes all blame and expresses the hope that her father will forgive both of them. She announces her intention of marrying Julien, and she suggests that their future situation will depend upon how M. de la Mole receives this news.", "analysis": "These chapters narrate the victory that Julien wins over Mathilde as his stratagem succeeds. It is here that the Cornelian nature of their love is most fully exemplified: They are nearest when farthest apart. Julien can force an avowal from Mathilde only by refusing to respond in any way to her successive anger, tears, scorn, then tenderness. Note that Julien does not utter a word in this interview. He must not betray his extreme joy, and they seem condemned to love each other separately. This scene in Chapter 29 is the exact antithesis of a normal love scene. Instead of mutual tenderness and intimacy leading to a reciprocal avowal, there is a progression in hostility and silence leading to an avowal of defeat and submission. Mathilde's initial eruption is spontaneous -- -she reproaches Julien for having neglected her. Her next reaction is equally spontaneous but results from the first -- she has humiliated herself and weeps tears of shame. Julien proves that he has progressed in controlling his sensibility by treating her with impassive coldness. His lack of response intensifies her shame to the point that she explodes in anger. Opening the drawer and finding the letters unopened, Mathilde next resorts, in her uncontrollable rage, to insults. Instantly repenting, however, she avows her love and faints. Julien can only enjoy his love as a triumph when his victim is reduced to unconsciousness as an object. This scene no doubt inspired Proust in his demonstration of the impossibility of possessing another through love. Stendhal's portrayal of Mathilde in this scene is an excellent example of the author's unique character presentation. The reader seems to witness at first hand a process of becoming that is simultaneous with the character's acts. It has been said that the words as Stendhal uses them do more than they say. Mathilde faints because she is one of those superior beings whose emotional makeup is so intense that beyond a certain point, it shuts out reality. Julien reacted similarly in his initial interview with Pirard. Note that Mme. de Fervaques remains hypocritical, even toward herself. She does not admit to herself that she is beginning to love Julien, and since her pride would suffer by addressing letters to him, she is reduced to requesting that he give her self-addressed envelopes. There is a faint glimpse of the role played by Mme. de Renal as confidante to Elise; however, Stendhal chooses not to exploit it. Mme. de Fervaques confides in Mathilde and asks her advice on how to deal with Julien. Stendhal utilizes chapter division to isolate and put into relief a scene, or part of a scene, as is evidenced by the artificial chapter division between 29 and 30. The latter in fact continues the previous scene, but the dramatic effect inherent in 29 would not have been otherwise achieved. Chapter 30 rounds out Julien's victory. He continues to exert incomparable self-control to the point of hypocritically telling Mathilde that he loves Mme. de Fervaques. Finally, he comes to the conscious awareness of the necessity of maintaining a distance in order to continue to be loved by Mathilde. The reader has long since been aware of this fact. The short scene that concludes Chapter 30 represents a different angle of vision from which to see the situation between Julien and Mathilde. They appear at the opera separately, yet in their separateness they are similarly affected. Both are reduced to tears; both are enjoying their love vicariously by association with the spectacle itself. Julien is permitted to maintain the superiority of the unobserved observer. The glance that the eyes bestow is a means of communication between the elect, believes Stendhal. Thus, he gives much importance to the role of Julien's eyes in his adventures. In Chapter 31, Julien hides his eyes as he sits near Mathilde at the opera lest they betray his true feelings. Note in Stendhal's intervention to express approval of Julien's progress the use of the present tense and \"may.\" These are intended to convince the reader of the veracity of the narrative and is a much abused device to which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novelists resort. The result is the complicity so vehemently denounced by the \"new French novelists\": The omniscient novelist would pass off fiction as truth; and in this complicity, the public agrees to pretend that what it is reading is indeed fact. It might be argued that Stendhal in particular needs to establish such a complicity since his practice of withholding proof of his hero's superiority might alienate the reader. Stendhal prefers the garden as a setting for amorous adventures. Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal began and progressed in the garden. The garden scene in Chapter 31 evokes Julien's solitary anguish as he watched for Mathilde when he thought he wasn't loved. It is also the setting of the reversal of a previous meeting between them: Mathilde tortured Julien to maintain her ascendancy by telling him of her past loves; now, Julien, momentarily giving way to an expression of his \"past\" love for her, uses the same stratagem to maintain his present supremacy over Mathilde. He brutally denies the veracity of the words he has just spoken. Julien is testing Mathilde to ascertain to what degree his unchecked sincerity has dampened her love. His own \"guarantee\" consists of continuing to write the letters. He realizes that he must keep Mathilde in constant doubt as to whether he loves her. Chapter 32 presents at once the culmination of their conflict, the transformation of Mathilde's love, and it puts into motion the subject matter to be fully developed in the next few chapters. Circumstances somewhat beyond Julien's control seem to give a new direction to their relationship. Things are getting out of hand for Julien. Mathilde has accepted him as her master, it is true. Her proud nature requires that she continue the struggle elsewhere, however. First, by her reckless, almost promiscuous conduct with a social inferior, she flouts respectability. Mathilde's pregnancy is the beginning of the end for Julien. For Mathilde, it is the renewal in a different form of her dream of heroism and martyrdom. Her duty, she informs Julien, is to inform her father of this turn of events, and joyfully, she sees this heroic act as a way of proving her merit in Julien's eyes and as a way to compete with him in bravery. Julien has succeeded in convincing Mathilde that her love for him is stronger than his for her. This satisfies Mathilde, giving her a kind of superiority over him. The letter to her father, her \"best friend,\" is certainly consistent with Mathilde's character. Love is for her so intimately associated with the infliction of pain on herself and others that she logically turns to the person she loves best after Julien to initiate a new conflict. A \"great soul\" requires that others of the elect participate in a kind of ritualistic sacrifice. Fabrice in The Charterhouse of Parma has a similar demanding relationship with the other elect in that novel. The next three chapters recount a struggle of wills between Mathilde and M. de la Mole."}

CHAPTER LIX ENNUI Sacrificing one's self to one's passions, let it pass; but sacrificing one's self to passions which one has not got! Oh! melancholy nineteenth century! _Girodet_. Madame de Fervaques had begun reading Julien's long letters without any pleasure, but she now began to think about them; one thing, however, grieved her. "What a pity that M. Sorel was not a real priest! He could then be admitted to a kind of intimacy; but in view of that cross, and that almost lay dress, one is exposed to cruel questions and what is one to answer?" She did not finish the train of thought, "Some malicious woman friend may think, and even spread it about that he is some lower middle-class cousin or other, a relative of my father, some tradesman who has been decorated by the National Guard." Up to the time which she had seen Julien, madame de Fervaque's greatest pleasure had been writing the word marechale after her name. Consequently a morbid parvenu vanity, which was ready to take umbrage at everything, combatted the awakening of her interest in him. "It would be so easy for me," said the marechale, "to make him a grand vicar in some diocese near Paris! but plain M. Sorel, and what is more, a man who is the secretary of M. de la Mole! It is heart-breaking." For the first time in her life this soul, which was afraid of everything, was moved by an interest which was alien to its own pretensions to rank and superiority. Her old porter noticed that whenever he brought a letter from this handsome young man, who always looked so sad, he was certain to see that absent, discontented expression, which the marechale always made a point of assuming on the entry of any of her servants, immediately disappear. The boredom of a mode of life whose ambitions were concentrated on impressing the public without her having at heart any real faculty of enjoyment for that kind of success, had become so intolerable since she had begun to think of Julien that, all that was necessary to prevent her chambermaids being bullied for a whole day, was that their mistress should have passed an hour in the society of this strange young man on the evening of the preceding day. His budding credit was proof against very cleverly written anonymous letters. It was in vain that Tanbeau supplied M. de Luz, de Croisenois, de Caylus, with two or three very clever calumnies which these gentlemen were only too glad to spread, without making too many enquiries of the actual truth of the charges. The marechale, whose temperament was not calculated to be proof against these vulgar expedients related her doubts to Mathilde, and was always consoled by her. One day, madame de Fervaques, after having asked three times if there were any letters for her, suddenly decided to answer Julien. It was a case of the triumph of ennui. On reaching the second letter in his name the marechale almost felt herself pulled up sharp by the unbecomingness of writing with her own hand so vulgar an address as to M. Sorel, care of M. le Marquis de la Mole. "You must bring me envelopes with your address on," she said very drily to Julien in the evening. "Here I am appointed lover and valet in one," thought Julien, and he bowed, amused himself by wrinkling his face up like Arsene, the old valet of the marquis. He brought the envelopes that very evening, and he received the third letter very early on the following day: he read five or six lines at the beginning, and two or three towards the end. There were four pages of a small and very close writing. The lady gradually developed the sweet habit of writing nearly every day. Julien answered by faithful copies of the Russian letters; and such is the advantage of the bombastic style that madame de Fervaques was not a bit astonished by the lack of connection between his answers and her letters. How gravely irritated would her pride have been if the little Tanbeau who had constituted himself a voluntary spy on all Julien's movements had been able to have informed her that all these letters were left unsealed and thrown haphazard into Julien's drawer. One morning the porter was bringing into the library a letter to him from the marechale. Mathilde met the man, saw the letter together with the address in Julien's handwriting. She entered the library as the porter was leaving it, the letter was still on the edge of the table. Julien was very busy with his work and had not yet put it in his drawer. "I cannot endure this," exclaimed Mathilde, as she took possession of the letter, "you are completely forgetting me, me your wife, your conduct is awful, monsieur." At these words her pride, shocked by the awful unseemliness of her proceeding, prevented her from speaking. She burst into tears, and soon seemed to Julien scarcely able to breathe. Julien was so surprised and embarrassed that he did not fully appreciate how ideally fortunate this scene was for himself. He helped Mathilde to sit down; she almost abandoned herself in his arms. The first minute in which he noticed this movement, he felt an extreme joy. Immediately afterwards, he thought of Korasoff: "I may lose everything by a single word." The strain of carrying out his tactics was so great that his arms stiffened. "I dare not even allow myself to press this supple, charming frame to my heart, or she will despise me or treat me badly. What an awful character!" And while he cursed Mathilde's character, he loved her a hundred times more. He thought he had a queen in his arms. Julien's impassive coldness intensified the anguished pride which was lacerating the soul of mademoiselle de la Mole. She was far from having the necessary self-possession to try and read in his eyes what he felt for her at that particular moment. She could not make up her mind to look at him. She trembled lest she might encounter a contemptuous expression. Seated motionless on the library divan, with her head turned in the opposite direction to Julien, she was a prey to the most poignant anguish that pride and love can inflict upon a human soul. What an awful step had she just slipped into taking! "It has been reserved for me, unhappy woman that I am, to see my most unbecoming advances rebuffed! and rebuffed by whom?" added her maddened and wounded pride; "rebuffed by a servant of my father's! That's more than I will put up with," she said aloud, and rising in a fury, she opened the drawer of Julien's table, which was two yards in front of her. She stood petrified with horror when she saw eight or ten unopened letters, completely like the one the porter had just brought up. She recognised Julien's handwriting, though more or less disguised, on all the addresses. "So," she cried, quite beside herself, "you are not only on good terms with her, but you actually despise her. You, a nobody, despise madame la marechale de Fervaques!" "Oh, forgive me, my dear," she added, throwing herself on her knees; "despise me if you wish, but love me. I cannot live without your love." And she fell down in a dead faint. "So our proud lady is lying at my feet," said Julien to himself. CHAPTER LX A BOX AT THE BOUFFES As the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest _Don Juan, c._ 1. _st_.76. In the midst of these great transports Julien felt more surprised than happy. Mathilde's abuse proved to him the shrewdness of the Russian tactics. "'Few words, few deeds,' that is my one method of salvation." He picked up Mathilde, and without saying a word, put her back on the divan. She was gradually being overcome by tears. In order to keep herself in countenance, she took madame de Fervaques' letters in her hands, and slowly broke the seals. She gave a noticeable nervous movement when she recognised the marechale's handwriting. She turned over the pages of these letters without reading them. Most of them were six pages. "At least answer me," Mathilde said at last, in the most supplicatory tone, but without daring to look at Julien: "You know how proud I am. It is the misfortune of my position, and of my temperament, too, I confess. Has madame de Fervaques robbed me of your heart? Has she made the sacrifices to which my fatal love swept me?" A dismal silence was all Julien's answer. "By what right," he thought, "does she ask me to commit an indiscretion unworthy of an honest man?" Mathilde tried to read the letters; her eyes were so wet with tears that it was impossible for her to do so. She had been unhappy for a month past, but this haughty soul had been very far from owning its own feelings even to itself. Chance alone had brought about this explosion. For one instant jealousy and love had won a victory over pride. She was sitting on the divan, and very near him. He saw her hair and her alabaster neck. For a moment he forgot all he owed to himself. He passed his arm around her waist, and clasped her almost to his breast. She slowly turned her head towards him. He was astonished by the extreme anguish in her eyes. There was not a trace of their usual expression. Julien felt his strength desert him. So great was the deadly pain of the courageous feat which he was imposing on himself. "Those eyes will soon express nothing but the coldest disdain," said Julien to himself, "if I allow myself to be swept away by the happiness of loving her." She, however, kept repeatedly assuring him at this moment, in a hushed voice, and in words which she had scarcely the strength to finish, of all her remorse for those steps which her inordinate pride had dictated. "I, too, have pride," said Julien to her, in a scarcely articulate voice, while his features portrayed the lowest depths of physical prostration. Mathilde turned round sharply towards him. Hearing his voice was a happiness which she had given up hoping. At this moment her only thought of her haughtiness was to curse it. She would have liked to have found out some abnormal and incredible actions, in order to prove to him the extent to which she adored him and detested herself. "That pride is probably the reason," continued Julien, "why you singled me out for a moment. My present courageous and manly firmness is certainly the reason why you respect me. I may entertain love for the marechale." Mathilde shuddered; a strange expression came into her eyes. She was going to hear her sentence pronounced. This shudder did not escape Julien. He felt his courage weaken. "Ah," he said to himself, as he listened to the sound of the vain words which his mouth was articulating, as he thought it were some strange sound, "if I could only cover those pale cheeks with kisses without your feeling it." "I may entertain love for the marechale," he continued, while his voice became weaker and weaker, "but I certainly have no definite proof of her interest in me." Mathilde looked at him. He supported that look. He hoped, at any rate, that his expression had not betrayed him. He felt himself bathed in a love that penetrated even into the most secret recesses of his heart. He had never adored her so much; he was almost as mad as Mathilde. If she had mustered sufficient self-possession and courage to manoeuvre, he would have abandoned all his play-acting, and fallen at her feet. He had sufficient strength to manage to continue speaking: "Ah, Korasoff," he exclaimed mentally, "why are you not here? How I need a word from you to guide me in my conduct." During this time his voice was saying, "In default of any other sentiment, gratitude would be sufficient to attach me to the marechale. She has been indulgent to me; she has consoled me when I have been despised. I cannot put unlimited faith in certain appearances which are, no doubt, extremely flattering, but possibly very fleeting." "Oh, my God!" exclaimed Mathilde. "Well, what guarantee will you give me?" replied Julien with a sharp, firm intonation, which seemed to abandon for a moment the prudent forms of diplomacy. "What guarantee, what god will warrant that the position to which you seem inclined to restore me at the present moment will last more than two days?" "The excess of my love, and my unhappiness if you do not love me," she said to him, taking his hands and turning towards him. The spasmodic movement which she had just made had slightly displaced her tippet; Julien caught a view of her charming shoulders. Her slightly dishevelled hair recalled a delicious memory.... He was on the point of succumbing. "One imprudent word," he said to himself, "and I have to start all over again that long series of days which I have passed in despair. Madame de Renal used to find reasons for doing what her heart dictated. This young girl of high society never allows her heart to be moved except when she has proved to herself by sound logic that it ought to be moved." He saw this proof in the twinkling of an eye, and in the twinkling of an eye too, he regained his courage. He took away his hands which Mathilde was pressing in her own, and moved a little away from her with a marked respect. Human courage could not go further. He then busied himself with putting together madame de Fervaque's letters which were spread out on the divan, and it was with all the appearance of extreme politeness that he cruelly exploited the psychological moment by adding, "Mademoiselle de la Mole will allow me to reflect over all this." He went rapidly away and left the library; she heard him shut all the doors one after the other. "The monster is not the least bit troubled," she said to herself. "But what am I saying? Monster? He is wise, prudent, good. It is I myself who have committed more wrong than one can imagine." This point of view lasted. Mathilde was almost happy today, for she gave herself up to love unreservedly. One would have said that this soul had never been disturbed by pride (and what pride!) She shuddered with horror when a lackey announced madame le Fervaques into the salon in the evening. The man's voice struck her as sinister. She could not endure the sight of the marechale, and stopped suddenly. Julien who had felt little pride over his painful victory, had feared to face her, and had not dined at the Hotel de la Mole. His love and his happiness rapidly increased in proportion to the time that elapsed from the moment of the battle. He was blaming himself already. "How could I resist her?" he said to himself. "Suppose she were to go and leave off loving me! One single moment may change that haughty soul, and I must admit that I have treated her awfully." In the evening he felt that it was absolutely necessary to put in an appearance at the Bouffes in madame de Fervaques' box. She had expressly invited him. Mathilde would be bound to know of his presence or his discourteous absence. In spite of the clearness of this logic, he could not at the beginning of the evening bring himself to plunge into society. By speaking he would lose half his happiness. Ten o'clock struck and it was absolutely necessary to show himself. Luckily he found the marechale's box packed with women, and was relegated to a place near the door where he was completely hidden by the hats. This position saved him from looking ridiculous; Caroline's divine notes of despair in the _Matrimonio Segreto_ made him burst into tears. Madame de Fervaques saw these tears. They represented so great a contrast with the masculine firmness of his usual expression that the soul of the old-fashioned lady, saturated as it had been for many years with all the corroding acid of parvenu haughtiness, was none the less touched. Such remnants of a woman's heart as she still possessed impelled her to speak: she wanted to enjoy the sound of his voice at this moment. "Have you seen the de la Mole ladies?" she said to him. "They are in the third tier." Julien immediately craned out over the theatre, leaning politely enough on the front of the box. He saw Mathilde; her eyes were shining with tears. "And yet it is not their Opera day," thought Julien; "how eager she must be!" Mathilde had prevailed on her mother to come to the Bouffes in spite of the inconveniently high tier of the box, which a lady friend of the family had hastened to offer her. She wanted to see if Julien would pass the evening with the marechale. CHAPTER LXI FRIGHTEN HER So this is the fine miracle of your civilisation; you have turned love into an ordinary business.--_Barnave_. Julien rushed into madame de la Mole's box. His eyes first met the tearful eyes of Mathilde; she was crying without reserve. There were only insignificant personages present, the friend who had leant her box, and some men whom she knew. Mathilde placed her hand on Julien's; she seemed to have forgotten all fear of her mother. Almost stifled as she was by her tears, she said nothing but this one word: "Guarantees!" "So long as I don't speak to her," said Julien to himself. He was himself very moved, and concealed his eyes with his hand as best he could under the pretext of avoiding the dazzling light of the third tier of boxes. "If I speak she may suspect the excess of my emotion, the sound of my voice will betray me. All may yet be lost." His struggles were more painful than they had been in the morning, his soul had had the time to become moved. He had been frightened at seeing Mathilde piqued with vanity. Intoxicated as he was with love and pleasure he resolved not to speak. In my view this is one of the finest traits in his character, an individual capable of such an effort of self-control may go far si _fata sinant_. Mademoiselle de la Mole insisted on taking Julien back to the hotel. Luckily it was raining a great deal, but the marquise had him placed opposite her, talked to him incessantly, and prevented him saying a single word to her daughter. One might have thought that the marquise was nursing Julien's happiness for him; no longer fearing to lose everything through his excessive emotion, he madly abandoned himself to his happiness. Shall I dare to say that when he went back to his room Julien fell on his knees and covered with kisses the love letters which prince Korasoff had given him. "How much I owe you, great man," he exclaimed in his madness. Little by little he regained his self-possession. He compared himself to a general who had just won a great battle. "My advantage is definite and immense," he said to himself, "but what will happen to-morrow? One instant may ruin everything." With a passionate gesture he opened the _Memoirs_ which Napoleon had dictated at St. Helena and for two long hours forced himself to read them. Only his eyes read; no matter, he made himself do it. During this singular reading his head and his heart rose to the most exalted level and worked unconsciously. "Her heart is very different from madame de Renal's," he said to himself, but he did not go further. "Frighten her!" he suddenly exclaimed, hurling away the book. "The enemy will only obey me in so far as I frighten him, but then he will not dare to show contempt for me." Intoxicated with joy he walked up and down his little room. In point of fact his happiness was based rather on pride than on love. "Frighten her!" he repeated proudly, and he had cause to be proud. "Madame de Renal always doubted even in her happiest moments if my love was equal to her own. In this case I have to subjugate a demon, consequently I must subjugate her." He knew quite well that Mathilde would be in the library at eight o'clock in the morning of the following day. He did not appear before nine o'clock. He was burning with love, but his head dominated his heart. Scarcely a single minute passed without his repeating to himself. "Keep her obsessed by this great doubt. Does he love me?" Her own brilliant position, together with the flattery of all who speak to her, tend a little too much to make her reassure herself. He found her sitting on the divan pale and calm, but apparently completely incapable of making a single movement. She held out her hand, "Dear one, it is true I have offended you, perhaps you are angry with me." Julien had not been expecting this simple tone. He was on the point of betraying himself. "You want guarantees, my dear, she added after a silence which she had hoped would be broken. Take me away, let us leave for London. I shall be ruined, dishonoured for ever." She had the courage to take her hand away from Julien to cover her eyes with it. All her feelings of reserve and feminine virtue had come back into her soul. "Well, dishonour me," she said at last with a sigh, "that will be a guarantee." "I was happy yesterday, because I had the courage to be severe with myself," thought Julien. After a short silence he had sufficient control over his heart to say in an icy tone, "Once we are on the road to London, once you are dishonoured, to employ your own expression, who will answer that you will still love me? that my very presence in the post-chaise will not seem importunate? I am not a monster; to have ruined your reputation will only make me still more unhappy. It is not your position in society which is the obstacle, it is unfortunately your own character. Can you yourself guarantee that you will love me for eight days?" "Ah! let her love me for eight days, just eight days," whispered Julien to himself, "and I will die of happiness. What do I care for the future, what do I care for life? And yet if I wish that divine happiness can commence this very minute, it only depends on me." Mathilde saw that he was pensive. "So I am completely unworthy of you," she said to him, taking his hand. Julien kissed her, but at the same time the iron hand of duty gripped his heart. If she sees how much I adore her I shall lose her. And before leaving her arms, he had reassumed all that dignity which is proper to a man. He managed on this and the following days to conceal his inordinate happiness. There were moments when he even refused himself the pleasure of clasping her in his arms. At other times the delirium of happiness prevailed over all the counsels of prudence. He had been accustomed to station himself near a bower of honeysuckle in the garden arranged in such a way so as to conceal the ladder when he had looked up at Mathilde's blind in the distance, and lamented her inconstancy. A very big oak tree was quite near, and the trunk of that tree prevented him from being seen by the indiscreet. As he passed with Mathilde over this very place which recalled his excessive unhappiness so vividly, the contrast between his former despair and his present happiness proved too much for his character. Tears inundated his eyes, and he carried his sweetheart's hand to his lips: "It was here I used to live in my thoughts of you, it was from here that I used to look at that blind, and waited whole hours for the happy moment when I would see that hand open it." His weakness was unreserved. He portrayed the extremity of his former despair in genuine colours which could not possibly have been invented. Short interjections testified to that present happiness which had put an end to that awful agony. "My God, what am I doing?" thought Julien, suddenly recovering himself. "I am ruining myself." In his excessive alarm he thought that he already detected a diminution of the love in mademoiselle de la Mole's eyes. It was an illusion, but Julien's face suddenly changed its expression and became overspread by a mortal pallor. His eyes lost their fire, and an expression of haughtiness touched with malice soon succeeded to his look of the most genuine and unreserved love. "But what is the matter with you, my dear," said Mathilde to him, both tenderly and anxiously. "I am lying," said Julien irritably, "and I am lying to you. I am reproaching myself for it, and yet God knows that I respect you sufficiently not to lie to you. You love me, you are devoted to me, and I have no need of praises in order to please you." "Great heavens! are all the charming things you have been telling me for the last two minutes mere phrases?" "And I reproach myself for it keenly, dear one. I once made them up for a woman who loved me, and bored me--it is the weakness of my character. I denounce myself to you, forgive me." Bitter tears streamed over Mathilde's cheeks. "As soon as some trifle offends me and throws me back on my meditation," continued Julien, "my abominable memory, which I curse at this very minute, offers me a resource, and I abuse it." "So I must have slipped, without knowing it, into some action which has displeased you," said Mathilde with a charming simplicity. "I remember one day that when you passed near this honeysuckle you picked a flower, M. de Luz took it from you and you let him keep it. I was two paces away." "M. de Luz? It is impossible," replied Mathilde with all her natural haughtiness. "I do not do things like that." "I am sure of it," Julien replied sharply. "Well, my dear, it is true," said Mathilde, as she sadly lowered her eyes. She knew positively that many months had elapsed since she had allowed M. de Luz to do such a thing. Julien looked at her with ineffable tenderness, "No," he said to himself, "she does not love me less." In the evening she rallied him with a laugh on his fancy for madame de Fervaques. "Think of a bourgeois loving a parvenu, those are perhaps the only type of hearts that my Julien cannot make mad with love. She has made you into a real dandy," she said playing with his hair. During the period when he thought himself scorned by Mathilde, Julien had become one of the best dressed men in Paris. He had, moreover, a further advantage over other dandies, in as much as once he had finished dressing he never gave a further thought to his appearance. One thing still piqued Mathilde, Julien continued to copy out the Russian letters and send them to the marechale. CHAPTER LXII THE TIGER Alas, why these things and not other things?--_Beaumarchais_. An English traveller tells of the intimacy in which he lived with a tiger. He had trained it and would caress it, but he always kept a cocked pistol on his table. Julien only abandoned himself to the fulness of his happiness in those moments when Mathilde could not read the expression in his eyes. He scrupulously performed his duty of addressing some harsh word to her from time to time. When Mathilde's sweetness, which he noticed with some surprise, together with the completeness of her devotion were on the point of depriving him of all self-control, he was courageous enough to leave her suddenly. Mathilde loved for the first time in her life. Life had previously always dragged along at a tortoise pace, but now it flew. As, however, her pride required to find a vent in some way or other, she wished to expose herself to all the dangers in which her love could involve her. It was Julien who was prudent, and it was only when it was a question of danger that she did not follow her own inclination; but submissive, and almost humble as she was when with him, she only showed additional haughtiness to everyone in the house who came near her, whether relatives or friends. In the evening she would call Julien to her in the salon in the presence of sixty people, and have a long and private conversation with him. The little Tanbeau installed himself one day close to them. She requested him to go and fetch from the library the volume of Smollet which deals with the revolution of 1688, and when he hesitated, added with an expression of insulting haughtiness, which was a veritable balm to Julien's soul, "Don't hurry." "Have you noticed that little monster's expression?" he said to her. "His uncle has been in attendance in this salon for ten or twelve years, otherwise I would have had him packed off immediately." Her behaviour towards MM. de Croisenois, de Luz, etc., though outwardly perfectly polite, was in reality scarcely less provocative. Mathilde keenly reproached herself for all the confidential remarks about them which she had formerly made to Julien, and all the more so since she did not dare to confess that she had exaggerated to him the, in fact, almost absolutely innocent manifestations of interest of which these gentlemen had been the objects. In spite of her best resolutions her womanly pride invariably prevented her from saying to Julien, "It was because I was talking to you that I found a pleasure in describing my weakness in not drawing my hand away, when M. de Croisenois had placed his on a marble table and had just touched it." But now, as soon as one of these gentlemen had been speaking to her for some moments, she found she had a question to put to Julien, and she made this an excuse for keeping him by her side. She discovered that she was _enceinte_ and joyfully informed Julien of the fact. "Do you doubt me now? Is it not a guarantee? I am your wife for ever." This announcement struck Julien with profound astonishment. He was on the point of forgetting the governing principle of his conduct. How am I to be deliberately cold and insulting towards this poor young girl, who is ruining herself for my sake. And if she looked at all ill, he could not, even on those days when the terrible voice of wisdom made itself heard, find the courage to address to her one of those harsh remarks which his experience had found so indispensable to the preservation of their love. "I will write to my father," said Mathilde to him one day, "he is more than a father to me, he is a friend; that being so, I think it unworthy both of you and of myself to try and deceive him, even for a single minute." "Great heavens, what are you going to do?" said Julien in alarm. "My duty," she answered with eyes shining with joy. She thought she was showing more nobility than her lover. "But he will pack me off in disgrace." "It is his right to do so, we must respect it. I will give you my arm, and we will go out by the front door in full daylight." Julien was thunderstruck and requested her to put it off for a week. "I cannot," she answered, "it is the voice of honour, I have seen my duty, I must follow it, and follow it at once." "Well, I order you to put it off," said Julien at last. "Your honour is safe for the present. I am your husband. The position of us will be changed by this momentous step. I too am within my rights. To-day is Tuesday, next Tuesday is the duke de Retz's at home; when M. de la Mole comes home in the evening the porter will give him the fatal letter. His only thought is to make you a duchess, I am sure of it. Think of his unhappiness." "You mean, think of his vengeance?" "It may be that I pity my benefactor, and am grieved at injuring him, but I do not fear, and shall never fear anyone." Mathilde yielded. This was the first occasion, since she had informed Julien of her condition, that he had spoken to her authoritatively. She had never loved him so much. The tender part of his soul had found happiness in seizing on Mathilde's condition as an excuse for refraining from his cruel remarks to her. The question of the confession to M. de la Mole deeply moved him. Was he going to be separated from Mathilde? And, however grieved she would be to see him go, would she have a thought for him after his departure? He was almost equally horrified by the thought of the justified reproaches which the marquis might address to him. In the evening he confessed to Mathilde the second reason for his anxiety, and then led away by his love, confessed the first as well. She changed colour. "Would it really make you unhappy," she said to him, "to pass six months far away from me?" "Infinitely so. It is the only thing in the world which terrifies me." Mathilde was very happy. Julien had played his part so assiduously that he had succeeded in making her think that she was the one of the two who loved the more. The fatal Tuesday arrived. When the marquis came in at midnight he found a letter addressed to him, which was only to be opened himself when no one was there:-- "My father, "All social ties have been broken between us, only those of nature remain. Next to my husband, you are and always will be the being I shall always hold most dear. My eyes are full of tears, I am thinking of the pain that I am causing you, but if my shame was to be prevented from becoming public, and you were to be given time to reflect and act, I could not postpone any longer the confession that I owe you. If your affection for me, which I know is extremely deep, is good enough to grant me a small allowance, I will go and settle with my husband anywhere you like, in Switzerland, for instance. His name is so obscure that no one would recognize in Madame Sorel, the daughter-in-law of a Verrieres carpenter, your daughter. That is the name which I have so much difficulty in writing. I fear your wrath against Julien, it seems so justified. I shall not be a duchess, my father; but I knew it when I loved him; for I was the one who loved him first, it was I who seduced him. I have inherited from you too lofty a soul to fix my attention on what either is or appears to be vulgar. It is in vain that I thought of M. Croisenois with a view to pleasing you. Why did you place real merit under my eyes? You told me yourself on my return from Hyeres, 'that young Sorel is the one person who amuses me,' the poor boy is as grieved as I am if it is possible, at the pain this letter will give you. I cannot prevent you being irritated as a father, but love me as a friend. "Julien respected me. If he sometimes spoke to me, it was only by reason of his deep gratitude towards yourself, for the natural dignity of his character induces him to keep to his official capacity in any answers he may make to anyone who is so much above him. He has a keen and instinctive appreciation of the difference of social rank. It was I (I confess it with a blush to my best friend, and I shall never make such a confession to anyone else) who clasped his arm one day in the garden. "Why need you be irritated with him, after twenty-four hours have elapsed? My own lapse is irreparable. If you insist on it, the assurance of his profound respect and of his desperate grief at having displeased you, can be conveyed to you through me. You need not see him at all, but I shall go and join him wherever he wishes. It is his right and it is my duty. He is the father of my child. If your kindness will go so far as to grant us six thousand francs to live on, I will receive it with gratitude; if not, Julien reckons on establishing himself at Besancon, where he will set up as a Latin and literature master. However low may have been the station from which he springs, I am certain he will raise himself. With him I do not fear obscurity. If there is a revolution, I am sure that he will play a prime part. Can you say as much for any of those who have asked for my hand? They have fine estates, you say. I cannot consider that circumstance a reason for admiring them. My Julien would attain a high position, even under the present regime, if he had a million and my father's protection...." Mathilde, who knew that the marquis was a man who always abandoned himself to his first impulse, had written eight pages. "What am I to do?" said Julien to himself while M. de la Mole was reading this letter. "Where is (first) my duty; (second) my interest? My debt to him is immense. Without him I should have been a menial scoundrel, and not even enough of a scoundrel to be hated and persecuted by the others. He has made me a man of the world. The villainous acts which I now have to do are (first) less frequent; (second) less mean. That is more than as if he had given me a million. I am indebted to him for this cross and the reputation of having rendered those alleged diplomatic services, which have lifted me out of the ruck. "If he himself were writing instructions for my conduct, what would he prescribe?" Julien was sharply interrupted by M. de la Mole's old valet. "The marquis wants to see you at once, dressed or not dressed." The valet added in a low voice, as he walked by Julien's side, "He is beside himself: look out!"

Chapters 29-32

https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-2932

Mme. de Fervaques is beginning to respond and finally answers Julien's letters. Ultimately, she is writing him a letter daily, which Julien doesn't open and answers with the letters from Korasov. Mathilde, finding the present state of affairs unbearable, encounters Julien one day in the library. She reproaches him from having neglected her, his wife, then collapses in tears. Julien initiates no action in the way of response. Mathilde then reproaches herself for having forgotten her pride, and finding Mme. de Fervaques' letters to Julien all unopened, she is beside herself with rage, insults him, then confessing her love, begs for mercy, and faints at his feet. Julien has triumphed. Mathilde asks Julien if Mme. de Fervaques has shown him proof of her love. Julien answers no, indirectly and diplomatically. He demands guarantees from Mathilde that she will not continue this cruel game with him. She has nothing but the "intensity of her love and her unhappiness if he no longer loves her." Julien withdraws respectfully, requesting time to reflect. Mathilde has found happiness in renouncing her pride. Julien feels obligated to appear in Mme. de Fervaques' box at the opera. The latter mistakenly believes that the tears in Julien's eyes are shed for her. Julien catches sight of Mathilde in another box, weeping. Going to her box, Julien hears Mathilde murmur tearfully "guarantees." Giving himself over to the expansive joy of his love in the solitude of his room, Julien hits upon a new stratagem to perpetuate Mathilde's love: He must frighten her. The next day, she offers to elope with him. He rejects the offer, reminding her that this mood would soon pass. Walking in the garden with Mathilde, Julien confesses how he used to watch for her there, but he then denies immediately the truth of this avowal. He continues to write to Mme. de Fervaques despite Mathilde's disapproval. Mathilde is now truly in love. She acts recklessly, but Julien maintains caution. She announces triumphantly, to Julien's consternation, that she is pregnant and that this is the guarantee which he demanded. She insists on informing her father but defers to Julien's view that it would be better to delay in writing the letter. In her letter, Mathilde assumes all blame and expresses the hope that her father will forgive both of them. She announces her intention of marrying Julien, and she suggests that their future situation will depend upon how M. de la Mole receives this news.

These chapters narrate the victory that Julien wins over Mathilde as his stratagem succeeds. It is here that the Cornelian nature of their love is most fully exemplified: They are nearest when farthest apart. Julien can force an avowal from Mathilde only by refusing to respond in any way to her successive anger, tears, scorn, then tenderness. Note that Julien does not utter a word in this interview. He must not betray his extreme joy, and they seem condemned to love each other separately. This scene in Chapter 29 is the exact antithesis of a normal love scene. Instead of mutual tenderness and intimacy leading to a reciprocal avowal, there is a progression in hostility and silence leading to an avowal of defeat and submission. Mathilde's initial eruption is spontaneous -- -she reproaches Julien for having neglected her. Her next reaction is equally spontaneous but results from the first -- she has humiliated herself and weeps tears of shame. Julien proves that he has progressed in controlling his sensibility by treating her with impassive coldness. His lack of response intensifies her shame to the point that she explodes in anger. Opening the drawer and finding the letters unopened, Mathilde next resorts, in her uncontrollable rage, to insults. Instantly repenting, however, she avows her love and faints. Julien can only enjoy his love as a triumph when his victim is reduced to unconsciousness as an object. This scene no doubt inspired Proust in his demonstration of the impossibility of possessing another through love. Stendhal's portrayal of Mathilde in this scene is an excellent example of the author's unique character presentation. The reader seems to witness at first hand a process of becoming that is simultaneous with the character's acts. It has been said that the words as Stendhal uses them do more than they say. Mathilde faints because she is one of those superior beings whose emotional makeup is so intense that beyond a certain point, it shuts out reality. Julien reacted similarly in his initial interview with Pirard. Note that Mme. de Fervaques remains hypocritical, even toward herself. She does not admit to herself that she is beginning to love Julien, and since her pride would suffer by addressing letters to him, she is reduced to requesting that he give her self-addressed envelopes. There is a faint glimpse of the role played by Mme. de Renal as confidante to Elise; however, Stendhal chooses not to exploit it. Mme. de Fervaques confides in Mathilde and asks her advice on how to deal with Julien. Stendhal utilizes chapter division to isolate and put into relief a scene, or part of a scene, as is evidenced by the artificial chapter division between 29 and 30. The latter in fact continues the previous scene, but the dramatic effect inherent in 29 would not have been otherwise achieved. Chapter 30 rounds out Julien's victory. He continues to exert incomparable self-control to the point of hypocritically telling Mathilde that he loves Mme. de Fervaques. Finally, he comes to the conscious awareness of the necessity of maintaining a distance in order to continue to be loved by Mathilde. The reader has long since been aware of this fact. The short scene that concludes Chapter 30 represents a different angle of vision from which to see the situation between Julien and Mathilde. They appear at the opera separately, yet in their separateness they are similarly affected. Both are reduced to tears; both are enjoying their love vicariously by association with the spectacle itself. Julien is permitted to maintain the superiority of the unobserved observer. The glance that the eyes bestow is a means of communication between the elect, believes Stendhal. Thus, he gives much importance to the role of Julien's eyes in his adventures. In Chapter 31, Julien hides his eyes as he sits near Mathilde at the opera lest they betray his true feelings. Note in Stendhal's intervention to express approval of Julien's progress the use of the present tense and "may." These are intended to convince the reader of the veracity of the narrative and is a much abused device to which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novelists resort. The result is the complicity so vehemently denounced by the "new French novelists": The omniscient novelist would pass off fiction as truth; and in this complicity, the public agrees to pretend that what it is reading is indeed fact. It might be argued that Stendhal in particular needs to establish such a complicity since his practice of withholding proof of his hero's superiority might alienate the reader. Stendhal prefers the garden as a setting for amorous adventures. Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal began and progressed in the garden. The garden scene in Chapter 31 evokes Julien's solitary anguish as he watched for Mathilde when he thought he wasn't loved. It is also the setting of the reversal of a previous meeting between them: Mathilde tortured Julien to maintain her ascendancy by telling him of her past loves; now, Julien, momentarily giving way to an expression of his "past" love for her, uses the same stratagem to maintain his present supremacy over Mathilde. He brutally denies the veracity of the words he has just spoken. Julien is testing Mathilde to ascertain to what degree his unchecked sincerity has dampened her love. His own "guarantee" consists of continuing to write the letters. He realizes that he must keep Mathilde in constant doubt as to whether he loves her. Chapter 32 presents at once the culmination of their conflict, the transformation of Mathilde's love, and it puts into motion the subject matter to be fully developed in the next few chapters. Circumstances somewhat beyond Julien's control seem to give a new direction to their relationship. Things are getting out of hand for Julien. Mathilde has accepted him as her master, it is true. Her proud nature requires that she continue the struggle elsewhere, however. First, by her reckless, almost promiscuous conduct with a social inferior, she flouts respectability. Mathilde's pregnancy is the beginning of the end for Julien. For Mathilde, it is the renewal in a different form of her dream of heroism and martyrdom. Her duty, she informs Julien, is to inform her father of this turn of events, and joyfully, she sees this heroic act as a way of proving her merit in Julien's eyes and as a way to compete with him in bravery. Julien has succeeded in convincing Mathilde that her love for him is stronger than his for her. This satisfies Mathilde, giving her a kind of superiority over him. The letter to her father, her "best friend," is certainly consistent with Mathilde's character. Love is for her so intimately associated with the infliction of pain on herself and others that she logically turns to the person she loves best after Julien to initiate a new conflict. A "great soul" requires that others of the elect participate in a kind of ritualistic sacrifice. Fabrice in The Charterhouse of Parma has a similar demanding relationship with the other elect in that novel. The next three chapters recount a struggle of wills between Mathilde and M. de la Mole.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/chapters_16_to_17.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Sense and Sensibility/section_11_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapters 16-17

chapters 16-17

{"name": "Chapters 16-17", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101060302/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/sense-and-sensibility/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1617", "summary": "Marianne continued to grieve. No letter came from Willoughby and she did not seem to expect one. \"Why do you not ask Marianne at once whether she is or is not engaged to Willoughby?\" Elinor asked her mother. But Mrs. Dashwood's \"romantic delicacy\" forbade such a thing. One morning when the three sisters were out walking, a man appeared on horseback. Marianne started running toward him, certain it was Willoughby. It was, however, Edward Ferrars. He \"was welcomed by them all with great cordiality.\" Mrs. Dashwood \"was surprised only for a moment at seeing him; for his coming to Barton was, in her opinion, of all things the most natural.\" Edward was overcome by the warmth of her welcome, but throughout his visit, he appeared depressed. When Marianne told him he was reserved, Edward was startled and upset. He seemed to take the remark much more seriously than it was meant.", "analysis": "Marianne's romantic sensibility demands that she suffer acutely because of Willoughby's departure. All the typical symptoms of romantic melancholy are hers -- sleepless nights, listless days, loss of appetite, headaches, and periods of weeping and despair. She is, however, unconcerned about the misery she inflicts on her family. Edward acts rather strangely. He seems depressed and grave, giving Elinor cause for concern."}

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with a headache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough! When breakfast was over she walked out by herself, and wandered about the village of Allenham, indulging the recollection of past enjoyment and crying over the present reverse for the chief of the morning. The evening passed off in the equal indulgence of feeling. She played over every favourite song that she had been used to play to Willoughby, every air in which their voices had been oftenest joined, and sat at the instrument gazing on every line of music that he had written out for her, till her heart was so heavy that no farther sadness could be gained; and this nourishment of grief was every day applied. She spent whole hours at the pianoforte alternately singing and crying; her voice often totally suspended by her tears. In books too, as well as in music, she courted the misery which a contrast between the past and present was certain of giving. She read nothing but what they had been used to read together. Such violence of affliction indeed could not be supported for ever; it sunk within a few days into a calmer melancholy; but these employments, to which she daily recurred, her solitary walks and silent meditations, still produced occasional effusions of sorrow as lively as ever. No letter from Willoughby came; and none seemed expected by Marianne. Her mother was surprised, and Elinor again became uneasy. But Mrs. Dashwood could find explanations whenever she wanted them, which at least satisfied herself. "Remember, Elinor," said she, "how very often Sir John fetches our letters himself from the post, and carries them to it. We have already agreed that secrecy may be necessary, and we must acknowledge that it could not be maintained if their correspondence were to pass through Sir John's hands." Elinor could not deny the truth of this, and she tried to find in it a motive sufficient for their silence. But there was one method so direct, so simple, and in her opinion so eligible of knowing the real state of the affair, and of instantly removing all mystery, that she could not help suggesting it to her mother. "Why do you not ask Marianne at once," said she, "whether she is or she is not engaged to Willoughby? From you, her mother, and so kind, so indulgent a mother, the question could not give offence. It would be the natural result of your affection for her. She used to be all unreserve, and to you more especially." "I would not ask such a question for the world. Supposing it possible that they are not engaged, what distress would not such an enquiry inflict! At any rate it would be most ungenerous. I should never deserve her confidence again, after forcing from her a confession of what is meant at present to be unacknowledged to any one. I know Marianne's heart: I know that she dearly loves me, and that I shall not be the last to whom the affair is made known, when circumstances make the revealment of it eligible. I would not attempt to force the confidence of any one; of a child much less; because a sense of duty would prevent the denial which her wishes might direct." Elinor thought this generosity overstrained, considering her sister's youth, and urged the matter farther, but in vain; common sense, common care, common prudence, were all sunk in Mrs. Dashwood's romantic delicacy. It was several days before Willoughby's name was mentioned before Marianne by any of her family; Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, indeed, were not so nice; their witticisms added pain to many a painful hour;--but one evening, Mrs. Dashwood, accidentally taking up a volume of Shakespeare, exclaimed, "We have never finished Hamlet, Marianne; our dear Willoughby went away before we could get through it. We will put it by, that when he comes again...But it may be months, perhaps, before THAT happens." "Months!" cried Marianne, with strong surprise. "No--nor many weeks." Mrs. Dashwood was sorry for what she had said; but it gave Elinor pleasure, as it produced a reply from Marianne so expressive of confidence in Willoughby and knowledge of his intentions. One morning, about a week after his leaving the country, Marianne was prevailed on to join her sisters in their usual walk, instead of wandering away by herself. Hitherto she had carefully avoided every companion in her rambles. If her sisters intended to walk on the downs, she directly stole away towards the lanes; if they talked of the valley, she was as speedy in climbing the hills, and could never be found when the others set off. But at length she was secured by the exertions of Elinor, who greatly disapproved such continual seclusion. They walked along the road through the valley, and chiefly in silence, for Marianne's MIND could not be controlled, and Elinor, satisfied with gaining one point, would not then attempt more. Beyond the entrance of the valley, where the country, though still rich, was less wild and more open, a long stretch of the road which they had travelled on first coming to Barton, lay before them; and on reaching that point, they stopped to look around them, and examine a prospect which formed the distance of their view from the cottage, from a spot which they had never happened to reach in any of their walks before. Amongst the objects in the scene, they soon discovered an animated one; it was a man on horseback riding towards them. In a few minutes they could distinguish him to be a gentleman; and in a moment afterwards Marianne rapturously exclaimed, "It is he; it is indeed;--I know it is!"--and was hastening to meet him, when Elinor cried out, "Indeed, Marianne, I think you are mistaken. It is not Willoughby. The person is not tall enough for him, and has not his air." "He has, he has," cried Marianne, "I am sure he has. His air, his coat, his horse. I knew how soon he would come." She walked eagerly on as she spoke; and Elinor, to screen Marianne from particularity, as she felt almost certain of its not being Willoughby, quickened her pace and kept up with her. They were soon within thirty yards of the gentleman. Marianne looked again; her heart sunk within her; and abruptly turning round, she was hurrying back, when the voices of both her sisters were raised to detain her; a third, almost as well known as Willoughby's, joined them in begging her to stop, and she turned round with surprise to see and welcome Edward Ferrars. He was the only person in the world who could at that moment be forgiven for not being Willoughby; the only one who could have gained a smile from her; but she dispersed her tears to smile on HIM, and in her sister's happiness forgot for a time her own disappointment. He dismounted, and giving his horse to his servant, walked back with them to Barton, whither he was purposely coming to visit them. He was welcomed by them all with great cordiality, but especially by Marianne, who showed more warmth of regard in her reception of him than even Elinor herself. To Marianne, indeed, the meeting between Edward and her sister was but a continuation of that unaccountable coldness which she had often observed at Norland in their mutual behaviour. On Edward's side, more particularly, there was a deficiency of all that a lover ought to look and say on such an occasion. He was confused, seemed scarcely sensible of pleasure in seeing them, looked neither rapturous nor gay, said little but what was forced from him by questions, and distinguished Elinor by no mark of affection. Marianne saw and listened with increasing surprise. She began almost to feel a dislike of Edward; and it ended, as every feeling must end with her, by carrying back her thoughts to Willoughby, whose manners formed a contrast sufficiently striking to those of his brother elect. After a short silence which succeeded the first surprise and enquiries of meeting, Marianne asked Edward if he came directly from London. No, he had been in Devonshire a fortnight. "A fortnight!" she repeated, surprised at his being so long in the same county with Elinor without seeing her before. He looked rather distressed as he added, that he had been staying with some friends near Plymouth. "Have you been lately in Sussex?" said Elinor. "I was at Norland about a month ago." "And how does dear, dear Norland look?" cried Marianne. "Dear, dear Norland," said Elinor, "probably looks much as it always does at this time of the year. The woods and walks thickly covered with dead leaves." "Oh," cried Marianne, "with what transporting sensation have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight." "It is not every one," said Elinor, "who has your passion for dead leaves." "No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood. But SOMETIMES they are."--As she said this, she sunk into a reverie for a few moments;--but rousing herself again, "Now, Edward," said she, calling his attention to the prospect, "here is Barton valley. Look up to it, and be tranquil if you can. Look at those hills! Did you ever see their equals? To the left is Barton park, amongst those woods and plantations. You may see the end of the house. And there, beneath that farthest hill, which rises with such grandeur, is our cottage." "It is a beautiful country," he replied; "but these bottoms must be dirty in winter." "How can you think of dirt, with such objects before you?" "Because," replied he, smiling, "among the rest of the objects before me, I see a very dirty lane." "How strange!" said Marianne to herself as she walked on. "Have you an agreeable neighbourhood here? Are the Middletons pleasant people?" "No, not all," answered Marianne; "we could not be more unfortunately situated." "Marianne," cried her sister, "how can you say so? How can you be so unjust? They are a very respectable family, Mr. Ferrars; and towards us have behaved in the friendliest manner. Have you forgot, Marianne, how many pleasant days we have owed to them?" "No," said Marianne, in a low voice, "nor how many painful moments." Elinor took no notice of this; and directing her attention to their visitor, endeavoured to support something like discourse with him, by talking of their present residence, its conveniences, &c. extorting from him occasional questions and remarks. His coldness and reserve mortified her severely; she was vexed and half angry; but resolving to regulate her behaviour to him by the past rather than the present, she avoided every appearance of resentment or displeasure, and treated him as she thought he ought to be treated from the family connection. Mrs. Dashwood was surprised only for a moment at seeing him; for his coming to Barton was, in her opinion, of all things the most natural. Her joy and expression of regard long outlived her wonder. He received the kindest welcome from her; and shyness, coldness, reserve could not stand against such a reception. They had begun to fail him before he entered the house, and they were quite overcome by the captivating manners of Mrs. Dashwood. Indeed a man could not very well be in love with either of her daughters, without extending the passion to her; and Elinor had the satisfaction of seeing him soon become more like himself. His affections seemed to reanimate towards them all, and his interest in their welfare again became perceptible. He was not in spirits, however; he praised their house, admired its prospect, was attentive, and kind; but still he was not in spirits. The whole family perceived it, and Mrs. Dashwood, attributing it to some want of liberality in his mother, sat down to table indignant against all selfish parents. "What are Mrs. Ferrars's views for you at present, Edward?" said she, when dinner was over and they had drawn round the fire; "are you still to be a great orator in spite of yourself?" "No. I hope my mother is now convinced that I have no more talents than inclination for a public life!" "But how is your fame to be established? for famous you must be to satisfy all your family; and with no inclination for expense, no affection for strangers, no profession, and no assurance, you may find it a difficult matter." "I shall not attempt it. I have no wish to be distinguished; and have every reason to hope I never shall. Thank Heaven! I cannot be forced into genius and eloquence." "You have no ambition, I well know. Your wishes are all moderate." "As moderate as those of the rest of the world, I believe. I wish as well as every body else to be perfectly happy; but, like every body else it must be in my own way. Greatness will not make me so." "Strange that it would!" cried Marianne. "What have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?" "Grandeur has but little," said Elinor, "but wealth has much to do with it." "Elinor, for shame!" said Marianne, "money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned." "Perhaps," said Elinor, smiling, "we may come to the same point. YOUR competence and MY wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of external comfort must be wanting. Your ideas are only more noble than mine. Come, what is your competence?" "About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than THAT." Elinor laughed. "TWO thousand a year! ONE is my wealth! I guessed how it would end." "And yet two thousand a-year is a very moderate income," said Marianne. "A family cannot well be maintained on a smaller. I am sure I am not extravagant in my demands. A proper establishment of servants, a carriage, perhaps two, and hunters, cannot be supported on less." Elinor smiled again, to hear her sister describing so accurately their future expenses at Combe Magna. "Hunters!" repeated Edward--"but why must you have hunters? Every body does not hunt." Marianne coloured as she replied, "But most people do." "I wish," said Margaret, striking out a novel thought, "that somebody would give us all a large fortune apiece!" "Oh that they would!" cried Marianne, her eyes sparkling with animation, and her cheeks glowing with the delight of such imaginary happiness. "We are all unanimous in that wish, I suppose," said Elinor, "in spite of the insufficiency of wealth." "Oh dear!" cried Margaret, "how happy I should be! I wonder what I should do with it!" Marianne looked as if she had no doubt on that point. "I should be puzzled to spend so large a fortune myself," said Mrs. Dashwood, "if my children were all to be rich without my help." "You must begin your improvements on this house," observed Elinor, "and your difficulties will soon vanish." "What magnificent orders would travel from this family to London," said Edward, "in such an event! What a happy day for booksellers, music-sellers, and print-shops! You, Miss Dashwood, would give a general commission for every new print of merit to be sent you--and as for Marianne, I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music enough in London to content her. And books!--Thomson, Cowper, Scott--she would buy them all over and over again: she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree. Should not you, Marianne? Forgive me, if I am very saucy. But I was willing to shew you that I had not forgot our old disputes." "I love to be reminded of the past, Edward--whether it be melancholy or gay, I love to recall it--and you will never offend me by talking of former times. You are very right in supposing how my money would be spent--some of it, at least--my loose cash would certainly be employed in improving my collection of music and books." "And the bulk of your fortune would be laid out in annuities on the authors or their heirs." "No, Edward, I should have something else to do with it." "Perhaps, then, you would bestow it as a reward on that person who wrote the ablest defence of your favourite maxim, that no one can ever be in love more than once in their life--your opinion on that point is unchanged, I presume?" "Undoubtedly. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them." "Marianne is as steadfast as ever, you see," said Elinor, "she is not at all altered." "She is only grown a little more grave than she was." "Nay, Edward," said Marianne, "you need not reproach me. You are not very gay yourself." "Why should you think so!" replied he, with a sigh. "But gaiety never was a part of MY character." "Nor do I think it a part of Marianne's," said Elinor; "I should hardly call her a lively girl--she is very earnest, very eager in all she does--sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation--but she is not often really merry." "I believe you are right," he replied, "and yet I have always set her down as a lively girl." "I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes," said Elinor, "in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge." "But I thought it was right, Elinor," said Marianne, "to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours. This has always been your doctrine, I am sure." "No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess, of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments or to conform to their judgment in serious matters?" "You have not been able to bring your sister over to your plan of general civility," said Edward to Elinor. "Do you gain no ground?" "Quite the contrary," replied Elinor, looking expressively at Marianne. "My judgment," he returned, "is all on your side of the question; but I am afraid my practice is much more on your sister's. I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness. I have frequently thought that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility!" "Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers," said Elinor. "She knows her own worth too well for false shame," replied Edward. "Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy." "But you would still be reserved," said Marianne, "and that is worse." Edward started--"Reserved! Am I reserved, Marianne?" "Yes, very." "I do not understand you," replied he, colouring. "Reserved!--how, in what manner? What am I to tell you? What can you suppose?" Elinor looked surprised at his emotion; but trying to laugh off the subject, she said to him, "Do not you know my sister well enough to understand what she means? Do not you know she calls every one reserved who does not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as rapturously as herself?" Edward made no answer. His gravity and thoughtfulness returned on him in their fullest extent--and he sat for some time silent and dull.

Chapters 16-17

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101060302/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/sense-and-sensibility/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1617

Marianne continued to grieve. No letter came from Willoughby and she did not seem to expect one. "Why do you not ask Marianne at once whether she is or is not engaged to Willoughby?" Elinor asked her mother. But Mrs. Dashwood's "romantic delicacy" forbade such a thing. One morning when the three sisters were out walking, a man appeared on horseback. Marianne started running toward him, certain it was Willoughby. It was, however, Edward Ferrars. He "was welcomed by them all with great cordiality." Mrs. Dashwood "was surprised only for a moment at seeing him; for his coming to Barton was, in her opinion, of all things the most natural." Edward was overcome by the warmth of her welcome, but throughout his visit, he appeared depressed. When Marianne told him he was reserved, Edward was startled and upset. He seemed to take the remark much more seriously than it was meant.

Marianne's romantic sensibility demands that she suffer acutely because of Willoughby's departure. All the typical symptoms of romantic melancholy are hers -- sleepless nights, listless days, loss of appetite, headaches, and periods of weeping and despair. She is, however, unconcerned about the misery she inflicts on her family. Edward acts rather strangely. He seems depressed and grave, giving Elinor cause for concern.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/34.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Sense and Sensibility/section_23_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 34

chapter 34

{"name": "Chapter 34", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101060302/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/sense-and-sensibility/summary-and-analysis/chapter-34", "summary": "Mrs. Dashwood called on Lady Middleton the next day, and the two ladies took to each other at once. The Dashwoods invited the Middletons, Mrs. Jennings, the Dashwood sisters, the Steele sisters, and Colonel Brandon to dinner. Elinor was very curious to see Edward's mother, Mrs. Ferrars, who was also to be at dinner. She feared that Edward himself would be present and \"hardly knew how she could bear it!\" But Lucy Steele assured her that Edward had written he would not be there. \"Mrs. Ferrars was a little, thin woman . . . serious, even to sourness.\" She made a special point of being rude to Elinor, whom she was determined to dislike, and ironically transferred her attentions to the Steele sisters. After dinner, when Fanny showed her mother some screens painted by Elinor, Mrs. Ferrars was so rude that Marianne, with her usual fervency, flew to Elinor's defense. Then she burst into tears, exclaiming \"Dear, dear Elinor, don't mind them. Don't let them make you unhappy.\" Mrs. Jennings and Colonel Brandon tried to help. Sir John, enraged anew against Willoughby's behavior, took a seat next to Lucy Steele \"and gave her, in a whisper, a brief account of the whole shocking affair.\"", "analysis": "This chapter is a tableau of ironic criticism. The insipidity of the female characters juxtaposed against each other is accentuated by the fact that they like each other. Fanny finds Lady Middleton \"one of the most charming women in the world! Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood.\" Then the author lists the qualities which each finds in the other -- selfishness, lack of compassion, and insipidity. The shallowness of their lives is expressed in their conversation, for when the men leave the room after dinner, they can talk of nothing but the relative heights of Harry Dashwood and William Middleton. Austen places a lot of stock in interesting conversation, and we can usually tell her attitude towards a character by her description of what he talks about. Thus Lady Middleton, Fanny Dashwood, and Mrs. Ferrars are all described as having little to say, while Lucy Steele, her sister, and John Middleron are all replete with inanities. Marianne's honesty, which has heretofore been improper, seems barely adequate in this setting, for her warmth of heart, her loyal affection for her sister's feelings, is a welcome contrast to this icy group."}

Mrs. John Dashwood had so much confidence in her husband's judgment, that she waited the very next day both on Mrs. Jennings and her daughter; and her confidence was rewarded by finding even the former, even the woman with whom her sisters were staying, by no means unworthy her notice; and as for Lady Middleton, she found her one of the most charming women in the world! Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood. There was a kind of cold hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually attracted them; and they sympathised with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanor, and a general want of understanding. The same manners, however, which recommended Mrs. John Dashwood to the good opinion of Lady Middleton did not suit the fancy of Mrs. Jennings, and to HER she appeared nothing more than a little proud-looking woman of uncordial address, who met her husband's sisters without any affection, and almost without having anything to say to them; for of the quarter of an hour bestowed on Berkeley Street, she sat at least seven minutes and a half in silence. Elinor wanted very much to know, though she did not chuse to ask, whether Edward was then in town; but nothing would have induced Fanny voluntarily to mention his name before her, till able to tell her that his marriage with Miss Morton was resolved on, or till her husband's expectations on Colonel Brandon were answered; because she believed them still so very much attached to each other, that they could not be too sedulously divided in word and deed on every occasion. The intelligence however, which SHE would not give, soon flowed from another quarter. Lucy came very shortly to claim Elinor's compassion on being unable to see Edward, though he had arrived in town with Mr. and Mrs. Dashwood. He dared not come to Bartlett's Buildings for fear of detection, and though their mutual impatience to meet, was not to be told, they could do nothing at present but write. Edward assured them himself of his being in town, within a very short time, by twice calling in Berkeley Street. Twice was his card found on the table, when they returned from their morning's engagements. Elinor was pleased that he had called; and still more pleased that she had missed him. The Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons, that, though not much in the habit of giving anything, they determined to give them--a dinner; and soon after their acquaintance began, invited them to dine in Harley Street, where they had taken a very good house for three months. Their sisters and Mrs. Jennings were invited likewise, and John Dashwood was careful to secure Colonel Brandon, who, always glad to be where the Miss Dashwoods were, received his eager civilities with some surprise, but much more pleasure. They were to meet Mrs. Ferrars; but Elinor could not learn whether her sons were to be of the party. The expectation of seeing HER, however, was enough to make her interested in the engagement; for though she could now meet Edward's mother without that strong anxiety which had once promised to attend such an introduction, though she could now see her with perfect indifference as to her opinion of herself, her desire of being in company with Mrs. Ferrars, her curiosity to know what she was like, was as lively as ever. The interest with which she thus anticipated the party, was soon afterwards increased, more powerfully than pleasantly, by her hearing that the Miss Steeles were also to be at it. So well had they recommended themselves to Lady Middleton, so agreeable had their assiduities made them to her, that though Lucy was certainly not so elegant, and her sister not even genteel, she was as ready as Sir John to ask them to spend a week or two in Conduit Street; and it happened to be particularly convenient to the Miss Steeles, as soon as the Dashwoods' invitation was known, that their visit should begin a few days before the party took place. Their claims to the notice of Mrs. John Dashwood, as the nieces of the gentleman who for many years had had the care of her brother, might not have done much, however, towards procuring them seats at her table; but as Lady Middleton's guests they must be welcome; and Lucy, who had long wanted to be personally known to the family, to have a nearer view of their characters and her own difficulties, and to have an opportunity of endeavouring to please them, had seldom been happier in her life, than she was on receiving Mrs. John Dashwood's card. On Elinor its effect was very different. She began immediately to determine, that Edward who lived with his mother, must be asked as his mother was, to a party given by his sister; and to see him for the first time, after all that passed, in the company of Lucy!--she hardly knew how she could bear it! These apprehensions, perhaps, were not founded entirely on reason, and certainly not at all on truth. They were relieved however, not by her own recollection, but by the good will of Lucy, who believed herself to be inflicting a severe disappointment when she told her that Edward certainly would not be in Harley Street on Tuesday, and even hoped to be carrying the pain still farther by persuading her that he was kept away by the extreme affection for herself, which he could not conceal when they were together. The important Tuesday came that was to introduce the two young ladies to this formidable mother-in-law. "Pity me, dear Miss Dashwood!" said Lucy, as they walked up the stairs together--for the Middletons arrived so directly after Mrs. Jennings, that they all followed the servant at the same time--"There is nobody here but you, that can feel for me.--I declare I can hardly stand. Good gracious!--In a moment I shall see the person that all my happiness depends on--that is to be my mother!"-- Elinor could have given her immediate relief by suggesting the possibility of its being Miss Morton's mother, rather than her own, whom they were about to behold; but instead of doing that, she assured her, and with great sincerity, that she did pity her--to the utter amazement of Lucy, who, though really uncomfortable herself, hoped at least to be an object of irrepressible envy to Elinor. Mrs. Ferrars was a little, thin woman, upright, even to formality, in her figure, and serious, even to sourness, in her aspect. Her complexion was sallow; and her features small, without beauty, and naturally without expression; but a lucky contraction of the brow had rescued her countenance from the disgrace of insipidity, by giving it the strong characters of pride and ill nature. She was not a woman of many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the number of her ideas; and of the few syllables that did escape her, not one fell to the share of Miss Dashwood, whom she eyed with the spirited determination of disliking her at all events. Elinor could not NOW be made unhappy by this behaviour.-- A few months ago it would have hurt her exceedingly; but it was not in Mrs. Ferrars' power to distress her by it now;--and the difference of her manners to the Miss Steeles, a difference which seemed purposely made to humble her more, only amused her. She could not but smile to see the graciousness of both mother and daughter towards the very person-- for Lucy was particularly distinguished--whom of all others, had they known as much as she did, they would have been most anxious to mortify; while she herself, who had comparatively no power to wound them, sat pointedly slighted by both. But while she smiled at a graciousness so misapplied, she could not reflect on the mean-spirited folly from which it sprung, nor observe the studied attentions with which the Miss Steeles courted its continuance, without thoroughly despising them all four. Lucy was all exultation on being so honorably distinguished; and Miss Steele wanted only to be teazed about Dr. Davies to be perfectly happy. The dinner was a grand one, the servants were numerous, and every thing bespoke the Mistress's inclination for show, and the Master's ability to support it. In spite of the improvements and additions which were making to the Norland estate, and in spite of its owner having once been within some thousand pounds of being obliged to sell out at a loss, nothing gave any symptom of that indigence which he had tried to infer from it;--no poverty of any kind, except of conversation, appeared--but there, the deficiency was considerable. John Dashwood had not much to say for himself that was worth hearing, and his wife had still less. But there was no peculiar disgrace in this; for it was very much the case with the chief of their visitors, who almost all laboured under one or other of these disqualifications for being agreeable--Want of sense, either natural or improved--want of elegance--want of spirits--or want of temper. When the ladies withdrew to the drawing-room after dinner, this poverty was particularly evident, for the gentlemen HAD supplied the discourse with some variety--the variety of politics, inclosing land, and breaking horses--but then it was all over; and one subject only engaged the ladies till coffee came in, which was the comparative heights of Harry Dashwood, and Lady Middleton's second son William, who were nearly of the same age. Had both the children been there, the affair might have been determined too easily by measuring them at once; but as Harry only was present, it was all conjectural assertion on both sides; and every body had a right to be equally positive in their opinion, and to repeat it over and over again as often as they liked. The parties stood thus: The two mothers, though each really convinced that her own son was the tallest, politely decided in favour of the other. The two grandmothers, with not less partiality, but more sincerity, were equally earnest in support of their own descendant. Lucy, who was hardly less anxious to please one parent than the other, thought the boys were both remarkably tall for their age, and could not conceive that there could be the smallest difference in the world between them; and Miss Steele, with yet greater address gave it, as fast as she could, in favour of each. Elinor, having once delivered her opinion on William's side, by which she offended Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny still more, did not see the necessity of enforcing it by any farther assertion; and Marianne, when called on for hers, offended them all, by declaring that she had no opinion to give, as she had never thought about it. Before her removing from Norland, Elinor had painted a very pretty pair of screens for her sister-in-law, which being now just mounted and brought home, ornamented her present drawing room; and these screens, catching the eye of John Dashwood on his following the other gentlemen into the room, were officiously handed by him to Colonel Brandon for his admiration. "These are done by my eldest sister," said he; "and you, as a man of taste, will, I dare say, be pleased with them. I do not know whether you have ever happened to see any of her performances before, but she is in general reckoned to draw extremely well." The Colonel, though disclaiming all pretensions to connoisseurship, warmly admired the screens, as he would have done any thing painted by Miss Dashwood; and on the curiosity of the others being of course excited, they were handed round for general inspection. Mrs. Ferrars, not aware of their being Elinor's work, particularly requested to look at them; and after they had received gratifying testimony of Lady Middletons's approbation, Fanny presented them to her mother, considerately informing her, at the same time, that they were done by Miss Dashwood. "Hum"--said Mrs. Ferrars--"very pretty,"--and without regarding them at all, returned them to her daughter. Perhaps Fanny thought for a moment that her mother had been quite rude enough,--for, colouring a little, she immediately said, "They are very pretty, ma'am--an't they?" But then again, the dread of having been too civil, too encouraging herself, probably came over her, for she presently added, "Do you not think they are something in Miss Morton's style of painting, Ma'am?--She DOES paint most delightfully!--How beautifully her last landscape is done!" "Beautifully indeed! But SHE does every thing well." Marianne could not bear this.--She was already greatly displeased with Mrs. Ferrars; and such ill-timed praise of another, at Elinor's expense, though she had not any notion of what was principally meant by it, provoked her immediately to say with warmth, "This is admiration of a very particular kind!--what is Miss Morton to us?--who knows, or who cares, for her?--it is Elinor of whom WE think and speak." And so saying, she took the screens out of her sister-in-law's hands, to admire them herself as they ought to be admired. Mrs. Ferrars looked exceedingly angry, and drawing herself up more stiffly than ever, pronounced in retort this bitter philippic, "Miss Morton is Lord Morton's daughter." Fanny looked very angry too, and her husband was all in a fright at his sister's audacity. Elinor was much more hurt by Marianne's warmth than she had been by what produced it; but Colonel Brandon's eyes, as they were fixed on Marianne, declared that he noticed only what was amiable in it, the affectionate heart which could not bear to see a sister slighted in the smallest point. Marianne's feelings did not stop here. The cold insolence of Mrs. Ferrars's general behaviour to her sister, seemed, to her, to foretell such difficulties and distresses to Elinor, as her own wounded heart taught her to think of with horror; and urged by a strong impulse of affectionate sensibility, she moved after a moment, to her sister's chair, and putting one arm round her neck, and one cheek close to hers, said in a low, but eager, voice, "Dear, dear Elinor, don't mind them. Don't let them make YOU unhappy." She could say no more; her spirits were quite overcome, and hiding her face on Elinor's shoulder, she burst into tears. Every body's attention was called, and almost every body was concerned.--Colonel Brandon rose up and went to them without knowing what he did.--Mrs. Jennings, with a very intelligent "Ah! poor dear," immediately gave her her salts; and Sir John felt so desperately enraged against the author of this nervous distress, that he instantly changed his seat to one close by Lucy Steele, and gave her, in a whisper, a brief account of the whole shocking affair. In a few minutes, however, Marianne was recovered enough to put an end to the bustle, and sit down among the rest; though her spirits retained the impression of what had passed, the whole evening. "Poor Marianne!" said her brother to Colonel Brandon, in a low voice, as soon as he could secure his attention,-- "She has not such good health as her sister,--she is very nervous,--she has not Elinor's constitution;--and one must allow that there is something very trying to a young woman who HAS BEEN a beauty in the loss of her personal attractions. You would not think it perhaps, but Marianne WAS remarkably handsome a few months ago; quite as handsome as Elinor.-- Now you see it is all gone."

Chapter 34

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101060302/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/sense-and-sensibility/summary-and-analysis/chapter-34

Mrs. Dashwood called on Lady Middleton the next day, and the two ladies took to each other at once. The Dashwoods invited the Middletons, Mrs. Jennings, the Dashwood sisters, the Steele sisters, and Colonel Brandon to dinner. Elinor was very curious to see Edward's mother, Mrs. Ferrars, who was also to be at dinner. She feared that Edward himself would be present and "hardly knew how she could bear it!" But Lucy Steele assured her that Edward had written he would not be there. "Mrs. Ferrars was a little, thin woman . . . serious, even to sourness." She made a special point of being rude to Elinor, whom she was determined to dislike, and ironically transferred her attentions to the Steele sisters. After dinner, when Fanny showed her mother some screens painted by Elinor, Mrs. Ferrars was so rude that Marianne, with her usual fervency, flew to Elinor's defense. Then she burst into tears, exclaiming "Dear, dear Elinor, don't mind them. Don't let them make you unhappy." Mrs. Jennings and Colonel Brandon tried to help. Sir John, enraged anew against Willoughby's behavior, took a seat next to Lucy Steele "and gave her, in a whisper, a brief account of the whole shocking affair."

This chapter is a tableau of ironic criticism. The insipidity of the female characters juxtaposed against each other is accentuated by the fact that they like each other. Fanny finds Lady Middleton "one of the most charming women in the world! Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood." Then the author lists the qualities which each finds in the other -- selfishness, lack of compassion, and insipidity. The shallowness of their lives is expressed in their conversation, for when the men leave the room after dinner, they can talk of nothing but the relative heights of Harry Dashwood and William Middleton. Austen places a lot of stock in interesting conversation, and we can usually tell her attitude towards a character by her description of what he talks about. Thus Lady Middleton, Fanny Dashwood, and Mrs. Ferrars are all described as having little to say, while Lucy Steele, her sister, and John Middleron are all replete with inanities. Marianne's honesty, which has heretofore been improper, seems barely adequate in this setting, for her warmth of heart, her loyal affection for her sister's feelings, is a welcome contrast to this icy group.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/49.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_47_part_0.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 48

chapter 48

{"name": "Phase VI: \"The Convert,\" Chapter Forty-Eight", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-48", "summary": "Later that afternoon, Tess notices that Alec has come back. When he sees her look up, he waves and blows her a kiss to show her there are no hard feelings about the slap. The farmer says that they'll finish the field even if they have to work into the night--there's a full moon, so they'll have light to work by. All the workers are already exhausted. Tess is the only one of the women who is working on top of the machine itself, and the vibration of it shakes her from head to toe. At one point, the farmer comes up and tells Tess that she can go join her friend if she likes, but Tess knows that Alec must have had something to do with this, and so she refuses, and continues to work. After they're finished, Alec offers to walk her home. He says he's sorry she had to work so hard--most farms don't make women stand on the machine, since it's too back-breaking. Tess is thankful for his kindness, but has a hard time telling when he's being nice, and when he's trying to put her off her guard. He asks about her family, and says that he saw them recently. He went to them to ask where she was working. She feels so sorry for her little brothers and sisters that she's tempted to give in to him, and he knows it. She tells him not to bring them up, and that she doesn't want to accept anything from him, either for herself or for him. That night, Tess writes another letter to Angel, begging him to come to her, or to ask her to come to him. She doesn't give any details, but she says that she's being pressed and harassed to do what she doesn't want to do.", "analysis": ""}

In the afternoon the farmer made it known that the rick was to be finished that night, since there was a moon by which they could see to work, and the man with the engine was engaged for another farm on the morrow. Hence the twanging and humming and rustling proceeded with even less intermission than usual. It was not till "nammet"-time, about three o-clock, that Tess raised her eyes and gave a momentary glance round. She felt but little surprise at seeing that Alec d'Urberville had come back, and was standing under the hedge by the gate. He had seen her lift her eyes, and waved his hand urbanely to her, while he blew her a kiss. It meant that their quarrel was over. Tess looked down again, and carefully abstained from gazing in that direction. Thus the afternoon dragged on. The wheat-rick shrank lower, and the straw-rick grew higher, and the corn-sacks were carted away. At six o'clock the wheat-rick was about shoulder-high from the ground. But the unthreshed sheaves remaining untouched seemed countless still, notwithstanding the enormous numbers that had been gulped down by the insatiable swallower, fed by the man and Tess, through whose two young hands the greater part of them had passed. And the immense stack of straw where in the morning there had been nothing, appeared as the faeces of the same buzzing red glutton. From the west sky a wrathful shine--all that wild March could afford in the way of sunset--had burst forth after the cloudy day, flooding the tired and sticky faces of the threshers, and dyeing them with a coppery light, as also the flapping garments of the women, which clung to them like dull flames. A panting ache ran through the rick. The man who fed was weary, and Tess could see that the red nape of his neck was encrusted with dirt and husks. She still stood at her post, her flushed and perspiring face coated with the corndust, and her white bonnet embrowned by it. She was the only woman whose place was upon the machine so as to be shaken bodily by its spinning, and the decrease of the stack now separated her from Marian and Izz, and prevented their changing duties with her as they had done. The incessant quivering, in which every fibre of her frame participated, had thrown her into a stupefied reverie in which her arms worked on independently of her consciousness. She hardly knew where she was, and did not hear Izz Huett tell her from below that her hair was tumbling down. By degrees the freshest among them began to grow cadaverous and saucer-eyed. Whenever Tess lifted her head she beheld always the great upgrown straw-stack, with the men in shirt-sleeves upon it, against the gray north sky; in front of it the long red elevator like a Jacob's ladder, on which a perpetual stream of threshed straw ascended, a yellow river running uphill, and spouting out on the top of the rick. She knew that Alec d'Urberville was still on the scene, observing her from some point or other, though she could not say where. There was an excuse for his remaining, for when the threshed rick drew near its final sheaves a little ratting was always done, and men unconnected with the threshing sometimes dropped in for that performance--sporting characters of all descriptions, gents with terriers and facetious pipes, roughs with sticks and stones. But there was another hour's work before the layer of live rats at the base of the stack would be reached; and as the evening light in the direction of the Giant's Hill by Abbot's-Cernel dissolved away, the white-faced moon of the season arose from the horizon that lay towards Middleton Abbey and Shottsford on the other side. For the last hour or two Marian had felt uneasy about Tess, whom she could not get near enough to speak to, the other women having kept up their strength by drinking ale, and Tess having done without it through traditionary dread, owing to its results at her home in childhood. But Tess still kept going: if she could not fill her part she would have to leave; and this contingency, which she would have regarded with equanimity and even with relief a month or two earlier, had become a terror since d'Urberville had begun to hover round her. The sheaf-pitchers and feeders had now worked the rick so low that people on the ground could talk to them. To Tess's surprise Farmer Groby came up on the machine to her, and said that if she desired to join her friend he did not wish her to keep on any longer, and would send somebody else to take her place. The "friend" was d'Urberville, she knew, and also that this concession had been granted in obedience to the request of that friend, or enemy. She shook her head and toiled on. The time for the rat-catching arrived at last, and the hunt began. The creatures had crept downwards with the subsidence of the rick till they were all together at the bottom, and being now uncovered from their last refuge, they ran across the open ground in all directions, a loud shriek from the by-this-time half-tipsy Marian informing her companions that one of the rats had invaded her person--a terror which the rest of the women had guarded against by various schemes of skirt-tucking and self-elevation. The rat was at last dislodged, and, amid the barking of dogs, masculine shouts, feminine screams, oaths, stampings, and confusion as of Pandemonium, Tess untied her last sheaf; the drum slowed, the whizzing ceased, and she stepped from the machine to the ground. Her lover, who had only looked on at the rat-catching, was promptly at her side. "What--after all--my insulting slap, too!" said she in an underbreath. She was so utterly exhausted that she had not strength to speak louder. "I should indeed be foolish to feel offended at anything you say or do," he answered, in the seductive voice of the Trantridge time. "How the little limbs tremble! You are as weak as a bled calf, you know you are; and yet you need have done nothing since I arrived. How could you be so obstinate? However, I have told the farmer that he has no right to employ women at steam-threshing. It is not proper work for them; and on all the better class of farms it has been given up, as he knows very well. I will walk with you as far as your home." "O yes," she answered with a jaded gait. "Walk wi' me if you will! I do bear in mind that you came to marry me before you knew o' my state. Perhaps--perhaps you are a little better and kinder than I have been thinking you were. Whatever is meant as kindness I am grateful for; whatever is meant in any other way I am angered at. I cannot sense your meaning sometimes." "If I cannot legitimize our former relations at least I can assist you. And I will do it with much more regard for your feelings than I formerly showed. My religious mania, or whatever it was, is over. But I retain a little good nature; I hope I do. Now, Tess, by all that's tender and strong between man and woman, trust me! I have enough and more than enough to put you out of anxiety, both for yourself and your parents and sisters. I can make them all comfortable if you will only show confidence in me." "Have you seen 'em lately?" she quickly inquired. "Yes. They didn't know where you were. It was only by chance that I found you here." The cold moon looked aslant upon Tess's fagged face between the twigs of the garden-hedge as she paused outside the cottage which was her temporary home, d'Urberville pausing beside her. "Don't mention my little brothers and sisters--don't make me break down quite!" she said. "If you want to help them--God knows they need it--do it without telling me. But no, no!" she cried. "I will take nothing from you, either for them or for me!" He did not accompany her further, since, as she lived with the household, all was public indoors. No sooner had she herself entered, laved herself in a washing-tub, and shared supper with the family than she fell into thought, and withdrawing to the table under the wall, by the light of her own little lamp wrote in a passionate mood-- MY OWN HUSBAND,-- Let me call you so--I must--even if it makes you angry to think of such an unworthy wife as I. I must cry to you in my trouble--I have no one else! I am so exposed to temptation, Angel. I fear to say who it is, and I do not like to write about it at all. But I cling to you in a way you cannot think! Can you not come to me now, at once, before anything terrible happens? O, I know you cannot, because you are so far away! I think I must die if you do not come soon, or tell me to come to you. The punishment you have measured out to me is deserved--I do know that-- well deserved--and you are right and just to be angry with me. But, Angel, please, please, not to be just--only a little kind to me, even if I do not deserve it, and come to me! If you would come, I could die in your arms! I would be well content to do that if so be you had forgiven me! Angel, I live entirely for you. I love you too much to blame you for going away, and I know it was necessary you should find a farm. Do not think I shall say a word of sting or bitterness. Only come back to me. I am desolate without you, my darling, O, so desolate! I do not mind having to work: but if you will send me one little line, and say, "I am coming soon," I will bide on, Angel--O, so cheerfully! It has been so much my religion ever since we were married to be faithful to you in every thought and look, that even when a man speaks a compliment to me before I am aware, it seems wronging you. Have you never felt one little bit of what you used to feel when we were at the dairy? If you have, how can you keep away from me? I am the same women, Angel, as you fell in love with; yes, the very same!--not the one you disliked but never saw. What was the past to me as soon as I met you? It was a dead thing altogether. I became another woman, filled full of new life from you. How could I be the early one? Why do you not see this? Dear, if you would only be a little more conceited, and believe in yourself so far as to see that you were strong enough to work this change in me, you would perhaps be in a mind to come to me, your poor wife. How silly I was in my happiness when I thought I could trust you always to love me! I ought to have known that such as that was not for poor me. But I am sick at heart, not only for old times, but for the present. Think--think how it do hurt my heart not to see you ever--ever! Ah, if I could only make your dear heart ache one little minute of each day as mine does every day and all day long, it might lead you to show pity to your poor lonely one. People still say that I am rather pretty, Angel (handsome is the word they use, since I wish to be truthful). Perhaps I am what they say. But I do not value my good looks; I only like to have them because they belong to you, my dear, and that there may be at least one thing about me worth your having. So much have I felt this, that when I met with annoyance on account of the same, I tied up my face in a bandage as long as people would believe in it. O Angel, I tell you all this not from vanity--you will certainly know I do not--but only that you may come to me! If you really cannot come to me, will you let me come to you? I am, as I say, worried, pressed to do what I will not do. It cannot be that I shall yield one inch, yet I am in terror as to what an accident might lead to, and I so defenceless on account of my first error. I cannot say more about this--it makes me too miserable. But if I break down by falling into some fearful snare, my last state will be worse than my first. O God, I cannot think of it! Let me come at once, or at once come to me! I would be content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant, if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine. The daylight has nothing to show me, since you are not here, and I don't like to see the rooks and starlings in the field, because I grieve and grieve to miss you who used to see them with me. I long for only one thing in heaven or earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own dear! Come to me--come to me, and save me from what threatens me!-- Your faithful heartbroken TESS

Phase VI: "The Convert," Chapter Forty-Eight

https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-48

Later that afternoon, Tess notices that Alec has come back. When he sees her look up, he waves and blows her a kiss to show her there are no hard feelings about the slap. The farmer says that they'll finish the field even if they have to work into the night--there's a full moon, so they'll have light to work by. All the workers are already exhausted. Tess is the only one of the women who is working on top of the machine itself, and the vibration of it shakes her from head to toe. At one point, the farmer comes up and tells Tess that she can go join her friend if she likes, but Tess knows that Alec must have had something to do with this, and so she refuses, and continues to work. After they're finished, Alec offers to walk her home. He says he's sorry she had to work so hard--most farms don't make women stand on the machine, since it's too back-breaking. Tess is thankful for his kindness, but has a hard time telling when he's being nice, and when he's trying to put her off her guard. He asks about her family, and says that he saw them recently. He went to them to ask where she was working. She feels so sorry for her little brothers and sisters that she's tempted to give in to him, and he knows it. She tells him not to bring them up, and that she doesn't want to accept anything from him, either for herself or for him. That night, Tess writes another letter to Angel, begging him to come to her, or to ask her to come to him. She doesn't give any details, but she says that she's being pressed and harassed to do what she doesn't want to do.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/2166-chapters/chapters_19_to_20.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/King Solomon's Mines/section_10_part_0.txt

King Solomon's Mines.chapters 19-20

chapters 19-20

{"name": "Chapters 19 and 20", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200804024551/https://www.gradesaver.com/king-solomons-mines/study-guide/summary-chapters-19-and-20", "summary": "Ten days after escaping the dark chambers of Solomon's treasure store, Quatermain, Sir Henry, and Good find themselves back in Loo. After having rested for two days, the men had tried to find the secret entrance to the treasure chamber, but to no avail. Giving up, they returned to Loo and prepared for their longer journey back to their own country. Ignosi finds their intent to leave disturbing, going so far as to question Quatermain's priorities in loving the precious diamonds more than their friendship. Quatermain replies that, just as Ignosi longed for his homeland when he joined the men in their quest, so do the white men long for their own homes. Somewhat mollified, Ignosi declares that Quatermain, Sir Henry, and Good are the only white men who will ever enter Kukuanaland; he warns the men that any other whites who approach will not be welcomed, and if they do not leave of their own accord they will be driven off or killed. He then declares the names of the three men--their \"African\" names, will be remembered as the names of gods among the Kukuanas, passed on for generations but never uttered aloud. Just before they leave, Good is approached by a young Kukuana woman bearing flowers. She eagerly desires to see Good's \"beautiful white legs\" before he leaves. At first Good balks at the prospect of showing his legs, but the cajoling of Sir Henry and Quatermain lead him to roll his pants-leg up to the knee. The woman and several other onlookers stare in awe at Good's white leg before Good makes his departure. The men learn of an alternate--and less perilous--route away from Kukuanaland, along which there is said to be an oasis. The men readily choose this path over the dangers of thirst and wild animals. Infadoos and a group of Kukuanas escort the men as far as the borders of Kukuanaland, then bid them farewell. Before leaving, Good makes Infadoos a gift of his spare monocle, giving the old Kukuana a token of his esteem and a physical badge of honor among the Kukuanas. Three days later the men reach the oasis and make camp by its refreshing waters. As Quatermain surveys the oasis, he comes across a hut . A white man clothed in animal skins, comes out of the hut and looks upon him. Quatermain asks his companions to verify that he is not hallucinating, when Sir Henry recognizes the white man as his brother George. When the men cry out in delight, another figure--this time a black man--exits the hut and addresses Quatermain. This is Jim, whom Quatermain had sent to deliver a note to George over two years ago. As it turns out, George had attempted to reach King Solomon's mines by this route rather than the more dangerous desert way. While camping at the oasis and preparing to head into Kukuanaland, a boulder fell and crushed his leg. Unable to climb the mountains or return the way he came, George settled in to survive at the oasis as long as he could. With Jim's help he built the hut and hunted game, which provided both food and clothing for the men. For two years they have lived this way, never anticipating seeing another human face, let alone these familiar faces. Sir Henry relates his own adventures to his brother, and he concludes with Quatermain showing George the diamonds retrieved from Solomon's treasure chamber. George declares that at least the men have gotten some benefit from their expedition, but Sir Henry insists that the diamonds belong to Quatermain and Good--he only sought to find his brother. Quatermain and Good secretly decide between them to give Sir Henry a third of the diamonds or, if he will not take them, to give them to George, whom they believe has suffered even more than they in his pursuit of King Solomon's Mines. Sir Henry reluctantly agrees. The men make their return journey, taking turns bearing the limping George back to Durban. There Quatermain takes his leave of the other men as they return to England. As Quatermain is writing the final lines of his narrative, a letter arrives from Sir Henry. Sir Henry urges Quatermain to come to England and take up residence near him; a house has recently gone up for sale and the proceeds from selling off a few of the diamonds will pay for the residence. To further entice Quatermain, Sir Henry has had Quatermain's son Harry visit and quite enjoys the young man's company. Quatermain is touched by Sir Henry's desire to have his friend nearby, and ends the narrative declaring his intention to return to England.", "analysis": "Good's gift to Infadoos is reminiscent of the cargo cult, in which artifacts from a strange culture are made objects of admiration or even worship by another culture. Good's \"glass eye\" had fascinated the Kukuanas from the first moment they saw him. By giving Infadoos a spare monocle, Good imparts to Infadoos a level of respect among the Kukuanas. Although often an object of humor, it is Good who seems to be most connected to the Kukuanas. The three white men are deified among the Kukuanas. Their practice of remembering the men's names by never uttering them aloud is strange to the men, but reflects the sanctity with which they regard these men. However, even as he honors them, Ignosi tells the white men that no other whites will be allowed in Kukuanaland. Ignosi has seen their influence, and does not wish it to continue among his people. This final closing of the borders by Ignosi is interesting in that the new king sees the dangers of allowing white/European culture to infiltrate his land. Just as he owes his throne to the three white men to some extent, so does he recognize that an imperialistic nation could use force, guile, or technology to place their own favored man on the throne at any time. Ignosi chooses instead to keep the Kukuanas insular and avoid the negative influence of Europe. At the same time, Ignosi holds these three specific white men in high regard. When they tell him of their desire to depart, Ignosi says, \"It is the bright stones that ye love more than me, your friend\" . In response to this charge of materialism, Quatermain replies that just as Ignosi longed for his homeland, so too do these men long to return to their own nation. This assuages Ignosi, but it leaves the reader with a sense that the diamonds have become disproportionately valuable to the men--even Sir Henry Curtis has not mentioned his brother lately--and thus the pretext for their adventure has become an empty goal. Haggard leaves no loose ends in his novel. The purpose of Sir Henry's quest--to find his brother or news of him--is finally achieved, although somewhat by accident. Sir Henry had become convinced that Neville died en route to Solomon's Mines. What he did not foresee was that Neville would become incapacitated on the way and never complete the journey, yet still live. Also, George Neville took a different route than that indicated by da Silvestra's map, and so the evidence of his journey could not be found along the path of Sir Henry's expedition. Although the finding of Sir Henry's brother feels a bit like convenient coincidence, the details of his story mesh well with the events of Quatermain's narrative. The lack of evidence and information regarding Neville left Sir Henry in despair, but the lack was not due to his death in the wilderness, but due to his taking a different route and meeting an unexpected obstacle. Although George Neville denies it, the blame for his injury is in some part the fault of Jim, the African hunter of Quatermain's acquaintance. Although probably intended as a plot device, it is interesting to note that George's injury and Sir Henry's subsequent anxiety and trials are partially the fault of an African native. Haggard could not have George simply meet with an accident--thus making the man incompetent and no fit brother for the mighty Sir Henry Curtis. He had to place the burden of the mistake upon another character--a minor African character--in order to meet the expectations of his readership. The issue of materialism is again raised. Quatermain and Good readily agree to share a third of their diamonds with Sir Henry and, when he refuses, with George Neville as recompense for his suffering in quest for them. Neville accepts where Sir Henry did not. Again, Sir Henry Curtis is the ideal hero--brave, compassionate--and in this case content with his station in life and his income level. Quatermain is no hero--he wants the money, but mostly for his son--but he is human, and thus makes a better point of view character for the novel than would Sir Henry. The story finishes with a letter. Sir Henry has already made the acquaintance of Quatermain's son and likes the young many very much. He wants Quatermain to join him and Good in England, where a nearby house has recently opened up. In this way, the three bachelors can live in luxury and peace for their remaining days. Quatermain, although restless and a born hunter and explorer, considers taking Sir Henry up on the offer. He wants to see his son grow up and succeed, and it is in England that he can best achieve that goal. Like Odysseus, Quatermain is now in a position to retire and finish his son's training in manhood, knowing that his legacy is secure."}

Ten days from that eventful morning found us once more in our old quarters at Loo; and, strange to say, but little the worse for our terrible experience, except that my stubbly hair came out of the treasure cave about three shades greyer than it went in, and that Good never was quite the same after Foulata's death, which seemed to move him very greatly. I am bound to say, looking at the thing from the point of view of an oldish man of the world, that I consider her removal was a fortunate occurrence, since, otherwise, complications would have been sure to ensue. The poor creature was no ordinary native girl, but a person of great, I had almost said stately, beauty, and of considerable refinement of mind. But no amount of beauty or refinement could have made an entanglement between Good and herself a desirable occurrence; for, as she herself put it, "Can the sun mate with the darkness, or the white with the black?" I need hardly state that we never again penetrated into Solomon's treasure chamber. After we had recovered from our fatigues, a process which took us forty-eight hours, we descended into the great pit in the hope of finding the hole by which we had crept out of the mountain, but with no success. To begin with, rain had fallen, and obliterated our spoor; and what is more, the sides of the vast pit were full of ant-bear and other holes. It was impossible to say to which of these we owed our salvation. Also, on the day before we started back to Loo, we made a further examination of the wonders of the stalactite cave, and, drawn by a kind of restless feeling, even penetrated once more into the Chamber of the Dead. Passing beneath the spear of the White Death we gazed, with sensations which it would be quite impossible for me to describe, at the mass of rock that had shut us off from escape, thinking the while of priceless treasures beyond, of the mysterious old hag whose flattened fragments lay crushed beneath it, and of the fair girl of whose tomb it was the portal. I say gazed at the "rock," for, examine as we could, we could find no traces of the join of the sliding door; nor, indeed, could we hit upon the secret, now utterly lost, that worked it, though we tried for an hour or more. It is certainly a marvellous bit of mechanism, characteristic, in its massive and yet inscrutable simplicity, of the age which produced it; and I doubt if the world has such another to show. At last we gave it up in disgust; though, if the mass had suddenly risen before our eyes, I doubt if we should have screwed up courage to step over Gagool's mangled remains, and once more enter the treasure chamber, even in the sure and certain hope of unlimited diamonds. And yet I could have cried at the idea of leaving all that treasure, the biggest treasure probably that in the world's history has ever been accumulated in one spot. But there was no help for it. Only dynamite could force its way through five feet of solid rock. So we left it. Perhaps, in some remote unborn century, a more fortunate explorer may hit upon the "Open Sesame," and flood the world with gems. But, myself, I doubt it. Somehow, I seem to feel that the tens of millions of pounds' worth of jewels which lie in the three stone coffers will never shine round the neck of an earthly beauty. They and Foulata's bones will keep cold company till the end of all things. With a sigh of disappointment we made our way back, and next day started for Loo. And yet it was really very ungrateful of us to be disappointed; for, as the reader will remember, by a lucky thought, I had taken the precaution to fill the wide pockets of my old shooting coat and trousers with gems before we left our prison-house, also Foulata's basket, which held twice as many more, notwithstanding that the water bottle had occupied some of its space. A good many of these fell out in the course of our roll down the side of the pit, including several of the big ones, which I had crammed in on the top in my coat pockets. But, comparatively speaking, an enormous quantity still remained, including ninety-three large stones ranging from over two hundred to seventy carats in weight. My old shooting coat and the basket still held sufficient treasure to make us all, if not millionaires as the term is understood in America, at least exceedingly wealthy men, and yet to keep enough stones each to make the three finest sets of gems in Europe. So we had not done so badly. On arriving at Loo we were most cordially received by Ignosi, whom we found well, and busily engaged in consolidating his power, and reorganising the regiments which had suffered most in the great struggle with Twala. He listened with intense interest to our wonderful story; but when we told him of old Gagool's frightful end he grew thoughtful. "Come hither," he called, to a very old Induna or councillor, who was sitting with others in a circle round the king, but out of ear-shot. The ancient man rose, approached, saluted, and seated himself. "Thou art aged," said Ignosi. "Ay, my lord the king! Thy father's father and I were born on the same day." "Tell me, when thou wast little, didst thou know Gagaoola the witch doctress?" "Ay, my lord the king!" "How was she then--young, like thee?" "Not so, my lord the king! She was even as she is now and as she was in the days of my great grandfather before me; old and dried, very ugly, and full of wickedness." "She is no more; she is dead." "So, O king! then is an ancient curse taken from the land." "Go!" "_Koom!_ I go, Black Puppy, who tore out the old dog's throat. _Koom!_" "Ye see, my brothers," said Ignosi, "this was a strange woman, and I rejoice that she is dead. She would have let you die in the dark place, and mayhap afterwards she had found a way to slay me, as she found a way to slay my father, and set up Twala, whom her black heart loved, in his place. Now go on with the tale; surely there never was its like!" After I had narrated all the story of our escape, as we had agreed between ourselves that I should, I took the opportunity to address Ignosi as to our departure from Kukuanaland. "And now, Ignosi," I said, "the time has come for us to bid thee farewell, and start to see our own land once more. Behold, Ignosi, thou camest with us a servant, and now we leave thee a mighty king. If thou art grateful to us, remember to do even as thou didst promise: to rule justly, to respect the law, and to put none to death without a cause. So shalt thou prosper. To-morrow, at break of day, Ignosi, thou wilt give us an escort who shall lead us across the mountains. Is it not so, O king?" Ignosi covered his face with his hands for a while before answering. "My heart is sore," he said at last; "your words split my heart in twain. What have I done to you, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, that ye should leave me desolate? Ye who stood by me in rebellion and in battle, will ye leave me in the day of peace and victory? What will ye--wives? Choose from among the maidens! A place to live in? Behold, the land is yours as far as ye can see. The white man's houses? Ye shall teach my people how to build them. Cattle for beef and milk? Every married man shall bring you an ox or a cow. Wild game to hunt? Does not the elephant walk through my forests, and the river-horse sleep in the reeds? Would ye make war? My Impis wait your word. If there is anything more which I can give, that will I give you." "Nay, Ignosi, we want none of these things," I answered; "we would seek our own place." "Now do I learn," said Ignosi bitterly, and with flashing eyes, "that ye love the bright stones more than me, your friend. Ye have the stones; now ye would go to Natal and across the moving black water and sell them, and be rich, as it is the desire of a white man's heart to be. Cursed for your sake be the white stones, and cursed he who seeks them. Death shall it be to him who sets foot in the place of Death to find them. I have spoken. White men, ye can go." I laid my hand upon his arm. "Ignosi," I said, "tell us, when thou didst wander in Zululand, and among the white people of Natal, did not thine heart turn to the land thy mother told thee of, thy native place, where thou didst see the light, and play when thou wast little, the land where thy place was?" "It was even so, Macumazahn." "In like manner, Ignosi, do our hearts turn to our land and to our own place." Then came a silence. When Ignosi broke it, it was in a different voice. "I do perceive that now as ever thy words are wise and full of reason, Macumazahn; that which flies in the air loves not to run along the ground; the white man loves not to live on the level of the black or to house among his kraals. Well, ye must go, and leave my heart sore, because ye will be as dead to me, since from where ye are no tidings can come to me. "But listen, and let all your brothers know my words. No other white man shall cross the mountains, even if any man live to come so far. I will see no traders with their guns and gin. My people shall fight with the spear, and drink water, like their forefathers before them. I will have no praying-men to put a fear of death into men's hearts, to stir them up against the law of the king, and make a path for the white folk who follow to run on. If a white man comes to my gates I will send him back; if a hundred come I will push them back; if armies come, I will make war on them with all my strength, and they shall not prevail against me. None shall ever seek for the shining stones: no, not an army, for if they come I will send a regiment and fill up the pit, and break down the white columns in the caves and choke them with rocks, so that none can reach even to that door of which ye speak, and whereof the way to move it is lost. But for you three, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, the path is always open; for, behold, ye are dearer to me than aught that breathes. "And ye would go. Infadoos, my uncle, and my Induna, shall take you by the hand and guide you with a regiment. There is, as I have learned, another way across the mountains that he shall show you. Farewell, my brothers, brave white men. See me no more, for I have no heart to bear it. Behold! I make a decree, and it shall be published from the mountains to the mountains; your names, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, shall be "_hlonipa_" even as the names of dead kings, and he who speaks them shall die.[1] So shall your memory be preserved in the land for ever. "Go now, ere my eyes rain tears like a woman's. At times as ye look back down the path of life, or when ye are old and gather yourselves together to crouch before the fire, because for you the sun has no more heat, ye will think of how we stood shoulder to shoulder, in that great battle which thy wise words planned, Macumazahn; of how thou wast the point of the horn that galled Twala's flank, Bougwan; whilst thou stood in the ring of the Greys, Incubu, and men went down before thine axe like corn before a sickle; ay, and of how thou didst break that wild bull Twala's strength, and bring his pride to dust. Fare ye well for ever, Incubu, Macumazahn, and Bougwan, my lords and my friends." Ignosi rose and looked earnestly at us for a few seconds. Then he threw the corner of his karross over his head, so as to cover his face from us. We went in silence. Next day at dawn we left Loo, escorted by our old friend Infadoos, who was heart-broken at our departure, and by the regiment of Buffaloes. Early as was the hour, all the main street of the town was lined with multitudes of people, who gave us the royal salute as we passed at the head of the regiment, while the women blessed us for having rid the land of Twala, throwing flowers before us as we went. It was really very affecting, and not the sort of thing one is accustomed to meet with from natives. One ludicrous incident occurred, however, which I rather welcomed, as it gave us something to laugh at. Just before we reached the confines of the town, a pretty young girl, with some lovely lilies in her hand, ran forward and presented them to Good--somehow they all seemed to like Good; I think his eye-glass and solitary whisker gave him a fictitious value--and then said that she had a boon to ask. "Speak on," he answered. "Let my lord show his servant his beautiful white legs, that his servant may look upon them, and remember them all her days, and tell of them to her children; his servant has travelled four days' journey to see them, for the fame of them has gone throughout the land." "I'll be hanged if I do!" exclaimed Good excitedly. "Come, come, my dear fellow," said Sir Henry, "you can't refuse to oblige a lady." "I won't," replied Good obstinately; "it is positively indecent." However, in the end he consented to draw up his trousers to the knee, amidst notes of rapturous admiration from all the women present, especially the gratified young lady, and in this guise he had to walk till we got clear of the town. Good's legs, I fear, will never be so greatly admired again. Of his melting teeth, and even of his "transparent eye," the Kukuanas wearied more or less, but of his legs never. As we travelled, Infadoos told us that there was another pass over the mountains to the north of the one followed by Solomon's Great Road, or rather that there was a place where it was possible to climb down the wall of cliff which separates Kukuanaland from the desert, and is broken by the towering shapes of Sheba's Breasts. It appeared, also, that rather more than two years previously a party of Kukuana hunters had descended this path into the desert in search of ostriches, whose plumes are much prized among them for war head-dresses, and that in the course of their hunt they had been led far from the mountains and were much troubled by thirst. Seeing trees on the horizon, however, they walked towards them, and discovered a large and fertile oasis some miles in extent, and plentifully watered. It was by way of this oasis that Infadoos suggested we should return, and the idea seemed to us a good one, for it appeared that we should thus escape the rigours of the mountain pass. Also some of the hunters were in attendance to guide us to the oasis, from which, they stated, they could perceive other fertile spots far away in the desert.[2] Travelling easily, on the night of the fourth day's journey we found ourselves once more on the crest of the mountains that separate Kukuanaland from the desert, which rolled away in sandy billows at our feet, and about twenty-five miles to the north of Sheba's Breasts. At dawn on the following day, we were led to the edge of a very precipitous chasm, by which we were to descend the precipice, and gain the plain two thousand and more feet below. Here we bade farewell to that true friend and sturdy old warrior, Infadoos, who solemnly wished all good upon us, and nearly wept with grief. "Never, my lords," he said, "shall mine old eyes see the like of you again. Ah! the way that Incubu cut his men down in the battle! Ah! for the sight of that stroke with which he swept off my brother Twala's head! It was beautiful--beautiful! I may never hope to see such another, except perchance in happy dreams." We were very sorry to part from him; indeed, Good was so moved that he gave him as a souvenir--what do you think?--an _eye-glass_; afterwards we discovered that it was a spare one. Infadoos was delighted, foreseeing that the possession of such an article would increase his prestige enormously, and after several vain attempts he actually succeeded in screwing it into his own eye. Anything more incongruous than the old warrior looked with an eye-glass I never saw. Eye-glasses do not go well with leopard-skin cloaks and black ostrich plumes. Then, after seeing that our guides were well laden with water and provisions, and having received a thundering farewell salute from the Buffaloes, we wrung Infadoos by the hand, and began our downward climb. A very arduous business it proved to be, but somehow that evening we found ourselves at the bottom without accident. "Do you know," said Sir Henry that night, as we sat by our fire and gazed up at the beetling cliffs above us, "I think that there are worse places than Kukuanaland in the world, and that I have known unhappier times than the last month or two, though I have never spent such queer ones. Eh! you fellows?" "I almost wish I were back," said Good, with a sigh. As for myself, I reflected that all's well that ends well; but in the course of a long life of shaves, I never had such shaves as those which I had recently experienced. The thought of that battle makes me feel cold all over, and as for our experience in the treasure chamber--! Next morning we started on a toilsome trudge across the desert, having with us a good supply of water carried by our five guides, and camped that night in the open, marching again at dawn on the morrow. By noon of the third day's journey we could see the trees of the oasis of which the guides spoke, and within an hour of sundown we were walking once more upon grass and listening to the sound of running water. [1] This extraordinary and negative way of showing intense respect is by no means unknown among African people, and the result is that if, as is usual, the name in question has a significance, the meaning must be expressed by an idiom or other word. In this way a memory is preserved for generations, or until the new word utterly supplants the old. [2] It often puzzled all of us to understand how it was possible that Ignosi's mother, bearing the child with her, should have survived the dangers of her journey across the mountains and the desert, dangers which so nearly proved fatal to ourselves. It has since occurred to me, and I give the idea to the reader for what it is worth, that she must have taken this second route, and wandered out like Hagar into the wilderness. If she did so, there is no longer anything inexplicable about the story, since, as Ignosi himself related, she may well have been picked up by some ostrich hunters before she or the child was exhausted, was led by them to the oasis, and thence by stages to the fertile country, and so on by slow degrees southwards to Zululand.--A.Q. And now I come to perhaps the strangest adventure that happened to us in all this strange business, and one which shows how wonderfully things are brought about. I was walking along quietly, some way in front of the other two, down the banks of the stream which runs from the oasis till it is swallowed up in the hungry desert sands, when suddenly I stopped and rubbed my eyes, as well I might. There, not twenty yards in front of me, placed in a charming situation, under the shade of a species of fig-tree, and facing to the stream, was a cosy hut, built more or less on the Kafir principle with grass and withes, but having a full-length door instead of a bee-hole. "What the dickens," said I to myself, "can a hut be doing here?" Even as I said it the door of the hut opened, and there limped out of it a _white man_ clothed in skins, and with an enormous black beard. I thought that I must have got a touch of the sun. It was impossible. No hunter ever came to such a place as this. Certainly no hunter would ever settle in it. I stared and stared, and so did the other man, and just at that juncture Sir Henry and Good walked up. "Look here, you fellows," I said, "is that a white man, or am I mad?" Sir Henry looked, and Good looked, and then all of a sudden the lame white man with a black beard uttered a great cry, and began hobbling towards us. When he was close he fell down in a sort of faint. With a spring Sir Henry was by his side. "Great Powers!" he cried, "_it is my brother George!_" At the sound of this disturbance, another figure, also clad in skins, emerged from the hut, a gun in his hand, and ran towards us. On seeing me he too gave a cry. "Macumazahn," he halloed, "don't you know me, Baas? I'm Jim the hunter. I lost the note you gave me to give to the Baas, and we have been here nearly two years." And the fellow fell at my feet, and rolled over and over, weeping for joy. "You careless scoundrel!" I said; "you ought to be well _sjambocked_"--that is, hided. Meanwhile the man with the black beard had recovered and risen, and he and Sir Henry were pump-handling away at each other, apparently without a word to say. But whatever they had quarrelled about in the past--I suspect it was a lady, though I never asked--it was evidently forgotten now. "My dear old fellow," burst out Sir Henry at last, "I thought you were dead. I have been over Solomon's Mountains to find you. I had given up all hope of ever seeing you again, and now I come across you perched in the desert, like an old _assvoegel_."[1] "I tried to cross Solomon's Mountains nearly two years ago," was the answer, spoken in the hesitating voice of a man who has had little recent opportunity of using his tongue, "but when I reached here a boulder fell on my leg and crushed it, and I have been able to go neither forward nor back." Then I came up. "How do you do, Mr. Neville?" I said; "do you remember me?" "Why," he said, "isn't it Hunter Quatermain, eh, and Good too? Hold on a minute, you fellows, I am getting dizzy again. It is all so very strange, and, when a man has ceased to hope, so very happy!" That evening, over the camp fire, George Curtis told us his story, which, in its way, was almost as eventful as our own, and, put shortly, amounted to this. A little less than two years before, he had started from Sitanda's Kraal, to try to reach Suliman's Berg. As for the note I had sent him by Jim, that worthy lost it, and he had never heard of it till to-day. But, acting upon information he had received from the natives, he headed not for Sheba's Breasts, but for the ladder-like descent of the mountains down which we had just come, which is clearly a better route than that marked out in old Dom Silvestra's plan. In the desert he and Jim had suffered great hardships, but finally they reached this oasis, where a terrible accident befell George Curtis. On the day of their arrival he was sitting by the stream, and Jim was extracting the honey from the nest of a stingless bee which is to be found in the desert, on the top of a bank immediately above him. In so doing he loosened a great boulder of rock, which fell upon George Curtis's right leg, crushing it frightfully. From that day he had been so lame that he found it impossible to go either forward or back, and had preferred to take the chances of dying in the oasis to the certainty of perishing in the desert. As for food, however, they got on pretty well, for they had a good supply of ammunition, and the oasis was frequented, especially at night, by large quantities of game, which came thither for water. These they shot, or trapped in pitfalls, using the flesh for food, and, after their clothes wore out, the hides for clothing. "And so," George Curtis ended, "we have lived for nearly two years, like a second Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, hoping against hope that some natives might come here to help us away, but none have come. Only last night we settled that Jim should leave me, and try to reach Sitanda's Kraal to get assistance. He was to go to-morrow, but I had little hope of ever seeing him back again. And now _you_, of all people in the world, _you_, who, as I fancied, had long ago forgotten all about me, and were living comfortably in old England, turn up in a promiscuous way and find me where you least expected. It is the most wonderful thing that I have ever heard of, and the most merciful too." Then Sir Henry set to work, and told him the main facts of our adventures, sitting till late into the night to do it. "By Jove!" said George Curtis, when I showed him some of the diamonds: "well, at least you have got something for your pains, besides my worthless self." Sir Henry laughed. "They belong to Quatermain and Good. It was a part of the bargain that they should divide any spoils there might be." This remark set me thinking, and having spoken to Good, I told Sir Henry that it was our joint wish that he should take a third portion of the diamonds, or, if he would not, that his share should be handed to his brother, who had suffered even more than ourselves on the chance of getting them. Finally, we prevailed upon him to consent to this arrangement, but George Curtis did not know of it until some time afterwards. * * * * * Here, at this point, I think that I shall end my history. Our journey across the desert back to Sitanda's Kraal was most arduous, especially as we had to support George Curtis, whose right leg was very weak indeed, and continually threw out splinters of bone. But we did accomplish it somehow, and to give its details would only be to reproduce much of what happened to us on the former occasion. Six months from the date of our re-arrival at Sitanda's, where we found our guns and other goods quite safe, though the old rascal in charge was much disgusted at our surviving to claim them, saw us all once more safe and sound at my little place on the Berea, near Durban, where I am now writing. Thence I bid farewell to all who have accompanied me through the strangest trip I ever made in the course of a long and varied experience. P.S.--Just as I had written the last word, a Kafir came up my avenue of orange trees, carrying a letter in a cleft stick, which he had brought from the post. It turned out to be from Sir Henry, and as it speaks for itself I give it in full. October 1, 1884. Brayley Hall, Yorkshire. My Dear Quatermain, I send you a line a few mails back to say that the three of us, George, Good, and myself, fetched up all right in England. We got off the boat at Southampton, and went up to town. You should have seen what a swell Good turned out the very next day, beautifully shaved, frock coat fitting like a glove, brand new eye-glass, etc., etc. I went and walked in the park with him, where I met some people I know, and at once told them the story of his "beautiful white legs." He is furious, especially as some ill-natured person has printed it in a Society paper. To come to business, Good and I took the diamonds to Streeter's to be valued, as we arranged, and really I am afraid to tell you what they put them at, it seems so enormous. They say that of course it is more or less guess-work, as such stones have never to their knowledge been put on the market in anything like such quantities. It appears that (with the exception of one or two of the largest) they are of the finest water, and equal in every way to the best Brazilian stones. I asked them if they would buy them, but they said that it was beyond their power to do so, and recommended us to sell by degrees, over a period of years indeed, for fear lest we should flood the market. They offer, however, a hundred and eighty thousand for a very small portion of them. You must come home, Quatermain, and see about these things, especially if you insist upon making the magnificent present of the third share, which does _not_ belong to me, to my brother George. As for Good, he is _no good_. His time is too much occupied in shaving, and other matters connected with the vain adorning of the body. But I think he is still down on his luck about Foulata. He told me that since he had been home he hadn't seen a woman to touch her, either as regards her figure or the sweetness of her expression. I want you to come home, my dear old comrade, and to buy a house near here. You have done your day's work, and have lots of money now, and there is a place for sale quite close which would suit you admirably. Do come; the sooner the better; you can finish writing the story of our adventures on board ship. We have refused to tell the tale till it is written by you, for fear lest we shall not be believed. If you start on receipt of this you will reach here by Christmas, and I book you to stay with me for that. Good is coming, and George; and so, by the way, is your boy Harry (there's a bribe for you). I have had him down for a week's shooting, and like him. He is a cool young hand; he shot me in the leg, cut out the pellets, and then remarked upon the advantages of having a medical student with every shooting party! Good-bye, old boy; I can't say any more, but I know that you will come, if it is only to oblige Your sincere friend, Henry Curtis. P.S.--The tusks of the great bull that killed poor Khiva have now been put up in the hall here, over the pair of buffalo horns you gave me, and look magnificent; and the axe with which I chopped off Twala's head is fixed above my writing-table. I wish that we could have managed to bring away the coats of chain armour. Don't lose poor Foulata's basket in which you brought away the diamonds. H.C. To-day is Tuesday. There is a steamer going on Friday, and I really think that I must take Curtis at his word, and sail by her for England, if it is only to see you, Harry, my boy, and to look after the printing of this history, which is a task that I do not like to trust to anybody else. ALLAN QUATERMAIN. [1] Vulture.

Chapters 19 and 20

https://web.archive.org/web/20200804024551/https://www.gradesaver.com/king-solomons-mines/study-guide/summary-chapters-19-and-20

Ten days after escaping the dark chambers of Solomon's treasure store, Quatermain, Sir Henry, and Good find themselves back in Loo. After having rested for two days, the men had tried to find the secret entrance to the treasure chamber, but to no avail. Giving up, they returned to Loo and prepared for their longer journey back to their own country. Ignosi finds their intent to leave disturbing, going so far as to question Quatermain's priorities in loving the precious diamonds more than their friendship. Quatermain replies that, just as Ignosi longed for his homeland when he joined the men in their quest, so do the white men long for their own homes. Somewhat mollified, Ignosi declares that Quatermain, Sir Henry, and Good are the only white men who will ever enter Kukuanaland; he warns the men that any other whites who approach will not be welcomed, and if they do not leave of their own accord they will be driven off or killed. He then declares the names of the three men--their "African" names, will be remembered as the names of gods among the Kukuanas, passed on for generations but never uttered aloud. Just before they leave, Good is approached by a young Kukuana woman bearing flowers. She eagerly desires to see Good's "beautiful white legs" before he leaves. At first Good balks at the prospect of showing his legs, but the cajoling of Sir Henry and Quatermain lead him to roll his pants-leg up to the knee. The woman and several other onlookers stare in awe at Good's white leg before Good makes his departure. The men learn of an alternate--and less perilous--route away from Kukuanaland, along which there is said to be an oasis. The men readily choose this path over the dangers of thirst and wild animals. Infadoos and a group of Kukuanas escort the men as far as the borders of Kukuanaland, then bid them farewell. Before leaving, Good makes Infadoos a gift of his spare monocle, giving the old Kukuana a token of his esteem and a physical badge of honor among the Kukuanas. Three days later the men reach the oasis and make camp by its refreshing waters. As Quatermain surveys the oasis, he comes across a hut . A white man clothed in animal skins, comes out of the hut and looks upon him. Quatermain asks his companions to verify that he is not hallucinating, when Sir Henry recognizes the white man as his brother George. When the men cry out in delight, another figure--this time a black man--exits the hut and addresses Quatermain. This is Jim, whom Quatermain had sent to deliver a note to George over two years ago. As it turns out, George had attempted to reach King Solomon's mines by this route rather than the more dangerous desert way. While camping at the oasis and preparing to head into Kukuanaland, a boulder fell and crushed his leg. Unable to climb the mountains or return the way he came, George settled in to survive at the oasis as long as he could. With Jim's help he built the hut and hunted game, which provided both food and clothing for the men. For two years they have lived this way, never anticipating seeing another human face, let alone these familiar faces. Sir Henry relates his own adventures to his brother, and he concludes with Quatermain showing George the diamonds retrieved from Solomon's treasure chamber. George declares that at least the men have gotten some benefit from their expedition, but Sir Henry insists that the diamonds belong to Quatermain and Good--he only sought to find his brother. Quatermain and Good secretly decide between them to give Sir Henry a third of the diamonds or, if he will not take them, to give them to George, whom they believe has suffered even more than they in his pursuit of King Solomon's Mines. Sir Henry reluctantly agrees. The men make their return journey, taking turns bearing the limping George back to Durban. There Quatermain takes his leave of the other men as they return to England. As Quatermain is writing the final lines of his narrative, a letter arrives from Sir Henry. Sir Henry urges Quatermain to come to England and take up residence near him; a house has recently gone up for sale and the proceeds from selling off a few of the diamonds will pay for the residence. To further entice Quatermain, Sir Henry has had Quatermain's son Harry visit and quite enjoys the young man's company. Quatermain is touched by Sir Henry's desire to have his friend nearby, and ends the narrative declaring his intention to return to England.

Good's gift to Infadoos is reminiscent of the cargo cult, in which artifacts from a strange culture are made objects of admiration or even worship by another culture. Good's "glass eye" had fascinated the Kukuanas from the first moment they saw him. By giving Infadoos a spare monocle, Good imparts to Infadoos a level of respect among the Kukuanas. Although often an object of humor, it is Good who seems to be most connected to the Kukuanas. The three white men are deified among the Kukuanas. Their practice of remembering the men's names by never uttering them aloud is strange to the men, but reflects the sanctity with which they regard these men. However, even as he honors them, Ignosi tells the white men that no other whites will be allowed in Kukuanaland. Ignosi has seen their influence, and does not wish it to continue among his people. This final closing of the borders by Ignosi is interesting in that the new king sees the dangers of allowing white/European culture to infiltrate his land. Just as he owes his throne to the three white men to some extent, so does he recognize that an imperialistic nation could use force, guile, or technology to place their own favored man on the throne at any time. Ignosi chooses instead to keep the Kukuanas insular and avoid the negative influence of Europe. At the same time, Ignosi holds these three specific white men in high regard. When they tell him of their desire to depart, Ignosi says, "It is the bright stones that ye love more than me, your friend" . In response to this charge of materialism, Quatermain replies that just as Ignosi longed for his homeland, so too do these men long to return to their own nation. This assuages Ignosi, but it leaves the reader with a sense that the diamonds have become disproportionately valuable to the men--even Sir Henry Curtis has not mentioned his brother lately--and thus the pretext for their adventure has become an empty goal. Haggard leaves no loose ends in his novel. The purpose of Sir Henry's quest--to find his brother or news of him--is finally achieved, although somewhat by accident. Sir Henry had become convinced that Neville died en route to Solomon's Mines. What he did not foresee was that Neville would become incapacitated on the way and never complete the journey, yet still live. Also, George Neville took a different route than that indicated by da Silvestra's map, and so the evidence of his journey could not be found along the path of Sir Henry's expedition. Although the finding of Sir Henry's brother feels a bit like convenient coincidence, the details of his story mesh well with the events of Quatermain's narrative. The lack of evidence and information regarding Neville left Sir Henry in despair, but the lack was not due to his death in the wilderness, but due to his taking a different route and meeting an unexpected obstacle. Although George Neville denies it, the blame for his injury is in some part the fault of Jim, the African hunter of Quatermain's acquaintance. Although probably intended as a plot device, it is interesting to note that George's injury and Sir Henry's subsequent anxiety and trials are partially the fault of an African native. Haggard could not have George simply meet with an accident--thus making the man incompetent and no fit brother for the mighty Sir Henry Curtis. He had to place the burden of the mistake upon another character--a minor African character--in order to meet the expectations of his readership. The issue of materialism is again raised. Quatermain and Good readily agree to share a third of their diamonds with Sir Henry and, when he refuses, with George Neville as recompense for his suffering in quest for them. Neville accepts where Sir Henry did not. Again, Sir Henry Curtis is the ideal hero--brave, compassionate--and in this case content with his station in life and his income level. Quatermain is no hero--he wants the money, but mostly for his son--but he is human, and thus makes a better point of view character for the novel than would Sir Henry. The story finishes with a letter. Sir Henry has already made the acquaintance of Quatermain's son and likes the young many very much. He wants Quatermain to join him and Good in England, where a nearby house has recently opened up. In this way, the three bachelors can live in luxury and peace for their remaining days. Quatermain, although restless and a born hunter and explorer, considers taking Sir Henry up on the offer. He wants to see his son grow up and succeed, and it is in England that he can best achieve that goal. Like Odysseus, Quatermain is now in a position to retire and finish his son's training in manhood, knowing that his legacy is secure.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/09.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_8_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 9

chapter 9

{"name": "Chapter 9", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-9", "summary": "Watching the other officers battle to free the lifeboats, Jim was so maddened by the sudden \"black, black\" squall and the impending disaster that he grabbed his knife and sliced the ropes holding the lifeboats; then he gazed on the almost comical struggling scene below \"of four men fighting like mad with a stubborn lifeboat.\" All their efforts were futile. He hated these insect-like men. He told Marlow that had he, Marlow, been on board, he too \"would have leaped\" overboard, as Jim did when he heard the captain yelling from a lifeboat to jump! Jim recalled the black rain squall that \"sneaked up\" and loomed overhead, eating up \"a third of the sky\" before it broke over the ship and began to awaken the Moslems. The threat of drowning during a furious storm from heaven, lost among a frenzied mob of screaming natives, filled Jim with such alarm that it seemed as though life itself were pounding against him, beating on him \"like the sea upon a rock.\" It was pitch black. Jim could not see. He could hear only the skipper and an engineer yelling for a comrade who died suddenly of a heart attack. The Patna seemed to slip, then go into a slow, downward plunge and at that moment, Jim jumped. He jumped without thought and without realizing that he had jumped. He no longer felt as if he were in control of his actions. Something else -- something larger and more powerful than he -- was now controlling him; all that he could do was passively accept the unknown. He felt that he was a hopeless victim, lost at the bottom \"of an everlasting deep hole.\"", "analysis": "Chapter 9 finally presents Jim's jump from the presumably sinking ship. But the jump is surrounded by so many real and so many impressionistic details that it is difficult to separate the real from the impressionistic. From a distance, Jim wants to laugh at the tragic-comic frantic actions of the captain and the crew: \"It was funny enough to make angels weep.\" Then suddenly a squall came up and the crew was sure that the squall would immediately sink the ship: \"In absolute stillness there was some chance for the ship to keep afloat a few minutes longer, the least disturbance of the sea would make an end of her instantly.\" At this, the others \"displayed their extreme aversion to die.\" Jim soon realizes \"that there was nothing in common between him and these men,\" and when Jim expresses his anger at them for their cowardly actions, the entire crew here turns against him, calling him a fool and pointing out that he wouldn't have a ghost of a chance if they awaken \"that lot of brutes . They will batter your head for you.\" Consequently, after the captain and the crew are safely in the water, they call for George, the third engineer to jump into the lifeboat, but they do not call for Jim to jump. And later, Jim's life is endangered by the hatred of these cowards. Amidst the confusion, the oncoming squall, the definite sensation of the ship sinking, the terrified and desperate activities of the captain and the crew, and the sudden dipping of the bow of the ship, Jim is completely lost in confusion. Again he aligns Marlow and the readers by asking \"What would you have done? You are sure of yourself -- aren't you? What would you do if you felt now -- this minute the house here move, just move a little under your chair? Leap! By heavens! You would take one spring from where you sit and land in that clump of bushes yonder.\" The answer, of course, is that almost every one of us, amid such confusion and confronted with certain death, would also have jumped. Even Marlow admits how uncomfortable it made him feel, and he was careful not to answer because of his fear of being \"drawn into a fatal admission about myself.\" And furthermore, Marlow reiterates that \"really he was too much like one of us . . .\" Thus, amidst all the confusion, with the captain and the crew calling for George to jump, and with Jim feeling that the ship \"was going down, down, head first under me. . .\" he apparently jumped. Jim puts his actions in the past: \"I had jumped . . . it seems.\" He doesn't actually remember the jump, only the painful landing in the boat and then he feels regretfully that he \"had jumped into a well -- into an everlasting deep hole.\" The rest of his life will hereafter be determined by this one act, and later, his every job and his every act until, finally, his tragic decision concerning Gentleman Brown will be determined by this tragic jump."}

'"I was saying to myself, 'Sink--curse you! Sink!'" These were the words with which he began again. He wanted it over. He was severely left alone, and he formulated in his head this address to the ship in a tone of imprecation, while at the same time he enjoyed the privilege of witnessing scenes--as far as I can judge--of low comedy. They were still at that bolt. The skipper was ordering, "Get under and try to lift"; and the others naturally shirked. You understand that to be squeezed flat under the keel of a boat wasn't a desirable position to be caught in if the ship went down suddenly. "Why don't you--you the strongest?" whined the little engineer. "Gott-for-dam! I am too thick," spluttered the skipper in despair. It was funny enough to make angels weep. They stood idle for a moment, and suddenly the chief engineer rushed again at Jim. '"Come and help, man! Are you mad to throw your only chance away? Come and help, man! Man! Look there--look!" 'And at last Jim looked astern where the other pointed with maniacal insistence. He saw a silent black squall which had eaten up already one-third of the sky. You know how these squalls come up there about that time of the year. First you see a darkening of the horizon--no more; then a cloud rises opaque like a wall. A straight edge of vapour lined with sickly whitish gleams flies up from the southwest, swallowing the stars in whole constellations; its shadow flies over the waters, and confounds sea and sky into one abyss of obscurity. And all is still. No thunder, no wind, no sound; not a flicker of lightning. Then in the tenebrous immensity a livid arch appears; a swell or two like undulations of the very darkness run past, and suddenly, wind and rain strike together with a peculiar impetuosity as if they had burst through something solid. Such a cloud had come up while they weren't looking. They had just noticed it, and were perfectly justified in surmising that if in absolute stillness there was some chance for the ship to keep afloat a few minutes longer, the least disturbance of the sea would make an end of her instantly. Her first nod to the swell that precedes the burst of such a squall would be also her last, would become a plunge, would, so to speak, be prolonged into a long dive, down, down to the bottom. Hence these new capers of their fright, these new antics in which they displayed their extreme aversion to die. '"It was black, black," pursued Jim with moody steadiness. "It had sneaked upon us from behind. The infernal thing! I suppose there had been at the back of my head some hope yet. I don't know. But that was all over anyhow. It maddened me to see myself caught like this. I was angry, as though I had been trapped. I _was_ trapped! The night was hot, too, I remember. Not a breath of air." 'He remembered so well that, gasping in the chair, he seemed to sweat and choke before my eyes. No doubt it maddened him; it knocked him over afresh--in a manner of speaking--but it made him also remember that important purpose which had sent him rushing on that bridge only to slip clean out of his mind. He had intended to cut the lifeboats clear of the ship. He whipped out his knife and went to work slashing as though he had seen nothing, had heard nothing, had known of no one on board. They thought him hopelessly wrong-headed and crazy, but dared not protest noisily against this useless loss of time. When he had done he returned to the very same spot from which he had started. The chief was there, ready with a clutch at him to whisper close to his head, scathingly, as though he wanted to bite his ear-- '"You silly fool! do you think you'll get the ghost of a show when all that lot of brutes is in the water? Why, they will batter your head for you from these boats." 'He wrung his hands, ignored, at Jim's elbow. The skipper kept up a nervous shuffle in one place and mumbled, "Hammer! hammer! Mein Gott! Get a hammer." 'The little engineer whimpered like a child, but, broken arm and all, he turned out the least craven of the lot as it seems, and, actually, mustered enough pluck to run an errand to the engine-room. No trifle, it must be owned in fairness to him. Jim told me he darted desperate looks like a cornered man, gave one low wail, and dashed off. He was back instantly clambering, hammer in hand, and without a pause flung himself at the bolt. The others gave up Jim at once and ran off to assist. He heard the tap, tap of the hammer, the sound of the released chock falling over. The boat was clear. Only then he turned to look--only then. But he kept his distance--he kept his distance. He wanted me to know he had kept his distance; that there was nothing in common between him and these men--who had the hammer. Nothing whatever. It is more than probable he thought himself cut off from them by a space that could not be traversed, by an obstacle that could not be overcome, by a chasm without bottom. He was as far as he could get from them--the whole breadth of the ship. 'His feet were glued to that remote spot and his eyes to their indistinct group bowed together and swaying strangely in the common torment of fear. A hand-lamp lashed to a stanchion above a little table rigged up on the bridge--the Patna had no chart-room amidships--threw a light on their labouring shoulders, on their arched and bobbing backs. They pushed at the bow of the boat; they pushed out into the night; they pushed, and would no more look back at him. They had given him up as if indeed he had been too far, too hopelessly separated from themselves, to be worth an appealing word, a glance, or a sign. They had no leisure to look back upon his passive heroism, to feel the sting of his abstention. The boat was heavy; they pushed at the bow with no breath to spare for an encouraging word: but the turmoil of terror that had scattered their self-command like chaff before the wind, converted their desperate exertions into a bit of fooling, upon my word, fit for knockabout clowns in a farce. They pushed with their hands, with their heads, they pushed for dear life with all the weight of their bodies, they pushed with all the might of their souls--only no sooner had they succeeded in canting the stem clear of the davit than they would leave off like one man and start a wild scramble into her. As a natural consequence the boat would swing in abruptly, driving them back, helpless and jostling against each other. They would stand nonplussed for a while, exchanging in fierce whispers all the infamous names they could call to mind, and go at it again. Three times this occurred. He described it to me with morose thoughtfulness. He hadn't lost a single movement of that comic business. "I loathed them. I hated them. I had to look at all that," he said without emphasis, turning upon me a sombrely watchful glance. "Was ever there any one so shamefully tried?" 'He took his head in his hands for a moment, like a man driven to distraction by some unspeakable outrage. These were things he could not explain to the court--and not even to me; but I would have been little fitted for the reception of his confidences had I not been able at times to understand the pauses between the words. In this assault upon his fortitude there was the jeering intention of a spiteful and vile vengeance; there was an element of burlesque in his ordeal--a degradation of funny grimaces in the approach of death or dishonour. 'He related facts which I have not forgotten, but at this distance of time I couldn't recall his very words: I only remember that he managed wonderfully to convey the brooding rancour of his mind into the bare recital of events. Twice, he told me, he shut his eyes in the certitude that the end was upon him already, and twice he had to open them again. Each time he noted the darkening of the great stillness. The shadow of the silent cloud had fallen upon the ship from the zenith, and seemed to have extinguished every sound of her teeming life. He could no longer hear the voices under the awnings. He told me that each time he closed his eyes a flash of thought showed him that crowd of bodies, laid out for death, as plain as daylight. When he opened them, it was to see the dim struggle of four men fighting like mad with a stubborn boat. "They would fall back before it time after time, stand swearing at each other, and suddenly make another rush in a bunch. . . . Enough to make you die laughing," he commented with downcast eyes; then raising them for a moment to my face with a dismal smile, "I ought to have a merry life of it, by God! for I shall see that funny sight a good many times yet before I die." His eyes fell again. "See and hear. . . . See and hear," he repeated twice, at long intervals, filled by vacant staring. 'He roused himself. '"I made up my mind to keep my eyes shut," he said, "and I couldn't. I couldn't, and I don't care who knows it. Let them go through that kind of thing before they talk. Just let them--and do better--that's all. The second time my eyelids flew open and my mouth too. I had felt the ship move. She just dipped her bows--and lifted them gently--and slow! everlastingly slow; and ever so little. She hadn't done that much for days. The cloud had raced ahead, and this first swell seemed to travel upon a sea of lead. There was no life in that stir. It managed, though, to knock over something in my head. What would you have done? You are sure of yourself--aren't you? What would you do if you felt now--this minute--the house here move, just move a little under your chair. Leap! By heavens! you would take one spring from where you sit and land in that clump of bushes yonder." 'He flung his arm out at the night beyond the stone balustrade. I held my peace. He looked at me very steadily, very severe. There could be no mistake: I was being bullied now, and it behoved me to make no sign lest by a gesture or a word I should be drawn into a fatal admission about myself which would have had some bearing on the case. I was not disposed to take any risk of that sort. Don't forget I had him before me, and really he was too much like one of us not to be dangerous. But if you want to know I don't mind telling you that I did, with a rapid glance, estimate the distance to the mass of denser blackness in the middle of the grass-plot before the verandah. He exaggerated. I would have landed short by several feet--and that's the only thing of which I am fairly certain. 'The last moment had come, as he thought, and he did not move. His feet remained glued to the planks if his thoughts were knocking about loose in his head. It was at this moment too that he saw one of the men around the boat step backwards suddenly, clutch at the air with raised arms, totter and collapse. He didn't exactly fall, he only slid gently into a sitting posture, all hunched up, and with his shoulders propped against the side of the engine-room skylight. "That was the donkey-man. A haggard, white-faced chap with a ragged moustache. Acted third engineer," he explained. '"Dead," I said. We had heard something of that in court. '"So they say," he pronounced with sombre indifference. "Of course I never knew. Weak heart. The man had been complaining of being out of sorts for some time before. Excitement. Over-exertion. Devil only knows. Ha! ha! ha! It was easy to see he did not want to die either. Droll, isn't it? May I be shot if he hadn't been fooled into killing himself! Fooled--neither more nor less. Fooled into it, by heavens! just as I . . . Ah! If he had only kept still; if he had only told them to go to the devil when they came to rush him out of his bunk because the ship was sinking! If he had only stood by with his hands in his pockets and called them names!" 'He got up, shook his fist, glared at me, and sat down. '"A chance missed, eh?" I murmured. '"Why don't you laugh?" he said. "A joke hatched in hell. Weak heart! . . . I wish sometimes mine had been." 'This irritated me. "Do you?" I exclaimed with deep-rooted irony. "Yes! Can't _you_ understand?" he cried. "I don't know what more you could wish for," I said angrily. He gave me an utterly uncomprehending glance. This shaft had also gone wide of the mark, and he was not the man to bother about stray arrows. Upon my word, he was too unsuspecting; he was not fair game. I was glad that my missile had been thrown away,--that he had not even heard the twang of the bow. 'Of course he could not know at the time the man was dead. The next minute--his last on board--was crowded with a tumult of events and sensations which beat about him like the sea upon a rock. I use the simile advisedly, because from his relation I am forced to believe he had preserved through it all a strange illusion of passiveness, as though he had not acted but had suffered himself to be handled by the infernal powers who had selected him for the victim of their practical joke. The first thing that came to him was the grinding surge of the heavy davits swinging out at last--a jar which seemed to enter his body from the deck through the soles of his feet, and travel up his spine to the crown of his head. Then, the squall being very near now, another and a heavier swell lifted the passive hull in a threatening heave that checked his breath, while his brain and his heart together were pierced as with daggers by panic-stricken screams. "Let go! For God's sake, let go! Let go! She's going." Following upon that the boat-falls ripped through the blocks, and a lot of men began to talk in startled tones under the awnings. "When these beggars did break out, their yelps were enough to wake the dead," he said. Next, after the splashing shock of the boat literally dropped in the water, came the hollow noises of stamping and tumbling in her, mingled with confused shouts: "Unhook! Unhook! Shove! Unhook! Shove for your life! Here's the squall down on us. . . ." He heard, high above his head, the faint muttering of the wind; he heard below his feet a cry of pain. A lost voice alongside started cursing a swivel hook. The ship began to buzz fore and aft like a disturbed hive, and, as quietly as he was telling me of all this--because just then he was very quiet in attitude, in face, in voice--he went on to say without the slightest warning as it were, "I stumbled over his legs." 'This was the first I heard of his having moved at all. I could not restrain a grunt of surprise. Something had started him off at last, but of the exact moment, of the cause that tore him out of his immobility, he knew no more than the uprooted tree knows of the wind that laid it low. All this had come to him: the sounds, the sights, the legs of the dead man--by Jove! The infernal joke was being crammed devilishly down his throat, but--look you--he was not going to admit of any sort of swallowing motion in his gullet. It's extraordinary how he could cast upon you the spirit of his illusion. I listened as if to a tale of black magic at work upon a corpse. '"He went over sideways, very gently, and this is the last thing I remember seeing on board," he continued. "I did not care what he did. It looked as though he were picking himself up: I thought he was picking himself up, of course: I expected him to bolt past me over the rail and drop into the boat after the others. I could hear them knocking about down there, and a voice as if crying up a shaft called out 'George!' Then three voices together raised a yell. They came to me separately: one bleated, another screamed, one howled. Ough!" 'He shivered a little, and I beheld him rise slowly as if a steady hand from above had been pulling him out of the chair by his hair. Up, slowly--to his full height, and when his knees had locked stiff the hand let him go, and he swayed a little on his feet. There was a suggestion of awful stillness in his face, in his movements, in his very voice when he said "They shouted"--and involuntarily I pricked up my ears for the ghost of that shout that would be heard directly through the false effect of silence. "There were eight hundred people in that ship," he said, impaling me to the back of my seat with an awful blank stare. "Eight hundred living people, and they were yelling after the one dead man to come down and be saved. 'Jump, George! Jump! Oh, jump!' I stood by with my hand on the davit. I was very quiet. It had come over pitch dark. You could see neither sky nor sea. I heard the boat alongside go bump, bump, and not another sound down there for a while, but the ship under me was full of talking noises. Suddenly the skipper howled 'Mein Gott! The squall! The squall! Shove off!' With the first hiss of rain, and the first gust of wind, they screamed, 'Jump, George! We'll catch you! Jump!' The ship began a slow plunge; the rain swept over her like a broken sea; my cap flew off my head; my breath was driven back into my throat. I heard as if I had been on the top of a tower another wild screech, 'Geo-o-o-orge! Oh, jump!' She was going down, down, head first under me. . . ." 'He raised his hand deliberately to his face, and made picking motions with his fingers as though he had been bothered with cobwebs, and afterwards he looked into the open palm for quite half a second before he blurted out-- '"I had jumped . . ." He checked himself, averted his gaze. . . . "It seems," he added. 'His clear blue eyes turned to me with a piteous stare, and looking at him standing before me, dumfounded and hurt, I was oppressed by a sad sense of resigned wisdom, mingled with the amused and profound pity of an old man helpless before a childish disaster. '"Looks like it," I muttered. '"I knew nothing about it till I looked up," he explained hastily. And that's possible, too. You had to listen to him as you would to a small boy in trouble. He didn't know. It had happened somehow. It would never happen again. He had landed partly on somebody and fallen across a thwart. He felt as though all his ribs on his left side must be broken; then he rolled over, and saw vaguely the ship he had deserted uprising above him, with the red side-light glowing large in the rain like a fire on the brow of a hill seen through a mist. "She seemed higher than a wall; she loomed like a cliff over the boat . . . I wished I could die," he cried. "There was no going back. It was as if I had jumped into a well--into an everlasting deep hole. . . ."'

Chapter 9

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-9

Watching the other officers battle to free the lifeboats, Jim was so maddened by the sudden "black, black" squall and the impending disaster that he grabbed his knife and sliced the ropes holding the lifeboats; then he gazed on the almost comical struggling scene below "of four men fighting like mad with a stubborn lifeboat." All their efforts were futile. He hated these insect-like men. He told Marlow that had he, Marlow, been on board, he too "would have leaped" overboard, as Jim did when he heard the captain yelling from a lifeboat to jump! Jim recalled the black rain squall that "sneaked up" and loomed overhead, eating up "a third of the sky" before it broke over the ship and began to awaken the Moslems. The threat of drowning during a furious storm from heaven, lost among a frenzied mob of screaming natives, filled Jim with such alarm that it seemed as though life itself were pounding against him, beating on him "like the sea upon a rock." It was pitch black. Jim could not see. He could hear only the skipper and an engineer yelling for a comrade who died suddenly of a heart attack. The Patna seemed to slip, then go into a slow, downward plunge and at that moment, Jim jumped. He jumped without thought and without realizing that he had jumped. He no longer felt as if he were in control of his actions. Something else -- something larger and more powerful than he -- was now controlling him; all that he could do was passively accept the unknown. He felt that he was a hopeless victim, lost at the bottom "of an everlasting deep hole."

Chapter 9 finally presents Jim's jump from the presumably sinking ship. But the jump is surrounded by so many real and so many impressionistic details that it is difficult to separate the real from the impressionistic. From a distance, Jim wants to laugh at the tragic-comic frantic actions of the captain and the crew: "It was funny enough to make angels weep." Then suddenly a squall came up and the crew was sure that the squall would immediately sink the ship: "In absolute stillness there was some chance for the ship to keep afloat a few minutes longer, the least disturbance of the sea would make an end of her instantly." At this, the others "displayed their extreme aversion to die." Jim soon realizes "that there was nothing in common between him and these men," and when Jim expresses his anger at them for their cowardly actions, the entire crew here turns against him, calling him a fool and pointing out that he wouldn't have a ghost of a chance if they awaken "that lot of brutes . They will batter your head for you." Consequently, after the captain and the crew are safely in the water, they call for George, the third engineer to jump into the lifeboat, but they do not call for Jim to jump. And later, Jim's life is endangered by the hatred of these cowards. Amidst the confusion, the oncoming squall, the definite sensation of the ship sinking, the terrified and desperate activities of the captain and the crew, and the sudden dipping of the bow of the ship, Jim is completely lost in confusion. Again he aligns Marlow and the readers by asking "What would you have done? You are sure of yourself -- aren't you? What would you do if you felt now -- this minute the house here move, just move a little under your chair? Leap! By heavens! You would take one spring from where you sit and land in that clump of bushes yonder." The answer, of course, is that almost every one of us, amid such confusion and confronted with certain death, would also have jumped. Even Marlow admits how uncomfortable it made him feel, and he was careful not to answer because of his fear of being "drawn into a fatal admission about myself." And furthermore, Marlow reiterates that "really he was too much like one of us . . ." Thus, amidst all the confusion, with the captain and the crew calling for George to jump, and with Jim feeling that the ship "was going down, down, head first under me. . ." he apparently jumped. Jim puts his actions in the past: "I had jumped . . . it seems." He doesn't actually remember the jump, only the painful landing in the boat and then he feels regretfully that he "had jumped into a well -- into an everlasting deep hole." The rest of his life will hereafter be determined by this one act, and later, his every job and his every act until, finally, his tragic decision concerning Gentleman Brown will be determined by this tragic jump.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/20.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_3_part_7.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 3.chapter 7

book 3, chapter 7

{"name": "book 3, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section4/", "summary": "Disputation Grigory and Smerdyakov are arguing over whether it is morally acceptable to renounce one's faith in God if doing so would save one's life. Smerdyakov says that it is, because no one has perfect faith. He says that no one has faith enough to believe that, if he asked a mountain to move, God would move the mountain. Therefore, Smerdyakov says, no one should die for the faith that he does have. He says that a person who renounces his faith to save his life can repent for his sin later. Though he is arguing with Grigory, he seems to be directing most of his attention to Ivan, and he seems to hope that Ivan will approve of his reasoning", "analysis": ""}

Chapter VII. The Controversy 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 good-humored 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. "Soup-maker!" muttered Grigory contemptuously. "As for being a soup-maker, 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 wine-glass 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 sea--except 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 them--if 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 well-known 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 to-day. 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 twenty-four 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 black-beetle, 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."

book 3, Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section4/

Disputation Grigory and Smerdyakov are arguing over whether it is morally acceptable to renounce one's faith in God if doing so would save one's life. Smerdyakov says that it is, because no one has perfect faith. He says that no one has faith enough to believe that, if he asked a mountain to move, God would move the mountain. Therefore, Smerdyakov says, no one should die for the faith that he does have. He says that a person who renounces his faith to save his life can repent for his sin later. Though he is arguing with Grigory, he seems to be directing most of his attention to Ivan, and he seems to hope that Ivan will approve of his reasoning

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/8.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_7_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 2.chapter 3

book 2, chapter 3

{"name": "Book 2, Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-2-chapter-3", "summary": "Outside, the first woman Zosima greets is named Nastasia, who was grieving for her dead three-year-old son. Zosima tells her that it's a good thing that she's weeping because it shows what a good mother she is, but she ought to return to her husband and care for him. Nastasia is comforted by his words. Next up is a widow whose son Vasenka is serving in the military out in Siberia. She hasn't heard from him in a while and heard a superstition that if she put his name on the church's list of prayers for the dead, he'll contact her. Zosima tells her that would be a sin and to patiently await her son. He further predicts that the son is alive and will either return or send her a message. After that, Zosima greets a woman who walked four miles with a baby to see him. She gives him some money to distribute to the poor, and he blesses her and her child.", "analysis": ""}

Chapter III. Peasant Women Who Have Faith 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 thirty-three, 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 sing-song 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 sing-song 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 long-suffering 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 to-day I have come to you." "What are you weeping for?" "It's my little son I'm grieving for, Father. He was three years old--three 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 sing-song 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 non-commissioned 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 Ilyinishna--she's a rich merchant's wife--said 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, consumptive-looking, 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 half-whisper, 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 before--or 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.

Book 2, Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-2-chapter-3

Outside, the first woman Zosima greets is named Nastasia, who was grieving for her dead three-year-old son. Zosima tells her that it's a good thing that she's weeping because it shows what a good mother she is, but she ought to return to her husband and care for him. Nastasia is comforted by his words. Next up is a widow whose son Vasenka is serving in the military out in Siberia. She hasn't heard from him in a while and heard a superstition that if she put his name on the church's list of prayers for the dead, he'll contact her. Zosima tells her that would be a sin and to patiently await her son. He further predicts that the son is alive and will either return or send her a message. After that, Zosima greets a woman who walked four miles with a baby to see him. She gives him some money to distribute to the poor, and he blesses her and her child.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/151-chapters/5.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Rime of the Ancient Mariner/section_4_part_0.txt

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.part 5

part 5

{"name": "Part 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422155712/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/summary-part-5", "summary": "After praying, the Ancient Mariner thanked the Virgin Mary for finally allowing him to sleep. He dreamed that the buckets on the ship were filled with dew, and awoke to the sound of the falling rain. He drank and drank after so many days of thirst, and became so lightheaded that he thought he was a ghost. Suddenly he heard a loud wind far off, and the sky lit up with darting \"fire-flags\" that could be interpreted as lightning, aurora borealis, or \"St. Elmo's Fire\" . The rain poured from a single cloud, as did an unbroken stream of lightning. The ship began to sail, although there was still no wind. Just then, all the dead men stood up and went about their jobs as a mute, ghostly crew. The Wedding Guest proclaims again: \"I fear thee, Ancient Mariner!\" but the Ancient Mariner quickly assures him that the dead sailors were not evil. At dawn, they even gathered around the mast and sang so beautifully that they sounded like an orchestra. When they stopped singing, the ship's sails sang instead. The ship sailed on miraculously in the absence of wind, moved instead by the spirit that had followed it from the icy world. Once the ship reached the equator and the sun was directly overhead, it stopped moving and the sails stopped singing. Then it began to rock back and forth uneasily until it suddenly jolted, causing the Ancient Mariner to faint. He lay for an indeterminate period of time on the ship's deck, during which he heard two voices. The first voice swore on Christ that he was the man who betrayed the Albatross that loved him, and that the spirit from the icy world also loved the Albatross: \"The spirit who bideth by himself / In the land of mist and snow, / He loved the bird that loved the man / Who shot him with his bow.\" The second voice, softer than the first, declared that the Ancient Mariner would continue to pay for his crime: \"The man hath penance done, / And penance more will do.\"", "analysis": "Until the end of Part 5, it seems as though the Ancient Mariner is redeemed. Not only is he allowed to sleep, but it finally rains, and his thirst is quenched. Since physical drought and thirst have represented the Ancient Mariner's moral depravity up until this point, it is implied that the abundant rain symbolizes his redemption. According to a Christian interpretation, the rain signifies that he is being baptized anew as a righteous servant of Christ who respects God's creatures. Even though terrifying things continue to happen all around him - a storm, lightning, thunder - the Ancient Mariner is awed by them, instead of fearful of them. The natural world is no less forceful or imposing than it was previously, but it is now benevolent. Part 5 also sees an end to the Ancient Mariner's loneliness, as the sailors 'awaken' to sail the ship; they and the ship itself sing beautiful music, and some spiritual force moves the ship along its course even though the air is still. Again, only when the ship crosses a boundary - the equator - does confusion return; the Ancient Mariner is knocked unconscious, and the reader begins to doubt whether he will actually be redeemed. The voices confirm that it is indeed a specific spirit punishing the Ancient Mariner. The text's suggestions of sin, baptism, redemption, and other Christian themes shifts towards a more pagan understanding of the story's moral intricacies. A spirit that inhabits the icy world of the \"rime\" loved the Albatross - perhaps kept it as a pet - and is making the Ancient Mariner pay for murdering it. In the 1817 version of the poem, we are told that the two voices that the Ancient Mariner hears are spirits. Perhaps they are kin to the spirit that is punishing the Ancient Mariner, or are even taking part in his punishment. It is also possible, however, that they, like all of the supernatural elements of the Ancient Mariner's story, are merely figments of his imagination. That Coleridge leaves their identity somewhat open-ended harkens back to Burnet's musings on \"invisible Natures\"; humans cannot classify spirits, and therefore cannot really know them. Likewise, the Ancient Mariner - and the reader - cannot define what kind of spirits are speaking, or if they are indeed spirits at all. Burnet's statements are applicable to all humans. Furthermore, the reader is as subject to Coleridge's whims as his protagonist, and therefore cannot know any more than him. As humans - and therefore sinners - we can all identify with the Ancient Mariner, and are thus equally implicated in his crime."}

PART THE FIFTH. Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, That slid into my soul. The silly buckets on the deck, That had so long remained, I dreamt that they were filled with dew; And when I awoke, it rained. My lips were wet, my throat was cold, My garments all were dank; Sure I had drunken in my dreams, And still my body drank. I moved, and could not feel my limbs: I was so light--almost I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a blessed ghost. And soon I heard a roaring wind: It did not come anear; But with its sound it shook the sails, That were so thin and sere. The upper air burst into life! And a hundred fire-flags sheen, To and fro they were hurried about! And to and fro, and in and out, The wan stars danced between. And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; And the rain poured down from one black cloud; The Moon was at its edge. The thick black cloud was cleft, and still The Moon was at its side: Like waters shot from some high crag, The lightning fell with never a jag, A river steep and wide. The loud wind never reached the ship, Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the Moon The dead men gave a groan. They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; Yet never a breeze up blew; The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do: They raised their limbs like lifeless tools-- We were a ghastly crew. The body of my brother's son, Stood by me, knee to knee: The body and I pulled at one rope, But he said nought to me. "I fear thee, ancient Mariner!" Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, Which to their corses came again, But a troop of spirits blest: For when it dawned--they dropped their arms, And clustered round the mast; Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies passed. Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one. Sometimes a-dropping from the sky I heard the sky-lark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, How they seemed to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning! And now 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, That makes the Heavens be mute. It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. Till noon we quietly sailed on, Yet never a breeze did breathe: Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Moved onward from beneath. Under the keel nine fathom deep, From the land of mist and snow, The spirit slid: and it was he That made the ship to go. The sails at noon left off their tune, And the ship stood still also. The Sun, right up above the mast, Had fixed her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir, With a short uneasy motion-- Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go, She made a sudden bound: It flung the blood into my head, And I fell down in a swound. How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; But ere my living life returned, I heard and in my soul discerned Two VOICES in the air. "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man? By him who died on cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low, The harmless Albatross. "The spirit who bideth by himself In the land of mist and snow, He loved the bird that loved the man Who shot him with his bow." The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew: Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, And penance more will do."

Part 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20210422155712/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/summary-part-5

After praying, the Ancient Mariner thanked the Virgin Mary for finally allowing him to sleep. He dreamed that the buckets on the ship were filled with dew, and awoke to the sound of the falling rain. He drank and drank after so many days of thirst, and became so lightheaded that he thought he was a ghost. Suddenly he heard a loud wind far off, and the sky lit up with darting "fire-flags" that could be interpreted as lightning, aurora borealis, or "St. Elmo's Fire" . The rain poured from a single cloud, as did an unbroken stream of lightning. The ship began to sail, although there was still no wind. Just then, all the dead men stood up and went about their jobs as a mute, ghostly crew. The Wedding Guest proclaims again: "I fear thee, Ancient Mariner!" but the Ancient Mariner quickly assures him that the dead sailors were not evil. At dawn, they even gathered around the mast and sang so beautifully that they sounded like an orchestra. When they stopped singing, the ship's sails sang instead. The ship sailed on miraculously in the absence of wind, moved instead by the spirit that had followed it from the icy world. Once the ship reached the equator and the sun was directly overhead, it stopped moving and the sails stopped singing. Then it began to rock back and forth uneasily until it suddenly jolted, causing the Ancient Mariner to faint. He lay for an indeterminate period of time on the ship's deck, during which he heard two voices. The first voice swore on Christ that he was the man who betrayed the Albatross that loved him, and that the spirit from the icy world also loved the Albatross: "The spirit who bideth by himself / In the land of mist and snow, / He loved the bird that loved the man / Who shot him with his bow." The second voice, softer than the first, declared that the Ancient Mariner would continue to pay for his crime: "The man hath penance done, / And penance more will do."

Until the end of Part 5, it seems as though the Ancient Mariner is redeemed. Not only is he allowed to sleep, but it finally rains, and his thirst is quenched. Since physical drought and thirst have represented the Ancient Mariner's moral depravity up until this point, it is implied that the abundant rain symbolizes his redemption. According to a Christian interpretation, the rain signifies that he is being baptized anew as a righteous servant of Christ who respects God's creatures. Even though terrifying things continue to happen all around him - a storm, lightning, thunder - the Ancient Mariner is awed by them, instead of fearful of them. The natural world is no less forceful or imposing than it was previously, but it is now benevolent. Part 5 also sees an end to the Ancient Mariner's loneliness, as the sailors 'awaken' to sail the ship; they and the ship itself sing beautiful music, and some spiritual force moves the ship along its course even though the air is still. Again, only when the ship crosses a boundary - the equator - does confusion return; the Ancient Mariner is knocked unconscious, and the reader begins to doubt whether he will actually be redeemed. The voices confirm that it is indeed a specific spirit punishing the Ancient Mariner. The text's suggestions of sin, baptism, redemption, and other Christian themes shifts towards a more pagan understanding of the story's moral intricacies. A spirit that inhabits the icy world of the "rime" loved the Albatross - perhaps kept it as a pet - and is making the Ancient Mariner pay for murdering it. In the 1817 version of the poem, we are told that the two voices that the Ancient Mariner hears are spirits. Perhaps they are kin to the spirit that is punishing the Ancient Mariner, or are even taking part in his punishment. It is also possible, however, that they, like all of the supernatural elements of the Ancient Mariner's story, are merely figments of his imagination. That Coleridge leaves their identity somewhat open-ended harkens back to Burnet's musings on "invisible Natures"; humans cannot classify spirits, and therefore cannot really know them. Likewise, the Ancient Mariner - and the reader - cannot define what kind of spirits are speaking, or if they are indeed spirits at all. Burnet's statements are applicable to all humans. Furthermore, the reader is as subject to Coleridge's whims as his protagonist, and therefore cannot know any more than him. As humans - and therefore sinners - we can all identify with the Ancient Mariner, and are thus equally implicated in his crime.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/48.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_47_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 48

chapter 48

{"name": "Chapter 48", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-48", "summary": "Elinor finds herself mulling over the event of Edward's marriage - she realizes that she'd hoped that something would come up to prevent it, but now that it's happened, she feels incredibly hurt. She's surprised that he and Lucy were married so soon, before he could possibly have been ordained. She wonders how he must have felt, being so close to Barton. She supposes that the Ferrars must be settled at Delaford already, and envisions their life there. Elinor had thought that someone in London might have seen fit to tell her of Edward and Lucy's marriage, and she's surprised when no letter arrives with details. She even asks her mother to write to Colonel Brandon , eager for any news. However, no word has arrived. As soon as she asks this, though, Colonel Brandon himself arrives - but wait, it's not the Colonel. In fact, it's Edward! Elinor tells herself to be calm. Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood both freak out as well, unsure of what they should do. They silently await his arrival. Edward enters, looking ill with anxiety. Mrs. Dashwood breaks the ice by shaking his hand and wishing him happiness. Marianne and Margaret both retreat, leaving Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood to deal with the visitor. Mrs. Dashwood asks if Mrs. Ferrars is well, and Elinor, following up, asks if she's at Longstaple. Edward is shocked - his mother isn't anywhere near here! Elinor pointedly asks about Mrs. Edward Ferrars. All eyes turn to Edward. Edward stammers, confused - does Elinor mean Mrs. Robert Ferrars instead? Everyone is shocked: what's the meaning of this? This is the deal - it turns out that Robert, Edward's younger brother just married Lucy Steele. Whoa. Our minds are blown. Elinor isn't sure how to react, so she flees the room and bursts into tears of joy. Edward also doesn't know what to do, so he sits in silence for a moment, then simply leaves. Everyone is totally perplexed.", "analysis": ""}

Elinor now found the difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event, however certain the mind may be told to consider it, and certainty itself. She now found, that in spite of herself, she had always admitted a hope, while Edward remained single, that something would occur to prevent his marrying Lucy; that some resolution of his own, some mediation of friends, or some more eligible opportunity of establishment for the lady, would arise to assist the happiness of all. But he was now married; and she condemned her heart for the lurking flattery, which so much heightened the pain of the intelligence. That he should be married soon, before (as she imagined) he could be in orders, and consequently before he could be in possession of the living, surprised her a little at first. But she soon saw how likely it was that Lucy, in her self-provident care, in her haste to secure him, should overlook every thing but the risk of delay. They were married, married in town, and now hastening down to her uncle's. What had Edward felt on being within four miles from Barton, on seeing her mother's servant, on hearing Lucy's message! They would soon, she supposed, be settled at Delaford.--Delaford,--that place in which so much conspired to give her an interest; which she wished to be acquainted with, and yet desired to avoid. She saw them in an instant in their parsonage-house; saw in Lucy, the active, contriving manager, uniting at once a desire of smart appearance with the utmost frugality, and ashamed to be suspected of half her economical practices;--pursuing her own interest in every thought, courting the favour of Colonel Brandon, of Mrs. Jennings, and of every wealthy friend. In Edward--she knew not what she saw, nor what she wished to see;--happy or unhappy,--nothing pleased her; she turned away her head from every sketch of him. Elinor flattered herself that some one of their connections in London would write to them to announce the event, and give farther particulars,--but day after day passed off, and brought no letter, no tidings. Though uncertain that any one were to blame, she found fault with every absent friend. They were all thoughtless or indolent. "When do you write to Colonel Brandon, ma'am?" was an inquiry which sprung from the impatience of her mind to have something going on. "I wrote to him, my love, last week, and rather expect to see, than to hear from him again. I earnestly pressed his coming to us, and should not be surprised to see him walk in today or tomorrow, or any day." This was gaining something, something to look forward to. Colonel Brandon must have some information to give. Scarcely had she so determined it, when the figure of a man on horseback drew her eyes to the window. He stopt at their gate. It was a gentleman, it was Colonel Brandon himself. Now she could hear more; and she trembled in expectation of it. But--it was NOT Colonel Brandon--neither his air--nor his height. Were it possible, she must say it must be Edward. She looked again. He had just dismounted;--she could not be mistaken,--it WAS Edward. She moved away and sat down. "He comes from Mr. Pratt's purposely to see us. I WILL be calm; I WILL be mistress of myself." In a moment she perceived that the others were likewise aware of the mistake. She saw her mother and Marianne change colour; saw them look at herself, and whisper a few sentences to each other. She would have given the world to be able to speak--and to make them understand that she hoped no coolness, no slight, would appear in their behaviour to him;--but she had no utterance, and was obliged to leave all to their own discretion. Not a syllable passed aloud. They all waited in silence for the appearance of their visitor. His footsteps were heard along the gravel path; in a moment he was in the passage, and in another he was before them. His countenance, as he entered the room, was not too happy, even for Elinor. His complexion was white with agitation, and he looked as if fearful of his reception, and conscious that he merited no kind one. Mrs. Dashwood, however, conforming, as she trusted, to the wishes of that daughter, by whom she then meant in the warmth of her heart to be guided in every thing, met with a look of forced complacency, gave him her hand, and wished him joy. He coloured, and stammered out an unintelligible reply. Elinor's lips had moved with her mother's, and, when the moment of action was over, she wished that she had shaken hands with him too. But it was then too late, and with a countenance meaning to be open, she sat down again and talked of the weather. Marianne had retreated as much as possible out of sight, to conceal her distress; and Margaret, understanding some part, but not the whole of the case, thought it incumbent on her to be dignified, and therefore took a seat as far from him as she could, and maintained a strict silence. When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a hurried manner, he replied in the affirmative. Another pause. Elinor resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own voice, now said, "Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?" "At Longstaple!" he replied, with an air of surprise.-- "No, my mother is in town." "I meant," said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, "to inquire for Mrs. EDWARD Ferrars." She dared not look up;--but her mother and Marianne both turned their eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and, after some hesitation, said,-- "Perhaps you mean--my brother--you mean Mrs.--Mrs. ROBERT Ferrars." "Mrs. Robert Ferrars!"--was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an accent of the utmost amazement;--and though Elinor could not speak, even HER eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice, "Perhaps you do not know--you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to--to the youngest--to Miss Lucy Steele." His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor, who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such agitation as made her hardly know where she was. "Yes," said he, "they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish." Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked any where, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw--or even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted the room, and walked out towards the village--leaving the others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so wonderful and so sudden;--a perplexity which they had no means of lessening but by their own conjectures.

Chapter 48

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-48

Elinor finds herself mulling over the event of Edward's marriage - she realizes that she'd hoped that something would come up to prevent it, but now that it's happened, she feels incredibly hurt. She's surprised that he and Lucy were married so soon, before he could possibly have been ordained. She wonders how he must have felt, being so close to Barton. She supposes that the Ferrars must be settled at Delaford already, and envisions their life there. Elinor had thought that someone in London might have seen fit to tell her of Edward and Lucy's marriage, and she's surprised when no letter arrives with details. She even asks her mother to write to Colonel Brandon , eager for any news. However, no word has arrived. As soon as she asks this, though, Colonel Brandon himself arrives - but wait, it's not the Colonel. In fact, it's Edward! Elinor tells herself to be calm. Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood both freak out as well, unsure of what they should do. They silently await his arrival. Edward enters, looking ill with anxiety. Mrs. Dashwood breaks the ice by shaking his hand and wishing him happiness. Marianne and Margaret both retreat, leaving Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood to deal with the visitor. Mrs. Dashwood asks if Mrs. Ferrars is well, and Elinor, following up, asks if she's at Longstaple. Edward is shocked - his mother isn't anywhere near here! Elinor pointedly asks about Mrs. Edward Ferrars. All eyes turn to Edward. Edward stammers, confused - does Elinor mean Mrs. Robert Ferrars instead? Everyone is shocked: what's the meaning of this? This is the deal - it turns out that Robert, Edward's younger brother just married Lucy Steele. Whoa. Our minds are blown. Elinor isn't sure how to react, so she flees the room and bursts into tears of joy. Edward also doesn't know what to do, so he sits in silence for a moment, then simply leaves. Everyone is totally perplexed.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/39.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_38_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 39

chapter 39

{"name": "Chapter 39", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-39", "summary": "Bathsheba and Sergeant Troy are travelling to the local market to deal with some business. Bathsheba is sitting up in a cart, while Sergeant Troy is on the road leading the horses. They argue briefly about how much of Bathsheba's money Troy has been blowing at horse races. Troy tells her that if he'd known she was such a nag he wouldn't have married her. As they travel, a homeless-looking woman walks past them and asks Troy what time the local shelter in Casterbridge closes for the night. Troy is clearly concerned by the sound of this woman's voice, but he pretends to be chill and tells her he's not sure about the closing time. When the woman sees Troy's face, she utters a cry and falls to the ground. Bathsheba tries to help, but Troy orders her to stay where she is. In a hushed voice, Troy asks the woman why she didn't just write to him for money. He then gives her every last penny he has on him. Before they part ways, Troy tells her to meet him at a place called Grey's Bridge on the next Monday. While he's saying this, he calls her Fanny. So we know that this woman is Fanny Robin, Troy's jilted ex-fiance. Finally, Troy hurries Fanny away and returns to his cart and Bathsheba. Bathsheba asks him if he knew the woman, but he denies it, saying he only knows her face from around town. Bathsheba isn't convinced, though, and she's certain that Troy has had some previous contact with this woman. Good call, Bathsheba.", "analysis": ""}

COMING HOME--A CRY On the turnpike road, between Casterbridge and Weatherbury, and about three miles from the former place, is Yalbury Hill, one of those steep long ascents which pervade the highways of this undulating part of South Wessex. In returning from market it is usual for the farmers and other gig-gentry to alight at the bottom and walk up. One Saturday evening in the month of October Bathsheba's vehicle was duly creeping up this incline. She was sitting listlessly in the second seat of the gig, whilst walking beside her in a farmer's marketing suit of unusually fashionable cut was an erect, well-made young man. Though on foot, he held the reins and whip, and occasionally aimed light cuts at the horse's ear with the end of the lash, as a recreation. This man was her husband, formerly Sergeant Troy, who, having bought his discharge with Bathsheba's money, was gradually transforming himself into a farmer of a spirited and very modern school. People of unalterable ideas still insisted upon calling him "Sergeant" when they met him, which was in some degree owing to his having still retained the well-shaped moustache of his military days, and the soldierly bearing inseparable from his form and training. "Yes, if it hadn't been for that wretched rain I should have cleared two hundred as easy as looking, my love," he was saying. "Don't you see, it altered all the chances? To speak like a book I once read, wet weather is the narrative, and fine days are the episodes, of our country's history; now, isn't that true?" "But the time of year is come for changeable weather." "Well, yes. The fact is, these autumn races are the ruin of everybody. Never did I see such a day as 'twas! 'Tis a wild open place, just out of Budmouth, and a drab sea rolled in towards us like liquid misery. Wind and rain--good Lord! Dark? Why, 'twas as black as my hat before the last race was run. 'Twas five o'clock, and you couldn't see the horses till they were almost in, leave alone colours. The ground was as heavy as lead, and all judgment from a fellow's experience went for nothing. Horses, riders, people, were all blown about like ships at sea. Three booths were blown over, and the wretched folk inside crawled out upon their hands and knees; and in the next field were as many as a dozen hats at one time. Ay, Pimpernel regularly stuck fast, when about sixty yards off, and when I saw Policy stepping on, it did knock my heart against the lining of my ribs, I assure you, my love!" "And you mean, Frank," said Bathsheba, sadly--her voice was painfully lowered from the fulness and vivacity of the previous summer--"that you have lost more than a hundred pounds in a month by this dreadful horse-racing? O, Frank, it is cruel; it is foolish of you to take away my money so. We shall have to leave the farm; that will be the end of it!" "Humbug about cruel. Now, there 'tis again--turn on the waterworks; that's just like you." "But you'll promise me not to go to Budmouth second meeting, won't you?" she implored. Bathsheba was at the full depth for tears, but she maintained a dry eye. "I don't see why I should; in fact, if it turns out to be a fine day, I was thinking of taking you." "Never, never! I'll go a hundred miles the other way first. I hate the sound of the very word!" "But the question of going to see the race or staying at home has very little to do with the matter. Bets are all booked safely enough before the race begins, you may depend. Whether it is a bad race for me or a good one, will have very little to do with our going there next Monday." "But you don't mean to say that you have risked anything on this one too!" she exclaimed, with an agonized look. "There now, don't you be a little fool. Wait till you are told. Why, Bathsheba, you have lost all the pluck and sauciness you formerly had, and upon my life if I had known what a chicken-hearted creature you were under all your boldness, I'd never have--I know what." A flash of indignation might have been seen in Bathsheba's dark eyes as she looked resolutely ahead after this reply. They moved on without further speech, some early-withered leaves from the trees which hooded the road at this spot occasionally spinning downward across their path to the earth. A woman appeared on the brow of the hill. The ridge was in a cutting, so that she was very near the husband and wife before she became visible. Troy had turned towards the gig to remount, and whilst putting his foot on the step the woman passed behind him. Though the overshadowing trees and the approach of eventide enveloped them in gloom, Bathsheba could see plainly enough to discern the extreme poverty of the woman's garb, and the sadness of her face. "Please, sir, do you know at what time Casterbridge Union-house closes at night?" The woman said these words to Troy over his shoulder. Troy started visibly at the sound of the voice; yet he seemed to recover presence of mind sufficient to prevent himself from giving way to his impulse to suddenly turn and face her. He said, slowly-- "I don't know." The woman, on hearing him speak, quickly looked up, examined the side of his face, and recognized the soldier under the yeoman's garb. Her face was drawn into an expression which had gladness and agony both among its elements. She uttered an hysterical cry, and fell down. "Oh, poor thing!" exclaimed Bathsheba, instantly preparing to alight. "Stay where you are, and attend to the horse!" said Troy, peremptorily throwing her the reins and the whip. "Walk the horse to the top: I'll see to the woman." "But I--" "Do you hear? Clk--Poppet!" The horse, gig, and Bathsheba moved on. "How on earth did you come here? I thought you were miles away, or dead! Why didn't you write to me?" said Troy to the woman, in a strangely gentle, yet hurried voice, as he lifted her up. "I feared to." "Have you any money?" "None." "Good Heaven--I wish I had more to give you! Here's--wretched--the merest trifle. It is every farthing I have left. I have none but what my wife gives me, you know, and I can't ask her now." The woman made no answer. "I have only another moment," continued Troy; "and now listen. Where are you going to-night? Casterbridge Union?" "Yes; I thought to go there." "You shan't go there; yet, wait. Yes, perhaps for to-night; I can do nothing better--worse luck! Sleep there to-night, and stay there to-morrow. Monday is the first free day I have; and on Monday morning, at ten exactly, meet me on Grey's Bridge just out of the town. I'll bring all the money I can muster. You shan't want--I'll see that, Fanny; then I'll get you a lodging somewhere. Good-bye till then. I am a brute--but good-bye!" After advancing the distance which completed the ascent of the hill, Bathsheba turned her head. The woman was upon her feet, and Bathsheba saw her withdrawing from Troy, and going feebly down the hill by the third milestone from Casterbridge. Troy then came on towards his wife, stepped into the gig, took the reins from her hand, and without making any observation whipped the horse into a trot. He was rather agitated. "Do you know who that woman was?" said Bathsheba, looking searchingly into his face. "I do," he said, looking boldly back into hers. "I thought you did," said she, with angry hauteur, and still regarding him. "Who is she?" He suddenly seemed to think that frankness would benefit neither of the women. "Nothing to either of us," he said. "I know her by sight." "What is her name?" "How should I know her name?" "I think you do." "Think if you will, and be--" The sentence was completed by a smart cut of the whip round Poppet's flank, which caused the animal to start forward at a wild pace. No more was said.

Chapter 39

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-39

Bathsheba and Sergeant Troy are travelling to the local market to deal with some business. Bathsheba is sitting up in a cart, while Sergeant Troy is on the road leading the horses. They argue briefly about how much of Bathsheba's money Troy has been blowing at horse races. Troy tells her that if he'd known she was such a nag he wouldn't have married her. As they travel, a homeless-looking woman walks past them and asks Troy what time the local shelter in Casterbridge closes for the night. Troy is clearly concerned by the sound of this woman's voice, but he pretends to be chill and tells her he's not sure about the closing time. When the woman sees Troy's face, she utters a cry and falls to the ground. Bathsheba tries to help, but Troy orders her to stay where she is. In a hushed voice, Troy asks the woman why she didn't just write to him for money. He then gives her every last penny he has on him. Before they part ways, Troy tells her to meet him at a place called Grey's Bridge on the next Monday. While he's saying this, he calls her Fanny. So we know that this woman is Fanny Robin, Troy's jilted ex-fiance. Finally, Troy hurries Fanny away and returns to his cart and Bathsheba. Bathsheba asks him if he knew the woman, but he denies it, saying he only knows her face from around town. Bathsheba isn't convinced, though, and she's certain that Troy has had some previous contact with this woman. Good call, Bathsheba.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/03.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_3_part_0.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 3

chapter 3

{"name": "Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-3", "summary": "As the chapter opens, it is half-past noon the next day. Lord Henry calls on his uncle, Lord Fermor, to learn about Dorian's heritage. The uncle is a delightful old curmudgeon -- wealthy, cynical, and very knowledgeable about everyone else's private business. He and Lord Henry get along well, and the old man is pleased to tell him all about Dorian's past. Dorian is the grandson of Lord Kelso and the son of Kelso's daughter, Margaret Devereux. Lady Margaret was an extremely beautiful woman who displeased her father by marrying beneath her; she married a penniless, low-level soldier, as Lord Fermor recalls. Kelso reportedly hired \"some Belgian brute\" to insult the husband and lure him into a duel, in which he was killed. Lady Margaret was with child: Dorian. She died within a year or so of the duel. Kelso is dead and probably left his fortune to Dorian. The mother had money of her own, so Dorian should be well off financially. After some casual conversation about the charming, deceptive nature of American girls, Lord Henry is off to his Aunt Agatha's for lunch. Dorian also attends the luncheon, and Lord Henry dominates the conversation, delighting his audience at the table with a number of aphorisms -- for example, \"I can sympathize with everything except suffering.\" To an aging duchess, he suggests, \"To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies.\" Lord Henry then launches into a triumphant monologue in praise of folly that echoes his speech to Dorian the day before in Basil's garden. After the luncheon, Lord Henry and Dorian leave together.", "analysis": "The chief contribution of this entertaining chapter is that the reader learns about Dorian's background. Fermor's details about Dorian's troubled family establish the young man as a romantic and tragic figure. The only other important information that the reader gets in this chapter is about the relationship between Dorian and Lord Henry, which appears to be solidifying quickly. Early in the chapter, Lord Henry recalls that talking with Dorian the night before had been like \"playing upon an exquisite violin.\" He likens his influence on Dorian to a sculptor's shaping of a statue out of beautiful marble. Lord Henry is not subtle about his motives toward Dorian: \"He would seek to dominate him -- had already, indeed, half done so.\" Readers should note the ironic contrast of Lord Henry's speeches and his actions. In Chapter 2, he advises Dorian that all influence is bad because it corrupts a person's true spirit; in this chapter, he willfully states that he intends to influence Dorian's development. At the end of the chapter, Dorian has fallen fully under the spell of Lord Henry's influence. For example, Dorian backs out of his afternoon appointment with Basil, saying, \"I would sooner come with you ; yes, I feel I must come with you.\" The luncheon, which spans the bulk of the chapter and does little to progress the plot or enlighten the reader, seems to have been devised to entertain the reader and show off Lord Henry's clever table talk. Lord Henry is witty, but it is no accident that friends of Wilde recognized several of the author's favorite lines as they came out of Lord Henry's mouth. Glossary indolence laziness. Isabella refers to Isabella II , Queen of Spain from 1833 until the revolution of 1868. Prim D. Juan Prim was a military leader and statesman in Spain who played a major role in deposing Queen Isabella in 1868. collieries coal mines. English Blue Book an official publication of the British government, so called for the color of its covers; a social registry. subaltern the lowest rank of military officer. jarvies slang for cabmen. protege French, a person whose training and welfare are under the influence of a mentor. Dryad Greek mythology, a wood nymph. Plato , Greek philosopher. Buonarotti Michelangelo Buonarotti, better known as simply \"Michelangelo\" , Italian painter, sculptor, and architect. supercilious disdainful, scornful, acting superior."}

At half-past 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 rough-mannered 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 shooting-coat, 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 button-hole 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 fellow--a 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 son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him--and 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 good-looking chap." "He is very good-looking," 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 pork-packers, I suppose?" "I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told that pork-packing 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. "Good-bye, 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 _protege_." "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 that--perhaps 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 sonnet-sequence? 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 him--had 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 dining-room. "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 good-nature 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 well-known 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 hymn-book. Fortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged 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 dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious. "My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas." "Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?" 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 member--and 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 cast-off 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 over-expenditure 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 wine-stained 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 grape-juice 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. Good-bye, 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 good-bye 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 arm-chairs. 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 to-day," 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."

Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-3

As the chapter opens, it is half-past noon the next day. Lord Henry calls on his uncle, Lord Fermor, to learn about Dorian's heritage. The uncle is a delightful old curmudgeon -- wealthy, cynical, and very knowledgeable about everyone else's private business. He and Lord Henry get along well, and the old man is pleased to tell him all about Dorian's past. Dorian is the grandson of Lord Kelso and the son of Kelso's daughter, Margaret Devereux. Lady Margaret was an extremely beautiful woman who displeased her father by marrying beneath her; she married a penniless, low-level soldier, as Lord Fermor recalls. Kelso reportedly hired "some Belgian brute" to insult the husband and lure him into a duel, in which he was killed. Lady Margaret was with child: Dorian. She died within a year or so of the duel. Kelso is dead and probably left his fortune to Dorian. The mother had money of her own, so Dorian should be well off financially. After some casual conversation about the charming, deceptive nature of American girls, Lord Henry is off to his Aunt Agatha's for lunch. Dorian also attends the luncheon, and Lord Henry dominates the conversation, delighting his audience at the table with a number of aphorisms -- for example, "I can sympathize with everything except suffering." To an aging duchess, he suggests, "To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies." Lord Henry then launches into a triumphant monologue in praise of folly that echoes his speech to Dorian the day before in Basil's garden. After the luncheon, Lord Henry and Dorian leave together.

The chief contribution of this entertaining chapter is that the reader learns about Dorian's background. Fermor's details about Dorian's troubled family establish the young man as a romantic and tragic figure. The only other important information that the reader gets in this chapter is about the relationship between Dorian and Lord Henry, which appears to be solidifying quickly. Early in the chapter, Lord Henry recalls that talking with Dorian the night before had been like "playing upon an exquisite violin." He likens his influence on Dorian to a sculptor's shaping of a statue out of beautiful marble. Lord Henry is not subtle about his motives toward Dorian: "He would seek to dominate him -- had already, indeed, half done so." Readers should note the ironic contrast of Lord Henry's speeches and his actions. In Chapter 2, he advises Dorian that all influence is bad because it corrupts a person's true spirit; in this chapter, he willfully states that he intends to influence Dorian's development. At the end of the chapter, Dorian has fallen fully under the spell of Lord Henry's influence. For example, Dorian backs out of his afternoon appointment with Basil, saying, "I would sooner come with you ; yes, I feel I must come with you." The luncheon, which spans the bulk of the chapter and does little to progress the plot or enlighten the reader, seems to have been devised to entertain the reader and show off Lord Henry's clever table talk. Lord Henry is witty, but it is no accident that friends of Wilde recognized several of the author's favorite lines as they came out of Lord Henry's mouth. Glossary indolence laziness. Isabella refers to Isabella II , Queen of Spain from 1833 until the revolution of 1868. Prim D. Juan Prim was a military leader and statesman in Spain who played a major role in deposing Queen Isabella in 1868. collieries coal mines. English Blue Book an official publication of the British government, so called for the color of its covers; a social registry. subaltern the lowest rank of military officer. jarvies slang for cabmen. protege French, a person whose training and welfare are under the influence of a mentor. Dryad Greek mythology, a wood nymph. Plato , Greek philosopher. Buonarotti Michelangelo Buonarotti, better known as simply "Michelangelo" , Italian painter, sculptor, and architect. supercilious disdainful, scornful, acting superior.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/83.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_14_part_4.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 12.chapter 4

book 12, chapter 4

{"name": "book 12, Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section15/", "summary": "Fortune Smiles on Mitya Alyosha next offers some useful evidence: he remembers that Dmitri used to hit the locket on his chest in moments of self-loathing, implying that perhaps he really was wearing the money around his neck, and did not steal it from Fyodor Pavlovich. Alyosha also admits that he believes Smerdyakov may be the real murderer. Katerina tells the story of Dmitri saving her father from prison. The crowd, which was impressed with Alyosha's testimony, is slightly disgusted with Katerina because she has so thoroughly debased herself before Dmitri, who does not love her. Grushenka is questioned and vehemently insists on Dmitri's innocence", "analysis": ""}

Chapter IV. Fortune Smiles On Mitya 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, violent-tempered perhaps and carried away by his passions, but at the same time honorable, proud and generous, capable of self-sacrifice, 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 it--that is, of Grushenka and Katya--he 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 war-horse 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 cross-examination. 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 purpose--namely, 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 out--I know, I was told it--that 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 cross-examination 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 witness-box. As she entered something extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutched their lorgnettes and opera-glasses. 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 cross-examination. "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 self-willed and contemptuously proud girl as she was, such an extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice, such self-immolation, 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 roubles--all he had in the world--was 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 complete--that 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 shame-faced 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 thousand--the 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 one--all the lawyers said the same afterwards--that 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 witness-box 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 scandal-loving 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 both--at the old man and at him, too--and 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 cross-examination. I remember that among other things he asked about Rakitin and the twenty-five 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 cross-examination 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.

book 12, Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section15/

Fortune Smiles on Mitya Alyosha next offers some useful evidence: he remembers that Dmitri used to hit the locket on his chest in moments of self-loathing, implying that perhaps he really was wearing the money around his neck, and did not steal it from Fyodor Pavlovich. Alyosha also admits that he believes Smerdyakov may be the real murderer. Katerina tells the story of Dmitri saving her father from prison. The crowd, which was impressed with Alyosha's testimony, is slightly disgusted with Katerina because she has so thoroughly debased herself before Dmitri, who does not love her. Grushenka is questioned and vehemently insists on Dmitri's innocence

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/13.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Sense and Sensibility/section_1_part_3.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 13

chapter 13

{"name": "Chapter 13", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-20", "summary": "The party is supposed to go on a picnic to the estate of Colonel Brandon's brother-in-law, but they end up not going at all because Colonel Brandon gets a distressing letter that morning, and is forced to leave to attend to related business. They all try and persuade him to come to the picnic, and then go to town, but apparently the matter is so urgent that he must leave right then to attend to it. Mrs. Jennings figures that it must have something to do with Miss Williams, who is Colonel Brandon's daughter, she says. The party are very disappointed, but decide to go on a drive, and then have a dance that evening to entertain themselves. Willoughby and Marianne share a carriage, and soon outpace the others and are gone until the evening. Mrs. Jennings finds out that they visited Allenham, the estate of Willoughby's aunt; Elinor is surprised that Marianne would go there, since she has no acquaintance with Willoughby's aunt at all. Elinor advises Marianne that her conduct was improper, which Marianne completely denies. Marianne and Willoughby are acting increasingly more like a couple soon to be married, and Marianne seems far too confident that she and Willoughby are to be together.", "analysis": "The great to-do and secrecy around Brandon's reasons for deserting the picnic foreshadows some great importance relating to this event in the story. The tragic history of his that is often alluded to most likely has something to do with his daughter, Miss Williams, and the girl's mother, whomever that may be. Marianne is growing increasingly more reckless, and is exposing herself imprudently to the possibility of great disappointment in her relationship with Willoughby. In going to Allenham, she convinced Mrs. Jennings at least that she and Willoughby are engaged, and showed her sister that she believes that she and Willoughby are to be married. Since nothing is for certain, and Willoughby is of a romantic, somewhat unreliable temperament, Marianne possibly assumes too much; things can always change for the worse, and any break with Mr. Willoughby would be even more publicly damaging"}

Their intended excursion to Whitwell turned out very different from what Elinor had expected. She was prepared to be wet through, fatigued, and frightened; but the event was still more unfortunate, for they did not go at all. By ten o'clock the whole party was assembled at the park, where they were to breakfast. The morning was rather favourable, though it had rained all night, as the clouds were then dispersing across the sky, and the sun frequently appeared. They were all in high spirits and good humour, eager to be happy, and determined to submit to the greatest inconveniences and hardships rather than be otherwise. While they were at breakfast the letters were brought in. Among the rest there was one for Colonel Brandon;--he took it, looked at the direction, changed colour, and immediately left the room. "What is the matter with Brandon?" said Sir John. Nobody could tell. "I hope he has had no bad news," said Lady Middleton. "It must be something extraordinary that could make Colonel Brandon leave my breakfast table so suddenly." In about five minutes he returned. "No bad news, Colonel, I hope;" said Mrs. Jennings, as soon as he entered the room. "None at all, ma'am, I thank you." "Was it from Avignon? I hope it is not to say that your sister is worse." "No, ma'am. It came from town, and is merely a letter of business." "But how came the hand to discompose you so much, if it was only a letter of business? Come, come, this won't do, Colonel; so let us hear the truth of it." "My dear madam," said Lady Middleton, "recollect what you are saying." "Perhaps it is to tell you that your cousin Fanny is married?" said Mrs. Jennings, without attending to her daughter's reproof. "No, indeed, it is not." "Well, then, I know who it is from, Colonel. And I hope she is well." "Whom do you mean, ma'am?" said he, colouring a little. "Oh! you know who I mean." "I am particularly sorry, ma'am," said he, addressing Lady Middleton, "that I should receive this letter today, for it is on business which requires my immediate attendance in town." "In town!" cried Mrs. Jennings. "What can you have to do in town at this time of year?" "My own loss is great," he continued, "in being obliged to leave so agreeable a party; but I am the more concerned, as I fear my presence is necessary to gain your admittance at Whitwell." What a blow upon them all was this! "But if you write a note to the housekeeper, Mr. Brandon," said Marianne, eagerly, "will it not be sufficient?" He shook his head. "We must go," said Sir John.--"It shall not be put off when we are so near it. You cannot go to town till tomorrow, Brandon, that is all." "I wish it could be so easily settled. But it is not in my power to delay my journey for one day!" "If you would but let us know what your business is," said Mrs. Jennings, "we might see whether it could be put off or not." "You would not be six hours later," said Willoughby, "if you were to defer your journey till our return." "I cannot afford to lose ONE hour."-- Elinor then heard Willoughby say, in a low voice to Marianne, "There are some people who cannot bear a party of pleasure. Brandon is one of them. He was afraid of catching cold I dare say, and invented this trick for getting out of it. I would lay fifty guineas the letter was of his own writing." "I have no doubt of it," replied Marianne. "There is no persuading you to change your mind, Brandon, I know of old," said Sir John, "when once you are determined on anything. But, however, I hope you will think better of it. Consider, here are the two Miss Careys come over from Newton, the three Miss Dashwoods walked up from the cottage, and Mr. Willoughby got up two hours before his usual time, on purpose to go to Whitwell." Colonel Brandon again repeated his sorrow at being the cause of disappointing the party; but at the same time declared it to be unavoidable. "Well, then, when will you come back again?" "I hope we shall see you at Barton," added her ladyship, "as soon as you can conveniently leave town; and we must put off the party to Whitwell till you return." "You are very obliging. But it is so uncertain, when I may have it in my power to return, that I dare not engage for it at all." "Oh! he must and shall come back," cried Sir John. "If he is not here by the end of the week, I shall go after him." "Ay, so do, Sir John," cried Mrs. Jennings, "and then perhaps you may find out what his business is." "I do not want to pry into other men's concerns. I suppose it is something he is ashamed of." Colonel Brandon's horses were announced. "You do not go to town on horseback, do you?" added Sir John. "No. Only to Honiton. I shall then go post." "Well, as you are resolved to go, I wish you a good journey. But you had better change your mind." "I assure you it is not in my power." He then took leave of the whole party. "Is there no chance of my seeing you and your sisters in town this winter, Miss Dashwood?" "I am afraid, none at all." "Then I must bid you farewell for a longer time than I should wish to do." To Marianne, he merely bowed and said nothing. "Come Colonel," said Mrs. Jennings, "before you go, do let us know what you are going about." He wished her a good morning, and, attended by Sir John, left the room. The complaints and lamentations which politeness had hitherto restrained, now burst forth universally; and they all agreed again and again how provoking it was to be so disappointed. "I can guess what his business is, however," said Mrs. Jennings exultingly. "Can you, ma'am?" said almost every body. "Yes; it is about Miss Williams, I am sure." "And who is Miss Williams?" asked Marianne. "What! do not you know who Miss Williams is? I am sure you must have heard of her before. She is a relation of the Colonel's, my dear; a very near relation. We will not say how near, for fear of shocking the young ladies." Then, lowering her voice a little, she said to Elinor, "She is his natural daughter." "Indeed!" "Oh, yes; and as like him as she can stare. I dare say the Colonel will leave her all his fortune." When Sir John returned, he joined most heartily in the general regret on so unfortunate an event; concluding however by observing, that as they were all got together, they must do something by way of being happy; and after some consultation it was agreed, that although happiness could only be enjoyed at Whitwell, they might procure a tolerable composure of mind by driving about the country. The carriages were then ordered; Willoughby's was first, and Marianne never looked happier than when she got into it. He drove through the park very fast, and they were soon out of sight; and nothing more of them was seen till their return, which did not happen till after the return of all the rest. They both seemed delighted with their drive; but said only in general terms that they had kept in the lanes, while the others went on the downs. It was settled that there should be a dance in the evening, and that every body should be extremely merry all day long. Some more of the Careys came to dinner, and they had the pleasure of sitting down nearly twenty to table, which Sir John observed with great contentment. Willoughby took his usual place between the two elder Miss Dashwoods. Mrs. Jennings sat on Elinor's right hand; and they had not been long seated, before she leant behind her and Willoughby, and said to Marianne, loud enough for them both to hear, "I have found you out in spite of all your tricks. I know where you spent the morning." Marianne coloured, and replied very hastily, "Where, pray?"-- "Did not you know," said Willoughby, "that we had been out in my curricle?" "Yes, yes, Mr. Impudence, I know that very well, and I was determined to find out WHERE you had been to.-- I hope you like your house, Miss Marianne. It is a very large one, I know; and when I come to see you, I hope you will have new-furnished it, for it wanted it very much when I was there six years ago." Marianne turned away in great confusion. Mrs. Jennings laughed heartily; and Elinor found that in her resolution to know where they had been, she had actually made her own woman enquire of Mr. Willoughby's groom; and that she had by that method been informed that they had gone to Allenham, and spent a considerable time there in walking about the garden and going all over the house. Elinor could hardly believe this to be true, as it seemed very unlikely that Willoughby should propose, or Marianne consent, to enter the house while Mrs. Smith was in it, with whom Marianne had not the smallest acquaintance. As soon as they left the dining-room, Elinor enquired of her about it; and great was her surprise when she found that every circumstance related by Mrs. Jennings was perfectly true. Marianne was quite angry with her for doubting it. "Why should you imagine, Elinor, that we did not go there, or that we did not see the house? Is not it what you have often wished to do yourself?" "Yes, Marianne, but I would not go while Mrs. Smith was there, and with no other companion than Mr. Willoughby." "Mr. Willoughby however is the only person who can have a right to shew that house; and as he went in an open carriage, it was impossible to have any other companion. I never spent a pleasanter morning in my life." "I am afraid," replied Elinor, "that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety." "On the contrary, nothing can be a stronger proof of it, Elinor; for if there had been any real impropriety in what I did, I should have been sensible of it at the time, for we always know when we are acting wrong, and with such a conviction I could have had no pleasure." "But, my dear Marianne, as it has already exposed you to some very impertinent remarks, do you not now begin to doubt the discretion of your own conduct?" "If the impertinent remarks of Mrs. Jennings are to be the proof of impropriety in conduct, we are all offending every moment of our lives. I value not her censure any more than I should do her commendation. I am not sensible of having done anything wrong in walking over Mrs. Smith's grounds, or in seeing her house. They will one day be Mr. Willoughby's, and--" "If they were one day to be your own, Marianne, you would not be justified in what you have done." She blushed at this hint; but it was even visibly gratifying to her; and after a ten minutes' interval of earnest thought, she came to her sister again, and said with great good humour, "Perhaps, Elinor, it WAS rather ill-judged in me to go to Allenham; but Mr. Willoughby wanted particularly to shew me the place; and it is a charming house, I assure you.--There is one remarkably pretty sitting room up stairs; of a nice comfortable size for constant use, and with modern furniture it would be delightful. It is a corner room, and has windows on two sides. On one side you look across the bowling-green, behind the house, to a beautiful hanging wood, and on the other you have a view of the church and village, and, beyond them, of those fine bold hills that we have so often admired. I did not see it to advantage, for nothing could be more forlorn than the furniture,--but if it were newly fitted up--a couple of hundred pounds, Willoughby says, would make it one of the pleasantest summer-rooms in England." Could Elinor have listened to her without interruption from the others, she would have described every room in the house with equal delight.

Chapter 13

https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-20

The party is supposed to go on a picnic to the estate of Colonel Brandon's brother-in-law, but they end up not going at all because Colonel Brandon gets a distressing letter that morning, and is forced to leave to attend to related business. They all try and persuade him to come to the picnic, and then go to town, but apparently the matter is so urgent that he must leave right then to attend to it. Mrs. Jennings figures that it must have something to do with Miss Williams, who is Colonel Brandon's daughter, she says. The party are very disappointed, but decide to go on a drive, and then have a dance that evening to entertain themselves. Willoughby and Marianne share a carriage, and soon outpace the others and are gone until the evening. Mrs. Jennings finds out that they visited Allenham, the estate of Willoughby's aunt; Elinor is surprised that Marianne would go there, since she has no acquaintance with Willoughby's aunt at all. Elinor advises Marianne that her conduct was improper, which Marianne completely denies. Marianne and Willoughby are acting increasingly more like a couple soon to be married, and Marianne seems far too confident that she and Willoughby are to be together.

The great to-do and secrecy around Brandon's reasons for deserting the picnic foreshadows some great importance relating to this event in the story. The tragic history of his that is often alluded to most likely has something to do with his daughter, Miss Williams, and the girl's mother, whomever that may be. Marianne is growing increasingly more reckless, and is exposing herself imprudently to the possibility of great disappointment in her relationship with Willoughby. In going to Allenham, she convinced Mrs. Jennings at least that she and Willoughby are engaged, and showed her sister that she believes that she and Willoughby are to be married. Since nothing is for certain, and Willoughby is of a romantic, somewhat unreliable temperament, Marianne possibly assumes too much; things can always change for the worse, and any break with Mr. Willoughby would be even more publicly damaging

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/23042-chapters/6.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Tempest/section_6_part_0.txt

The Tempest.act iii.scene ii

act iii, scene ii

{"name": "Act III, scene ii", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210131162607/https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/tempest/section7/", "summary": "Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano continue to drink and wander about the island. Stephano now refers to Caliban as \"servant monster\" and repeatedly orders him to drink. Caliban seems happy to obey. The men begin to quarrel, mostly in jest, in their drunkenness. Stephano has now assumed the title of Lord of the Island and he promises to hang Trinculo if Trinculo should mock his servant monster. Ariel, invisible, enters just as Caliban is telling the men that he is \"subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island\" . Ariel begins to stir up trouble, calling out, \"Thou liest\" . Caliban cannot see Ariel and thinks that Trinculo said this. He threatens Trinculo, and Stephano tells Trinculo not to interrupt Caliban anymore. Trinculo protests that he said nothing. Drunkenly, they continue talking, and Caliban tells them of his desire to get revenge against Prospero. Ariel continues to interrupt now and then with the words, \"Thou liest.\" Ariel's ventriloquizing ultimately results in Stephano hitting Trinculo. While Ariel looks on, Caliban plots against Prospero. The key, Caliban tells his friends, is to take Prospero's magic books. Once they have done this, they can kill Prospero and take his daughter. Stephano will become king of the island and Miranda will be his queen. Trinculo tells Stephano that he thinks this plan is a good idea, and Stephano apologizes for the previous quarreling. Caliban assures them that Prospero will be asleep within the half hour. Ariel plays a tune on his flute and tabor-drum. Stephano and Trinculo wonder at this noise, but Caliban tells them it is nothing to fear. Stephano relishes the thought of possessing this island kingdom \"where I shall have my music for nothing\" . Then the men decide to follow the music and afterward to kill Prospero.", "analysis": "Analysis As we have seen, one of the ways in which The Tempest builds its rich aura of magical and mysterious implication is through the use of doubles: scenes, characters, and speeches that mirror each other by either resemblance or contrast. This scene is an example of doubling: almost everything in it echoes Act II, scene i. In this scene, Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano wander aimlessly about the island, and Stephano muses about the kind of island it would be if he ruled it--\"I will kill this man . His daughter and I will be King and Queen . . . and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys\" --just as Gonzalo had done while wandering with Antonio and Sebastian in Act II, scene i. At the end of Act III, scene ii, Ariel enters, invisible, and causes strife among the group, first with his voice and then with music, leading the men astray in order to thwart Antonio and Sebastian's plot against Alonso. The power-hungry servants Stephano and Trinculo thus become rough parodies of the power-hungry courtiers Antonio and Sebastian. All four men are now essentially equated with Caliban, who is, as Alonso and Antonio once were, simply another usurper. But Caliban also has a moment in this scene to become more than a mere usurper: his striking and apparently heartfelt speech about the sounds of the island. Reassuring the others not to worry about Ariel's piping, Caliban says: The isle is full of noises,Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep,Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,The clouds methought would open and show richesReady to drop upon me, that, when I waked,I cried to dream again. In this speech, we are reminded of Caliban's very close connection to the island--a connection we have seen previously only in his speeches about showing Prospero or Stephano which streams to drink from and which berries to pick . After all, Caliban is not only a symbolic \"native\" in the colonial allegory of the play. He is also an actual native of the island, having been born there after his mother Sycorax fled there. This ennobling monologue--ennobling because there is no servility in it, only a profound understanding of the magic of the island--provides Caliban with a moment of freedom from Prospero and even from his drunkenness. In his anger and sadness, Caliban seems for a moment to have risen above his wretched role as Stephano's fool. Throughout much of the play, Shakespeare seems to side with powerful figures such as Prospero against weaker figures such as Caliban, allowing us to think, with Prospero and Miranda, that Caliban is merely a monster. But in this scene, he takes the extraordinary step of briefly giving the monster a voice. Because of this short speech, Caliban becomes a more understandable character, and even, for the moment at least, a sympathetic one."}

SCENE II. _Another part of the island._ _Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO._ _Ste._ Tell not me;--when the butt is out, we will drink water; not a drop before: therefore bear up, and board 'em. Servant-monster, drink to me. _Trin._ Servant-monster! the folly of this island! They say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of them; if 5 th' other two be brained like us, the state totters. _Ste._ Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee: thy eyes are almost set in thy head. _Trin._ Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail. 10 _Ste._ My man-monster hath drowned his tongue in sack: for my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five-and-thirty leagues off and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my standard. 15 _Trin._ Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard. _Ste._ We'll not run, Monsieur Monster. _Trin._ Nor go neither; but you'll lie, like dogs, and yet say nothing neither. _Ste._ Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a 20 good moon-calf. _Cal._ How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe. I'll not serve him, he is not valiant. _Trin._ Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case to justle a constable. Why, thou debauched fish, thou, was 25 there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster? _Cal._ Lo, how he mocks me! wilt thou let him, my lord? _Trin._ 'Lord,' quoth he! That a monster should be 30 such a natural! _Cal._ Lo, lo, again! bite him to death, I prithee. _Ste._ Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head: if you prove a mutineer,--the next tree! The poor monster's my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity. 35 _Cal._ I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleased to hearken once again to the suit I made to thee? _Ste._ Marry, will I: kneel and repeat it; I will stand, and so shall Trinculo. _Enter ARIEL, invisible._ _Cal._ As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a 40 sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island. _Ari._ Thou liest. _Cal._ Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: I would my valiant master would destroy thee! I do not lie. _Ste._ Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale, by 45 this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth. _Trin._ Why, I said nothing. _Ste._ Mum, then, and no more. Proceed. _Cal._ I say, by sorcery he got this isle; From me he got it. If thy greatness will 50 Revenge it on him,--for I know thou darest, But this thing dare not,-- _Ste._ That's most certain. _Cal._ Thou shalt be lord of it, and I'll serve thee. _Ste._ How now shall this be compassed? Canst thou 55 bring me to the party? _Cal._ Yea, yea, my lord: I'll yield him thee asleep, Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head. _Ari._ Thou liest; thou canst not. _Cal._ What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch! 60 I do beseech thy Greatness, give him blows, And take his bottle from him: when that's gone, He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him Where the quick freshes are. _Ste._ Trinculo, run into no further danger: interrupt the 65 monster one word further, and, by this hand, I'll turn my mercy out o' doors, and make a stock-fish of thee. _Trin._ Why, what did I? I did nothing. I'll go farther off. _Ste._ Didst thou not say he lied? 70 _Ari._ Thou liest. _Ste._ Do I so? take thou that. [_Beats him._] As you like this, give me the lie another time. _Trin._ I did not give the lie. Out o' your wits, and hearing too? A pox o' your bottle! this can sack and 75 drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the devil take your fingers! _Cal._ Ha, ha, ha! _Ste._ Now, forward with your tale. --Prithee, stand farther off. 80 _Cal._ Beat him enough: after a little time, I'll beat him too. _Ste._ Stand farther. Come, proceed. _Cal._ Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him I' th' afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him, Having first seized his books; or with a log 85 Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command: they all do hate him 90 As rootedly as I. Burn but his books. He has brave utensils,--for so he calls them,-- Which, when he has a house, he'll deck withal. And that most deeply to consider is The beauty of his daughter; he himself 95 Calls her a nonpareil: I never saw a woman, But only Sycorax my dam and she; But she as far surpasseth Sycorax As great'st does least. _Ste._ Is it so brave a lass? _Cal._ Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant, 100 And bring thee forth brave brood. _Ste._ Monster, I will kill this man: his daughter and I will be king and queen,--save our Graces!--and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot, Trinculo? 105 _Trin._ Excellent. _Ste._ Give me thy hand: I am sorry I beat thee; but, while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head. _Cal._ Within this half hour will he be asleep: Wilt thou destroy him then? _Ste._ Ay, on mine honour. 110 _Ari._ This will I tell my master. _Cal._ Thou makest me merry; I am full of pleasure: Let us be jocund: will you troll the catch You taught me but while-ere? _Ste._ At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any 115 reason. --Come on. Trinculo, let us sing. [_Sings._ Flout 'em and scout 'em, and scout 'em and flout 'em; Thought is free. _Cal._ That's not the tune. [_Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe._ _Ste._ What is this same? 120 _Trin._ This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of Nobody. _Ste._ If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy likeness: if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list. _Trin._ O, forgive me my sins! 125 _Ste._ He that dies pays all debts: I defy thee. Mercy upon us! _Cal._ Art thou afeard? _Ste._ No, monster, not I. _Cal._ Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, 130 Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, 135 The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. _Ste._ This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing. 140 _Cal._ When Prospero is destroyed. _Ste._ That shall be by and by: I remember the story. _Trin._ The sound is going away; let's follow it, and after do our work. _Ste._ Lead, monster; we'll follow. I would I could see 145 this taborer; he lays it on. _Trin._ Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano. [_Exeunt._ Notes: III, 2. SCENE II. Another...] Theobald. The other... Pope. Enter ...] Enter S. and T. reeling, Caliban following with a bottle. Capell. Enter C. S. and T. with a bottle. Johnson.] 8: _head_] F1. _heart_ F2 F3 F4. 13, 14: _on. By this light, thou_] _on, by this light thou_ Ff. _on, by this light. --Thou_ Capell. 25: _debauched_] _debosh'd_ Ff. 37: _to the suit I made to thee_] _the suit I made thee_ Steevens, who prints all Caliban's speeches as verse. 60: Johnson conjectured that this line was spoken by Stephano. 68: _farther_] F1 _no further_ F2 F3 F4. 72: [Beats him.] Rowe. 84: _there_] _then_ Collier MS. 89: _nor_] _and_ Pope. 93: _deck_] _deck't_ Hanmer. 96: _I never saw a woman_] _I ne'er saw woman_ Pope. 99: _great'st does least_] _greatest does the least_ Rowe. 115, 116:] Printed as verse in Ff. 115: _any_] F1. _and_ F2 F3 F4. 117: _scout 'em, and scout 'em_] Pope. _cout 'em and skowt 'em_ Ff. 125: _sins_] _sin_ F4. 132: _twangling_] _twanging_ Pope. 133: _sometime_] F1. _sometimes_ F2 F3 F4. 137: _that_] om. Pope. 147: Trin. _Will come? I'll follow, Stephano_] Trin. _Wilt come?_ Ste. _I'll follow._ Capell. Ste. _... Wilt come?_ Trin. _I'll follow, Stephano._ Ritson conj.

Act III, scene ii

https://web.archive.org/web/20210131162607/https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/tempest/section7/

Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano continue to drink and wander about the island. Stephano now refers to Caliban as "servant monster" and repeatedly orders him to drink. Caliban seems happy to obey. The men begin to quarrel, mostly in jest, in their drunkenness. Stephano has now assumed the title of Lord of the Island and he promises to hang Trinculo if Trinculo should mock his servant monster. Ariel, invisible, enters just as Caliban is telling the men that he is "subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island" . Ariel begins to stir up trouble, calling out, "Thou liest" . Caliban cannot see Ariel and thinks that Trinculo said this. He threatens Trinculo, and Stephano tells Trinculo not to interrupt Caliban anymore. Trinculo protests that he said nothing. Drunkenly, they continue talking, and Caliban tells them of his desire to get revenge against Prospero. Ariel continues to interrupt now and then with the words, "Thou liest." Ariel's ventriloquizing ultimately results in Stephano hitting Trinculo. While Ariel looks on, Caliban plots against Prospero. The key, Caliban tells his friends, is to take Prospero's magic books. Once they have done this, they can kill Prospero and take his daughter. Stephano will become king of the island and Miranda will be his queen. Trinculo tells Stephano that he thinks this plan is a good idea, and Stephano apologizes for the previous quarreling. Caliban assures them that Prospero will be asleep within the half hour. Ariel plays a tune on his flute and tabor-drum. Stephano and Trinculo wonder at this noise, but Caliban tells them it is nothing to fear. Stephano relishes the thought of possessing this island kingdom "where I shall have my music for nothing" . Then the men decide to follow the music and afterward to kill Prospero.

Analysis As we have seen, one of the ways in which The Tempest builds its rich aura of magical and mysterious implication is through the use of doubles: scenes, characters, and speeches that mirror each other by either resemblance or contrast. This scene is an example of doubling: almost everything in it echoes Act II, scene i. In this scene, Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano wander aimlessly about the island, and Stephano muses about the kind of island it would be if he ruled it--"I will kill this man . His daughter and I will be King and Queen . . . and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys" --just as Gonzalo had done while wandering with Antonio and Sebastian in Act II, scene i. At the end of Act III, scene ii, Ariel enters, invisible, and causes strife among the group, first with his voice and then with music, leading the men astray in order to thwart Antonio and Sebastian's plot against Alonso. The power-hungry servants Stephano and Trinculo thus become rough parodies of the power-hungry courtiers Antonio and Sebastian. All four men are now essentially equated with Caliban, who is, as Alonso and Antonio once were, simply another usurper. But Caliban also has a moment in this scene to become more than a mere usurper: his striking and apparently heartfelt speech about the sounds of the island. Reassuring the others not to worry about Ariel's piping, Caliban says: The isle is full of noises,Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep,Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,The clouds methought would open and show richesReady to drop upon me, that, when I waked,I cried to dream again. In this speech, we are reminded of Caliban's very close connection to the island--a connection we have seen previously only in his speeches about showing Prospero or Stephano which streams to drink from and which berries to pick . After all, Caliban is not only a symbolic "native" in the colonial allegory of the play. He is also an actual native of the island, having been born there after his mother Sycorax fled there. This ennobling monologue--ennobling because there is no servility in it, only a profound understanding of the magic of the island--provides Caliban with a moment of freedom from Prospero and even from his drunkenness. In his anger and sadness, Caliban seems for a moment to have risen above his wretched role as Stephano's fool. Throughout much of the play, Shakespeare seems to side with powerful figures such as Prospero against weaker figures such as Caliban, allowing us to think, with Prospero and Miranda, that Caliban is merely a monster. But in this scene, he takes the extraordinary step of briefly giving the monster a voice. Because of this short speech, Caliban becomes a more understandable character, and even, for the moment at least, a sympathetic one.

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/12.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_2_part_1.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter xii

chapter xii

{"name": "Chapter XII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase2-chapter12-15", "summary": "Deeply angry with herself, Tess returns home early one Sunday morning in October after a few weeks with Alec. She knows that if she remains with him she will merely be his \"creature,\" a mistress whom he supports financially but has no intention of ever marrying: \"her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson\". d'Urberville comes after her and begs her to return, but she refuses his offer to take her home. He tells her to call on him if circumstances necessitate. She walks with a sign painter who paints Biblical verses. After he stops to paint a sign, \"THY DAMNATION SLUMBERETH NOT,\" she is shaken. He suggests she visit the clergyman who converted him. She dismisses the idea and returns to Marlott to her mother's initial welcome and ultimate frustration that her beautiful daughter didn't succeed in getting Alec d'Urberville as her husband: \"why didn't ye think of doing some good for your family instead of thinking only of yourself. Tess scolds her mother for allowing her to go out into the world without telling her of the danger she faced in the company of men: \"I was a child when I left this house four months ago\"", "analysis": ""}

The basket was heavy and the bundle was large, but she lugged them along like a person who did not find her especial burden in material things. Occasionally she stopped to rest in a mechanical way by some gate or post; and then, giving the baggage another hitch upon her full round arm, went steadily on again. It was a Sunday morning in late October, about four months after Tess Durbeyfield's arrival at Trantridge, and some few weeks subsequent to the night ride in The Chase. The time was not long past daybreak, and the yellow luminosity upon the horizon behind her back lighted the ridge towards which her face was set--the barrier of the vale wherein she had of late been a stranger--which she would have to climb over to reach her birthplace. The ascent was gradual on this side, and the soil and scenery differed much from those within Blakemore Vale. Even the character and accent of the two peoples had shades of difference, despite the amalgamating effects of a roundabout railway; so that, though less than twenty miles from the place of her sojourn at Trantridge, her native village had seemed a far-away spot. The field-folk shut in there traded northward and westward, travelled, courted, and married northward and westward, thought northward and westward; those on this side mainly directed their energies and attention to the east and south. The incline was the same down which d'Urberville had driven her so wildly on that day in June. Tess went up the remainder of its length without stopping, and on reaching the edge of the escarpment gazed over the familiar green world beyond, now half-veiled in mist. It was always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess to-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson. Verily another girl than the simple one she had been at home was she who, bowed by thought, stood still here, and turned to look behind her. She could not bear to look forward into the Vale. Ascending by the long white road that Tess herself had just laboured up, she saw a two-wheeled vehicle, beside which walked a man, who held up his hand to attract her attention. She obeyed the signal to wait for him with unspeculative repose, and in a few minutes man and horse stopped beside her. "Why did you slip away by stealth like this?" said d'Urberville, with upbraiding breathlessness; "on a Sunday morning, too, when people were all in bed! I only discovered it by accident, and I have been driving like the deuce to overtake you. Just look at the mare. Why go off like this? You know that nobody wished to hinder your going. And how unnecessary it has been for you to toil along on foot, and encumber yourself with this heavy load! I have followed like a madman, simply to drive you the rest of the distance, if you won't come back." "I shan't come back," said she. "I thought you wouldn't--I said so! Well, then, put up your basket, and let me help you on." She listlessly placed her basket and bundle within the dog-cart, and stepped up, and they sat side by side. She had no fear of him now, and in the cause of her confidence her sorrow lay. D'Urberville mechanically lit a cigar, and the journey was continued with broken unemotional conversation on the commonplace objects by the wayside. He had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her when, in the early summer, they had driven in the opposite direction along the same road. But she had not, and she sat now, like a puppet, replying to his remarks in monosyllables. After some miles they came in view of the clump of trees beyond which the village of Marlott stood. It was only then that her still face showed the least emotion, a tear or two beginning to trickle down. "What are you crying for?" he coldly asked. "I was only thinking that I was born over there," murmured Tess. "Well--we must all be born somewhere." "I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else!" "Pooh! Well, if you didn't wish to come to Trantridge why did you come?" She did not reply. "You didn't come for love of me, that I'll swear." "'Tis quite true. If I had gone for love o' you, if I had ever sincerely loved you, if I loved you still, I should not so loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now! ... My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all." He shrugged his shoulders. She resumed-- "I didn't understand your meaning till it was too late." "That's what every woman says." "How can you dare to use such words!" she cried, turning impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit (of which he was to see more some day) awoke in her. "My God! I could knock you out of the gig! Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel?" "Very well," he said, laughing; "I am sorry to wound you. I did wrong--I admit it." He dropped into some little bitterness as he continued: "Only you needn't be so everlastingly flinging it in my face. I am ready to pay to the uttermost farthing. You know you need not work in the fields or the dairies again. You know you may clothe yourself with the best, instead of in the bald plain way you have lately affected, as if you couldn't get a ribbon more than you earn." Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a rule, in her large and impulsive nature. "I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will not--I cannot! I SHOULD be your creature to go on doing that, and I won't!" "One would think you were a princess from your manner, in addition to a true and original d'Urberville--ha! ha! Well, Tess, dear, I can say no more. I suppose I am a bad fellow--a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability. But, upon my lost soul, I won't be bad towards you again, Tess. And if certain circumstances should arise--you understand--in which you are in the least need, the least difficulty, send me one line, and you shall have by return whatever you require. I may not be at Trantridge--I am going to London for a time--I can't stand the old woman. But all letters will be forwarded." She said that she did not wish him to drive her further, and they stopped just under the clump of trees. D'Urberville alighted, and lifted her down bodily in his arms, afterwards placing her articles on the ground beside her. She bowed to him slightly, her eye just lingering in his; and then she turned to take the parcels for departure. Alec d'Urberville removed his cigar, bent towards her, and said-- "You are not going to turn away like that, dear! Come!" "If you wish," she answered indifferently. "See how you've mastered me!" She thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his, and remained like a marble term while he imprinted a kiss upon her cheek--half perfunctorily, half as if zest had not yet quite died out. Her eyes vaguely rested upon the remotest trees in the lane while the kiss was given, as though she were nearly unconscious of what he did. "Now the other side, for old acquaintance' sake." She turned her head in the same passive way, as one might turn at the request of a sketcher or hairdresser, and he kissed the other side, his lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the skin of the mushrooms in the fields around. "You don't give me your mouth and kiss me back. You never willingly do that--you'll never love me, I fear." "I have said so, often. It is true. I have never really and truly loved you, and I think I never can." She added mournfully, "Perhaps, of all things, a lie on this thing would do the most good to me now; but I have honour enough left, little as 'tis, not to tell that lie. If I did love you, I may have the best o' causes for letting you know it. But I don't." He emitted a laboured breath, as if the scene were getting rather oppressive to his heart, or to his conscience, or to his gentility. "Well, you are absurdly melancholy, Tess. I have no reason for flattering you now, and I can say plainly that you need not be so sad. You can hold your own for beauty against any woman of these parts, gentle or simple; I say it to you as a practical man and well-wisher. If you are wise you will show it to the world more than you do before it fades... And yet, Tess, will you come back to me! Upon my soul, I don't like to let you go like this!" "Never, never! I made up my mind as soon as I saw--what I ought to have seen sooner; and I won't come." "Then good morning, my four months' cousin--good-bye!" He leapt up lightly, arranged the reins, and was gone between the tall red-berried hedges. Tess did not look after him, but slowly wound along the crooked lane. It was still early, and though the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. There was not a human soul near. Sad October and her sadder self seemed the only two existences haunting that lane. As she walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the footsteps of a man; and owing to the briskness of his advance he was close at her heels and had said "Good morning" before she had been long aware of his propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand. He asked in a business-like manner if he should take her basket, which she permitted him to do, walking beside him. "It is early to be astir this Sabbath morn!" he said cheerfully. "Yes," said Tess. "When most people are at rest from their week's work." She also assented to this. "Though I do more real work to-day than all the week besides." "Do you?" "All the week I work for the glory of man, and on Sunday for the glory of God. That's more real than the other--hey? I have a little to do here at this stile." The man turned, as he spoke, to an opening at the roadside leading into a pasture. "If you'll wait a moment," he added, "I shall not be long." As he had her basket she could not well do otherwise; and she waited, observing him. He set down her basket and the tin pot, and stirring the paint with the brush that was in it began painting large square letters on the middle board of the three composing the stile, placing a comma after each word, as if to give pause while that word was driven well home to the reader's heart-- THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT. 2 Pet. ii. 3. Against the peaceful landscape, the pale, decaying tints of the copses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichened stile-boards, these staring vermilion words shone forth. They seemed to shout themselves out and make the atmosphere ring. Some people might have cried "Alas, poor Theology!" at the hideous defacement--the last grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time. But the words entered Tess with accusatory horror. It was as if this man had known her recent history; yet he was a total stranger. Having finished his text he picked up her basket, and she mechanically resumed her walk beside him. "Do you believe what you paint?" she asked in low tones. "Believe that tex? Do I believe in my own existence!" "But," said she tremulously, "suppose your sin was not of your own seeking?" He shook his head. "I cannot split hairs on that burning query," he said. "I have walked hundreds of miles this past summer, painting these texes on every wall, gate, and stile the length and breadth of this district. I leave their application to the hearts of the people who read 'em." "I think they are horrible," said Tess. "Crushing! Killing!" "That's what they are meant to be!" he replied in a trade voice. "But you should read my hottest ones--them I kips for slums and seaports. They'd make ye wriggle! Not but what this is a very good tex for rural districts. ... Ah--there's a nice bit of blank wall up by that barn standing to waste. I must put one there--one that it will be good for dangerous young females like yerself to heed. Will ye wait, missy?" "No," said she; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. A little way forward she turned her head. The old gray wall began to advertise a similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and unwonted mien, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon to perform. It was with a sudden flush that she read and realized what was to be the inscription he was now halfway through-- THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT-- Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted-- "If you want to ask for edification on these things of moment, there's a very earnest good man going to preach a charity-sermon to-day in the parish you are going to--Mr Clare of Emminster. I'm not of his persuasion now, but he's a good man, and he'll expound as well as any parson I know. 'Twas he began the work in me." But Tess did not answer; she throbbingly resumed her walk, her eyes fixed on the ground. "Pooh--I don't believe God said such things!" she murmured contemptuously when her flush had died away. A plume of smoke soared up suddenly from her father's chimney, the sight of which made her heart ache. The aspect of the interior, when she reached it, made her heart ache more. Her mother, who had just come down stairs, turned to greet her from the fireplace, where she was kindling barked-oak twigs under the breakfast kettle. The young children were still above, as was also her father, it being Sunday morning, when he felt justified in lying an additional half-hour. "Well!--my dear Tess!" exclaimed her surprised mother, jumping up and kissing the girl. "How be ye? I didn't see you till you was in upon me! Have you come home to be married?" "No, I have not come for that, mother." "Then for a holiday?" "Yes--for a holiday; for a long holiday," said Tess. "What, isn't your cousin going to do the handsome thing?" "He's not my cousin, and he's not going to marry me." Her mother eyed her narrowly. "Come, you have not told me all," she said. Then Tess went up to her mother, put her face upon Joan's neck, and told. "And yet th'st not got him to marry 'ee!" reiterated her mother. "Any woman would have done it but you, after that!" "Perhaps any woman would except me." "It would have been something like a story to come back with, if you had!" continued Mrs Durbeyfield, ready to burst into tears of vexation. "After all the talk about you and him which has reached us here, who would have expected it to end like this! Why didn't ye think of doing some good for your family instead o' thinking only of yourself? See how I've got to teave and slave, and your poor weak father with his heart clogged like a dripping-pan. I did hope for something to come out o' this! To see what a pretty pair you and he made that day when you drove away together four months ago! See what he has given us--all, as we thought, because we were his kin. But if he's not, it must have been done because of his love for 'ee. And yet you've not got him to marry!" Get Alec d'Urberville in the mind to marry her! He marry HER! On matrimony he had never once said a word. And what if he had? How a convulsive snatching at social salvation might have impelled her to answer him she could not say. But her poor foolish mother little knew her present feeling towards this man. Perhaps it was unusual in the circumstances, unlucky, unaccountable; but there it was; and this, as she had said, was what made her detest herself. She had never wholly cared for him; she did not at all care for him now. She had dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages he took of her helplessness; then, temporarily blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile: had suddenly despised and disliked him, and had run away. That was all. Hate him she did not quite; but he was dust and ashes to her, and even for her name's sake she scarcely wished to marry him. "You ought to have been more careful if you didn't mean to get him to make you his wife!" "O mother, my mother!" cried the agonized girl, turning passionately upon her parent as if her poor heart would break. "How could I be expected to know? I was a child when I left this house four months ago. Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk? Why didn't you warn me? Ladies know what to fend hands against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance o' learning in that way, and you did not help me!" Her mother was subdued. "I thought if I spoke of his fond feelings and what they might lead to, you would be hontish wi' him and lose your chance," she murmured, wiping her eyes with her apron. "Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose. 'Tis nater, after all, and what do please God!"

Chapter XII

https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase2-chapter12-15

Deeply angry with herself, Tess returns home early one Sunday morning in October after a few weeks with Alec. She knows that if she remains with him she will merely be his "creature," a mistress whom he supports financially but has no intention of ever marrying: "her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson". d'Urberville comes after her and begs her to return, but she refuses his offer to take her home. He tells her to call on him if circumstances necessitate. She walks with a sign painter who paints Biblical verses. After he stops to paint a sign, "THY DAMNATION SLUMBERETH NOT," she is shaken. He suggests she visit the clergyman who converted him. She dismisses the idea and returns to Marlott to her mother's initial welcome and ultimate frustration that her beautiful daughter didn't succeed in getting Alec d'Urberville as her husband: "why didn't ye think of doing some good for your family instead of thinking only of yourself. Tess scolds her mother for allowing her to go out into the world without telling her of the danger she faced in the company of men: "I was a child when I left this house four months ago"

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/53.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_51_part_0.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 52

chapter 52

{"name": "Phase VI: \"The Convert,\" Chapter Fifty-Two", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-52", "summary": "Before dawn the next day, Tess, 'Liza-Lu, Abraham, and Joan get up to pack the wagon for their big move. Lots of families are moving, because lots of laborers have signed up for new jobs starting that day. But the Durbeyfields don't have any work lined up where they're headed. On their way, they see Izz and Marian, who are also moving. When they arrive in Kingsbere, someone comes out of the rooms that they had written ahead to rent, and tells them that there aren't actually any rooms available--their letter came too late. They try to find rooms elsewhere, but aren't successful. Everything's already full. The wagon driver tells them that they have to unload somewhere--he's supposed to drive back that night. He unloads their furniture close to the church, and drives off. The D'Urberville family vault is in this church, so Mrs. Durbeyfield sets up a bed for the younger children in the vault where all the family tombs are. Mrs. Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham set out to look for rooms again, leaving Tess in the vault to look after the little ones. When they get out of the church, they see Alec D'Urberville. Mrs. Durbeyfield doesn't like him very much, so she nods to him, and walks on. After tucking in the children, Tess wanders around the churchyard, and checks out the family tombs. Alec surprises her there, and asks her what he can do for her. She tells him to go away, and he agrees to go--but only to look for her mother, who he figures will be unsuccessful in her search for housing. Tess is left alone in the tombs of her ancestors, and wishes she were with them. In the meanwhile, Marian and Izz are traveling, too, and discussing Angel and Tess. They guess what's going on with Alec, since they've seen him hovering around her, and wonder if there's anything they can do to help mend things between Tess and Angel. After all, they're smart enough to realize that neither one of them will ever get Angel, so why shouldn't they try to help Tess? They write a letter to Angel, and address it to him care of his parents at Emminster Vicarage.", "analysis": ""}

During the small hours of the next morning, while it was still dark, dwellers near the highways were conscious of a disturbance of their night's rest by rumbling noises, intermittently continuing till daylight--noises as certain to recur in this particular first week of the month as the voice of the cuckoo in the third week of the same. They were the preliminaries of the general removal, the passing of the empty waggons and teams to fetch the goods of the migrating families; for it was always by the vehicle of the farmer who required his services that the hired man was conveyed to his destination. That this might be accomplished within the day was the explanation of the reverberation occurring so soon after midnight, the aim of the carters being to reach the door of the outgoing households by six o'clock, when the loading of their movables at once began. But to Tess and her mother's household no such anxious farmer sent his team. They were only women; they were not regular labourers; they were not particularly required anywhere; hence they had to hire a waggon at their own expense, and got nothing sent gratuitously. It was a relief to Tess, when she looked out of the window that morning, to find that though the weather was windy and louring, it did not rain, and that the waggon had come. A wet Lady-Day was a spectre which removing families never forgot; damp furniture, damp bedding, damp clothing accompanied it, and left a train of ills. Her mother, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham were also awake, but the younger children were let sleep on. The four breakfasted by the thin light, and the "house-ridding" was taken in hand. It proceeded with some cheerfulness, a friendly neighbour or two assisting. When the large articles of furniture had been packed in position, a circular nest was made of the beds and bedding, in which Joan Durbeyfield and the young children were to sit through the journey. After loading there was a long delay before the horses were brought, these having been unharnessed during the ridding; but at length, about two o'clock, the whole was under way, the cooking-pot swinging from the axle of the waggon, Mrs Durbeyfield and family at the top, the matron having in her lap, to prevent injury to its works, the head of the clock, which, at any exceptional lurch of the waggon, struck one, or one-and-a-half, in hurt tones. Tess and the next eldest girl walked alongside till they were out of the village. They had called on a few neighbours that morning and the previous evening, and some came to see them off, all wishing them well, though, in their secret hearts, hardly expecting welfare possible to such a family, harmless as the Durbeyfields were to all except themselves. Soon the equipage began to ascend to higher ground, and the wind grew keener with the change of level and soil. The day being the sixth of April, the Durbeyfield waggon met many other waggons with families on the summit of the load, which was built on a wellnigh unvarying principle, as peculiar, probably, to the rural labourer as the hexagon to the bee. The groundwork of the arrangement was the family dresser, which, with its shining handles, and finger-marks, and domestic evidences thick upon it, stood importantly in front, over the tails of the shaft-horses, in its erect and natural position, like some Ark of the Covenant that they were bound to carry reverently. Some of the households were lively, some mournful; some were stopping at the doors of wayside inns; where, in due time, the Durbeyfield menagerie also drew up to bait horses and refresh the travellers. During the halt Tess's eyes fell upon a three-pint blue mug, which was ascending and descending through the air to and from the feminine section of a household, sitting on the summit of a load that had also drawn up at a little distance from the same inn. She followed one of the mug's journeys upward, and perceived it to be clasped by hands whose owner she well knew. Tess went towards the waggon. "Marian and Izz!" she cried to the girls, for it was they, sitting with the moving family at whose house they had lodged. "Are you house-ridding to-day, like everybody else?" They were, they said. It had been too rough a life for them at Flintcomb-Ash, and they had come away, almost without notice, leaving Groby to prosecute them if he chose. They told Tess their destination, and Tess told them hers. Marian leant over the load, and lowered her voice. "Do you know that the gentleman who follows 'ee--you'll guess who I mean--came to ask for 'ee at Flintcomb after you had gone? We didn't tell'n where you was, knowing you wouldn't wish to see him." "Ah--but I did see him!" Tess murmured. "He found me." "And do he know where you be going?" "I think so." "Husband come back?" "No." She bade her acquaintance goodbye--for the respective carters had now come out from the inn--and the two waggons resumed their journey in opposite directions; the vehicle whereon sat Marian, Izz, and the ploughman's family with whom they had thrown in their lot, being brightly painted, and drawn by three powerful horses with shining brass ornaments on their harness; while the waggon on which Mrs Durbeyfield and her family rode was a creaking erection that would scarcely bear the weight of the superincumbent load; one which had known no paint since it was made, and drawn by two horses only. The contrast well marked the difference between being fetched by a thriving farmer and conveying oneself whither no hirer waited one's coming. The distance was great--too great for a day's journey--and it was with the utmost difficulty that the horses performed it. Though they had started so early, it was quite late in the afternoon when they turned the flank of an eminence which formed part of the upland called Greenhill. While the horses stood to stale and breathe themselves Tess looked around. Under the hill, and just ahead of them, was the half-dead townlet of their pilgrimage, Kingsbere, where lay those ancestors of whom her father had spoken and sung to painfulness: Kingsbere, the spot of all spots in the world which could be considered the d'Urbervilles' home, since they had resided there for full five hundred years. A man could be seen advancing from the outskirts towards them, and when he beheld the nature of their waggon-load he quickened his steps. "You be the woman they call Mrs Durbeyfield, I reckon?" he said to Tess's mother, who had descended to walk the remainder of the way. She nodded. "Though widow of the late Sir John d'Urberville, poor nobleman, if I cared for my rights; and returning to the domain of his forefathers." "Oh? Well, I know nothing about that; but if you be Mrs Durbeyfield, I am sent to tell 'ee that the rooms you wanted be let. We didn't know that you was coming till we got your letter this morning--when 'twas too late. But no doubt you can get other lodgings somewhere." The man had noticed the face of Tess, which had become ash-pale at his intelligence. Her mother looked hopelessly at fault. "What shall we do now, Tess?" she said bitterly. "Here's a welcome to your ancestors' lands! However, let's try further." They moved on into the town, and tried with all their might, Tess remaining with the waggon to take care of the children whilst her mother and 'Liza-Lu made inquiries. At the last return of Joan to the vehicle, an hour later, when her search for accommodation had still been fruitless, the driver of the waggon said the goods must be unloaded, as the horses were half-dead, and he was bound to return part of the way at least that night. "Very well--unload it here," said Joan recklessly. "I'll get shelter somewhere." The waggon had drawn up under the churchyard wall, in a spot screened from view, and the driver, nothing loth, soon hauled down the poor heap of household goods. This done, she paid him, reducing herself to almost her last shilling thereby, and he moved off and left them, only too glad to get out of further dealings with such a family. It was a dry night, and he guessed that they would come to no harm. Tess gazed desperately at the pile of furniture. The cold sunlight of this spring evening peered invidiously upon the crocks and kettles, upon the bunches of dried herbs shivering in the breeze, upon the brass handles of the dresser, upon the wicker-cradle they had all been rocked in, and upon the well-rubbed clock-case, all of which gave out the reproachful gleam of indoor articles abandoned to the vicissitudes of a roofless exposure for which they were never made. Round about were deparked hills and slopes--now cut up into little paddocks--and the green foundations that showed where the d'Urberville mansion once had stood; also an outlying stretch of Egdon Heath that had always belonged to the estate. Hard by, the aisle of the church called the d'Urberville Aisle looked on imperturbably. "Isn't your family vault your own freehold?" said Tess's mother, as she returned from a reconnoitre of the church and graveyard. "Why, of course 'tis, and that's where we will camp, girls, till the place of your ancestors finds us a roof! Now, Tess and 'Liza and Abraham, you help me. We'll make a nest for these children, and then we'll have another look round." Tess listlessly lent a hand, and in a quarter of an hour the old four-post bedstead was dissociated from the heap of goods, and erected under the south wall of the church, the part of the building known as the d'Urberville Aisle, beneath which the huge vaults lay. Over the tester of the bedstead was a beautiful traceried window, of many lights, its date being the fifteenth century. It was called the d'Urberville Window, and in the upper part could be discerned heraldic emblems like those on Durbeyfield's old seal and spoon. Joan drew the curtains round the bed so as to make an excellent tent of it, and put the smaller children inside. "If it comes to the worst we can sleep there too, for one night," she said. "But let us try further on, and get something for the dears to eat! O, Tess, what's the use of your playing at marrying gentlemen, if it leaves us like this!" Accompanied by 'Liza-Lu and the boy, she again ascended the little lane which secluded the church from the townlet. As soon as they got into the street they beheld a man on horseback gazing up and down. "Ah--I'm looking for you!" he said, riding up to them. "This is indeed a family gathering on the historic spot!" It was Alec d'Urberville. "Where is Tess?" he asked. Personally Joan had no liking for Alec. She cursorily signified the direction of the church, and went on, d'Urberville saying that he would see them again, in case they should be still unsuccessful in their search for shelter, of which he had just heard. When they had gone, d'Urberville rode to the inn, and shortly after came out on foot. In the interim Tess, left with the children inside the bedstead, remained talking with them awhile, till, seeing that no more could be done to make them comfortable just then, she walked about the churchyard, now beginning to be embrowned by the shades of nightfall. The door of the church was unfastened, and she entered it for the first time in her life. Within the window under which the bedstead stood were the tombs of the family, covering in their dates several centuries. They were canopied, altar-shaped, and plain; their carvings being defaced and broken; their brasses torn from the matrices, the rivet-holes remaining like martin-holes in a sandcliff. Of all the reminders that she had ever received that her people were socially extinct, there was none so forcible as this spoliation. She drew near to a dark stone on which was inscribed: OSTIUM SEPULCHRI ANTIQUAE FAMILIAE D'URBERVILLE Tess did not read Church-Latin like a Cardinal, but she knew that this was the door of her ancestral sepulchre, and that the tall knights of whom her father had chanted in his cups lay inside. She musingly turned to withdraw, passing near an altar-tomb, the oldest of them all, on which was a recumbent figure. In the dusk she had not noticed it before, and would hardly have noticed it now but for an odd fancy that the effigy moved. As soon as she drew close to it she discovered all in a moment that the figure was a living person; and the shock to her sense of not having been alone was so violent that she was quite overcome, and sank down nigh to fainting, not, however, till she had recognized Alec d'Urberville in the form. He leapt off the slab and supported her. "I saw you come in," he said smiling, "and got up there not to interrupt your meditations. A family gathering, is it not, with these old fellows under us here? Listen." He stamped with his heel heavily on the floor; whereupon there arose a hollow echo from below. "That shook them a bit, I'll warrant!" he continued. "And you thought I was the mere stone reproduction of one of them. But no. The old order changeth. The little finger of the sham d'Urberville can do more for you than the whole dynasty of the real underneath... Now command me. What shall I do?" "Go away!" she murmured. "I will--I'll look for your mother," said he blandly. But in passing her he whispered: "Mind this; you'll be civil yet!" When he was gone she bent down upon the entrance to the vaults, and said-- "Why am I on the wrong side of this door!" In the meantime Marian and Izz Huett had journeyed onward with the chattels of the ploughman in the direction of their land of Canaan-- the Egypt of some other family who had left it only that morning. But the girls did not for a long time think of where they were going. Their talk was of Angel Clare and Tess, and Tess's persistent lover, whose connection with her previous history they had partly heard and partly guessed ere this. "'Tisn't as though she had never known him afore," said Marian. "His having won her once makes all the difference in the world. 'Twould be a thousand pities if he were to tole her away again. Mr Clare can never be anything to us, Izz; and why should we grudge him to her, and not try to mend this quarrel? If he could on'y know what straits she's put to, and what's hovering round, he might come to take care of his own." "Could we let him know?" They thought of this all the way to their destination; but the bustle of re-establishment in their new place took up all their attention then. But when they were settled, a month later, they heard of Clare's approaching return, though they had learnt nothing more of Tess. Upon that, agitated anew by their attachment to him, yet honourably disposed to her, Marian uncorked the penny ink-bottle they shared, and a few lines were concocted between the two girls. HONOUR'D SIR-- Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do love you. For she is sore put to by an Enemy in the shape of a Friend. Sir, there is one near her who ought to be Away. A woman should not be try'd beyond her Strength, and continual dropping will wear away a Stone--ay, more--a Diamond. FROM TWO WELL-WISHERS This was addressed to Angel Clare at the only place they had ever heard him to be connected with, Emminster Vicarage; after which they continued in a mood of emotional exaltation at their own generosity, which made them sing in hysterical snatches and weep at the same time. END OF PHASE THE SIXTH Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment

Phase VI: "The Convert," Chapter Fifty-Two

https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-52

Before dawn the next day, Tess, 'Liza-Lu, Abraham, and Joan get up to pack the wagon for their big move. Lots of families are moving, because lots of laborers have signed up for new jobs starting that day. But the Durbeyfields don't have any work lined up where they're headed. On their way, they see Izz and Marian, who are also moving. When they arrive in Kingsbere, someone comes out of the rooms that they had written ahead to rent, and tells them that there aren't actually any rooms available--their letter came too late. They try to find rooms elsewhere, but aren't successful. Everything's already full. The wagon driver tells them that they have to unload somewhere--he's supposed to drive back that night. He unloads their furniture close to the church, and drives off. The D'Urberville family vault is in this church, so Mrs. Durbeyfield sets up a bed for the younger children in the vault where all the family tombs are. Mrs. Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham set out to look for rooms again, leaving Tess in the vault to look after the little ones. When they get out of the church, they see Alec D'Urberville. Mrs. Durbeyfield doesn't like him very much, so she nods to him, and walks on. After tucking in the children, Tess wanders around the churchyard, and checks out the family tombs. Alec surprises her there, and asks her what he can do for her. She tells him to go away, and he agrees to go--but only to look for her mother, who he figures will be unsuccessful in her search for housing. Tess is left alone in the tombs of her ancestors, and wishes she were with them. In the meanwhile, Marian and Izz are traveling, too, and discussing Angel and Tess. They guess what's going on with Alec, since they've seen him hovering around her, and wonder if there's anything they can do to help mend things between Tess and Angel. After all, they're smart enough to realize that neither one of them will ever get Angel, so why shouldn't they try to help Tess? They write a letter to Angel, and address it to him care of his parents at Emminster Vicarage.

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/14328-chapters/book_iii.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Consolation of Philosophy/section_5_part_0.txt

Consolation of Philosophy.book iii

book iii

{"name": "Summary of Book III Part I-III", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210212221439/https://www.novelguide.com/consolation-of-philosophy/summaries/book3-parti-iii", "summary": "of Parts I and II Boethius is enchanted by the song of Philosophy and tells her she is a great comfort to him. He believes he can now face the blows of Fortune. He is ready for the bitter medicine, which she says will bring him to the goal of \"true happiness\" . Because of the shadows of happiness in his mind, he cannot see true happiness. First she says she will give him an idea of the cause of happiness. He needs to turn his gaze in the right direction to recognize the pattern of true happiness. She explains in a song that when one wants to plant a field, one must first clear the land of undergrowth. Though mortals tread different paths, all are seeking happiness. Once one has it, nothing else is needed, because \"happiness is a state made perfect by the presence of everything that is good\" . The reason all people seek happiness is that the desire for it is planted in the mind by nature. Some think happiness lies in money; some think it is power or fame or pleasure or bodily health and beauty, but they confuse the ends and the means. Humans are like drunkards unable to find their way home. What really produces happiness is \"a condition of self-sufficiency with no wants\" . All those things--pleasure, fame, wealth, and beauty--are fine in their place, but they do not bring self-sufficiency by themselves, nor happiness. Yet Nature has set men on in their common pursuit of the good. Philosophy sings a song about Providence keeping all creatures in motion to fulfill their destiny. A bird wants to fly, the sun wants to rise: \"All things seek the place that best becomes . . . and make itself a circle without end\" .", "analysis": "Commentary on Parts I and II Now that Philosophy has shown the gifts of worldly Fortune to bring false happiness, she turns to a definition of true happiness in Book III. So far she indicates that the desire for true happiness is inborn in all creatures, but humans alone seem confused as to how to get what they seek. They go about it backwards, looking outside themselves. Health, pleasure, wealth, and power are only good if one is already happy and self-sufficient within oneself. It is not these worldly gifts that are to blame, but the direction of the human gaze. She mentions that to find true happiness, one must turn the gaze in the right direction, towards oneself. Her song of Providence indicates that instead of going outward to find happiness, one has to circle back to one's own true inner nature. Summary of Part III Philosophy continues, saying that humans have an unclear notion of going towards their origin, because \"errors\" lead them astray. Boethius must therefore consider whether the means men employ will get them to the goal. First, she will consider riches. Philosophy asks him if as a rich man, he was ever worried. Did he feel something was missing or something there he did not want? He replies yes, he was always worried. So therefore, he was lacking something and not self-sufficient? He agrees. So, would he also agree then that wealth does not lead to self-sufficiency, and that money has no inherent property to keep it from being lost? Boethius agrees. And does he agree that a man would need outside help to protect his money? He says yes. But the man who has no money needs no outside help to keep it? Yes, that's true. Philosophy concludes then that wealth makes men dependent on others, so it cannot remove want. While \"nature is satisfied with little,\" \"nothing satisfies greed\" . Commentary on Part III Philosophy begins using the Socratic method of argument on Boethius, getting him to clarify his thought by asking him questions about his assumptions and experience. She gets him to redefine wealth as self-sufficiency, showing him that having money does not remove either worry or want. Even with money, he felt something was missing, or had to worry about how to keep his money. Having a lot of money does not really make one self-sufficient. She argues that actually one's basic needs do not require much to satisfy, but the wealthy person becomes dependent on others to protect or manage the money. Money is no guarantee against loss, since it can be lost at any moment. It therefore cannot lead to happiness or self-sufficiency. Philosophy has covered these points in brief before, but now she gives him what she calls the more bitter medicine of logic. She will go through each assumption step by step to show that what is generally considered good fortune is sloppy thinking. If Boethius, or anyone, will consider these matters logically, they will see they have been walking around in a fog. Book III of Parts I and II Boethius is enchanted by the song of Philosophy and tells her she is a great comfort to him. He believes he can now face the blows of Fortune. He is ready for the bitter medicine, which she says will bring him to the goal of \"true happiness\" . Because of the shadows of happiness in his mind, he cannot see true happiness. First she says she will give him an idea of the cause of happiness. He needs to turn his gaze in the right direction to recognize the pattern of true happiness. She explains in a song that when one wants to plant a field, one must first clear the land of undergrowth. Though mortals tread different paths, all are seeking happiness. Once one has it, nothing else is needed, because \"happiness is a state made perfect by the presence of everything that is good\" . The reason all people seek happiness is that the desire for it is planted in the mind by nature. Some think happiness lies in money; some think it is power or fame or pleasure or bodily health and beauty, but they confuse the ends and the means. Humans are like drunkards unable to find their way home. What really produces happiness is \"a condition of self-sufficiency with no wants\" . All those things--pleasure, fame, wealth, and beauty--are fine in their place, but they do not bring self-sufficiency by themselves, nor happiness. Yet Nature has set men on in their common pursuit of the good. Philosophy sings a song about Providence keeping all creatures in motion to fulfill their destiny. A bird wants to fly, the sun wants to rise: \"All things seek the place that best becomes . . . and make itself a circle without end\" . Commentary on Parts I and II Commentary on Parts I and II Now that Philosophy has shown the gifts of worldly Fortune to bring false happiness, she turns to a definition of true happiness in Book III. So far she indicates that the desire for true happiness is inborn in all creatures, but humans alone seem confused as to how to get what they seek. They go about it backwards, looking outside themselves. Health, pleasure, wealth, and power are only good if one is already happy and self-sufficient within oneself. It is not these worldly gifts that are to blame, but the direction of the human gaze. She mentions that to find true happiness, one must turn the gaze in the right direction, towards oneself. Her song of Providence indicates that instead of going outward to find happiness, one has to circle back to one's own true inner nature. of Part III Philosophy continues, saying that humans have an unclear notion of going towards their origin, because \"errors\" lead them astray. Boethius must therefore consider whether the means men employ will get them to the goal. First, she will consider riches. Philosophy asks him if as a rich man, he was ever worried. Did he feel something was missing or something there he did not want? He replies yes, he was always worried. So therefore, he was lacking something and not self-sufficient? He agrees. So, would he also agree then that wealth does not lead to self-sufficiency, and that money has no inherent property to keep it from being lost? Boethius agrees. And does he agree that a man would need outside help to protect his money? He says yes. But the man who has no money needs no outside help to keep it? Yes, that's true. Philosophy concludes then that wealth makes men dependent on others, so it cannot remove want. While \"nature is satisfied with little,\" \"nothing satisfies greed\" . Commentary on Part III Commentary on Part III Philosophy begins using the Socratic method of argument on Boethius, getting him to clarify his thought by asking him questions about his assumptions and experience. She gets him to redefine wealth as self-sufficiency, showing him that having money does not remove either worry or want. Even with money, he felt something was missing, or had to worry about how to keep his money. Having a lot of money does not really make one self-sufficient. She argues that actually one's basic needs do not require much to satisfy, but the wealthy person becomes dependent on others to protect or manage the money. Money is no guarantee against loss, since it can be lost at any moment. It therefore cannot lead to happiness or self-sufficiency. Philosophy has covered these points in brief before, but now she gives him what she calls the more bitter medicine of logic. She will go through each assumption step by step to show that what is generally considered good fortune is sloppy thinking. If Boethius, or anyone, will consider these matters logically, they will see they have been walking around in a fog. Novel Author Boethius Novel Author Boethius"}

<CHAPTER> BOOK III. I. She ceased, but I stood fixed by the sweetness of the song in wonderment and eager expectation, my ears still strained to listen. And then after a little I said: 'Thou sovereign solace of the stricken soul, what refreshment hast thou brought me, no less by the sweetness of thy singing than by the weightiness of thy discourse! Verily, I think not that I shall hereafter be unequal to the blows of Fortune. Wherefore, I no longer dread the remedies which thou saidst were something too severe for my strength; nay, rather, I am eager to hear of them and call for them with all vehemence.' Then said she: 'I marked thee fastening upon my words silently and intently, and I expected, or--to speak more truly--I myself brought about in thee, this state of mind. What now remains is of such sort that to the taste indeed it is biting, but when received within it turns to sweetness. But whereas thou dost profess thyself desirous of hearing, with what ardour wouldst thou not burn didst thou but perceive whither it is my task to lead thee!' 'Whither?' said I. 'To true felicity,' said she, 'which even now thy spirit sees in dreams, but cannot behold in very truth, while thine eyes are engrossed with semblances.' Then said I: 'I beseech thee, do thou show to me her true shape without a moment's loss.' 'Gladly will I, for thy sake,' said she. 'But first I will try to sketch in words, and describe a cause which is more familiar to thee, that, when thou hast viewed this carefully, thou mayst turn thy eyes the other way, and recognise the beauty of true happiness.' SONG I. THE THORNS OF ERROR. Who fain would sow the fallow field, And see the growing corn, Must first remove the useless weeds, The bramble and the thorn. After ill savour, honey's taste Is to the mouth more sweet; After the storm, the twinkling stars The eyes more cheerly greet. When night hath past, the bright dawn comes In car of rosy hue; So drive the false bliss from thy mind, And thou shall see the true. II. For a little space she remained in a fixed gaze, withdrawn, as it were, into the august chamber of her mind; then she thus began: 'All mortal creatures in those anxious aims which find employment in so many varied pursuits, though they take many paths, yet strive to reach one goal--the goal of happiness. Now, _the good_ is that which, when a man hath got, he can lack nothing further. This it is which is the supreme good of all, containing within itself all particular good; so that if anything is still wanting thereto, this cannot be the supreme good, since something would be left outside which might be desired. 'Tis clear, then, that happiness is a state perfected by the assembling together of all good things. To this state, as we have said, all men try to attain, but by different paths. For the desire of the true good is naturally implanted in the minds of men; only error leads them aside out of the way in pursuit of the false. Some, deeming it the highest good to want for nothing, spare no pains to attain affluence; others, judging the good to be that to which respect is most worthily paid, strive to win the reverence of their fellow-citizens by the attainment of official dignity. Some there are who fix the chief good in supreme power; these either wish themselves to enjoy sovereignty, or try to attach themselves to those who have it. Those, again, who think renown to be something of supreme excellence are in haste to spread abroad the glory of their name either through the arts of war or of peace. A great many measure the attainment of good by joy and gladness of heart; these think it the height of happiness to give themselves over to pleasure. Others there are, again, who interchange the ends and means one with the other in their aims; for instance, some want riches for the sake of pleasure and power, some covet power either for the sake of money or in order to bring renown to their name. So it is on these ends, then, that the aim of human acts and wishes is centred, and on others like to these--for instance, noble birth and popularity, which seem to compass a certain renown; wife and children, which are sought for the sweetness of their possession; while as for friendship, the most sacred kind indeed is counted in the category of virtue, not of fortune; but other kinds are entered upon for the sake of power or of enjoyment. And as for bodily excellences, it is obvious that they are to be ranged with the above. For strength and stature surely manifest power; beauty and fleetness of foot bring celebrity; health brings pleasure. It is plain, then, that the only object sought for in all these ways is _happiness_. For that which each seeks in preference to all else, that is in his judgment the supreme good. And we have defined the supreme good to be happiness. Therefore, that state which each wishes in preference to all others is in his judgment happy. 'Thou hast, then, set before thine eyes something like a scheme of human happiness--wealth, rank, power, glory, pleasure. Now Epicurus, from a sole regard to these considerations, with some consistency concluded the highest good to be pleasure, because all the other objects seem to bring some delight to the soul. But to return to human pursuits and aims: man's mind seeks to recover its proper good, in spite of the mistiness of its recollection, but, like a drunken man, knows not by what path to return home. Think you they are wrong who strive to escape want? Nay, truly there is nothing which can so well complete happiness as a state abounding in all good things, needing nothing from outside, but wholly self-sufficing. Do they fall into error who deem that which is best to be also best deserving to receive the homage of reverence? Not at all. That cannot possibly be vile and contemptible, to attain which the endeavours of nearly all mankind are directed. Then, is power not to be reckoned in the category of good? Why, can that which is plainly more efficacious than anything else be esteemed a thing feeble and void of strength? Or is renown to be thought of no account? Nay, it cannot be ignored that the highest renown is constantly associated with the highest excellence. And what need is there to say that happiness is not haunted by care and gloom, nor exposed to trouble and vexation, since that is a condition we ask of the very least of things, from the possession and enjoyment of which we expect delight? So, then, these are the blessings men wish to win; they want riches, rank, sovereignty, glory, pleasure, because they believe that by these means they will secure independence, reverence, power, renown, and joy of heart. Therefore, it is _the good_ which men seek by such divers courses; and herein is easily shown the might of Nature's power, since, although opinions are so various and discordant, yet they agree in cherishing _good_ as the end.' SONG II. THE BENT OF NATURE. How the might of Nature sways All the world in ordered ways, How resistless laws control Each least portion of the whole-- Fain would I in sounding verse On my pliant strings rehearse. Lo, the lion captive ta'en Meekly wears his gilded chain; Yet though he by hand be fed, Though a master's whip he dread, If but once the taste of gore Whet his cruel lips once more, Straight his slumbering fierceness wakes, With one roar his bonds he breaks, And first wreaks his vengeful force On his trainer's mangled corse. And the woodland songster, pent In forlorn imprisonment, Though a mistress' lavish care Store of honeyed sweets prepare; Yet, if in his narrow cage, As he hops from bar to bar, He should spy the woods afar, Cool with sheltering foliage, All these dainties he will spurn, To the woods his heart will turn; Only for the woods he longs, Pipes the woods in all his songs. To rude force the sapling bends, While the hand its pressure lends; If the hand its pressure slack, Straight the supple wood springs back. Phoebus in the western main Sinks; but swift his car again By a secret path is borne To the wonted gates of morn. Thus are all things seen to yearn In due time for due return; And no order fixed may stay, Save which in th' appointed way Joins the end to the beginning In a steady cycle spinning. III. 'Ye, too, creatures of earth, have some glimmering of your origin, however faint, and though in a vision dim and clouded, yet in some wise, notwithstanding, ye discern the true end of happiness, and so the aim of nature leads you thither--to that true good--while error in many forms leads you astray therefrom. For reflect whether men are able to win happiness by those means through which they think to reach the proposed end. Truly, if either wealth, rank, or any of the rest, bring with them anything of such sort as seems to have nothing wanting to it that is good, we, too, acknowledge that some are made happy by the acquisition of these things. But if they are not able to fulfil their promises, and, moreover, lack many good things, is not the happiness men seek in them clearly discovered to be a false show? Therefore do I first ask thee thyself, who but lately wert living in affluence, amid all that abundance of wealth, was thy mind never troubled in consequence of some wrong done to thee?' 'Nay,' said I, 'I cannot ever remember a time when my mind was so completely at peace as not to feel the pang of some uneasiness.' 'Was it not because either something was absent which thou wouldst not have absent, or present which thou wouldst have away?' 'Yes,' said I. 'Then, thou didst want the presence of the one, the absence of the other?' 'Admitted.' 'But a man lacks that of which he is in want?' 'He does.' 'And he who lacks something is not in all points self-sufficing?' 'No; certainly not,' said I. 'So wert thou, then, in the plenitude of thy wealth, supporting this insufficiency?' 'I must have been.' 'Wealth, then, cannot make its possessor independent and free from all want, yet this was what it seemed to promise. Moreover, I think this also well deserves to be considered--that there is nothing in the special nature of money to hinder its being taken away from those who possess it against their will.' 'I admit it.' 'Why, of course, when every day the stronger wrests it from the weaker without his consent. Else, whence come lawsuits, except in seeking to recover moneys which have been taken away against their owner's will by force or fraud?' 'True,' said I. 'Then, everyone will need some extraneous means of protection to keep his money safe.' 'Who can venture to deny it?' 'Yet he would not, unless he possessed the money which it is possible to lose.' 'No; he certainly would not.' 'Then, we have worked round to an opposite conclusion: the wealth which was thought to make a man independent rather puts him in need of further protection. How in the world, then, can want be driven away by riches? Cannot the rich feel hunger? Cannot they thirst? Are not the limbs of the wealthy sensitive to the winter's cold? "But," thou wilt say, "the rich have the wherewithal to sate their hunger, the means to get rid of thirst and cold." True enough; want can thus be soothed by riches, wholly removed it cannot be. For if this ever-gaping, ever-craving want is glutted by wealth, it needs must be that the want itself which can be so glutted still remains. I do not speak of how very little suffices for nature, and how for avarice nothing is enough. Wherefore, if wealth cannot get rid of want, and makes new wants of its own, how can ye believe that it bestows independence?' SONG III. THE INSATIABLENESS OF AVARICE. Though the covetous grown wealthy See his piles of gold rise high; Though he gather store of treasure That can never satisfy; Though with pearls his gorget blazes, Rarest that the ocean yields; Though a hundred head of oxen Travail in his ample fields; Ne'er shall carking care forsake him While he draws this vital breath, And his riches go not with him, When his eyes are closed in death. IV. 'Well, but official dignity clothes him to whom it comes with honour and reverence! Have, then, offices of state such power as to plant virtue in the minds of their possessors, and drive out vice? Nay, they are rather wont to signalize iniquity than to chase it away, and hence arises our indignation that honours so often fall to the most iniquitous of men. Accordingly, Catullus calls Nonius an "ulcer-spot," though "sitting in the curule chair." Dost not see what infamy high position brings upon the bad? Surely their unworthiness will be less conspicuous if their rank does not draw upon them the public notice! In thy own case, wouldst thou ever have been induced by all these perils to think of sharing office with Decoratus, since thou hast discerned in him the spirit of a rascally parasite and informer? No; we cannot deem men worthy of reverence on account of their office, whom we deem unworthy of the office itself. But didst thou see a man endued with wisdom, couldst thou suppose him not worthy of reverence, nor of that wisdom with which he was endued?' 'No; certainly not.' 'There is in Virtue a dignity of her own which she forthwith passes over to those to whom she is united. And since public honours cannot do this, it is clear that they do not possess the true beauty of dignity. And here this well deserves to be noticed--that if a man is the more scorned in proportion as he is despised by a greater number, high position not only fails to win reverence for the wicked, but even loads them the more with contempt by drawing more attention to them. But not without retribution; for the wicked pay back a return in kind to the dignities they put on by the pollution of their touch. Perhaps, too, another consideration may teach thee to confess that true reverence cannot come through these counterfeit dignities. It is this: If one who had been many times consul chanced to visit barbaric lands, would his office win him the reverence of the barbarians? And yet if reverence were the natural effect of dignities, they would not forego their proper function in any part of the world, even as fire never anywhere fails to give forth heat. But since this effect is not due to their own efficacy, but is attached to them by the mistaken opinion of mankind, they disappear straightway when they are set before those who do not esteem them dignities. Thus the case stands with foreign peoples. But does their repute last for ever, even in the land of their origin? Why, the prefecture, which was once a great power, is now an empty name--a burden merely on the senator's fortune; the commissioner of the public corn supply was once a personage--now what is more contemptible than this office? For, as we said just now, that which hath no true comeliness of its own now receives, now loses, lustre at the caprice of those who have to do with it. So, then, if dignities cannot win men reverence, if they are actually sullied by the contamination of the wicked, if they lose their splendour through time's changes, if they come into contempt merely for lack of public estimation, what precious beauty have they in themselves, much less to give to others?' SONG IV. DISGRACE OF HONOURS CONFERRED BY A TYRANT. Though royal purple soothes his pride, And snowy pearls his neck adorn, Nero in all his riot lives The mark of universal scorn. Yet he on reverend heads conferred Th' inglorious honours of the state. Shall we, then, deem them truly blessed Whom such preferment hath made great? V. 'Well, then, does sovereignty and the intimacy of kings prove able to confer power? Why, surely does not the happiness of kings endure for ever? And yet antiquity is full of examples, and these days also, of kings whose happiness has turned into calamity. How glorious a power, which is not even found effectual for its own preservation! But if happiness has its source in sovereign power, is not happiness diminished, and misery inflicted in its stead, in so far as that power falls short of completeness? Yet, however widely human sovereignty be extended, there must still be more peoples left, over whom each several king holds no sway. Now, at whatever point the power on which happiness depends ceases, here powerlessness steals in and makes wretchedness; so, by this way of reckoning, there must needs be a balance of wretchedness in the lot of the king. The tyrant who had made trial of the perils of his condition figured the fears that haunt a throne under the image of a sword hanging over a man's head.[G] What sort of power, then, is this which cannot drive away the gnawings of anxiety, or shun the stings of terror? Fain would they themselves have lived secure, but they cannot; then they boast about their power! Dost thou count him to possess power whom thou seest to wish what he cannot bring to pass? Dost thou count him to possess power who encompasses himself with a body-guard, who fears those he terrifies more than they fear him, who, to keep up the semblance of power, is himself at the mercy of his slaves? Need I say anything of the friends of kings, when I show royal dominion itself so utterly and miserably weak--why ofttimes the royal power in its plenitude brings them low, ofttimes involves them in its fall? Nero drove his friend and preceptor, Seneca, to the choice of the manner of his death. Antoninus exposed Papinianus, who was long powerful at court, to the swords of the soldiery. Yet each of these was willing to renounce his power. Seneca tried to surrender his wealth also to Nero, and go into retirement; but neither achieved his purpose. When they tottered, their very greatness dragged them down. What manner of thing, then, is this power which keeps men in fear while they possess it--which when thou art fain to keep, thou art not safe, and when thou desirest to lay it aside thou canst not rid thyself of? Are friends any protection who have been attached by fortune, not by virtue? Nay; him whom good fortune has made a friend, ill fortune will make an enemy. And what plague is more effectual to do hurt than a foe of one's own household?' FOOTNOTES: [G] The sword of Damocles. SONG V. SELF-MASTERY. Who on power sets his aim, First must his own spirit tame; He must shun his neck to thrust 'Neath th' unholy yoke of lust. For, though India's far-off land Bow before his wide command, Utmost Thule homage pay-- If he cannot drive away Haunting care and black distress, In his power, he's powerless. VI. 'Again, how misleading, how base, a thing ofttimes is glory! Well does the tragic poet exclaim: '"Oh, fond Repute, how many a time and oft Hast them raised high in pride the base-born churl!" For many have won a great name through the mistaken beliefs of the multitude--and what can be imagined more shameful than that? Nay, they who are praised falsely must needs themselves blush at their own praises! And even when praise is won by merit, still, how does it add to the good conscience of the wise man who measures his good not by popular repute, but by the truth of inner conviction? And if at all it does seem a fair thing to get this same renown spread abroad, it follows that any failure so to spread it is held foul. But if, as I set forth but now, there must needs be many tribes and peoples whom the fame of any single man cannot reach, it follows that he whom thou esteemest glorious seems all inglorious in a neighbouring quarter of the globe. As to popular favour, I do not think it even worthy of mention in this place, since it never cometh of judgment, and never lasteth steadily. 'Then, again, who does not see how empty, how foolish, is the fame of noble birth? Why, if the nobility is based on renown, the renown is another's! For, truly, nobility seems to be a sort of reputation coming from the merits of ancestors. But if it is the praise which brings renown, of necessity it is they who are praised that are famous. Wherefore, the fame of another clothes thee not with splendour if thou hast none of thine own. So, if there is any excellence in nobility of birth, methinks it is this alone--that it would seem to impose upon the nobly born the obligation not to degenerate from the virtue of their ancestors.' SONG VI. TRUE NOBILITY. All men are of one kindred stock, though scattered far and wide; For one is Father of us all--one doth for all provide. He gave the sun his golden beams, the moon her silver horn; He set mankind upon the earth, as stars the heavens adorn. He shut a soul--a heaven-born soul--within the body's frame; The noble origin he gave each mortal wight may claim. Why boast ye, then, so loud of race and high ancestral line? If ye behold your being's source, and God's supreme design, None is degenerate, none base, unless by taint of sin And cherished vice he foully stain his heavenly origin. VII. 'Then, what shall I say of the pleasures of the body? The lust thereof is full of uneasiness; the sating, of repentance. What sicknesses, what intolerable pains, are they wont to bring on the bodies of those who enjoy them--the fruits of iniquity, as it were! Now, what sweetness the stimulus of pleasure may have I do not know. But that the issues of pleasure are painful everyone may understand who chooses to recall the memory of his own fleshly lusts. Nay, if these can make happiness, there is no reason why the beasts also should not be happy, since all their efforts are eagerly set upon satisfying the bodily wants. I know, indeed, that the sweetness of wife and children should be right comely, yet only too true to nature is what was said of one--that he found in his sons his tormentors. And how galling such a contingency would be, I must needs put thee in mind, since thou hast never in any wise suffered such experiences, nor art thou now under any uneasiness. In such a case, I agree with my servant Euripides, who said that a man without children was fortunate in his misfortune.'[H] FOOTNOTES: [H] Paley translates the lines in Euripides' 'Andromache': 'They [the childless] are indeed spared from much pain and sorrow, but their supposed happiness is after all but wretchedness.' Euripides' meaning is therefore really just the reverse of that which Boethius makes it. See Euripides, 'Andromache,' Il. 418-420. SONG VII. PLEASURE'S STING. This is the way of Pleasure: She stings them that despoil her; And, like the winged toiler Who's lost her honeyed treasure, She flies, but leaves her smart Deep-rankling in the heart. VIII. 'It is beyond doubt, then, that these paths do not lead to happiness; they cannot guide anyone to the promised goal. Now, I will very briefly show what serious evils are involved in following them. Just consider. Is it thy endeavour to heap up money? Why, thou must wrest it from its present possessor! Art thou minded to put on the splendour of official dignity? Thou must beg from those who have the giving of it; thou who covetest to outvie others in honour must lower thyself to the humble posture of petition. Dost thou long for power? Thou must face perils, for thou wilt be at the mercy of thy subjects' plots. Is glory thy aim? Thou art lured on through all manner of hardships, and there is an end to thy peace of mind. Art fain to lead a life of pleasure? Yet who does not scorn and contemn one who is the slave of the weakest and vilest of things--the body? Again, on how slight and perishable a possession do they rely who set before themselves bodily excellences! Can ye ever surpass the elephant in bulk or the bull in strength? Can ye excel the tiger in swiftness? Look upon the infinitude, the solidity, the swift motion, of the heavens, and for once cease to admire things mean and worthless. And yet the heavens are not so much to be admired on this account as for the reason which guides them. Then, how transient is the lustre of beauty! how soon gone!--more fleeting than the fading bloom of spring flowers. And yet if, as Aristotle says, men should see with the eyes of Lynceus, so that their sight might pierce through obstructions, would not that body of Alcibiades, so gloriously fair in outward seeming, appear altogether loathsome when all its inward parts lay open to the view? Therefore, it is not thy own nature that makes thee seem beautiful, but the weakness of the eyes that see thee. Yet prize as unduly as ye will that body's excellences; so long as ye know that this that ye admire, whatever its worth, can be dissolved away by the feeble flame of a three days' fever. From all which considerations we may conclude as a whole, that these things which cannot make good the advantages they promise, which are never made perfect by the assemblage of all good things--these neither lead as by-ways to happiness, nor themselves make men completely happy.' SONG VIII. HUMAN FOLLY. Alas! how wide astray Doth Ignorance these wretched mortals lead From Truth's own way! For not on leafy stems Do ye within the green wood look for gold, Nor strip the vine for gems; Your nets ye do not spread Upon the hill-tops, that the groaning board With fish be furnished; If ye are fain to chase The bounding goat, ye sweep not in vain search The ocean's ruffled face. The sea's far depths they know, Each hidden nook, wherein the waves o'erwash The pearl as white as snow; Where lurks the Tyrian shell, Where fish and prickly urchins do abound, All this they know full well. But not to know or care Where hidden lies the good all hearts desire-- This blindness they can bear; With gaze on earth low-bent, They seek for that which reacheth far beyond The starry firmament. What curse shall I call down On hearts so dull? May they the race still run For wealth and high renown! And when with much ado The false good they have grasped--ah, then too late!-- May they discern the true! IX. 'This much may well suffice to set forth the form of false happiness; if this is now clear to thine eyes, the next step is to show what true happiness is.' 'Indeed,' said I, 'I see clearly enough that neither is independence to be found in wealth, nor power in sovereignty, nor reverence in dignities, nor fame in glory, nor true joy in pleasures.' 'Hast thou discerned also the causes why this is so?' 'I seem to have some inkling, but I should like to learn more at large from thee.' 'Why, truly the reason is hard at hand. _That which is simple and indivisible by nature human error separates_, and transforms from the true and perfect to the false and imperfect. Dost thou imagine that which lacketh nothing can want power?' 'Certainly not.' 'Right; for if there is any feebleness of strength in anything, in this there must necessarily be need of external protection.' 'That is so.' 'Accordingly, the nature of independence and power is one and the same.' 'It seems so.' 'Well, but dost think that anything of such a nature as this can be looked upon with contempt, or is it rather of all things most worthy of veneration?' 'Nay; there can be no doubt as to that.' 'Let us, then, add reverence to independence and power, and conclude these three to be one.' 'We must if we will acknowledge the truth.' 'Thinkest thou, then, this combination of qualities to be obscure and without distinction, or rather famous in all renown? Just consider: can that want renown which has been agreed to be lacking in nothing, to be supreme in power, and right worthy of honour, for the reason that it cannot bestow this upon itself, and so comes to appear somewhat poor in esteem?' 'I cannot but acknowledge that, being what it is, this union of qualities is also right famous.' 'It follows, then, that we must admit that renown is not different from the other three.' 'It does,' said I. 'That, then, which needs nothing outside itself, which can accomplish all things in its own strength, which enjoys fame and compels reverence, must not this evidently be also fully crowned with joy?' 'In sooth, I cannot conceive,' said I, 'how any sadness can find entrance into such a state; wherefore I must needs acknowledge it full of joy--at least, if our former conclusions are to hold.' 'Then, for the same reasons, this also is necessary--that independence, power, renown, reverence, and sweetness of delight, are different only in name, but in substance differ no wise one from the other.' 'It is,' said I. 'This, then, which is one, and simple by nature, human perversity separates, and, in trying to win a part of that which has no parts, fails to attain not only that portion (since there are no portions), but also the whole, to which it does not dream of aspiring.' 'How so?' said I. 'He who, to escape want, seeks riches, gives himself no concern about power; he prefers a mean and low estate, and also denies himself many pleasures dear to nature to avoid losing the money which he has gained. But at this rate he does not even attain to independence--a weakling void of strength, vexed by distresses, mean and despised, and buried in obscurity. He, again, who thirsts alone for power squanders his wealth, despises pleasure, and thinks fame and rank alike worthless without power. But thou seest in how many ways his state also is defective. Sometimes it happens that he lacks necessaries, that he is gnawed by anxieties, and, since he cannot rid himself of these inconveniences, even ceases to have that power which was his whole end and aim. In like manner may we cast up the reckoning in case of rank, of glory, or of pleasure. For since each one of these severally is identical with the rest, whosoever seeks any one of them without the others does not even lay hold of that one which he makes his aim.' 'Well,' said I, 'what then?' 'Suppose anyone desire to obtain them together, he does indeed wish for happiness as a whole; but will he find it in these things which, as we have proved, are unable to bestow what they promise?' 'Nay; by no means,' said I. 'Then, happiness must certainly not be sought in these things which severally are believed to afford some one of the blessings most to be desired.' 'They must not, I admit. No conclusion could be more true.' 'So, then, the form and the causes of false happiness are set before thine eyes. Now turn thy gaze to the other side; there thou wilt straightway see the true happiness I promised.' 'Yea, indeed, 'tis plain to the blind.' said I. 'Thou didst point it out even now in seeking to unfold the causes of the false. For, unless I am mistaken, that is true and perfect happiness which crowns one with the union of independence, power, reverence, renown, and joy. And to prove to thee with how deep an insight I have listened--since all these are the same--that which can truly bestow one of them I know to be without doubt full and complete happiness.' 'Happy art thou, my scholar, in this thy conviction; only one thing shouldst thou add.' 'What is that?' said I. 'Is there aught, thinkest thou, amid these mortal and perishable things which can produce a state such as this?' 'Nay, surely not; and this thou hast so amply demonstrated that no word more is needed.' 'Well, then, these things seem to give to mortals shadows of the true good, or some kind of imperfect good; but the true and perfect good they cannot bestow.' 'Even so,' said I. 'Since, then, thou hast learnt what that true happiness is, and what men falsely call happiness, it now remains that thou shouldst learn from what source to seek this.' 'Yes; to this I have long been eagerly looking forward.' 'Well, since, as Plato maintains in the "Timaeus," we ought even in the most trivial matters to implore the Divine protection, what thinkest thou should we now do in order to deserve to find the seat of that highest good?' 'We must invoke the Father of all things,' said I; 'for without this no enterprise sets out from a right beginning.' 'Thou sayest well,' said she; and forthwith lifted up her voice and sang: SONG IX. INVOCATION. [I] Maker of earth and sky, from age to age Who rul'st the world by reason; at whose word Time issues from Eternity's abyss: To all that moves the source of movement, fixed Thyself and moveless. Thee no cause impelled Extrinsic this proportioned frame to shape From shapeless matter; but, deep-set within Thy inmost being, the form of perfect good, From envy free; and Thou didst mould the whole To that supernal pattern. Beauteous The world in Thee thus imaged, being Thyself Most beautiful. So Thou the work didst fashion In that fair likeness, bidding it put on Perfection through the exquisite perfectness Of every part's contrivance. Thou dost bind The elements in balanced harmony, So that the hot and cold, the moist and dry, Contend not; nor the pure fire leaping up Escape, or weight of waters whelm the earth. Thou joinest and diffusest through the whole, Linking accordantly its several parts, A soul of threefold nature, moving all. This, cleft in twain, and in two circles gathered, Speeds in a path that on itself returns, Encompassing mind's limits, and conforms The heavens to her true semblance. Lesser souls And lesser lives by a like ordinance Thou sendest forth, each to its starry car Affixing, and dost strew them far and wide O'er earth and heaven. These by a law benign Thou biddest turn again, and render back To thee their fires. Oh, grant, almighty Father, Grant us on reason's wing to soar aloft To heaven's exalted height; grant us to see The fount of good; grant us, the true light found, To fix our steadfast eyes in vision clear On Thee. Disperse the heavy mists of earth, And shine in Thine own splendour. For Thou art The true serenity and perfect rest Of every pious soul--to see Thy face, The end and the beginning--One the guide, The traveller, the pathway, and the goal. FOOTNOTES: [I] The substance of this poem is taken from Plato's 'Timaeus,' 29-42. See Jowett, vol. iii., pp. 448-462 (third edition). X. 'Since now thou hast seen what is the form of the imperfect good, and what the form of the perfect also, methinks I should next show in what manner this perfection of felicity is built up. And here I conceive it proper to inquire, first, whether any excellence, such as thou hast lately defined, can exist in the nature of things, lest we be deceived by an empty fiction of thought to which no true reality answers. But it cannot be denied that such does exist, and is, as it were, the source of all things good. For everything which is called imperfect is spoken of as imperfect by reason of the privation of some perfection; so it comes to pass that, whenever imperfection is found in any particular, there must necessarily be a perfection in respect of that particular also. For were there no such perfection, it is utterly inconceivable how that so-called _im_perfection should come into existence. Nature does not make a beginning with things mutilated and imperfect; she starts with what is whole and perfect, and falls away later to these feeble and inferior productions. So if there is, as we showed before, a happiness of a frail and imperfect kind, it cannot be doubted but there is also a happiness substantial and perfect.' 'Most true is thy conclusion, and most sure,' said I. 'Next to consider where the dwelling-place of this happiness may be. The common belief of all mankind agrees that God, the supreme of all things, is good. For since nothing can be imagined better than God, how can we doubt Him to be good than whom there is nothing better? Now, reason shows God to be good in such wise as to prove that in Him is perfect good. For were it not so, He would not be supreme of all things; for there would be something else more excellent, possessed of perfect good, which would seem to have the advantage in priority and dignity, since it has clearly appeared that all perfect things are prior to those less complete. Wherefore, lest we fall into an infinite regression, we must acknowledge the supreme God to be full of supreme and perfect good. But we have determined that true happiness is the perfect good; therefore true happiness must dwell in the supreme Deity.' 'I accept thy reasonings,' said I; 'they cannot in any wise be disputed.' 'But, come, see how strictly and incontrovertibly thou mayst prove this our assertion that the supreme Godhead hath fullest possession of the highest good.' 'In what way, pray?' said I. 'Do not rashly suppose that He who is the Father of all things hath received that highest good of which He is said to be possessed either from some external source, or hath it as a natural endowment in such sort that thou mightest consider the essence of the happiness possessed, and of the God who possesses it, distinct and different. For if thou deemest it received from without, thou mayst esteem that which gives more excellent than that which has received. But Him we most worthily acknowledge to be the most supremely excellent of all things. If, however, it is in Him by nature, yet is logically distinct, the thought is inconceivable, since we are speaking of God, who is supreme of all things. Who was there to join these distinct essences? Finally, when one thing is different from another, the things so conceived as distinct cannot be identical. Therefore that which of its own nature is distinct from the highest good is not itself the highest good--an impious thought of Him than whom, 'tis plain, nothing can be more excellent. For universally nothing can be better in nature than the source from which it has come; therefore on most true grounds of reason would I conclude that which is the source of all things to be in its own essence the highest good.' 'And most justly,' said I. 'But the highest good has been admitted to be happiness.' 'Yes.' 'Then,' said she, 'it is necessary to acknowledge that God is very happiness.' 'Yes,' said I; 'I cannot gainsay my former admissions, and I see clearly that this is a necessary inference therefrom.' 'Reflect, also,' said she, 'whether the same conclusion is not further confirmed by considering that there cannot be two supreme goods distinct one from the other. For the goods which are different clearly cannot be severally each what the other is: wherefore neither of the two can be perfect, since to either the other is wanting; but since it is not perfect, it cannot manifestly be the supreme good. By no means, then, can goods which are supreme be different one from the other. But we have concluded that both happiness and God are the supreme good; wherefore that which is highest Divinity must also itself necessarily be supreme happiness.' 'No conclusion,' said I, 'could be truer to fact, nor more soundly reasoned out, nor more worthy of God.' 'Then, further,' said she, 'just as geometricians are wont to draw inferences from their demonstrations to which they give the name "deductions," so will I add here a sort of corollary. For since men become happy by the acquisition of happiness, while happiness is very Godship, it is manifest that they become happy by the acquisition of Godship. But as by the acquisition of justice men become just, and wise by the acquisition of wisdom, so by parity of reasoning by acquiring Godship they must of necessity become gods. So every man who is happy is a god; and though in nature God is One only, yet there is nothing to hinder that very many should be gods by participation in that nature.' 'A fair conclusion, and a precious,' said I, 'deduction or corollary, by whichever name thou wilt call it.' 'And yet,' said she, 'not one whit fairer than this which reason persuades us to add.' 'Why, what?' said I. 'Why, seeing happiness has many particulars included under it, should all these be regarded as forming one body of happiness, as it were, made up of various parts, or is there some one of them which forms the full essence of happiness, while all the rest are relative to this?' 'I would thou wouldst unfold the whole matter to me at large.' 'We judge happiness to be good, do we not?' 'Yea, the supreme good.' 'And this superlative applies to all; for this same happiness is adjudged to be the completest independence, the highest power, reverence, renown, and pleasure.' 'What then?' 'Are all these goods--independence, power, and the rest--to be deemed members of happiness, as it were, or are they all relative to good as to their summit and crown?' 'I understand the problem, but I desire to hear how thou wouldst solve it.' 'Well, then, listen to the determination of the matter. Were all these members composing happiness, they would differ severally one from the other. For this is the nature of parts--that by their difference they compose one body. All these, however, have been proved to be the same; therefore they cannot possibly be members, otherwise happiness will seem to be built up out of one member, which cannot be.' 'There can be no doubt as to that,' said I; 'but I am impatient to hear what remains.' 'Why, it is manifest that all the others are relative to the good. For the very reason why independence is sought is that it is judged good, and so power also, because it is believed to be good. The same, too, may be supposed of reverence, of renown, and of pleasant delight. Good, then, is the sum and source of all desirable things. That which has not in itself any good, either in reality or in semblance, can in no wise be desired. Contrariwise, even things which by nature are not good are desired as if they were truly good, if they seem to be so. Whereby it comes to pass that goodness is rightly believed to be the sum and hinge and cause of all things desirable. Now, that for the sake of which anything is desired itself seems to be most wished for. For instance, if anyone wishes to ride for the sake of health, he does not so much wish for the exercise of riding as the benefit of his health. Since, then, all things are sought for the sake of the good, it is not these so much as good itself that is sought by all. But that on account of which all other things are wished for was, we agreed, happiness; wherefore thus also it appears that it is happiness alone which is sought. From all which it is transparently clear that the essence of absolute good and of happiness is one and the same.' 'I cannot see how anyone can dissent from these conclusions.' 'But we have also proved that God and true happiness are one and the same.' 'Yes,' said I. 'Then we can safely conclude, also, that God's essence is seated in absolute good, and nowhere else.' SONG X. THE TRUE LIGHT. Hither come, all ye whose minds Lust with rosy fetters binds-- Lust to bondage hard compelling Th' earthy souls that are his dwelling-- Here shall be your labour's close; Here your haven of repose. Come, to your one refuge press; Wide it stands to all distress! Not the glint of yellow gold Down bright Hermus' current rolled; Not the Tagus' precious sands, Nor in far-off scorching lands All the radiant gems that hide Under Indus' storied tide-- Emerald green and glistering white-- Can illume our feeble sight; But they rather leave the mind In its native darkness blind. For the fairest beams they shed In earth's lowest depths were fed; But the splendour that supplies Strength and vigour to the skies, And the universe controls, Shunneth dark and ruined souls. He who once hath seen _this_ light Will not call the sunbeam bright. XI. 'I quite agree,' said I, 'truly all thy reasonings hold admirably together.' Then said she: 'What value wouldst thou put upon the boon shouldst thou come to the knowledge of the absolute good?' 'Oh, an infinite,' said I, 'if only I were so blest as to learn to know God also who is the good.' 'Yet this will I make clear to thee on truest grounds of reason, if only our recent conclusions stand fast.' 'They will.' 'Have we not shown that those things which most men desire are not true and perfect good precisely for this cause--that they differ severally one from another, and, seeing that one is wanting to another, they cannot bestow full and absolute good; but that they become the true good when they are gathered, as it were, into one form and agency, so that that which is independence is likewise power, reverence, renown, and pleasant delight, and unless they are all one and the same, they have no claim to be counted among things desirable?' 'Yes; this was clearly proved, and cannot in any wise be doubted.' 'Now, when things are far from being good while they are different, but become good as soon as they are one, is it not true that these become good by acquiring unity?' 'It seems so,' said I. 'But dost not thou allow that all which is good is good by participation in goodness?' 'It is.' 'Then, thou must on similar grounds admit that unity and goodness are the same; for when the effects of things in their natural working differ not, their essence is one and the same.' 'There is no denying it.' 'Now, dost thou know,' said she, 'that all which is abides and subsists so long as it continues one, but so soon as it ceases to be one it perishes and falls to pieces?' 'In what way?' 'Why, take animals, for example. When soul and body come together, and continue in one, this is, we say, a living creature; but when this unity is broken by the separation of these two, the creature dies, and is clearly no longer living. The body also, while it remains in one form by the joining together of its members, presents a human appearance; but if the separation and dispersal of the parts break up the body's unity, it ceases to be what it was. And if we extend our survey to all other things, without doubt it will manifestly appear that each several thing subsists while it is one, but when it ceases to be one perishes.' 'Yes; when I consider further, I see it to be even as thou sayest.' 'Well, is there aught,' said she, 'which, in so far as it acts conformably to nature, abandons the wish for life, and desires to come to death and corruption?' 'Looking to living creatures, which have some faults of choice, I find none that, without external compulsion, forego the will to live, and of their own accord hasten to destruction. For every creature diligently pursues the end of self-preservation, and shuns death and destruction! As to herbs and trees, and inanimate things generally, I am altogether in doubt what to think.' 'And yet there is no possibility of question about this either, since thou seest how herbs and trees grow in places suitable for them, where, as far as their nature admits, they cannot quickly wither and die. Some spring up in the plains, others in the mountains; some grow in marshes, others cling to rocks; and others, again, find a fertile soil in the barren sands; and if you try to transplant these elsewhere, they wither away. Nature gives to each the soil that suits it, and uses her diligence to prevent any of them dying, so long as it is possible for them to continue alive. Why do they all draw their nourishment from roots as from a mouth dipped into the earth, and distribute the strong bark over the pith? Why are all the softer parts like the pith deeply encased within, while the external parts have the strong texture of wood, and outside of all is the bark to resist the weather's inclemency, like a champion stout in endurance? Again, how great is nature's diligence to secure universal propagation by multiplying seed! Who does not know all these to be contrivances, not only for the present maintenance of a species, but for its lasting continuance, generation after generation, for ever? And do not also the things believed inanimate on like grounds of reason seek each what is proper to itself? Why do the flames shoot lightly upward, while the earth presses downward with its weight, if it is not that these motions and situations are suitable to their respective natures? Moreover, each several thing is preserved by that which is agreeable to its nature, even as it is destroyed by things inimical. Things solid like stones resist disintegration by the close adhesion of their parts. Things fluid like air and water yield easily to what divides them, but swiftly flow back and mingle with those parts from which they have been severed, while fire, again, refuses to be cut at all. And we are not now treating of the voluntary motions of an intelligent soul, but of the drift of nature. Even so is it that we digest our food without thinking about it, and draw our breath unconsciously in sleep; nay, even in living creatures the love of life cometh not of conscious will, but from the principles of nature. For oftentimes in the stress of circumstances will chooses the death which nature shrinks from; and contrarily, in spite of natural appetite, will restrains that work of reproduction by which alone the persistence of perishable creatures is maintained. So entirely does this love of self come from drift of nature, not from animal impulse. Providence has furnished things with this most cogent reason for continuance: they must desire life, so long as it is naturally possible for them to continue living. Wherefore in no way mayst thou doubt but that things naturally aim at continuance of existence, and shun destruction.' 'I confess,' said I, 'that what I lately thought uncertain, I now perceive to be indubitably clear.' 'Now, that which seeks to subsist and continue desires to be one; for if its oneness be gone, its very existence cannot continue.' 'True,' said I. 'All things, then, desire to be one.' 'I agree.' 'But we have proved that one is the very same thing as good.' 'We have.' 'All things, then, seek the good; indeed, you may express the fact by defining good as that which all desire.' 'Nothing could be more truly thought out. Either there is no single end to which all things are relative, or else the end to which all things universally hasten must be the highest good of all.' Then she: 'Exceedingly do I rejoice, dear pupil; thine eye is now fixed on the very central mark of truth. Moreover, herein is revealed that of which thou didst erstwhile profess thyself ignorant.' 'What is that?' said I. 'The end and aim of the whole universe. Surely it is that which is desired of all; and, since we have concluded the good to be such, we ought to acknowledge the end and aim of the whole universe to be "the good."' SONG XI. REMINISCENCE. [J] Who truth pursues, who from false ways His heedful steps would keep, By inward light must search within In meditation deep; All outward bent he must repress His soul's true treasure to possess. Then all that error's mists obscured Shall shine more clear than light, This fleshly frame's oblivious weight Hath quenched not reason quite; The germs of truth still lie within, Whence we by learning all may win. Else how could ye the answer due Untaught to questions give, Were't not that deep within the soul Truth's secret sparks do live? If Plato's teaching erreth not, We learn but that we have forgot. FOOTNOTES: [J] The doctrine of Reminiscence--_i.e._, that all learning is really recollection--is set forth at length by Plato in the 'Meno,' 81-86, and the 'Phaedo,' 72-76. See Jowett, vol. ii., pp. 40-47 and 213-218. XII. Then said I: 'With all my heart I agree with Plato; indeed, this is now the second time that these things have been brought back to my mind--first I lost them through the clogging contact of the body; then after through the stress of heavy grief.' Then she continued: 'If thou wilt reflect upon thy former admissions, it will not be long before thou dost also recollect that of which erstwhile thou didst confess thyself ignorant.' 'What is that?' said I. 'The principles of the world's government,' said she. 'Yes; I remember my confession, and, although I now anticipate what thou intendest, I have a desire to hear the argument plainly set forth.' 'Awhile ago thou deemedst it beyond all doubt that God doth govern the world.' 'I do not think it doubtful now, nor shall I ever; and by what reasons I am brought to this assurance I will briefly set forth. This world could never have taken shape as a single system out of parts so diverse and opposite were it not that there is One who joins together these so diverse things. And when it had once come together, the very diversity of natures would have dissevered it and torn it asunder in universal discord were there not One who keeps together what He has joined. Nor would the order of nature proceed so regularly, nor could its course exhibit motions so fixed in respect of position, time, range, efficacy, and character, unless there were One who, Himself abiding, disposed these various vicissitudes of change. This power, whatsoever it be, whereby they remain as they were created, and are kept in motion, I call by the name which all recognise--God.' Then said she: 'Seeing that such is thy belief, it will cost me little trouble, I think, to enable thee to win happiness, and return in safety to thy own country. But let us give our attention to the task that we have set before ourselves. Have we not counted independence in the category of happiness, and agreed that God is absolute happiness?' 'Truly, we have.' 'Then, He will need no external assistance for the ruling of the world. Otherwise, if He stands in need of aught, He will not possess complete independence.' 'That is necessarily so,' said I. 'Then, by His own power alone He disposes all things.' 'It cannot be denied.' 'Now, God was proved to be absolute good.' 'Yes; I remember.' 'Then, He disposes all things by the agency of good, if it be true that _He_ rules all things by His own power whom we have agreed to be good; and He is, as it were, the rudder and helm by which the world's mechanism is kept steady and in order.' 'Heartily do I agree; and, indeed, I anticipated what thou wouldst say, though it may be in feeble surmise only.' 'I well believe it,' said she; 'for, as I think, thou now bringest to the search eyes quicker in discerning truth; but what I shall say next is no less plain and easy to see.' 'What is it?' said I. 'Why,' said she, 'since God is rightly believed to govern all things with the rudder of goodness, and since all things do likewise, as I have taught, haste towards good by the very aim of nature, can it be doubted that His governance is willingly accepted, and that all submit themselves to the sway of the Disposer as conformed and attempered to His rule?' 'Necessarily so,' said I; 'no rule would seem happy if it were a yoke imposed on reluctant wills, and not the safe-keeping of obedient subjects.' 'There is nothing, then, which, while it follows nature, endeavours to resist good.' 'No; nothing.' 'But if anything should, will it have the least success against Him whom we rightly agreed to be supreme Lord of happiness?' 'It would be utterly impotent.' 'There is nothing, then, which has either the will or the power to oppose this supreme good.' 'No; I think not.' 'So, then,' said she, 'it is the supreme good which rules in strength, and graciously disposes all things.' Then said I: 'How delighted am I at thy reasonings, and the conclusion to which thou hast brought them, but most of all at these very words which thou usest! I am now at last ashamed of the folly that so sorely vexed me.' 'Thou hast heard the story of the giants assailing heaven; but a beneficent strength disposed of them also, as they deserved. But shall we submit our arguments to the shock of mutual collision?--it may be from the impact some fair spark of truth may be struck out.' 'If it be thy good pleasure,' said I. 'No one can doubt that God is all-powerful.' 'No one at all can question it who thinks consistently.' 'Now, there is nothing which One who is all-powerful cannot do.' 'Nothing.' 'But can God do evil, then?' 'Nay; by no means.' 'Then, evil is nothing,' said she, 'since He to whom nothing is impossible is unable to do evil.' 'Art thou mocking me,' said I, 'weaving a labyrinth of tangled arguments, now seeming to begin where thou didst end, and now to end where thou didst begin, or dost thou build up some wondrous circle of Divine simplicity? For, truly, a little before thou didst begin with happiness, and say it was the supreme good, and didst declare it to be seated in the supreme Godhead. God Himself, too, thou didst affirm to be supreme good and all-complete happiness; and from this thou didst go on to add, as by the way, the proof that no one would be happy unless he were likewise God. Again, thou didst say that the very form of good was the essence both of God and of happiness, and didst teach that the absolute One was the absolute good which was sought by universal nature. Thou didst maintain, also, that God rules the universe by the governance of goodness, that all things obey Him willingly, and that evil has no existence in nature. And all this thou didst unfold without the help of assumptions from without, but by inherent and proper proofs, drawing credence one from the other.' Then answered she: 'Far is it from me to mock thee; nay, by the blessing of God, whom we lately addressed in prayer, we have achieved the most important of all objects. For such is the form of the Divine essence, that neither can it pass into things external, nor take up anything external into itself; but, as Parmenides says of it, '"In body like to a sphere on all sides perfectly rounded," it rolls the restless orb of the universe, keeping itself motionless the while. And if I have also employed reasonings not drawn from without, but lying within the compass of our subject, there is no cause for thee to marvel, since thou hast learnt on Plato's authority that words ought to be akin to the matter of which they treat.' SONG XII. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE. Blest he whose feet have stood Beside the fount of good; Blest he whose will could break Earth's chains for wisdom's sake! The Thracian bard, 'tis said, Mourned his dear consort dead; To hear the plaintive strain The woods moved in his train, And the stream ceased to flow, Held by so soft a woe; The deer without dismay Beside the lion lay; The hound, by song subdued, No more the hare pursued, But the pang unassuaged In his own bosom raged. The music that could calm All else brought him no balm. Chiding the powers immortal, He came unto Hell's portal; There breathed all tender things Upon his sounding strings, Each rhapsody high-wrought His goddess-mother taught-- All he from grief could borrow And love redoubling sorrow, Till, as the echoes waken, All Taenarus is shaken; Whilst he to ruth persuades The monarch of the shades With dulcet prayer. Spell-bound, The triple-headed hound At sounds so strangely sweet Falls crouching at his feet. The dread Avengers, too, That guilty minds pursue With ever-haunting fears, Are all dissolved in tears. Ixion, on his wheel, A respite brief doth feel; For, lo! the wheel stands still. And, while those sad notes thrill, Thirst-maddened Tantalus Listens, oblivious Of the stream's mockery And his long agony. The vulture, too, doth spare Some little while to tear At Tityus' rent side, Sated and pacified. At length the shadowy king, His sorrows pitying, 'He hath prevailed!' cried; 'We give him back his bride! To him she shall belong, As guerdon of his song. One sole condition yet Upon the boon is set: Let him not turn his eyes To view his hard-won prize, Till they securely pass The gates of Hell.' Alas! What law can lovers move? A higher law is love! For Orpheus--woe is me!-- On his Eurydice-- Day's threshold all but won-- Looked, lost, and was undone! Ye who the light pursue, This story is for you, Who seek to find a way Unto the clearer day. If on the darkness past One backward look ye cast, Your weak and wandering eyes Have lost the matchless prize. </CHAPTER> BOOK IV. GOOD AND ILL FORTUNE. SUMMARY. CH. I. The mystery of the seeming moral confusion. Philosophy engages to make this plain, and to fulfil her former promise to the full.--CH. II. Accordingly, (a) she first expounds the paradox that the good alone have power, the bad are altogether powerless.--CH. III. (b) The righteous never lack their reward, nor the wicked their punishment.--CH. IV. (c) The wicked are more unhappy when they accomplish their desires than when they fail to attain them. (d) Evil-doers are more fortunate when they expiate their crimes by suffering punishment than when they escape unpunished. (e) The wrong-doer is more wretched than he who suffers injury.--CH. V. Boethius still cannot understand why the distribution of happiness and misery to the righteous and the wicked seems the result of chance. Philosophy replies that this only seems so because we do not understand the principles of God's moral governance.--CH. VI. The distinction of Fate and Providence. The apparent moral confusion is due to our ignorance of the secret counsels of God's providence. If we possessed the key, we should see how all things are guided to good.--CH. VII. Thus all fortune is good fortune; for it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or punishes, and so is either useful or just.

Summary of Book III Part I-III

https://web.archive.org/web/20210212221439/https://www.novelguide.com/consolation-of-philosophy/summaries/book3-parti-iii

of Parts I and II Boethius is enchanted by the song of Philosophy and tells her she is a great comfort to him. He believes he can now face the blows of Fortune. He is ready for the bitter medicine, which she says will bring him to the goal of "true happiness" . Because of the shadows of happiness in his mind, he cannot see true happiness. First she says she will give him an idea of the cause of happiness. He needs to turn his gaze in the right direction to recognize the pattern of true happiness. She explains in a song that when one wants to plant a field, one must first clear the land of undergrowth. Though mortals tread different paths, all are seeking happiness. Once one has it, nothing else is needed, because "happiness is a state made perfect by the presence of everything that is good" . The reason all people seek happiness is that the desire for it is planted in the mind by nature. Some think happiness lies in money; some think it is power or fame or pleasure or bodily health and beauty, but they confuse the ends and the means. Humans are like drunkards unable to find their way home. What really produces happiness is "a condition of self-sufficiency with no wants" . All those things--pleasure, fame, wealth, and beauty--are fine in their place, but they do not bring self-sufficiency by themselves, nor happiness. Yet Nature has set men on in their common pursuit of the good. Philosophy sings a song about Providence keeping all creatures in motion to fulfill their destiny. A bird wants to fly, the sun wants to rise: "All things seek the place that best becomes . . . and make itself a circle without end" .

Commentary on Parts I and II Now that Philosophy has shown the gifts of worldly Fortune to bring false happiness, she turns to a definition of true happiness in Book III. So far she indicates that the desire for true happiness is inborn in all creatures, but humans alone seem confused as to how to get what they seek. They go about it backwards, looking outside themselves. Health, pleasure, wealth, and power are only good if one is already happy and self-sufficient within oneself. It is not these worldly gifts that are to blame, but the direction of the human gaze. She mentions that to find true happiness, one must turn the gaze in the right direction, towards oneself. Her song of Providence indicates that instead of going outward to find happiness, one has to circle back to one's own true inner nature. Summary of Part III Philosophy continues, saying that humans have an unclear notion of going towards their origin, because "errors" lead them astray. Boethius must therefore consider whether the means men employ will get them to the goal. First, she will consider riches. Philosophy asks him if as a rich man, he was ever worried. Did he feel something was missing or something there he did not want? He replies yes, he was always worried. So therefore, he was lacking something and not self-sufficient? He agrees. So, would he also agree then that wealth does not lead to self-sufficiency, and that money has no inherent property to keep it from being lost? Boethius agrees. And does he agree that a man would need outside help to protect his money? He says yes. But the man who has no money needs no outside help to keep it? Yes, that's true. Philosophy concludes then that wealth makes men dependent on others, so it cannot remove want. While "nature is satisfied with little," "nothing satisfies greed" . Commentary on Part III Philosophy begins using the Socratic method of argument on Boethius, getting him to clarify his thought by asking him questions about his assumptions and experience. She gets him to redefine wealth as self-sufficiency, showing him that having money does not remove either worry or want. Even with money, he felt something was missing, or had to worry about how to keep his money. Having a lot of money does not really make one self-sufficient. She argues that actually one's basic needs do not require much to satisfy, but the wealthy person becomes dependent on others to protect or manage the money. Money is no guarantee against loss, since it can be lost at any moment. It therefore cannot lead to happiness or self-sufficiency. Philosophy has covered these points in brief before, but now she gives him what she calls the more bitter medicine of logic. She will go through each assumption step by step to show that what is generally considered good fortune is sloppy thinking. If Boethius, or anyone, will consider these matters logically, they will see they have been walking around in a fog. Book III of Parts I and II Boethius is enchanted by the song of Philosophy and tells her she is a great comfort to him. He believes he can now face the blows of Fortune. He is ready for the bitter medicine, which she says will bring him to the goal of "true happiness" . Because of the shadows of happiness in his mind, he cannot see true happiness. First she says she will give him an idea of the cause of happiness. He needs to turn his gaze in the right direction to recognize the pattern of true happiness. She explains in a song that when one wants to plant a field, one must first clear the land of undergrowth. Though mortals tread different paths, all are seeking happiness. Once one has it, nothing else is needed, because "happiness is a state made perfect by the presence of everything that is good" . The reason all people seek happiness is that the desire for it is planted in the mind by nature. Some think happiness lies in money; some think it is power or fame or pleasure or bodily health and beauty, but they confuse the ends and the means. Humans are like drunkards unable to find their way home. What really produces happiness is "a condition of self-sufficiency with no wants" . All those things--pleasure, fame, wealth, and beauty--are fine in their place, but they do not bring self-sufficiency by themselves, nor happiness. Yet Nature has set men on in their common pursuit of the good. Philosophy sings a song about Providence keeping all creatures in motion to fulfill their destiny. A bird wants to fly, the sun wants to rise: "All things seek the place that best becomes . . . and make itself a circle without end" . Commentary on Parts I and II Commentary on Parts I and II Now that Philosophy has shown the gifts of worldly Fortune to bring false happiness, she turns to a definition of true happiness in Book III. So far she indicates that the desire for true happiness is inborn in all creatures, but humans alone seem confused as to how to get what they seek. They go about it backwards, looking outside themselves. Health, pleasure, wealth, and power are only good if one is already happy and self-sufficient within oneself. It is not these worldly gifts that are to blame, but the direction of the human gaze. She mentions that to find true happiness, one must turn the gaze in the right direction, towards oneself. Her song of Providence indicates that instead of going outward to find happiness, one has to circle back to one's own true inner nature. of Part III Philosophy continues, saying that humans have an unclear notion of going towards their origin, because "errors" lead them astray. Boethius must therefore consider whether the means men employ will get them to the goal. First, she will consider riches. Philosophy asks him if as a rich man, he was ever worried. Did he feel something was missing or something there he did not want? He replies yes, he was always worried. So therefore, he was lacking something and not self-sufficient? He agrees. So, would he also agree then that wealth does not lead to self-sufficiency, and that money has no inherent property to keep it from being lost? Boethius agrees. And does he agree that a man would need outside help to protect his money? He says yes. But the man who has no money needs no outside help to keep it? Yes, that's true. Philosophy concludes then that wealth makes men dependent on others, so it cannot remove want. While "nature is satisfied with little," "nothing satisfies greed" . Commentary on Part III Commentary on Part III Philosophy begins using the Socratic method of argument on Boethius, getting him to clarify his thought by asking him questions about his assumptions and experience. She gets him to redefine wealth as self-sufficiency, showing him that having money does not remove either worry or want. Even with money, he felt something was missing, or had to worry about how to keep his money. Having a lot of money does not really make one self-sufficient. She argues that actually one's basic needs do not require much to satisfy, but the wealthy person becomes dependent on others to protect or manage the money. Money is no guarantee against loss, since it can be lost at any moment. It therefore cannot lead to happiness or self-sufficiency. Philosophy has covered these points in brief before, but now she gives him what she calls the more bitter medicine of logic. She will go through each assumption step by step to show that what is generally considered good fortune is sloppy thinking. If Boethius, or anyone, will consider these matters logically, they will see they have been walking around in a fog. Novel Author Boethius Novel Author Boethius

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/03.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_0_part_3.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 3

chapter 3

{"name": "Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-1-chapters-1-11", "summary": "Tess remains with her comrades until dusk, thinking of the young man, Angel. When she arrives at home, she hears her mother singing as she rocks her youngest child to sleep. Mrs. Durbeyfield still has some of the freshness of youth, but it is faint. She speaks in the local dialect, and tells her daughter what John Durbeyfield learned that day. Mrs. Durbeyfield thinks that great things will come of this. She also tells Tess that John has fat around his heart, which could cause his death in ten years or ten days. He is now at Rolliver's, and wants to rest before his journey tomorrow with a load of beehives. Now that Tess is home, Joan Durbeyfield can go to Rolliver's to fetch her husband, but Joan herself does not return, so Tess sends her brother Abraham. Tess herself decides to go when Abraham does not return a half hour later.", "analysis": "This chapter serves to illustrate the Durbeyfield home life, one in which Joan Durbeyfield has little respite from her drudge work and little help from the rest of her family, particularly from her husband, who spends as much free time as possible at the local tavern. In fact, one of the few chances for enjoyment that Joan Durbeyfield has is the opportunity to fetch her husband from Rolliver's and assume a position of authority over John. However, despite her difficult life, Joan Durbeyfield is no a completely innocent victim; she proves herself as irresponsible as her husband, remaining at the bar when she means to take him away from it. Among the Durbeyfields, it is only Tess who remains committed and responsible; she alone has the sense of responsibility to know that her family must come home"}

As for Tess Durbeyfield, she did not so easily dislodge the incident from her consideration. She had no spirit to dance again for a long time, though she might have had plenty of partners; but ah! they did not speak so nicely as the strange young man had done. It was not till the rays of the sun had absorbed the young stranger's retreating figure on the hill that she shook off her temporary sadness and answered her would-be partner in the affirmative. She remained with her comrades till dusk, and participated with a certain zest in the dancing; though, being heart-whole as yet, she enjoyed treading a measure purely for its own sake; little divining when she saw "the soft torments, the bitter sweets, the pleasing pains, and the agreeable distresses" of those girls who had been wooed and won, what she herself was capable of in that kind. The struggles and wrangles of the lads for her hand in a jig were an amusement to her--no more; and when they became fierce she rebuked them. She might have stayed even later, but the incident of her father's odd appearance and manner returned upon the girl's mind to make her anxious, and wondering what had become of him she dropped away from the dancers and bent her steps towards the end of the village at which the parental cottage lay. While yet many score yards off, other rhythmic sounds than those she had quitted became audible to her; sounds that she knew well--so well. They were a regular series of thumpings from the interior of the house, occasioned by the violent rocking of a cradle upon a stone floor, to which movement a feminine voice kept time by singing, in a vigorous gallopade, the favourite ditty of "The Spotted Cow"-- I saw her lie do'-own in yon'-der green gro'-ove; Come, love!' and I'll tell' you where!' The cradle-rocking and the song would cease simultaneously for a moment, and an exclamation at highest vocal pitch would take the place of the melody. "God bless thy diment eyes! And thy waxen cheeks! And thy cherry mouth! And thy Cubit's thighs! And every bit o' thy blessed body!" After this invocation the rocking and the singing would recommence, and the "Spotted Cow" proceed as before. So matters stood when Tess opened the door and paused upon the mat within it, surveying the scene. The interior, in spite of the melody, struck upon the girl's senses with an unspeakable dreariness. From the holiday gaieties of the field--the white gowns, the nosegays, the willow-wands, the whirling movements on the green, the flash of gentle sentiment towards the stranger--to the yellow melancholy of this one-candled spectacle, what a step! Besides the jar of contrast there came to her a chill self-reproach that she had not returned sooner, to help her mother in these domesticities, instead of indulging herself out-of-doors. There stood her mother amid the group of children, as Tess had left her, hanging over the Monday washing-tub, which had now, as always, lingered on to the end of the week. Out of that tub had come the day before--Tess felt it with a dreadful sting of remorse--the very white frock upon her back which she had so carelessly greened about the skirt on the damping grass--which had been wrung up and ironed by her mother's own hands. As usual, Mrs Durbeyfield was balanced on one foot beside the tub, the other being engaged in the aforesaid business of rocking her youngest child. The cradle-rockers had done hard duty for so many years, under the weight of so many children, on that flagstone floor, that they were worn nearly flat, in consequence of which a huge jerk accompanied each swing of the cot, flinging the baby from side to side like a weaver's shuttle, as Mrs Durbeyfield, excited by her song, trod the rocker with all the spring that was left in her after a long day's seething in the suds. Nick-knock, nick-knock, went the cradle; the candle-flame stretched itself tall, and began jigging up and down; the water dribbled from the matron's elbows, and the song galloped on to the end of the verse, Mrs Durbeyfield regarding her daughter the while. Even now, when burdened with a young family, Joan Durbeyfield was a passionate lover of tune. No ditty floated into Blackmoor Vale from the outer world but Tess's mother caught up its notation in a week. There still faintly beamed from the woman's features something of the freshness, and even the prettiness, of her youth; rendering it probable that the personal charms which Tess could boast of were in main part her mother's gift, and therefore unknightly, unhistorical. "I'll rock the cradle for 'ee, mother," said the daughter gently. "Or I'll take off my best frock and help you wring up? I thought you had finished long ago." Her mother bore Tess no ill-will for leaving the housework to her single-handed efforts for so long; indeed, Joan seldom upbraided her thereon at any time, feeling but slightly the lack of Tess's assistance whilst her instinctive plan for relieving herself of her labours lay in postponing them. To-night, however, she was even in a blither mood than usual. There was a dreaminess, a pre-occupation, an exaltation, in the maternal look which the girl could not understand. "Well, I'm glad you've come," her mother said, as soon as the last note had passed out of her. "I want to go and fetch your father; but what's more'n that, I want to tell 'ee what have happened. Y'll be fess enough, my poppet, when th'st know!" (Mrs Durbeyfield habitually spoke the dialect; her daughter, who had passed the Sixth Standard in the National School under a London-trained mistress, spoke two languages: the dialect at home, more or less; ordinary English abroad and to persons of quality.) "Since I've been away?" Tess asked. "Ay!" "Had it anything to do with father's making such a mommet of himself in thik carriage this afternoon? Why did 'er? I felt inclined to sink into the ground with shame!" "That wer all a part of the larry! We've been found to be the greatest gentlefolk in the whole county--reaching all back long before Oliver Grumble's time--to the days of the Pagan Turks--with monuments, and vaults, and crests, and 'scutcheons, and the Lord knows what all. In Saint Charles's days we was made Knights o' the Royal Oak, our real name being d'Urberville! ... Don't that make your bosom plim? 'Twas on this account that your father rode home in the vlee; not because he'd been drinking, as people supposed." "I'm glad of that. Will it do us any good, mother?" "O yes! 'Tis thoughted that great things may come o't. No doubt a mampus of volk of our own rank will be down here in their carriages as soon as 'tis known. Your father learnt it on his way hwome from Shaston, and he has been telling me the whole pedigree of the matter." "Where is father now?" asked Tess suddenly. Her mother gave irrelevant information by way of answer: "He called to see the doctor to-day in Shaston. It is not consumption at all, it seems. It is fat round his heart, 'a says. There, it is like this." Joan Durbeyfield, as she spoke, curved a sodden thumb and forefinger to the shape of the letter C, and used the other forefinger as a pointer. "'At the present moment,' he says to your father, 'your heart is enclosed all round there, and all round there; this space is still open,' 'a says. 'As soon as it do meet, so,'"--Mrs Durbeyfield closed her fingers into a circle complete--"'off you will go like a shadder, Mr Durbeyfield,' 'a says. 'You mid last ten years; you mid go off in ten months, or ten days.'" Tess looked alarmed. Her father possibly to go behind the eternal cloud so soon, notwithstanding this sudden greatness! "But where IS father?" she asked again. Her mother put on a deprecating look. "Now don't you be bursting out angry! The poor man--he felt so rafted after his uplifting by the pa'son's news--that he went up to Rolliver's half an hour ago. He do want to get up his strength for his journey to-morrow with that load of beehives, which must be delivered, family or no. He'll have to start shortly after twelve to-night, as the distance is so long." "Get up his strength!" said Tess impetuously, the tears welling to her eyes. "O my God! Go to a public-house to get up his strength! And you as well agreed as he, mother!" Her rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room, and to impart a cowed look to the furniture, and candle, and children playing about, and to her mother's face. "No," said the latter touchily, "I be not agreed. I have been waiting for 'ee to bide and keep house while I go fetch him." "I'll go." "O no, Tess. You see, it would be no use." Tess did not expostulate. She knew what her mother's objection meant. Mrs Durbeyfield's jacket and bonnet were already hanging slily upon a chair by her side, in readiness for this contemplated jaunt, the reason for which the matron deplored more than its necessity. "And take the _Compleat Fortune-Teller_ to the outhouse," Joan continued, rapidly wiping her hands, and donning the garments. The _Compleat Fortune-Teller_ was an old thick volume, which lay on a table at her elbow, so worn by pocketing that the margins had reached the edge of the type. Tess took it up, and her mother started. This going to hunt up her shiftless husband at the inn was one of Mrs Durbeyfield's still extant enjoyments in the muck and muddle of rearing children. To discover him at Rolliver's, to sit there for an hour or two by his side and dismiss all thought and care of the children during the interval, made her happy. A sort of halo, an occidental glow, came over life then. Troubles and other realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which chafed body and soul. The youngsters, not immediately within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable appurtenances than otherwise; the incidents of daily life were not without humorousness and jollity in their aspect there. She felt a little as she had used to feel when she sat by her now wedded husband in the same spot during his wooing, shutting her eyes to his defects of character, and regarding him only in his ideal presentation as lover. Tess, being left alone with the younger children, went first to the outhouse with the fortune-telling book, and stuffed it into the thatch. A curious fetishistic fear of this grimy volume on the part of her mother prevented her ever allowing it to stay in the house all night, and hither it was brought back whenever it had been consulted. Between the mother, with her fast-perishing lumber of superstitions, folk-lore, dialect, and orally transmitted ballads, and the daughter, with her trained National teachings and Standard knowledge under an infinitely Revised Code, there was a gap of two hundred years as ordinarily understood. When they were together the Jacobean and the Victorian ages were juxtaposed. Returning along the garden path Tess mused on what the mother could have wished to ascertain from the book on this particular day. She guessed the recent ancestral discovery to bear upon it, but did not divine that it solely concerned herself. Dismissing this, however, she busied herself with sprinkling the linen dried during the day-time, in company with her nine-year-old brother Abraham, and her sister Eliza-Louisa of twelve and a half, called "'Liza-Lu," the youngest ones being put to bed. There was an interval of four years and more between Tess and the next of the family, the two who had filled the gap having died in their infancy, and this lent her a deputy-maternal attitude when she was alone with her juniors. Next in juvenility to Abraham came two more girls, Hope and Modesty; then a boy of three, and then the baby, who had just completed his first year. All these young souls were passengers in the Durbeyfield ship--entirely dependent on the judgement of the two Durbeyfield adults for their pleasures, their necessities, their health, even their existence. If the heads of the Durbeyfield household chose to sail into difficulty, disaster, starvation, disease, degradation, death, thither were these half-dozen little captives under hatches compelled to sail with them--six helpless creatures, who had never been asked if they wished for life on any terms, much less if they wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved in being of the shiftless house of Durbeyfield. Some people would like to know whence the poet whose philosophy is in these days deemed as profound and trustworthy as his song is breezy and pure, gets his authority for speaking of "Nature's holy plan." It grew later, and neither father nor mother reappeared. Tess looked out of the door, and took a mental journey through Marlott. The village was shutting its eyes. Candles and lamps were being put out everywhere: she could inwardly behold the extinguisher and the extended hand. Her mother's fetching simply meant one more to fetch. Tess began to perceive that a man in indifferent health, who proposed to start on a journey before one in the morning, ought not to be at an inn at this late hour celebrating his ancient blood. "Abraham," she said to her little brother, "do you put on your hat--you bain't afraid?--and go up to Rolliver's, and see what has gone wi' father and mother." The boy jumped promptly from his seat, and opened the door, and the night swallowed him up. Half an hour passed yet again; neither man, woman, nor child returned. Abraham, like his parents, seemed to have been limed and caught by the ensnaring inn. "I must go myself," she said. 'Liza-Lu then went to bed, and Tess, locking them all in, started on her way up the dark and crooked lane or street not made for hasty progress; a street laid out before inches of land had value, and when one-handed clocks sufficiently subdivided the day.

Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-1-chapters-1-11

Tess remains with her comrades until dusk, thinking of the young man, Angel. When she arrives at home, she hears her mother singing as she rocks her youngest child to sleep. Mrs. Durbeyfield still has some of the freshness of youth, but it is faint. She speaks in the local dialect, and tells her daughter what John Durbeyfield learned that day. Mrs. Durbeyfield thinks that great things will come of this. She also tells Tess that John has fat around his heart, which could cause his death in ten years or ten days. He is now at Rolliver's, and wants to rest before his journey tomorrow with a load of beehives. Now that Tess is home, Joan Durbeyfield can go to Rolliver's to fetch her husband, but Joan herself does not return, so Tess sends her brother Abraham. Tess herself decides to go when Abraham does not return a half hour later.

This chapter serves to illustrate the Durbeyfield home life, one in which Joan Durbeyfield has little respite from her drudge work and little help from the rest of her family, particularly from her husband, who spends as much free time as possible at the local tavern. In fact, one of the few chances for enjoyment that Joan Durbeyfield has is the opportunity to fetch her husband from Rolliver's and assume a position of authority over John. However, despite her difficult life, Joan Durbeyfield is no a completely innocent victim; she proves herself as irresponsible as her husband, remaining at the bar when she means to take him away from it. Among the Durbeyfields, it is only Tess who remains committed and responsible; she alone has the sense of responsibility to know that her family must come home

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/63.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_55_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 56

chapter 56

{"name": "Chapter 56", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-56", "summary": "\"Bathsheba revived with the spring. The utter prostration that had followed the low fever from which she had suffered diminished perceptibly when all uncertainty upon every subject had come to an end.\" In summer, she eventually attempted to walk to town. She passed the church and heard the choir practicing. Then she stood before Fanny Robin's grave and read the words that Troy had had inscribed. Beneath them was a new inscription: \"In the same Grave lie The Remains of the aforesaid Francis Troy. . . .\" The children in the church were rehearsing a hymn, \"Lead, Kindly Light.\" Bathsheba, recalling all that had happened, wept. Oak approached. He had been inside the church, singing with the choir. Their talk was formal, Bathsheba addressing him as Mr. Oak. As they walked back, Gabriel spoke of his plans to leave England and go to California. He admitted that he had an option to buy Boldwood's farm, but he had decided merely to finish out his year as manager. Bathsheba was upset that Gabriel, whom she now considered an old friend, would no longer be there to help her. Gabriel answered that her very helplessness was another reason for his planned departure. From that day on, he avoided Bathsheba. Fall and winter passed, and when Bathsheba finally received the long-expected letter of resignation from Oak, she wept bitterly. Then she donned her bonnet and went to his house. He did not realize it was she at first -- then, apologetically, he admitted her. His bachelor quarters had no comforts, he said, for ladies. Bathsheba asked if she had offended him. Gabriel explained that, on the contrary, he was leaving because there was gossip that he was waiting to buy Boldwood's farm just so that he would be rich enough to court Bathsheba. \"Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been discharged by her ear, which was what Oak had expected. 'Marrying me! I didn't know it was that you meant. . . . Such a thing as that is too absurd -- too soon -- to think of, by far!'\" Gabriel heard only the \"absurd,\" not the \"too soon,\" and their talk continued at cross-purposes until Gabriel said that he wished he knew if she would let him court her. Bathsheba tearfully assured him that he would never know whether she would have him unless he asked. The two found release in laughter, finally throwing off the inhibitions and constraints of employer and employee. To Bathsheba's embarrassed remark that she had come courting him, Gabriel replied that it was his due for having long danced to her tune. \"They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. . . . when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on.\"", "analysis": "Hardy is now winding up the plot details swiftly and directly. It is in character that Bathsheba's first visit is to the churchyard, and that Gabriel's life is neatly ordered. Somewhat aloof since the tragedy, Gabriel no longer overtly aspires to win Bathsheba, but be does resign to protect her reputation. Hardy spares us a coy or saccharine close, ending rather with a bit of wise philosophy about the basis of a sound marriage."}

BEAUTY IN LONELINESS--AFTER ALL Bathsheba revived with the spring. The utter prostration that had followed the low fever from which she had suffered diminished perceptibly when all uncertainty upon every subject had come to an end. But she remained alone now for the greater part of her time, and stayed in the house, or at furthest went into the garden. She shunned every one, even Liddy, and could be brought to make no confidences, and to ask for no sympathy. As the summer drew on she passed more of her time in the open air, and began to examine into farming matters from sheer necessity, though she never rode out or personally superintended as at former times. One Friday evening in August she walked a little way along the road and entered the village for the first time since the sombre event of the preceding Christmas. None of the old colour had as yet come to her cheek, and its absolute paleness was heightened by the jet black of her gown, till it appeared preternatural. When she reached a little shop at the other end of the place, which stood nearly opposite to the churchyard, Bathsheba heard singing inside the church, and she knew that the singers were practising. She crossed the road, opened the gate, and entered the graveyard, the high sills of the church windows effectually screening her from the eyes of those gathered within. Her stealthy walk was to the nook wherein Troy had worked at planting flowers upon Fanny Robin's grave, and she came to the marble tombstone. A motion of satisfaction enlivened her face as she read the complete inscription. First came the words of Troy himself:-- ERECTED BY FRANCIS TROY IN BELOVED MEMORY OF FANNY ROBIN, WHO DIED OCTOBER 9, 18--, AGED 20 YEARS Underneath this was now inscribed in new letters:-- IN THE SAME GRAVE LIE THE REMAINS OF THE AFORESAID FRANCIS TROY, WHO DIED DECEMBER 24TH, 18--, AGED 26 YEARS Whilst she stood and read and meditated the tones of the organ began again in the church, and she went with the same light step round to the porch and listened. The door was closed, and the choir was learning a new hymn. Bathsheba was stirred by emotions which latterly she had assumed to be altogether dead within her. The little attenuated voices of the children brought to her ear in distinct utterance the words they sang without thought or comprehension-- Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on. Bathsheba's feeling was always to some extent dependent upon her whim, as is the case with many other women. Something big came into her throat and an uprising to her eyes--and she thought that she would allow the imminent tears to flow if they wished. They did flow and plenteously, and one fell upon the stone bench beside her. Once that she had begun to cry for she hardly knew what, she could not leave off for crowding thoughts she knew too well. She would have given anything in the world to be, as those children were, unconcerned at the meaning of their words, because too innocent to feel the necessity for any such expression. All the impassioned scenes of her brief experience seemed to revive with added emotion at that moment, and those scenes which had been without emotion during enactment had emotion then. Yet grief came to her rather as a luxury than as the scourge of former times. Owing to Bathsheba's face being buried in her hands she did not notice a form which came quietly into the porch, and on seeing her, first moved as if to retreat, then paused and regarded her. Bathsheba did not raise her head for some time, and when she looked round her face was wet, and her eyes drowned and dim. "Mr. Oak," exclaimed she, disconcerted, "how long have you been here?" "A few minutes, ma'am," said Oak, respectfully. "Are you going in?" said Bathsheba; and there came from within the church as from a prompter-- I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will: remember not past years. "I was," said Gabriel. "I am one of the bass singers, you know. I have sung bass for several months." "Indeed: I wasn't aware of that. I'll leave you, then." Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile, sang the children. "Don't let me drive you away, mistress. I think I won't go in to-night." "Oh no--you don't drive me away." Then they stood in a state of some embarrassment, Bathsheba trying to wipe her dreadfully drenched and inflamed face without his noticing her. At length Oak said, "I've not seen you--I mean spoken to you--since ever so long, have I?" But he feared to bring distressing memories back, and interrupted himself with: "Were you going into church?" "No," she said. "I came to see the tombstone privately--to see if they had cut the inscription as I wished. Mr. Oak, you needn't mind speaking to me, if you wish to, on the matter which is in both our minds at this moment." "And have they done it as you wished?" said Oak. "Yes. Come and see it, if you have not already." So together they went and read the tomb. "Eight months ago!" Gabriel murmured when he saw the date. "It seems like yesterday to me." "And to me as if it were years ago--long years, and I had been dead between. And now I am going home, Mr. Oak." Oak walked after her. "I wanted to name a small matter to you as soon as I could," he said, with hesitation. "Merely about business, and I think I may just mention it now, if you'll allow me." "Oh yes, certainly." "It is that I may soon have to give up the management of your farm, Mrs. Troy. The fact is, I am thinking of leaving England--not yet, you know--next spring." "Leaving England!" she said, in surprise and genuine disappointment. "Why, Gabriel, what are you going to do that for?" "Well, I've thought it best," Oak stammered out. "California is the spot I've had in my mind to try." "But it is understood everywhere that you are going to take poor Mr. Boldwood's farm on your own account." "I've had the refusal o' it 'tis true; but nothing is settled yet, and I have reasons for giving up. I shall finish out my year there as manager for the trustees, but no more." "And what shall I do without you? Oh, Gabriel, I don't think you ought to go away. You've been with me so long--through bright times and dark times--such old friends as we are--that it seems unkind almost. I had fancied that if you leased the other farm as master, you might still give a helping look across at mine. And now going away!" "I would have willingly." "Yet now that I am more helpless than ever you go away!" "Yes, that's the ill fortune o' it," said Gabriel, in a distressed tone. "And it is because of that very helplessness that I feel bound to go. Good afternoon, ma'am" he concluded, in evident anxiety to get away, and at once went out of the churchyard by a path she could follow on no pretence whatever. Bathsheba went home, her mind occupied with a new trouble, which being rather harassing than deadly was calculated to do good by diverting her from the chronic gloom of her life. She was set thinking a great deal about Oak and of his wish to shun her; and there occurred to Bathsheba several incidents of her latter intercourse with him, which, trivial when singly viewed, amounted together to a perceptible disinclination for her society. It broke upon her at length as a great pain that her last old disciple was about to forsake her and flee. He who had believed in her and argued on her side when all the rest of the world was against her, had at last like the others become weary and neglectful of the old cause, and was leaving her to fight her battles alone. Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his want of interest in her was forthcoming. She noticed that instead of entering the small parlour or office where the farm accounts were kept, and waiting, or leaving a memorandum as he had hitherto done during her seclusion, Oak never came at all when she was likely to be there, only entering at unseasonable hours when her presence in that part of the house was least to be expected. Whenever he wanted directions he sent a message, or note with neither heading nor signature, to which she was obliged to reply in the same offhand style. Poor Bathsheba began to suffer now from the most torturing sting of all--a sensation that she was despised. The autumn wore away gloomily enough amid these melancholy conjectures, and Christmas-day came, completing a year of her legal widowhood, and two years and a quarter of her life alone. On examining her heart it appeared beyond measure strange that the subject of which the season might have been supposed suggestive--the event in the hall at Boldwood's--was not agitating her at all; but instead, an agonizing conviction that everybody abjured her--for what she could not tell--and that Oak was the ringleader of the recusants. Coming out of church that day she looked round in hope that Oak, whose bass voice she had heard rolling out from the gallery overhead in a most unconcerned manner, might chance to linger in her path in the old way. There he was, as usual, coming down the path behind her. But on seeing Bathsheba turn, he looked aside, and as soon as he got beyond the gate, and there was the barest excuse for a divergence, he made one, and vanished. The next morning brought the culminating stroke; she had been expecting it long. It was a formal notice by letter from him that he should not renew his engagement with her for the following Lady-day. Bathsheba actually sat and cried over this letter most bitterly. She was aggrieved and wounded that the possession of hopeless love from Gabriel, which she had grown to regard as her inalienable right for life, should have been withdrawn just at his own pleasure in this way. She was bewildered too by the prospect of having to rely on her own resources again: it seemed to herself that she never could again acquire energy sufficient to go to market, barter, and sell. Since Troy's death Oak had attended all sales and fairs for her, transacting her business at the same time with his own. What should she do now? Her life was becoming a desolation. So desolate was Bathsheba this evening, that in an absolute hunger for pity and sympathy, and miserable in that she appeared to have outlived the only true friendship she had ever owned, she put on her bonnet and cloak and went down to Oak's house just after sunset, guided on her way by the pale primrose rays of a crescent moon a few days old. A lively firelight shone from the window, but nobody was visible in the room. She tapped nervously, and then thought it doubtful if it were right for a single woman to call upon a bachelor who lived alone, although he was her manager, and she might be supposed to call on business without any real impropriety. Gabriel opened the door, and the moon shone upon his forehead. "Mr. Oak," said Bathsheba, faintly. "Yes; I am Mr. Oak," said Gabriel. "Who have I the honour--O how stupid of me, not to know you, mistress!" "I shall not be your mistress much longer, shall I Gabriel?" she said, in pathetic tones. "Well, no. I suppose--But come in, ma'am. Oh--and I'll get a light," Oak replied, with some awkwardness. "No; not on my account." "It is so seldom that I get a lady visitor that I'm afraid I haven't proper accommodation. Will you sit down, please? Here's a chair, and there's one, too. I am sorry that my chairs all have wood seats, and are rather hard, but I--was thinking of getting some new ones." Oak placed two or three for her. "They are quite easy enough for me." So down she sat, and down sat he, the fire dancing in their faces, and upon the old furniture, all a-sheenen Wi' long years o' handlen, [3] [Footnote 3: W. Barnes] that formed Oak's array of household possessions, which sent back a dancing reflection in reply. It was very odd to these two persons, who knew each other passing well, that the mere circumstance of their meeting in a new place and in a new way should make them so awkward and constrained. In the fields, or at her house, there had never been any embarrassment; but now that Oak had become the entertainer their lives seemed to be moved back again to the days when they were strangers. "You'll think it strange that I have come, but--" "Oh no; not at all." "But I thought--Gabriel, I have been uneasy in the belief that I have offended you, and that you are going away on that account. It grieved me very much and I couldn't help coming." "Offended me! As if you could do that, Bathsheba!" "Haven't I?" she asked, gladly. "But, what are you going away for else?" "I am not going to emigrate, you know; I wasn't aware that you would wish me not to when I told 'ee or I shouldn't ha' thought of doing it," he said, simply. "I have arranged for Little Weatherbury Farm and shall have it in my own hands at Lady-day. You know I've had a share in it for some time. Still, that wouldn't prevent my attending to your business as before, hadn't it been that things have been said about us." "What?" said Bathsheba, in surprise. "Things said about you and me! What are they?" "I cannot tell you." "It would be wiser if you were to, I think. You have played the part of mentor to me many times, and I don't see why you should fear to do it now." "It is nothing that you have done, this time. The top and tail o't is this--that I am sniffing about here, and waiting for poor Boldwood's farm, with a thought of getting you some day." "Getting me! What does that mean?" "Marrying of 'ee, in plain British. You asked me to tell, so you mustn't blame me." Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been discharged by her ear, which was what Oak had expected. "Marrying me! I didn't know it was that you meant," she said, quietly. "Such a thing as that is too absurd--too soon--to think of, by far!" "Yes; of course, it is too absurd. I don't desire any such thing; I should think that was plain enough by this time. Surely, surely you be the last person in the world I think of marrying. It is too absurd, as you say." "'Too--s-s-soon' were the words I used." "I must beg your pardon for correcting you, but you said, 'too absurd,' and so do I." "I beg your pardon too!" she returned, with tears in her eyes. "'Too soon' was what I said. But it doesn't matter a bit--not at all--but I only meant, 'too soon.' Indeed, I didn't, Mr. Oak, and you must believe me!" Gabriel looked her long in the face, but the firelight being faint there was not much to be seen. "Bathsheba," he said, tenderly and in surprise, and coming closer: "if I only knew one thing--whether you would allow me to love you and win you, and marry you after all--if I only knew that!" "But you never will know," she murmured. "Why?" "Because you never ask." "Oh--Oh!" said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness. "My own dear--" "You ought not to have sent me that harsh letter this morning," she interrupted. "It shows you didn't care a bit about me, and were ready to desert me like all the rest of them! It was very cruel of you, considering I was the first sweetheart that you ever had, and you were the first I ever had; and I shall not forget it!" "Now, Bathsheba, was ever anybody so provoking," he said, laughing. "You know it was purely that I, as an unmarried man, carrying on a business for you as a very taking young woman, had a proper hard part to play--more particular that people knew I had a sort of feeling for 'ee; and I fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it might injure your good name. Nobody knows the heat and fret I have been caused by it." "And was that all?" "All." "Oh, how glad I am I came!" she exclaimed, thankfully, as she rose from her seat. "I have thought so much more of you since I fancied you did not want even to see me again. But I must be going now, or I shall be missed. Why Gabriel," she said, with a slight laugh, as they went to the door, "it seems exactly as if I had come courting you--how dreadful!" "And quite right too," said Oak. "I've danced at your skittish heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long day; and it is hard to begrudge me this one visit." He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of his forthcoming tenure of the other farm. They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship--_camaraderie_--usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death--that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam.

Chapter 56

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-56

"Bathsheba revived with the spring. The utter prostration that had followed the low fever from which she had suffered diminished perceptibly when all uncertainty upon every subject had come to an end." In summer, she eventually attempted to walk to town. She passed the church and heard the choir practicing. Then she stood before Fanny Robin's grave and read the words that Troy had had inscribed. Beneath them was a new inscription: "In the same Grave lie The Remains of the aforesaid Francis Troy. . . ." The children in the church were rehearsing a hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light." Bathsheba, recalling all that had happened, wept. Oak approached. He had been inside the church, singing with the choir. Their talk was formal, Bathsheba addressing him as Mr. Oak. As they walked back, Gabriel spoke of his plans to leave England and go to California. He admitted that he had an option to buy Boldwood's farm, but he had decided merely to finish out his year as manager. Bathsheba was upset that Gabriel, whom she now considered an old friend, would no longer be there to help her. Gabriel answered that her very helplessness was another reason for his planned departure. From that day on, he avoided Bathsheba. Fall and winter passed, and when Bathsheba finally received the long-expected letter of resignation from Oak, she wept bitterly. Then she donned her bonnet and went to his house. He did not realize it was she at first -- then, apologetically, he admitted her. His bachelor quarters had no comforts, he said, for ladies. Bathsheba asked if she had offended him. Gabriel explained that, on the contrary, he was leaving because there was gossip that he was waiting to buy Boldwood's farm just so that he would be rich enough to court Bathsheba. "Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been discharged by her ear, which was what Oak had expected. 'Marrying me! I didn't know it was that you meant. . . . Such a thing as that is too absurd -- too soon -- to think of, by far!'" Gabriel heard only the "absurd," not the "too soon," and their talk continued at cross-purposes until Gabriel said that he wished he knew if she would let him court her. Bathsheba tearfully assured him that he would never know whether she would have him unless he asked. The two found release in laughter, finally throwing off the inhibitions and constraints of employer and employee. To Bathsheba's embarrassed remark that she had come courting him, Gabriel replied that it was his due for having long danced to her tune. "They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. . . . when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on."

Hardy is now winding up the plot details swiftly and directly. It is in character that Bathsheba's first visit is to the churchyard, and that Gabriel's life is neatly ordered. Somewhat aloof since the tragedy, Gabriel no longer overtly aspires to win Bathsheba, but be does resign to protect her reputation. Hardy spares us a coy or saccharine close, ending rather with a bit of wise philosophy about the basis of a sound marriage.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/66.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_12_part_4.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 10.chapter 4

book 10, chapter 4

{"name": "book 10, Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section13/", "summary": "Zuchka Alyosha comes out to meet Kolya, impressing him immediately by speaking to him as an adult and not talking down to him. As they speak, Kolya is increasingly taken with Alyosha's unself-conscious wisdom and his unaffected manner of speech. Kolya tells Alyosha about his history with Ilyusha. He says that when the other boys used to pick on Ilyusha, Kolya was impressed by the fact that Ilyusha always fought back bravely, even thought he was undersized. Kolya eventually decided to protect Ilyusha, and they became good friends. But Ilyusha sometimes resented Kolya's influence over him and sometimes did things out of spite just to rebel against Kolya. Once, for instance, Ilyusha performed a cruel trick some of the boys had learned from Smerdyakov--feeding a dog a piece of bread with a pin hidden in it. Kolya, enraged, tried to punish Ilyusha. In the ensuing scuffle, Ilyusha stabbed Kolya with a knife, thus ending their friendship, though Kolya says he does not hold a grudge. The injured dog was named Zuchka, and no one seems to know whether it lived or died. Alyosha tells Kolya that Ilyusha believes his illness was caused by God's wrath over his treatment of Zuchka", "analysis": ""}

Chapter IV. The Lost Dog 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 good-looking. 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 think--Tfoo! 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 pencil-mark 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 looking-glass, 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 looking-glass 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 well-cut 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 good-humored expression; but there was a gentleness and serenity in his good-humor. 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 is--a 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 now--that's what detained me to-day. 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 generation--to 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 father--it was before his death, of course--and he taught the little fool a silly trick--that 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 dogs--all--all 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 finger--but 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 him--that is, to make it up with him--when 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 him--a 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?" "Nikolay--Nikolay 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, fourteen--that 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. "Grown-up people go to the theater and there the adventures of all sorts of heroes are represented--sometimes there are robbers and battles, too--and 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."

book 10, Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section13/

Zuchka Alyosha comes out to meet Kolya, impressing him immediately by speaking to him as an adult and not talking down to him. As they speak, Kolya is increasingly taken with Alyosha's unself-conscious wisdom and his unaffected manner of speech. Kolya tells Alyosha about his history with Ilyusha. He says that when the other boys used to pick on Ilyusha, Kolya was impressed by the fact that Ilyusha always fought back bravely, even thought he was undersized. Kolya eventually decided to protect Ilyusha, and they became good friends. But Ilyusha sometimes resented Kolya's influence over him and sometimes did things out of spite just to rebel against Kolya. Once, for instance, Ilyusha performed a cruel trick some of the boys had learned from Smerdyakov--feeding a dog a piece of bread with a pin hidden in it. Kolya, enraged, tried to punish Ilyusha. In the ensuing scuffle, Ilyusha stabbed Kolya with a knife, thus ending their friendship, though Kolya says he does not hold a grudge. The injured dog was named Zuchka, and no one seems to know whether it lived or died. Alyosha tells Kolya that Ilyusha believes his illness was caused by God's wrath over his treatment of Zuchka

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/01.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_0_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 1

chapter 1

{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim09.asp", "summary": "The novel opens with a detailed description of Jim. He is an inch or two short of six feet, is powerfully built, and has a slight stoop. He walks with his head forward and looks with a stare, almost like a charging bull. He is intense by nature, and his voice is deep and loud. He is very neat and clean and always dresses in absolute white from his shoes to his hat. In the beginning of the novel, he is a water-clerk. His job is to greet the captain of an incoming vessel and persuade him to come to a supply store that provides for a ship's needs. During the captain's stay, Jim is expected to entertain him and become his friend, so the captain will want to spend a lot of money in the store. Jim displays good manners and patience in carrying out his duties. As a result, he is very popular with the various captains. Jim, however, is a restless young man. He never stays in one port for very long. When people begin to know him too well or mention his past, he leaves very quickly. Jim is from a parsonage, one of five sons. At an early age, he decides he wants to make a living on the sea. He is sent to a ship for training, where he proves that he is calm and clever. On the boat, Jim feels himself to be an outstanding sailor and is confident about dealing with storms and winds in the high sea. He dreams of rescuing people from sinking ships and becoming a hero. One day while on board ship, a schooner collides with a coaster nearby. The other boys immediately jump overboard to help in the rescue effort. Jim, however, hesitates. When he finally gains enough courage to go and help, he is stopped by the captain who tells him he is too late. When the other boys return from their rescue efforts as heroes, Jim is forced to think about his hesitation, his failure. He promises himself that next time hewill act faster.", "analysis": "Notes The first chapter is an introduction to Jim, the protagonist of the novel. He is described in almost perfect terms. He is handsome, well built, clever, self-confident, neat, clean, and popular. He is always dressed in white, a symbol of cleanliness and purity. He is also a romantic thinker, whose love of the sea has come from reading tales of adventure. Conrad hints that his romanticism is a negative trait for him. As a young man, Jim imagines himself becoming a hero capable of managing the high seas and rescuing people from sinking ships. Ironically, while in training to become a sailor, there is a shipwreck nearby. Jim does not immediately jump overboard to help in the rescue effort like the other boys; he does not have the courage to act. When he finally decides to join them, it is too late. He is perplexed by his hesitation and tries to excuse it by saying that the next mishap will be worthy of his efforts and he will perform heroically. Unfortunately, such never happens in the course of the novel. Jim's first reaction to a tragic event foreshadows his future reactions. Until the very end of the novel, he never has the correct response; he never lives up to the noble image presented of him in this first chapter of the book and he miserably fails to act like a hero on most occasions. There is another incongruity about Jim presented in this chapter. As a water-clerk, he earns good wages and is well liked by the captains of the ships that he must entertain. In spite of his occupational success, he never stays in one place too long. If anyone finds out about his past or even calls him by his last name, he leaves town immediately. This lack of stability creates an aura of mystery about Jim; he seems to be hiding from something in his past. Conrad writes with vivid descriptions throughout the novel. As a lover of the sea, he brings the ocean to life. In this opening chapter, he descries the \"trembling tide\" and \"the driving mist. \" Through his imagery, he makes the reader see, hear, and feel the setting. He also alternates the use of light and darkness in the chapter."}

He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern ports where he got his living as ship-chandler's water-clerk he was very popular. A water-clerk need not pass an examination in anything under the sun, but he must have Ability in the abstract and demonstrate it practically. His work consists in racing under sail, steam, or oars against other water-clerks for any ship about to anchor, greeting her captain cheerily, forcing upon him a card--the business card of the ship-chandler--and on his first visit on shore piloting him firmly but without ostentation to a vast, cavern-like shop which is full of things that are eaten and drunk on board ship; where you can get everything to make her seaworthy and beautiful, from a set of chain-hooks for her cable to a book of gold-leaf for the carvings of her stern; and where her commander is received like a brother by a ship-chandler he has never seen before. There is a cool parlour, easy-chairs, bottles, cigars, writing implements, a copy of harbour regulations, and a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of a three months' passage out of a seaman's heart. The connection thus begun is kept up, as long as the ship remains in harbour, by the daily visits of the water-clerk. To the captain he is faithful like a friend and attentive like a son, with the patience of Job, the unselfish devotion of a woman, and the jollity of a boon companion. Later on the bill is sent in. It is a beautiful and humane occupation. Therefore good water-clerks are scarce. When a water-clerk who possesses Ability in the abstract has also the advantage of having been brought up to the sea, he is worth to his employer a lot of money and some humouring. Jim had always good wages and as much humouring as would have bought the fidelity of a fiend. Nevertheless, with black ingratitude he would throw up the job suddenly and depart. To his employers the reasons he gave were obviously inadequate. They said 'Confounded fool!' as soon as his back was turned. This was their criticism on his exquisite sensibility. To the white men in the waterside business and to the captains of ships he was just Jim--nothing more. He had, of course, another name, but he was anxious that it should not be pronounced. His incognito, which had as many holes as a sieve, was not meant to hide a personality but a fact. When the fact broke through the incognito he would leave suddenly the seaport where he happened to be at the time and go to another--generally farther east. He kept to seaports because he was a seaman in exile from the sea, and had Ability in the abstract, which is good for no other work but that of a water-clerk. He retreated in good order towards the rising sun, and the fact followed him casually but inevitably. Thus in the course of years he was known successively in Bombay, in Calcutta, in Rangoon, in Penang, in Batavia--and in each of these halting-places was just Jim the water-clerk. Afterwards, when his keen perception of the Intolerable drove him away for good from seaports and white men, even into the virgin forest, the Malays of the jungle village, where he had elected to conceal his deplorable faculty, added a word to the monosyllable of his incognito. They called him Tuan Jim: as one might say--Lord Jim. Originally he came from a parsonage. Many commanders of fine merchant-ships come from these abodes of piety and peace. Jim's father possessed such certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made for the righteousness of people in cottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions. The little church on a hill had the mossy greyness of a rock seen through a ragged screen of leaves. It had stood there for centuries, but the trees around probably remembered the laying of the first stone. Below, the red front of the rectory gleamed with a warm tint in the midst of grass-plots, flower-beds, and fir-trees, with an orchard at the back, a paved stable-yard to the left, and the sloping glass of greenhouses tacked along a wall of bricks. The living had belonged to the family for generations; but Jim was one of five sons, and when after a course of light holiday literature his vocation for the sea had declared itself, he was sent at once to a 'training-ship for officers of the mercantile marine.' He learned there a little trigonometry and how to cross top-gallant yards. He was generally liked. He had the third place in navigation and pulled stroke in the first cutter. Having a steady head with an excellent physique, he was very smart aloft. His station was in the fore-top, and often from there he looked down, with the contempt of a man destined to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peaceful multitude of roofs cut in two by the brown tide of the stream, while scattered on the outskirts of the surrounding plain the factory chimneys rose perpendicular against a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and belching out smoke like a volcano. He could see the big ships departing, the broad-beamed ferries constantly on the move, the little boats floating far below his feet, with the hazy splendour of the sea in the distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the world of adventure. On the lower deck in the babel of two hundred voices he would forget himself, and beforehand live in his mind the sea-life of light literature. He saw himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in a hurricane, swimming through a surf with a line; or as a lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked, walking on uncovered reefs in search of shellfish to stave off starvation. He confronted savages on tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men--always an example of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a hero in a book. 'Something's up. Come along.' He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up the ladders. Above could be heard a great scurrying about and shouting, and when he got through the hatchway he stood still--as if confounded. It was the dusk of a winter's day. The gale had freshened since noon, stopping the traffic on the river, and now blew with the strength of a hurricane in fitful bursts that boomed like salvoes of great guns firing over the ocean. The rain slanted in sheets that flicked and subsided, and between whiles Jim had threatening glimpses of the tumbling tide, the small craft jumbled and tossing along the shore, the motionless buildings in the driving mist, the broad ferry-boats pitching ponderously at anchor, the vast landing-stages heaving up and down and smothered in sprays. The next gust seemed to blow all this away. The air was full of flying water. There was a fierce purpose in the gale, a furious earnestness in the screech of the wind, in the brutal tumult of earth and sky, that seemed directed at him, and made him hold his breath in awe. He stood still. It seemed to him he was whirled around. He was jostled. 'Man the cutter!' Boys rushed past him. A coaster running in for shelter had crashed through a schooner at anchor, and one of the ship's instructors had seen the accident. A mob of boys clambered on the rails, clustered round the davits. 'Collision. Just ahead of us. Mr. Symons saw it.' A push made him stagger against the mizzen-mast, and he caught hold of a rope. The old training-ship chained to her moorings quivered all over, bowing gently head to wind, and with her scanty rigging humming in a deep bass the breathless song of her youth at sea. 'Lower away!' He saw the boat, manned, drop swiftly below the rail, and rushed after her. He heard a splash. 'Let go; clear the falls!' He leaned over. The river alongside seethed in frothy streaks. The cutter could be seen in the falling darkness under the spell of tide and wind, that for a moment held her bound, and tossing abreast of the ship. A yelling voice in her reached him faintly: 'Keep stroke, you young whelps, if you want to save anybody! Keep stroke!' And suddenly she lifted high her bow, and, leaping with raised oars over a wave, broke the spell cast upon her by the wind and tide. Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. 'Too late, youngster.' The captain of the ship laid a restraining hand on that boy, who seemed on the point of leaping overboard, and Jim looked up with the pain of conscious defeat in his eyes. The captain smiled sympathetically. 'Better luck next time. This will teach you to be smart.' A shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing back half full of water, and with two exhausted men washing about on her bottom boards. The tumult and the menace of wind and sea now appeared very contemptible to Jim, increasing the regret of his awe at their inefficient menace. Now he knew what to think of it. It seemed to him he cared nothing for the gale. He could affront greater perils. He would do so--better than anybody. Not a particle of fear was left. Nevertheless he brooded apart that evening while the bowman of the cutter--a boy with a face like a girl's and big grey eyes--was the hero of the lower deck. Eager questioners crowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head bobbing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in his breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I would, only old Symons let go the tiller and grabbed my legs--the boat nearly swamped. Old Symons is a fine old chap. I don't mind a bit him being grumpy with us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only his way of telling me to stick to the boat-hook. Old Symons is awfully excitable--isn't he? No--not the little fair chap--the other, the big one with a beard. When we pulled him in he groaned, "Oh, my leg! oh, my leg!" and turned up his eyes. Fancy such a big chap fainting like a girl. Would any of you fellows faint for a jab with a boat-hook?--I wouldn't. It went into his leg so far.' He showed the boat-hook, which he had carried below for the purpose, and produced a sensation. 'No, silly! It was not his flesh that held him--his breeches did. Lots of blood, of course.' Jim thought it a pitiful display of vanity. The gale had ministered to a heroism as spurious as its own pretence of terror. He felt angry with the brutal tumult of earth and sky for taking him unawares and checking unfairly a generous readiness for narrow escapes. Otherwise he was rather glad he had not gone into the cutter, since a lower achievement had served the turn. He had enlarged his knowledge more than those who had done the work. When all men flinched, then--he felt sure--he alone would know how to deal with the spurious menace of wind and seas. He knew what to think of it. Seen dispassionately, it seemed contemptible. He could detect no trace of emotion in himself, and the final effect of a staggering event was that, unnoticed and apart from the noisy crowd of boys, he exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity for adventure, and in a sense of many-sided courage.

Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim09.asp

The novel opens with a detailed description of Jim. He is an inch or two short of six feet, is powerfully built, and has a slight stoop. He walks with his head forward and looks with a stare, almost like a charging bull. He is intense by nature, and his voice is deep and loud. He is very neat and clean and always dresses in absolute white from his shoes to his hat. In the beginning of the novel, he is a water-clerk. His job is to greet the captain of an incoming vessel and persuade him to come to a supply store that provides for a ship's needs. During the captain's stay, Jim is expected to entertain him and become his friend, so the captain will want to spend a lot of money in the store. Jim displays good manners and patience in carrying out his duties. As a result, he is very popular with the various captains. Jim, however, is a restless young man. He never stays in one port for very long. When people begin to know him too well or mention his past, he leaves very quickly. Jim is from a parsonage, one of five sons. At an early age, he decides he wants to make a living on the sea. He is sent to a ship for training, where he proves that he is calm and clever. On the boat, Jim feels himself to be an outstanding sailor and is confident about dealing with storms and winds in the high sea. He dreams of rescuing people from sinking ships and becoming a hero. One day while on board ship, a schooner collides with a coaster nearby. The other boys immediately jump overboard to help in the rescue effort. Jim, however, hesitates. When he finally gains enough courage to go and help, he is stopped by the captain who tells him he is too late. When the other boys return from their rescue efforts as heroes, Jim is forced to think about his hesitation, his failure. He promises himself that next time hewill act faster.

Notes The first chapter is an introduction to Jim, the protagonist of the novel. He is described in almost perfect terms. He is handsome, well built, clever, self-confident, neat, clean, and popular. He is always dressed in white, a symbol of cleanliness and purity. He is also a romantic thinker, whose love of the sea has come from reading tales of adventure. Conrad hints that his romanticism is a negative trait for him. As a young man, Jim imagines himself becoming a hero capable of managing the high seas and rescuing people from sinking ships. Ironically, while in training to become a sailor, there is a shipwreck nearby. Jim does not immediately jump overboard to help in the rescue effort like the other boys; he does not have the courage to act. When he finally decides to join them, it is too late. He is perplexed by his hesitation and tries to excuse it by saying that the next mishap will be worthy of his efforts and he will perform heroically. Unfortunately, such never happens in the course of the novel. Jim's first reaction to a tragic event foreshadows his future reactions. Until the very end of the novel, he never has the correct response; he never lives up to the noble image presented of him in this first chapter of the book and he miserably fails to act like a hero on most occasions. There is another incongruity about Jim presented in this chapter. As a water-clerk, he earns good wages and is well liked by the captains of the ships that he must entertain. In spite of his occupational success, he never stays in one place too long. If anyone finds out about his past or even calls him by his last name, he leaves town immediately. This lack of stability creates an aura of mystery about Jim; he seems to be hiding from something in his past. Conrad writes with vivid descriptions throughout the novel. As a lover of the sea, he brings the ocean to life. In this opening chapter, he descries the "trembling tide" and "the driving mist. " Through his imagery, he makes the reader see, hear, and feel the setting. He also alternates the use of light and darkness in the chapter.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/42.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_41_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 7.chapter 1

book 7, chapter 1

{"name": "Book 7, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-7-chapter-1", "summary": "Zosima's corpse is prepared and placed on display in his cell for his wake. The monastery is packed with visitors, eager to witness some miracle surrounding the death of the famous elder. Father Paissy notices two faces in the crowd that bother him, though he doesn't know why: the Obdorsk monk and Rakitin. Then outside he comes across Alyosha, weeping by the grave of another monk buried in a corner of the hermitage. Father Paissy takes his place by Zosima's coffin and begins to read from the Gospels. In the middle of the afternoon a noticeable odor emerges from the coffin. This wouldn't be so weird - Zosima is dead, after all - except that there were great expectations that Zosima's body would not decay, as saints of old did not. As the news spreads, all of a sudden Father Ferapont, Zosima's nemesis, appears in Zosima's cell. He runs around, claiming to be casting devils out of the cell. Father Paissy sternly rebukes Ferapont and drives him out of the cell. But the damage is done. The other monks and visitors murmur their approval of Ferapont, and Paissy is saddened to see Alyosha scurrying away with a weird expression on his face.", "analysis": ""}

PART III Book VII. Alyosha Chapter I. The Breath Of Corruption 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 Paissy, 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 eight-cornered 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 Paissy 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 unheard-of, 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 Paissy 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 town--as 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 light-mindedness 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 Paissy felt for some reason suddenly suspicious--though, 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 good-hearted but weak-minded 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 half-hour 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 stumbling-block 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 turning-point 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, God-fearing 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 Paissy 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 deeply-rooted 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 twenty-four 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 glory--that 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 terror-stricken. I have mentioned above, that though Father Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 arm-chair 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 it--and 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy stood over him, waiting resolutely. Father Ferapont paused and, suddenly leaning his cheek on his hand despondently, pronounced in a sing-song voice, looking at the coffin of the dead elder: "To-morrow they will sing over him 'Our Helper and Defender'--a splendid anthem--and over me when I die all they'll sing will be 'What earthly joy'--a little canticle,"(6) 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy guessed what a great change was taking place in him at that moment. "Have you, too, fallen into temptation?" cried Father Paissy. "Can you be with those of little faith?" he added mournfully. Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Paissy, but quickly turned his eyes away again and again looked on the ground. He stood sideways and did not turn his face to Father Paissy, 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 Paissy, looking after him with sorrowful surprise.

Book 7, Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-7-chapter-1

Zosima's corpse is prepared and placed on display in his cell for his wake. The monastery is packed with visitors, eager to witness some miracle surrounding the death of the famous elder. Father Paissy notices two faces in the crowd that bother him, though he doesn't know why: the Obdorsk monk and Rakitin. Then outside he comes across Alyosha, weeping by the grave of another monk buried in a corner of the hermitage. Father Paissy takes his place by Zosima's coffin and begins to read from the Gospels. In the middle of the afternoon a noticeable odor emerges from the coffin. This wouldn't be so weird - Zosima is dead, after all - except that there were great expectations that Zosima's body would not decay, as saints of old did not. As the news spreads, all of a sudden Father Ferapont, Zosima's nemesis, appears in Zosima's cell. He runs around, claiming to be casting devils out of the cell. Father Paissy sternly rebukes Ferapont and drives him out of the cell. But the damage is done. The other monks and visitors murmur their approval of Ferapont, and Paissy is saddened to see Alyosha scurrying away with a weird expression on his face.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1130-chapters/40.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra/section_39_part_0.txt

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.act iv.scene xv

act iv, scene xv

{"name": "Act IV, Scene xv", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iv-scene-xv", "summary": "Cleopatra waits at the monument and declares she'll never leave, although she's super anxious about Antony. Right about then Diomedes declares that Antony is not quite dead, but mostly dying. The lovers call to each other. Antony announces that it can never be said that Caesar's valor overthrew Antony; rather, Antony's valor made him overthrow himself. Cleopatra agrees that there's nobility in the fact that no man conquered Antony except Antony himself. Antony calls out to her to come down and give him a final kiss, but she dares not leave the monument for fear that Caesar will catch her and place her in his victory parade. Instead, she begs those around her to help pull her lover's dying body to her. She notes he's heavy, his strength having turned into dull weight, and she wishes her kisses might bring him back to life. Everyone watching is rather moved. Antony begs Cleopatra, with his dying breaths, to seek her honor and safety with Caesar and the one trustworthy man around Caesar--Proculeius. She replies she can't have both her honor and her safety, and that she will resolve this matter with her own hands, rather than seeking pardon from Caesar. As he's dying, Antony bids Cleopatra to remember him when he was the prince of the world. Antony says he dies a noble death, at the hand of no other man, but dies \"a Roman by a Roman, valiantly vanquished.\" In the moment of his death, Cleopatra wails, and asks if he does not care for her. By dying and leaving her alone, she's left in a world worthless without him. She faints, and the maids worry she's died, too, since they know that lots of times in Shakespeare fainting is just a facade for dying. When Cleopatra comes to, she declares that it is no sin to rush to death before death rushes to her. Thus she's resolved to kill herself. She declares they'll bury Antony in the noble Roman fashion, giving him a funeral he deserves. She is now all business, as her course is laid out clearly before her.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE XV. Alexandria. A monument Enter CLEOPATRA and her maids aloft, with CHARMIAN and IRAS CLEOPATRA. O Charmian, I will never go from hence! CHARMIAN. Be comforted, dear madam. CLEOPATRA. No, I will not. All strange and terrible events are welcome, But comforts we despise; our size of sorrow, Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great As that which makes it. Enter DIOMEDES, below How now! Is he dead? DIOMEDES. His death's upon him, but not dead. Look out o' th' other side your monument; His guard have brought him thither. Enter, below, ANTONY, borne by the guard CLEOPATRA. O sun, Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! Darkling stand The varying shore o' th' world. O Antony, Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian; help, Iras, help; Help, friends below! Let's draw him hither. ANTONY. Peace! Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony, But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself. CLEOPATRA. So it should be, that none but Antony Should conquer Antony; but woe 'tis so! ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying; only I here importune death awhile, until Of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips. CLEOPATRA. I dare not, dear. Dear my lord, pardon! I dare not, Lest I be taken. Not th' imperious show Of the full-fortun'd Caesar ever shall Be brooch'd with me. If knife, drugs, serpents, have Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe. Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony- Help me, my women- we must draw thee up; Assist, good friends. ANTONY. O, quick, or I am gone. CLEOPATRA. Here's sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord! Our strength is all gone into heaviness; That makes the weight. Had I great Juno's power, The strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up, And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little. Wishers were ever fools. O come, come, [They heave ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA] And welcome, welcome! Die where thou hast liv'd. Quicken with kissing. Had my lips that power, Thus would I wear them out. ALL. A heavy sight! ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying. Give me some wine, and let me speak a little. CLEOPATRA. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel, Provok'd by my offence. ANTONY. One word, sweet queen: Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O! CLEOPATRA. They do not go together. ANTONY. Gentle, hear me: None about Caesar trust but Proculeius. CLEOPATRA. My resolution and my hands I'll trust; None about Caesar ANTONY. The miserable change now at my end Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts In feeding them with those my former fortunes Wherein I liv'd the greatest prince o' th' world, The noblest; and do now not basely die, Not cowardly put off my helmet to My countryman- a Roman by a Roman Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going I can no more. CLEOPATRA. Noblest of men, woo't die? Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide In this dull world, which in thy absence is No better than a sty? O, see, my women, [Antony dies] The crown o' th' earth doth melt. My lord! O, wither'd is the garland of the war, The soldier's pole is fall'n! Young boys and girls Are level now with men. The odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon. [Swoons] CHARMIAN. O, quietness, lady! IRAS. She's dead too, our sovereign. CHARMIAN. Lady! IRAS. Madam! CHARMIAN. O madam, madam, madam! IRAS. Royal Egypt, Empress! CHARMIAN. Peace, peace, Iras! CLEOPATRA. No more but e'en a woman, and commanded By such poor passion as the maid that milks And does the meanest chares. It were for me To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods; To tell them that this world did equal theirs Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but nought; Patience is sottish, and impatience does Become a dog that's mad. Then is it sin To rush into the secret house of death Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women? What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian! My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look, Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart. We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble, Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, And make death proud to take us. Come, away; This case of that huge spirit now is cold. Ah, women, women! Come; we have no friend But resolution and the briefest end. Exeunt; those above hearing off ANTONY'S body ACT_5|SC_1

Act IV, Scene xv

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iv-scene-xv

Cleopatra waits at the monument and declares she'll never leave, although she's super anxious about Antony. Right about then Diomedes declares that Antony is not quite dead, but mostly dying. The lovers call to each other. Antony announces that it can never be said that Caesar's valor overthrew Antony; rather, Antony's valor made him overthrow himself. Cleopatra agrees that there's nobility in the fact that no man conquered Antony except Antony himself. Antony calls out to her to come down and give him a final kiss, but she dares not leave the monument for fear that Caesar will catch her and place her in his victory parade. Instead, she begs those around her to help pull her lover's dying body to her. She notes he's heavy, his strength having turned into dull weight, and she wishes her kisses might bring him back to life. Everyone watching is rather moved. Antony begs Cleopatra, with his dying breaths, to seek her honor and safety with Caesar and the one trustworthy man around Caesar--Proculeius. She replies she can't have both her honor and her safety, and that she will resolve this matter with her own hands, rather than seeking pardon from Caesar. As he's dying, Antony bids Cleopatra to remember him when he was the prince of the world. Antony says he dies a noble death, at the hand of no other man, but dies "a Roman by a Roman, valiantly vanquished." In the moment of his death, Cleopatra wails, and asks if he does not care for her. By dying and leaving her alone, she's left in a world worthless without him. She faints, and the maids worry she's died, too, since they know that lots of times in Shakespeare fainting is just a facade for dying. When Cleopatra comes to, she declares that it is no sin to rush to death before death rushes to her. Thus she's resolved to kill herself. She declares they'll bury Antony in the noble Roman fashion, giving him a funeral he deserves. She is now all business, as her course is laid out clearly before her.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Prince/section_7_part_2.txt

The Prince.chapter xix

chapter xix

{"name": "Chapter XIX", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section8/", "summary": "The Need to Avoid Contempt and Hatred A prince must avoid being hated and despised at all costs. A prince may be criticized for a lack of virtue, but he will never be hated for it. However, a prince will be hated if he takes the property or women of his subjects. A prince must also avoid robbing his subjects of their honor. A prince will be despised if he has a reputation for being fickle, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly, or irresolute. If a prince is regarded highly by his subjects, he will be shielded from conspiracies and open attacks. A prince should worry about two things: internal insurrection from his subjects and external threats from foreign powers. Defending against foreign enemies requires a strong army and good allies. A strong army always leads to good allies. A prince can defend against internal insurrection by making sure he is not hated or scorned by the people. This is a powerful defense against conspiracies. A conspirator will have the courage to proceed with his conspiracy only if he believes the people will be satisfied when he kills the ruler. But if the people would be outraged by the ruler's death, the conspirators will never have the gall to carry out the conspiracy. By default, conspiracies are at a disadvantage. They require the support of many people, each of whom faces severe punishment if the conspiracy is discovered. Furthermore, each of these people can profit richly by informing the prince about the conspiracy. A prince has on his side the entire government, his allies and the laws of the state. If he secures the goodwill of the people, he seems invulnerable in the eyes of conspirators. Whenever possible, a prince should delegate the administration of unpopular laws to others and keep in his own power the distribution of favors. Sometimes it will not be possible to avoid being hated by some members of the populace. If it is not possible for the prince to avoid being hated, he must make it his first priority to escape the hatred of the most powerful parties. In many instances, this will mean ensuring good standing within the ranks of the military. But a prince should not worry too much about satisfying the demands of the troops, especially if it comes at the expense of the people. A number of later Roman emperors were overthrown due to excessive cruelty performed for the sake of their army. The exception was Septimius Severus, who, emulating both lion and fox, overawed both his army and his people. Most present-day princes need not fear their armies and should be attentive to the people.", "analysis": "The argument in Chapter XVIII that princes should be prepared to break promises for practical advantage develops Machiavelli's position on virtue and vice. Machiavelli does not argue that a prince should actively avoid doing what is good but that, if necessary, a prince must be prepared to act unethically. He does not advise ruthlessness for its own sake, but rather indicates the perhaps unfortunate necessity of ruthlessness in leadership. Although the proposal that a prince must exude a false aura of virtue may seem merely one more kind of deception that the prince must learn to master, Machiavelli's advice here remains valid even in contemporary politics. Although some of Machiavelli's writing might be dismissed as irrelevant to democratic political life, his perceptive analysis of the importance of image is still accurate. Machiavelli points out that image is as important as action, and that rulers must manipulate the perceptions of the populace to appear as other than who they really are. A prince should eagerly take credit for successes and place responsibility for unpopular laws on the shoulders of nobles or lesser officials. Of course, the prince's aim is not to be loved, but merely to avoid being hated. Although Machiavelli's prince rules in an autocratic state, he must nonetheless practice the kind of politics of image demanded within republics and democracies. These chapters give us further insight into Machiavelli's view of human nature. Men are naturally deceitful and untrustworthy. They are likely to break promises. They are easily impressed by appearances and results. They are selfish but somewhat naive. They respect and praise virtue, but most do not possess it themselves. These assumptions about the basic behaviors and attitudes of the general population underlie all of Machiavelli's suggestions for the actions of princes. If the populace is intelligent, well-educated, and acutely aware of history, the prince will not be able to generate the deceptive image that Machiavelli argues is integral to successful leadership. Although these assumptions may or may not be true, Machiavelli is much more willing to make unsupported generalizations about human nature than about history. His historical examples are painstakingly accurate and demonstrate Machiavelli's great erudition. But he does not support his descriptions of human behavior with the same wealth of evidence. Machiavelli consistently refers to the ruler as \"he\" and assumes that his gender is male. One could dismiss this fact as simply a consequence of history--rulers during Machiavelli's time were almost always men. But Machiavelli's association of leadership with masculinity extends beyond simple historical context. He also writes that a prince should avoid behaving effeminately at all costs, and associates effeminacy with cowardice and fickleness. The implication is that manliness is a prerequisite for ruling. Machiavelli notes that Alexander was thought to be ruled by his mother, and therefore deemed effeminate, a perception that led to his downfall. Machiavelli's definition of manliness encompasses the \"harder\" virtues, such as courage and decisiveness, in contrast with \"softer\" virtues like compassion and generosity. In this sense, although cruelty is not a virtue, the ability to act cruelly whenever necessary can be considered manly, and, therefore, virtuous"}

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, mean-spirited, 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 1438, died at Milan 1508. He ruled Bologna from 1462 to 1506. Machiavelli's strong condemnation of conspiracies may get its edge from his own very recent experience (February 1513), 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 well-ordered 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 yourself--it may be either the people or the soldiers or the nobles--you 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 rapacious-men 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 such-like 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 above-named 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.

Chapter XIX

https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section8/

The Need to Avoid Contempt and Hatred A prince must avoid being hated and despised at all costs. A prince may be criticized for a lack of virtue, but he will never be hated for it. However, a prince will be hated if he takes the property or women of his subjects. A prince must also avoid robbing his subjects of their honor. A prince will be despised if he has a reputation for being fickle, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly, or irresolute. If a prince is regarded highly by his subjects, he will be shielded from conspiracies and open attacks. A prince should worry about two things: internal insurrection from his subjects and external threats from foreign powers. Defending against foreign enemies requires a strong army and good allies. A strong army always leads to good allies. A prince can defend against internal insurrection by making sure he is not hated or scorned by the people. This is a powerful defense against conspiracies. A conspirator will have the courage to proceed with his conspiracy only if he believes the people will be satisfied when he kills the ruler. But if the people would be outraged by the ruler's death, the conspirators will never have the gall to carry out the conspiracy. By default, conspiracies are at a disadvantage. They require the support of many people, each of whom faces severe punishment if the conspiracy is discovered. Furthermore, each of these people can profit richly by informing the prince about the conspiracy. A prince has on his side the entire government, his allies and the laws of the state. If he secures the goodwill of the people, he seems invulnerable in the eyes of conspirators. Whenever possible, a prince should delegate the administration of unpopular laws to others and keep in his own power the distribution of favors. Sometimes it will not be possible to avoid being hated by some members of the populace. If it is not possible for the prince to avoid being hated, he must make it his first priority to escape the hatred of the most powerful parties. In many instances, this will mean ensuring good standing within the ranks of the military. But a prince should not worry too much about satisfying the demands of the troops, especially if it comes at the expense of the people. A number of later Roman emperors were overthrown due to excessive cruelty performed for the sake of their army. The exception was Septimius Severus, who, emulating both lion and fox, overawed both his army and his people. Most present-day princes need not fear their armies and should be attentive to the people.

The argument in Chapter XVIII that princes should be prepared to break promises for practical advantage develops Machiavelli's position on virtue and vice. Machiavelli does not argue that a prince should actively avoid doing what is good but that, if necessary, a prince must be prepared to act unethically. He does not advise ruthlessness for its own sake, but rather indicates the perhaps unfortunate necessity of ruthlessness in leadership. Although the proposal that a prince must exude a false aura of virtue may seem merely one more kind of deception that the prince must learn to master, Machiavelli's advice here remains valid even in contemporary politics. Although some of Machiavelli's writing might be dismissed as irrelevant to democratic political life, his perceptive analysis of the importance of image is still accurate. Machiavelli points out that image is as important as action, and that rulers must manipulate the perceptions of the populace to appear as other than who they really are. A prince should eagerly take credit for successes and place responsibility for unpopular laws on the shoulders of nobles or lesser officials. Of course, the prince's aim is not to be loved, but merely to avoid being hated. Although Machiavelli's prince rules in an autocratic state, he must nonetheless practice the kind of politics of image demanded within republics and democracies. These chapters give us further insight into Machiavelli's view of human nature. Men are naturally deceitful and untrustworthy. They are likely to break promises. They are easily impressed by appearances and results. They are selfish but somewhat naive. They respect and praise virtue, but most do not possess it themselves. These assumptions about the basic behaviors and attitudes of the general population underlie all of Machiavelli's suggestions for the actions of princes. If the populace is intelligent, well-educated, and acutely aware of history, the prince will not be able to generate the deceptive image that Machiavelli argues is integral to successful leadership. Although these assumptions may or may not be true, Machiavelli is much more willing to make unsupported generalizations about human nature than about history. His historical examples are painstakingly accurate and demonstrate Machiavelli's great erudition. But he does not support his descriptions of human behavior with the same wealth of evidence. Machiavelli consistently refers to the ruler as "he" and assumes that his gender is male. One could dismiss this fact as simply a consequence of history--rulers during Machiavelli's time were almost always men. But Machiavelli's association of leadership with masculinity extends beyond simple historical context. He also writes that a prince should avoid behaving effeminately at all costs, and associates effeminacy with cowardice and fickleness. The implication is that manliness is a prerequisite for ruling. Machiavelli notes that Alexander was thought to be ruled by his mother, and therefore deemed effeminate, a perception that led to his downfall. Machiavelli's definition of manliness encompasses the "harder" virtues, such as courage and decisiveness, in contrast with "softer" virtues like compassion and generosity. In this sense, although cruelty is not a virtue, the ability to act cruelly whenever necessary can be considered manly, and, therefore, virtuous

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/1929-chapters/7.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The School for Scandal/section_2_part_1.txt

The School for Scandal.act iii.scene i

act iii, scene i

{"name": "act iii, Scene I", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180409073536/http://www.gradesaver.com/the-school-for-scandal/study-guide/summary-act-iii", "summary": "Scene I opens again on Sir Oliver, Sir Peter, and Rowley. Rowley tells them of a man named Mr. Stanley, who is a relative of Joseph and Charles through their mother. Mr. Stanley has fallen on hard times financially and Charles has tried to help him, whereas Joseph has only made promises but not actually given anything. Rowley also announces that a \"friendly Jew\" named Mr. Moses, who has been counseling Charles with his financial situation recently, is here to meet with them. Rowley says that Mr. Moses has an incentive to work with him because Charles owes him money, and he also tells them that he has information from Snake regarding the rumors Sir Peter has heard about Charles and Lady Teazle. Mr. Moses enters and meets Sir Oliver. Mr. Moses tells Sir Oliver about Charles's incredible spending habits, and how he is deeply in debt. He says that that evening he is bringing a man from the city to advance Charles money. Sir Oliver clarifies that Charles has never met this man, Mr. Premium, before, and Sir Peter schemes that Sir Oliver might go to Charles disguised as Mr. Premium to find out what Charles is really like. Sir Oliver likes this idea; he has the thought that he might also go to Joseph disguised as Mr. Stanley. The men banter about how to get Sir Oliver prepared to play the part of Mr. Premium, and then he leaves with Mr. Moses. Rowley tells Sir Peter to go get Snake so they can hear what he knows about the rumors regarding Lady Teazle and Charles. In the meantime, he sees Maria approaching and wants to talk to her. Rowley exits and Maria enters. Maria and Sir Peter talk about how he wants her to love Joseph despite her persisting love for Charles. He scolds her for never listening to him and for loving Charles, perhaps because of his flaws. Maria exits angrily and Sir Peter laments how much he fights with both his wife and his ward. Lady Teazle approaches and the couple tries to be good-natured with one another. They keep up the act for a short while, but then they fall back into fighting, even arguing about which one of them usually starts their fights. They decide that it might be better for them to separate", "analysis": "Sheridan makes many allusions in the play during characters' dialogues with one another. This both shows Sheridan's own learnedness and underscores the education and high social status of the characters that make these references. One allusion of note comes early in Act III, made by Rowley. In conversation with Sir Oliver and Sir Peter about the young Surface boys, Joseph and Charles, he says, \"as our immortal bard expresses it, -- 'a heart to pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity'\" . This quote comes from Shakespeare's Henry VI. Rowley says this to the men to support Charles's remaining moral character. However, Sir Peter quips back, both as a response to Rowley and perhaps to Shakespeare himself, that having an open hand means nothing when one has spent all he had. It is important to read this section with historical context in mind, specifically as applies to anti-Semitism and the role of Jews and Judaism in society. In Sheridan's time and before, many Jews were involved in money-lending, the Jewish faith, unlike Christianity, did not forbid this job. Nevertheless, the play presents a stereotyped character, a Jewish money-lender who is willing to be involved in deceit, and who likely was dressed and made up to comply with a stereotypical Jewish appearance. Productions since Sheridan's time, especially contemporary productions, have had to decide whether to edit out these references to Judaism entirely or perform the play as it was written but provide relevant historical context to the audience. Sheridan uses a humorous scene to show Sir Oliver's transformation into the money-lender Mr. Premium. This humor is mostly created through repetition. For example, part of the interaction with Mr. Moses as he teaches the man how to play the role of Mr. Premium is as follows: \"MOSESThen, you know, you haven't the moneys yourself, but are forcedto borrow them for him of a friend. SIR OLIVEROh! I borrow it of a friend, do I? MOSESAnd your friend is an unconscionable dog: but you can't helpthat. SIR OLIVERMy friend an unconscionable dog, is he?\" The fact that Sir Oliver is not particularly good at acting his role, along with the fact that while acting his role he gives many asides to himself or the audience, increases the humor and dramatic irony in those scenes. Of the motivations to convince Maria to marry Joseph, Sir Peter's seem the most conscionable. While Lady Sneerwell wants to see Maria with Joseph because she loves Charles, Sir Peter seems to simply want what he sees as best for the ward for whom he has recently assumed responsibility. Sir Peter and Maria discuss the role of a father, with her saying that she has respected his wishes in not corresponding with Charles, but that she cannot regard him as a father if he forces her to marry Joseph, \"compel to be miserable\" . Though Lady Teazle told Sir Peter earlier in the play that he should have adopted her, not married her, if he wanted to control her, Maria shows still another example of a strong female character who will protest the dynamics of gender and power within families."}

ACT III SCENE I. --At SIR PETER'S SIR PETER, SIR OLIVER, and ROWLEY SIR PETER. Well, then, we will see the Fellows first and have our wine afterwards.--but how is this, Master Rowley--I don't see the Jet of your scheme. ROWLEY. Why Sir--this Mr. Stanley whom I was speaking of, is nearly related to them by their mother. He was once a merchant in Dublin--but has been ruined by a series of undeserved misfortunes--and now lately coming over to solicit the assistance of his friends here--has been flyng [flung] into prison by some of his Creditors--where he is now with two helpless Boys.-- SIR OLIVER. Aye and a worthy Fellow too I remember him. But what is this to lead to--? ROWLEY. You shall hear--He has applied by letter both to Mr. Surface and Charles--from the former he has received nothing but evasive promises of future service, while Charles has done all that his extravagance has left him power to do--and He is at this time endeavouring to raise a sum of money--part of which, in the midst of his own distresses, I know He intends for the service of poor Stanley. SIR OLIVER. Ah! he is my Brother's Son. SIR PETER. Well, but how is Sir Oliver personally to---- ROWLEY. Why Sir I will inform Charles and his Brother that Stanley has obtain'd permission to apply in person to his Friends--and as they have neither of them ever seen him[,] let Sir Oliver assume his character--and he will have a fair opportunity of judging at least of the Benevolence of their Dispositions. SIR PETER. Pshaw! this will prove nothing--I make no doubt Charles is Coxcomb and thoughtless enough to give money to poor relations if he had it-- SIR OLIVER. Then He shall never want it--. I have brought a few Rupees home with me Sir Peter--and I only want to be sure of bestowing them rightly.-- ROWLEY. Then Sir believe me you will find in the youngest Brother one who in the midst of Folly and dissipation--has still, as our immortal Bard expresses it,-- "a Tear for Pity and a Hand open as the day for melting Charity." SIR PETER. Pish! What signifies his having an open Hand or Purse either when He has nothing left to give!--but if you talk of humane Sentiments--Joseph is the man--Well, well, make the trial, if you please. But where is the fellow whom you brought for Sir Oliver to examine, relative to Charles's affairs? ROWLEY. Below waiting his commands, and no one can give him better intelligence--This, Sir Oliver, is a friendly Jew, who to do him justice, has done everything in his power to bring your nephew to a proper sense of his extravagance. SIR PETER. Pray let us have him in. ROWLEY. Desire Mr. Moses to walk upstairs. [Calls to SERVANT.] SIR PETER. But Pray why should you suppose he will speak the truth? ROWLEY. Oh, I have convinced him that he has no chance of recovering certain Sums advanced to Charles but through the bounty of Sir Oliver, who He knows is arrived; so that you may depend on his Fidelity to his interest. I have also another evidence in my Power, one Snake, whom I shall shortly produce to remove some of YOUR Prejudices[,] Sir Peter[,] relative to Charles and Lady Teazle. SIR PETER. I have heard too much on that subject. ROWLEY. Here comes the honest Israelite. Enter MOSES --This is Sir Oliver. SIR OLIVER. Sir--I understand you have lately had great dealings with my Nephew Charles. MOSES. Yes Sir Oliver--I have done all I could for him, but He was ruined before He came to me for Assistance. SIR OLIVER. That was unlucky truly--for you have had no opportunity of showing your Talents. MOSES. None at all--I hadn't the Pleasure of knowing his Distresses till he was some thousands worse than nothing, till it was impossible to add to them. SIR OLIVER. Unfortunate indeed! but I suppose you have done all in your Power for him honest Moses? MOSES. Yes he knows that--This very evening I was to have brought him a gentleman from the city who does not know him and will I believe advance some money. SIR PETER. What[!] one Charles has never had money from before? MOSES. Yes[--]Mr. Premium, of Crutched Friars. SIR PETER. Egad, Sir Oliver a Thought strikes me!--Charles you say does'nt know Mr. Premium? MOSES. Not at all. SIR PETER. Now then Sir Oliver you may have a better opportunity of satisfying yourself than by an old romancing tale of a poor Relation--go with my friend Moses and represent Mr. Premium and then I'll answer for't you'll see your Nephew in all his glory. SIR OLIVER. Egad I like this Idea better than the other, and I may visit Joseph afterwards as old Stanley. SIR PETER. True so you may. ROWLEY. Well this is taking Charles rather at a disadvantage, to be sure--however Moses--you understand Sir Peter and will be faithful---- MOSES. You may depend upon me--and this is near the Time I was to have gone. SIR OLIVER. I'll accompany you as soon as you please, Moses----but hold--I have forgot one thing--how the plague shall I be able to pass for a Jew? MOSES. There's no need--the Principal is Christian. SIR OLIVER. Is He--I'm very sorry to hear it--but then again--an't I rather too smartly dressed to look like a money-Lender? SIR PETER. Not at all; 'twould not be out of character, if you went in your own carriage--would it, Moses! MOSES. Not in the least. SIR OLIVER. Well--but--how must I talk[?] there's certainly some cant of usury and mode of treating that I ought to know. SIR PETER. Oh, there's not much to learn--the great point as I take it is to be exorbitant enough in your Demands hey Moses? MOSES. Yes that's very great Point. SIR OLIVER. I'll answer for't I'll not be wanting in that--I'll ask him eight or ten per cent. on the loan--at least. MOSES. You'll be found out directly--if you ask him no more than that, you'll be discovered immediately. SIR OLIVER. Hey!--what the Plague!--how much then? MOSES. That depends upon the Circumstances--if he appears not very anxious for the supply, you should require only forty or fifty per cent.--but if you find him in great Distress, and want the monies very bad--you may ask double. SIR PETER. A good--[h]onest Trade you're learning, Sir Oliver-- SIR OLIVER. Truly, I think so--and not unprofitable-- MOSES. Then you know--you haven't the monies yourself, but are forced to borrow them for him of a Friend. SIR OLIVER. O I borrow it of a Friend do I? MOSES. And your friend is an unconscion'd Dog--but you can't help it. SIR OLIVER. My Friend's an unconscionable Dog, is he? MOSES. Yes--and He himself hasn't the monies by him--but is forced to sell stock--at a great loss-- SIR OLIVER. He is forced to sell stock is he--at a great loss, is he--well that's very kind of him-- SIR PETER. Efaith, Sir Oliver--Mr. Premium I mean--you'll soon be master of the Trade--but, Moses would have him inquire if the borrower is a minor-- MOSES. O yes-- SIR PETER. And in that case his Conscience will direct him-- MOSES. To have the Bond in another Name to be sure. SIR OLIVER. Well--well I shall be perfect-- SIR PETER. But hearkee wouldn't you have him also run out a little against the annuity Bill--that would be in character I should think-- MOSES. Very much-- ROWLEY. And lament that a young man now must be at years of discretion before He is suffered to ruin himself! MOSES. Aye, great Pity! SIR PETER. And abuse the Public for allowing merit to an act whose only object is to snatch misfortune and imprudence from the rapacious Relief of usury! and give the minor a chance of inheriting his estate without being undone by coming into Possession. SIR OLIVER. So--so--Moses shall give me further instructions as we go together. SIR PETER. You will not have much time[,] for your Nephew lives hard bye-- SIR OLIVER. Oh Never--fear[:] my Tutor appears so able that tho' Charles lived in the next street it must be my own Fault if I am not a compleat Rogue before I turn the Corner-- [Exeunt SIR OLIVER and MOSES.] SIR PETER. So--now I think Sir Oliver will be convinced--you shan't follow them Rowley. You are partial and would have prepared Charles for 'tother plot. ROWLEY. No upon my word Sir Peter-- SIR PETER. Well, go bring me this Snake, and I'll hear what he has to say presently. I see Maria, and want to speak with her.-- [Exit ROWLEY.] I should be glad to be convinced my suspicions of Lady Teazle and Charles were unjust--I have never yet opened my mind on this subject to my Friend Joseph. . . . I am determined. I will do it--He will give me his opinion sincerely.-- Enter MARIA So Child--has Mr. Surface returned with you-- MARIA. No Sir--He was engaged. SIR PETER. Well--Maria--do you not reflect[,] the more you converse with that amiable young man[,] what return his Partiality for you deserves? MARIA. Indeed Sir Peter--your frequent importunity on this subject distresses me extremely--you compell me to Declare that I know no man who has ever paid me a particular Attention whom I would not prefer to Mr. Surface-- SIR PETER. Soh! Here's Perverseness--no--no--Maria, 'tis Charles only whom you would prefer--'tis evident his Vices and Follies have won your Heart. MARIA. This is unkind Sir--You know I have obey'd you in neither seeing nor corresponding with him--I have heard enough to convince me that He is unworthy my regard--Yet I cannot think it culpable--if while my understanding severely condemns his Vices, my Heart suggests some Pity for his Distresses. SIR PETER. Well well pity him as much as you please, but give your Heart and Hand to a worthier object. MARIA. Never to his Brother! SIR PETER. Go--perverse and obstinate! but take care, Madam--you have never yet known what the authority of a Guardian is--don't compel me to inform you of it.-- MARIA. I can only say, you shall not have just Reason--'tis true, by my Father's will I am for a short period bound to regard you as his substitute, but I must cease to think you so when you would compel me to be miserable. [Exit.] SIR PETER. Was ever man so crossed as I am[?] everything conspiring to fret me! I had not been involved in matrimony a fortnight[,] before her Father--a hale and hearty man, died on purpose, I believe--for the Pleasure of plaguing me with the care of his Daughter . . . but here comes my Helpmate!--She appears in great good humour----how happy I should be if I could teaze her into loving me tho' but a little---- Enter LADY TEAZLE LADY TEAZLE. Lud! Sir Peter I hope you haven't been quarrelling with Maria? It isn't using me well to be ill humour'd when I am not bye--! SIR PETER. Ah! Lady Teazle you might have the Power to make me good humour'd at all times-- LADY TEAZLE. I am sure--I wish I had--for I want you to be in a charming sweet temper at this moment--do be good humour'd now--and let me have two hundred Pounds will you? SIR PETER. Two hundred Pounds! what an't I to be in a good humour without paying for it--but speak to me thus--and Efaith there's nothing I could refuse you. You shall have it--but seal me a bond for the repayment. LADY TEAZLE. O no--there--my Note of Hand will do as well-- SIR PETER. And you shall no longer reproach me with not giving you an independent settlement--I shall shortly surprise you--and you'll not call me ungenerous--but shall we always live thus--hey? LADY TEAZLE. If you--please--I'm sure I don't care how soon we leave off quarrelling provided you'll own you were tired first-- SIR PETER. Well--then let our future contest be who shall be most obliging. LADY TEAZLE. I assure you Sir Peter Good Nature becomes you--you look now as you did before we were married--when you used to walk with me under the Elms, and tell me stories of what a Gallant you were in your youth--and chuck me under the chin you would--and ask me if I thought I could love an old Fellow who would deny me nothing--didn't you? SIR PETER. Yes--yes--and you were as kind and attentive---- LADY TEAZLE. Aye so I was--and would always take your Part, when my acquaintance used to abuse you and turn you into ridicule-- SIR PETER. Indeed! LADY TEAZLE. Aye--and when my cousin Sophy has called you a stiff peevish old batchelor and laugh'd at me for thinking of marrying one who might be my Father--I have always defended you--and said I didn't think you so ugly by any means, and that you'd make a very good sort of a husband-- SIR PETER. And you prophesied right--and we shall certainly now be the happiest couple---- LADY TEAZLE. And never differ again. SIR PETER. No never--tho' at the same time indeed--my dear Lady Teazle--you must watch your Temper very narrowly--for in all our little Quarrels--my dear--if you recollect my Love you always began first-- LADY TEAZLE. I beg your Pardon--my dear Sir Peter--indeed--you always gave the provocation. SIR PETER. Now--see, my Love take care--contradicting isn't the way to keep Friends. LADY TEAZLE. Then don't you begin it my Love! SIR PETER. There now--you are going on--you don't perceive[,] my Life, that you are just doing the very thing my Love which you know always makes me angry. LADY TEAZLE. Nay--you know if you will be angry without any reason--my Dear---- SIR PETER. There now you want to quarrel again. LADY TEAZLE. No--I am sure I don't--but if you will be so peevish---- SIR PETER. There--now who begins first? LADY TEAZLE. Why you to be sure--I said nothing[--]but there's no bearing your Temper. SIR PETER. No--no--my dear--the fault's in your own temper. LADY TEAZLE. Aye you are just what my Cousin Sophy said you would be-- SIR PETER. Your Cousin Sophy--is a forward impertinent Gipsey-- LADY TEAZLE. Go you great Bear--how dare you abuse my Relations-- SIR PETER. Now may all the Plagues of marriage be doubled on me, if ever I try to be Friends with you any more---- LADY TEAZLE. So much the Better. SIR PETER. No--no Madam 'tis evident you never cared a pin for me--I was a madman to marry you-- LADY TEAZLE. And I am sure I was a Fooll to marry you--an old dangling Batchelor, who was single of [at] fifty--only because He never could meet with any one who would have him. SIR PETER. Aye--aye--Madam--but you were pleased enough to listen to me--you never had such an offer before-- LADY TEAZLE. No--didn't I refuse Sir Jeremy Terrier--who everybody said would have been a better Match--for his estate is just as good as yours--and he has broke his Neck since we have been married! SIR PETER. I have done with you Madam! You are an unfeeling--ungrateful--but there's an end of everything--I believe you capable of anything that's bad--Yes, Madam--I now believe the Reports relative to you and Charles--Madam--yes--Madam--you and Charles are--not without grounds---- LADY TEAZLE. Take--care Sir Peter--you had better not insinuate any such thing! I'll not be suspected without cause I promise you---- SIR PETER. Very--well--Madam--very well! a separate maintenance--as soon as you Please. Yes Madam or a Divorce--I'll make an example of myself for the Benefit of all old Batchelors--Let us separate, Madam. LADY TEAZLE. Agreed--agreed--and now--my dear Sir Peter we are of a mind again, we may be the happiest couple--and never differ again, you know--ha! ha!--Well you are going to be in a Passion I see--and I shall only interrupt you--so, bye! bye! hey--young Jockey try'd and countered. [Exit.] SIR PETER. Plagues and tortures! She pretends to keep her temper, can't I make her angry neither! O! I am the miserable fellow! But I'll not bear her presuming to keep her Temper--No she may break my Heart--but she shan't keep her Temper. [Exit.]

act iii, Scene I

https://web.archive.org/web/20180409073536/http://www.gradesaver.com/the-school-for-scandal/study-guide/summary-act-iii

Scene I opens again on Sir Oliver, Sir Peter, and Rowley. Rowley tells them of a man named Mr. Stanley, who is a relative of Joseph and Charles through their mother. Mr. Stanley has fallen on hard times financially and Charles has tried to help him, whereas Joseph has only made promises but not actually given anything. Rowley also announces that a "friendly Jew" named Mr. Moses, who has been counseling Charles with his financial situation recently, is here to meet with them. Rowley says that Mr. Moses has an incentive to work with him because Charles owes him money, and he also tells them that he has information from Snake regarding the rumors Sir Peter has heard about Charles and Lady Teazle. Mr. Moses enters and meets Sir Oliver. Mr. Moses tells Sir Oliver about Charles's incredible spending habits, and how he is deeply in debt. He says that that evening he is bringing a man from the city to advance Charles money. Sir Oliver clarifies that Charles has never met this man, Mr. Premium, before, and Sir Peter schemes that Sir Oliver might go to Charles disguised as Mr. Premium to find out what Charles is really like. Sir Oliver likes this idea; he has the thought that he might also go to Joseph disguised as Mr. Stanley. The men banter about how to get Sir Oliver prepared to play the part of Mr. Premium, and then he leaves with Mr. Moses. Rowley tells Sir Peter to go get Snake so they can hear what he knows about the rumors regarding Lady Teazle and Charles. In the meantime, he sees Maria approaching and wants to talk to her. Rowley exits and Maria enters. Maria and Sir Peter talk about how he wants her to love Joseph despite her persisting love for Charles. He scolds her for never listening to him and for loving Charles, perhaps because of his flaws. Maria exits angrily and Sir Peter laments how much he fights with both his wife and his ward. Lady Teazle approaches and the couple tries to be good-natured with one another. They keep up the act for a short while, but then they fall back into fighting, even arguing about which one of them usually starts their fights. They decide that it might be better for them to separate

Sheridan makes many allusions in the play during characters' dialogues with one another. This both shows Sheridan's own learnedness and underscores the education and high social status of the characters that make these references. One allusion of note comes early in Act III, made by Rowley. In conversation with Sir Oliver and Sir Peter about the young Surface boys, Joseph and Charles, he says, "as our immortal bard expresses it, -- 'a heart to pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity'" . This quote comes from Shakespeare's Henry VI. Rowley says this to the men to support Charles's remaining moral character. However, Sir Peter quips back, both as a response to Rowley and perhaps to Shakespeare himself, that having an open hand means nothing when one has spent all he had. It is important to read this section with historical context in mind, specifically as applies to anti-Semitism and the role of Jews and Judaism in society. In Sheridan's time and before, many Jews were involved in money-lending, the Jewish faith, unlike Christianity, did not forbid this job. Nevertheless, the play presents a stereotyped character, a Jewish money-lender who is willing to be involved in deceit, and who likely was dressed and made up to comply with a stereotypical Jewish appearance. Productions since Sheridan's time, especially contemporary productions, have had to decide whether to edit out these references to Judaism entirely or perform the play as it was written but provide relevant historical context to the audience. Sheridan uses a humorous scene to show Sir Oliver's transformation into the money-lender Mr. Premium. This humor is mostly created through repetition. For example, part of the interaction with Mr. Moses as he teaches the man how to play the role of Mr. Premium is as follows: "MOSESThen, you know, you haven't the moneys yourself, but are forcedto borrow them for him of a friend. SIR OLIVEROh! I borrow it of a friend, do I? MOSESAnd your friend is an unconscionable dog: but you can't helpthat. SIR OLIVERMy friend an unconscionable dog, is he?" The fact that Sir Oliver is not particularly good at acting his role, along with the fact that while acting his role he gives many asides to himself or the audience, increases the humor and dramatic irony in those scenes. Of the motivations to convince Maria to marry Joseph, Sir Peter's seem the most conscionable. While Lady Sneerwell wants to see Maria with Joseph because she loves Charles, Sir Peter seems to simply want what he sees as best for the ward for whom he has recently assumed responsibility. Sir Peter and Maria discuss the role of a father, with her saying that she has respected his wishes in not corresponding with Charles, but that she cannot regard him as a father if he forces her to marry Joseph, "compel to be miserable" . Though Lady Teazle told Sir Peter earlier in the play that he should have adopted her, not married her, if he wanted to control her, Maria shows still another example of a strong female character who will protest the dynamics of gender and power within families.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/60.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_59_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 9.chapter 7

book 9, chapter 7

{"name": "Book 9, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-9-chapter-7", "summary": "Dmitri confesses his terrible secret, which is that the money is actually the money he stole from Katerina. On his first spree with Grushenka a month ago, he had only spent 1,500 roubles, not 3,000, as legend had it. He had saved the other half of the money, sewn up in a bit of cloth and hung like an \"amulet\" around his neck before he had left for Mokroye, thinking he might need money to marry Grushenka if she accepted him. The prosecutor and the district attorney are skeptical. They ask him where the cloth is, and Dmitri doesn't know exactly - he just remembers tearing it up in the town square. They ask him where he got the cloth, and he guesses that he might have stolen his landlady's bonnet. By this point, Dmitri realizes that he is lost. After a short break, they decide to proceed to interrogate the witnesses.", "analysis": ""}

Chapter VII. Mitya's Great Secret. Received With Hisses "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 reality--that is, of course, comparatively speaking--this 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 that--why 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 right--it's dishonest and cowardly, I'm a beast, with no more self-control 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 again--my head's going round--and 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 arch-scoundrel 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 to-morrow, 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 Katya--I 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 her--to 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 hundred-rouble 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 market-place 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 market-place, in the market-place! 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 from--somewhere, 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 to-morrow 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 market-place." "Give orders for the market-place to be swept to-morrow, 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 "Phoebus the golden-haired," 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, straight-forward 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.

Book 9, Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-9-chapter-7

Dmitri confesses his terrible secret, which is that the money is actually the money he stole from Katerina. On his first spree with Grushenka a month ago, he had only spent 1,500 roubles, not 3,000, as legend had it. He had saved the other half of the money, sewn up in a bit of cloth and hung like an "amulet" around his neck before he had left for Mokroye, thinking he might need money to marry Grushenka if she accepted him. The prosecutor and the district attorney are skeptical. They ask him where the cloth is, and Dmitri doesn't know exactly - he just remembers tearing it up in the town square. They ask him where he got the cloth, and he guesses that he might have stolen his landlady's bonnet. By this point, Dmitri realizes that he is lost. After a short break, they decide to proceed to interrogate the witnesses.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/12.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Prince/section_12_part_0.txt

The Prince.chapter 12

chapter 12

{"name": "Chapter 12", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-12", "summary": "Any state--old, new, whatever--needs good laws and good armed forces. Since you can't have good armed forces without good law, let's just say you need a good army. There are four types of armies you could have: a local army, mercenaries, auxiliaries , or some kind of mixture. First things first: mercenaries and auxiliary armies are useless. Just don't do it. Mercenaries are only interested in the money and are not reliable. That's how Italy got into trouble--occupation by France and Spain--in the first place. Plus, if a mercenary leader is good then you have to be afraid that he will turn against you, and if he is bad he will make you lose anyway. So, no good. Good armies? Citizen armies. Look at Rome. Look at Sparta! Carthage used mercenaries, and guess what happened to them? They got owned by Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great's dad. Don't be like Carthage. Machiavelli gives us a bunch of examples, but the basic takeaway here is mercenaries = bad. They are lazy. They are expensive. They kill during wartime. And they don't even defend their camps. Machiavelli has a little bit of an axe to grind about this problem, since he has wanted Italy to stop relying on mercenaries forever, but no one would listen to him.", "analysis": ""}

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, single-handed, 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,($) where in one battle they lost that which in eight hundred years they had acquired with so much trouble. Because from such arms conquests come but slowly, long delayed and inconsiderable, but the losses sudden and portentous. (*) Battle of Caravaggio, 15th September 1448. (+) Johanna II of Naples, the widow of Ladislao, King of Naples. (%) Giovanni Acuto. An English knight whose name was Sir John Hawkwood. He fought in the English wars in France, and was knighted by Edward III; afterwards he collected a body of troops and went into Italy. These became the famous "White Company." He took part in many wars, and died in Florence in 1394. He was born about 1320 at Sible Hedingham, a village in Essex. He married Domnia, a daughter of Bernabo Visconti. (#) Carmignuola. Francesco Bussone, born at Carmagnola about 1390, executed at Venice, 5th May 1432. (&) Bartolomeo Colleoni of Bergamo; died 1457. Roberto of San Severino; died fighting for Venice against Sigismund, Duke of Austria, in 1487. "Primo capitano in Italia."-- Machiavelli. Count of Pitigliano; Nicolo Orsini, born 1442, died 1510. ($) Battle of Vaila in 1509. 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 1409.

Chapter 12

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-12

Any state--old, new, whatever--needs good laws and good armed forces. Since you can't have good armed forces without good law, let's just say you need a good army. There are four types of armies you could have: a local army, mercenaries, auxiliaries , or some kind of mixture. First things first: mercenaries and auxiliary armies are useless. Just don't do it. Mercenaries are only interested in the money and are not reliable. That's how Italy got into trouble--occupation by France and Spain--in the first place. Plus, if a mercenary leader is good then you have to be afraid that he will turn against you, and if he is bad he will make you lose anyway. So, no good. Good armies? Citizen armies. Look at Rome. Look at Sparta! Carthage used mercenaries, and guess what happened to them? They got owned by Philip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great's dad. Don't be like Carthage. Machiavelli gives us a bunch of examples, but the basic takeaway here is mercenaries = bad. They are lazy. They are expensive. They kill during wartime. And they don't even defend their camps. Machiavelli has a little bit of an axe to grind about this problem, since he has wanted Italy to stop relying on mercenaries forever, but no one would listen to him.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/book_7.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Brothers Karamazov/section_6_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 7.chapter 1-chapter 4

book 7

{"name": "Book 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422052201/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-brothers-karamazov/study-guide/summary-book-7", "summary": "Father Zossima's body is prepared for burial. Alyosha is stricken with grief, and Father Paisii tries to comfort him. He assures Alyosha that Father Zossima is in Heaven and that this day is Zossima's most glorious day. Father Zossima is given a customary requiem service, and by dawn, people have come to see his body. They bring sick children with them because they are certain that great healing powers are being released upon his death. It is widely held that Father Zossima was a saint. People gather around the corpse, waiting for a miracle to happen. Instead, his body begins to decompose, and those around fear that the decomposition belies a flaw in his holy constitution. This disproves the hypothesis that Father Zossima was a saint. Alyosha does not understand how such a holy man could be degraded in such a way. The monastery is polarized by differing opinions about the fate of Zossima's body. The camp against Zossima is headed by Father Ferapont, who rushes around trying to exorcise demons from Zossima's room. He ridicules the late Father for demanding that men \"worship like an idol.\" Father Paisii confronts him, angry that he is disrupting the peace. He asks Ferapont to leave, and Ferapont makes a dramatic exit, screaming, \"this is an unholy, unholy place!\" Alyosha leaves. He does not understand why God has allowed Father Zossima to be shamed in this way. He meets Rakitin who, in his characteristic fashion, sneers at Alyosha's anguish and Father Zossima's humiliation. With a glint in his eye, Rakitin asks Alyosha if he wants some vodka or some sausage. Even though he should not accept them because it is Lent, Alyosha takes them. Aimless and broken down, Alyosha also accepts Rakitin's offer to visit Grushenka with him. Rakitin is taken aback at Alyosha's indifference and quick acceptance of the offers, but he is delighted at the idea of watching Alyosha compromise himself. When they arrive at Grushenka's place, she is waiting for a message from a former lover who has returned for her. She is excited that Alyosha has come. She is ebullient and loud, but Alyosha believes she is actually happy to see him. Grushenka flirts with Alyosha and teases him, asking why he looks so glum. She sits on his lap, and he does not ask her to get up; in his state, he is \"immune\" to such attempts at seduction--but he is also \"paralyzed\" by his grief. When Grushenka learns that Alyosha is sad because Father Zossima has died, she feels remorseful for flirting with Alyosha and acting so disrespectful. Alyosha is grateful for her pity and her respect, and he thanks her for it, pleading with Rakitin to do the same instead of mocking him. Overcome with self-reproach, Grushenka castigates herself for being an amoral wretch. She tells Alyosha she has not done any good deeds in her life, and she adds that she bribed Rakitin to bring him to her. She had the intention of \"ruining\" Alyosha. She had become fascinated with him because he seemed so pure, yet he never seemed to notice her. She then tells Alyosha about a young captain in the military who once seduced her and left her. Recently, this captain became a widower and sent for her again. She admits that she has been seeing Dmitri purely as a distraction from this man. She also asks if Alyosha can tell Katerina not to be angry with her. Rakitin occasionally interrupts her to say rude things to her. Alyosha finally yells back that Grushenka is a caring girl with a great capacity for forgiveness. He says her soul could \"have treasure in it.\" She kneels at his feet, saying she feels that he has taken pity on her and forgiven her for her many sins, and she is thankful. They both burst into tears. Talking to someone so forthright and compassionate lifts Alyosha's spirits. Before he can respond, Grushenka receives the message for which she has been waiting. She is ambivalent about seeing the man who treated her so badly long ago; she fears for her dignity. Regardless, she decides to see the man, so she says her farewell. Rakitin is upset, and he cannot seem to get a rise out of Alyosha. He suddenly exclaims that Alyosha should not be angry because of the bribe Rakitin took, for, he says, \"you are no Christ and I am no Judas.\" Alyosha stays fairly calm, but Rakitin storms off in frustration, clearly annoyed at the events of the night. Alyosha goes back to pray in Father Zossima's old cell, feeling that his experience with Grushenka has corroborated the value of Zossima's teachings. He experiences fulfillment from responding to others with love and sympathy, and he feels that he can make a positive difference in their lives. Grushenka has revitalized him, has saved him from \"walking toward perdition.\" He did not expect to find such a noble and loving person; he thought he would find a \"wicked soul.\" Realizing that even those who appear wicked can be loving, caring people gives Alyosha new strength. He overhears one of the monks recounting a verse from John about the wedding at Cana. Exhausted from his day, Alyosha falls asleep. He dreams of being in the wedding at Cana, and Father Zossima is there. He tells Alyosha not to despair; even on this gloomy day, Alyosha has helped Grushenka find redemption. There is good that comes out of every situation, and Alyosha should be cheerful. Alyosha realizes that no miracle can be as important as the necessity of loving all of humanity. Alyosha wakes and leaves the monastery, refreshed and filled with hope.", "analysis": "This section seems like a grand turning point in the novel. Father Zossima represents all that Alyosha loves and aspires to be. He has dedicated his life to following this man, but when Father Zossima's body decays, it feels as if Alyosha's adulation has been nullified. The man he has emulated and admired may not be a saint but just another person. If Alyosha has been wrong about Father Zossima's sainthood, his entire life's purpose is thrown into question. To this point, Alyosha has been the most steadfast, consistent character in the novel. He is calm and straightforward, helping those who need help and selflessly taking on responsibility. When Zossima dies, however, he seems a bit lost. Without the guiding hand of a mentor, Alyosha's stability is shaken. Without the assurance of his divine purpose, Alyosha's momentum is temporarily stalled, and he falters. He becomes quiet and sullen; he agrees to immoral behavior such as visiting a woman of questionable character, eating sausage, and drinking vodka. The hero of the novel seems to have lost hope. At this point, the story could move in a new direction. Alyosha could withdraw, leaving all the characters to their own vices. Without Alyosha's helpful hand, these characters would hardly communicate peacefully with each other, tempers would not be calmed, and everything could fall apart. But Alyosha finds faith again. He regains hope and embraces the world anew. His interaction with Grushenka reminds him that his spiritual strength comes from within, from his tradition, and from God, not merely from Father Zossima. This realization is a testament to Alyosha's strong character, and it becomes a saving grace for all the characters in the novel. One could argue that things do not turn out so well for many of the characters in The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan has a nervous breakdown, Dmitri goes to jail, and Smerdyakov commits suicide. Alyosha's help does not significantly improve anyone's situation, it seems; he does not focus his effort on improving the material conditions of those around him. Instead, he focuses on showing everyone love, which does improve their situations. His continued love helps characters such as Dmitri and Grushenka find peace and direction, and though they have not avoided tragedy, their lives are more meaningful because of Alyosha. Grushenka does undergo quite a change in this book. To this point, she has been something of a discursive presence. Fyodor and Dmitri are in love with her, and everyone seems to know gossip about her. The reader has met her once before in person, but this meeting is more telling of her character. Her coy, flirtatious side gives way to a more sensitive impulse toward Alyosha. Like Dmitri's, Grushenka's character is pulled in opposite directions by competing desires. She is sweet and good-natured, but she can be hot-tempered. She can be loving and cruel. Alyosha draws out the good in her, and she saves him, for all intents and purposes, from spiraling into despondency. Though she can seem manipulative and calculating, playing men off each other for fun, she is actually quite sad. She feels trapped by her situation and is considering turning to a man who left her years ago, humiliating her, because her will has grown weak from her life's strife. She has had a difficult life and does not hope to gain respect, only money and power over men. She tells Alyosha she thinks she is wicked. Her contrition reminds the reader of Dmitri's guilty confessions. Perhaps the two are a good match for each other, for both try to do good but are sometimes swayed from the righteous course by their impulsive natures. Grushenka asked Alyosha to come to her because she wanted to \"ruin\" him. She desired to conquer a pious, good person. In reality, she ended up conquering him in a different way. She conquered his despair and gave him new life, simply by offering him sympathy and honesty. It is she, not Father Zossima, who confirmed Alyosha's desire to embrace humanity. After years of being taught the importance of love and compassion, the first thing Zossima's gathered followers look for after Father Zossima's death is a miracle. Zossima taught practical love of one's fellow man, but once he passes away, the emphasis immediately shifts to mysticism. His sainthood is discussed in terms of how fast his body is decomposing. Sadly, his years of compassion and patience are not much discussed. Even Alyosha feels distraught. He knows that Father Zossima is a great man because of what he believes, but he yearns for some divine confirmation of Zossima's greatness. As practical-minded as Alyosha is, he is still a Christian who believes in a reality beyond the physical world. The fact that Zossima's death is surrounded by so much superstition is not necessarily a sign that people do not understand his teachings . Rather, it shows that the Russian people have a strong desire to experience something greater than their everyday experience of life. Theirs is a standard expression of a spiritualized hope among people living in strife. The church not only represents a way of living on earth but also offers an account of the afterlife, a second chance to be at peace, free from misery and the struggle for survival. Some express this hope for a better life with piety. Others, like Ivan, wish merely for changes in this world. Ivan criticizes religious institutions, political institutions, and even human nature, but this is because he hopes for a better life, just as the most superstitious, God-fearing Russian peasant does. The difference is in what they ground their hopes on. Father Zossima was a physical embodiment of this hope, and the lack of a miracle following his death threatens that hope. Their spiritual beliefs are not challenged just because the physical world turned out to be different from what they expected, yet Ivan does not need to face such challenges. The craze after Zossima's death is less about religion that about desperate persons longing for something remarkable."}

PART III Book VII. Alyosha Chapter I. The Breath Of Corruption 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 Paissy, 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 eight-cornered 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 Paissy 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 unheard-of, 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 Paissy 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 town--as 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 light-mindedness 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 Paissy felt for some reason suddenly suspicious--though, 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 good-hearted but weak-minded 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 half-hour 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 stumbling-block 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 turning-point 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, God-fearing 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 Paissy 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 deeply-rooted 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 twenty-four 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 glory--that 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 terror-stricken. I have mentioned above, that though Father Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy 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 arm-chair 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 it--and 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy stood over him, waiting resolutely. Father Ferapont paused and, suddenly leaning his cheek on his hand despondently, pronounced in a sing-song voice, looking at the coffin of the dead elder: "To-morrow they will sing over him 'Our Helper and Defender'--a splendid anthem--and over me when I die all they'll sing will be 'What earthly joy'--a little canticle,"(6) 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 Paissy guessed what a great change was taking place in him at that moment. "Have you, too, fallen into temptation?" cried Father Paissy. "Can you be with those of little faith?" he added mournfully. Alyosha stood still and gazed vaguely at Father Paissy, but quickly turned his eyes away again and again looked on the ground. He stood sideways and did not turn his face to Father Paissy, 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 Paissy, looking after him with sorrowful surprise. Chapter II. A Critical Moment Father Paissy, 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 Paissy'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 worth--that'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 idea--oh, no, not at all--what he saw before all was one figure--the 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 concentrated--and perhaps wrongly so--on 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 Paissy 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 time--and am prepared to admit that it might be difficult to defend my feeling--I 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 ill-treating 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 come-down 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 this--wouldn'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." Chapter III. An Onion 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 strong-willed 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 grown-up 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 protegee, 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 1820, 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 drawing-room 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 drawing-room. 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 free-and-easy 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 looking-glass 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 curtains--that'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 to-day, Alyosha." Grushenka spoke aloud, and, though she was alarmed, she seemed very happy about something. "Why are you so afraid of Mitya to-day?" 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 good-hearted 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 good-natured, her gestures were rapid, direct, confiding, but she was greatly excited. "Dear me, how everything comes together to-day!" 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 good-natured 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 to-day. 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 to-day. 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 now--I 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 to-day, 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 her--do you see how she has pity on me? I came here to find a wicked soul--I felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I've found a true sister, I have found a treasure--a 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 good--that'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 others--partly 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 twenty-five 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 twenty-five 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 twenty-five 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 to-day; 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 hard-hearted, grew stout--grew 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 me--he 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 to-day, 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 dead--he 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 her--it 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 ill-humor 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 tear-stained 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 cry-baby 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, to-morrow, 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! Good-by! Good-by, 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 him--so let him remember that hour all his life--say, '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 again--that'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 twenty-five 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. Chapter IV. Cana Of Galilee It was very late, according to the monastery ideas, when Alyosha returned to the hermitage; the door-keeper let him in by a special entrance. It had struck nine o'clock--the 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 Paissy, 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 Paissy 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 things--something steadfast and comforting--and 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 Paissy 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 Paissy. "_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 each--only 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 to-day. 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 Paissy without his noticing it. Father Paissy 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 mind--and 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."

Book 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210422052201/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-brothers-karamazov/study-guide/summary-book-7

Father Zossima's body is prepared for burial. Alyosha is stricken with grief, and Father Paisii tries to comfort him. He assures Alyosha that Father Zossima is in Heaven and that this day is Zossima's most glorious day. Father Zossima is given a customary requiem service, and by dawn, people have come to see his body. They bring sick children with them because they are certain that great healing powers are being released upon his death. It is widely held that Father Zossima was a saint. People gather around the corpse, waiting for a miracle to happen. Instead, his body begins to decompose, and those around fear that the decomposition belies a flaw in his holy constitution. This disproves the hypothesis that Father Zossima was a saint. Alyosha does not understand how such a holy man could be degraded in such a way. The monastery is polarized by differing opinions about the fate of Zossima's body. The camp against Zossima is headed by Father Ferapont, who rushes around trying to exorcise demons from Zossima's room. He ridicules the late Father for demanding that men "worship like an idol." Father Paisii confronts him, angry that he is disrupting the peace. He asks Ferapont to leave, and Ferapont makes a dramatic exit, screaming, "this is an unholy, unholy place!" Alyosha leaves. He does not understand why God has allowed Father Zossima to be shamed in this way. He meets Rakitin who, in his characteristic fashion, sneers at Alyosha's anguish and Father Zossima's humiliation. With a glint in his eye, Rakitin asks Alyosha if he wants some vodka or some sausage. Even though he should not accept them because it is Lent, Alyosha takes them. Aimless and broken down, Alyosha also accepts Rakitin's offer to visit Grushenka with him. Rakitin is taken aback at Alyosha's indifference and quick acceptance of the offers, but he is delighted at the idea of watching Alyosha compromise himself. When they arrive at Grushenka's place, she is waiting for a message from a former lover who has returned for her. She is excited that Alyosha has come. She is ebullient and loud, but Alyosha believes she is actually happy to see him. Grushenka flirts with Alyosha and teases him, asking why he looks so glum. She sits on his lap, and he does not ask her to get up; in his state, he is "immune" to such attempts at seduction--but he is also "paralyzed" by his grief. When Grushenka learns that Alyosha is sad because Father Zossima has died, she feels remorseful for flirting with Alyosha and acting so disrespectful. Alyosha is grateful for her pity and her respect, and he thanks her for it, pleading with Rakitin to do the same instead of mocking him. Overcome with self-reproach, Grushenka castigates herself for being an amoral wretch. She tells Alyosha she has not done any good deeds in her life, and she adds that she bribed Rakitin to bring him to her. She had the intention of "ruining" Alyosha. She had become fascinated with him because he seemed so pure, yet he never seemed to notice her. She then tells Alyosha about a young captain in the military who once seduced her and left her. Recently, this captain became a widower and sent for her again. She admits that she has been seeing Dmitri purely as a distraction from this man. She also asks if Alyosha can tell Katerina not to be angry with her. Rakitin occasionally interrupts her to say rude things to her. Alyosha finally yells back that Grushenka is a caring girl with a great capacity for forgiveness. He says her soul could "have treasure in it." She kneels at his feet, saying she feels that he has taken pity on her and forgiven her for her many sins, and she is thankful. They both burst into tears. Talking to someone so forthright and compassionate lifts Alyosha's spirits. Before he can respond, Grushenka receives the message for which she has been waiting. She is ambivalent about seeing the man who treated her so badly long ago; she fears for her dignity. Regardless, she decides to see the man, so she says her farewell. Rakitin is upset, and he cannot seem to get a rise out of Alyosha. He suddenly exclaims that Alyosha should not be angry because of the bribe Rakitin took, for, he says, "you are no Christ and I am no Judas." Alyosha stays fairly calm, but Rakitin storms off in frustration, clearly annoyed at the events of the night. Alyosha goes back to pray in Father Zossima's old cell, feeling that his experience with Grushenka has corroborated the value of Zossima's teachings. He experiences fulfillment from responding to others with love and sympathy, and he feels that he can make a positive difference in their lives. Grushenka has revitalized him, has saved him from "walking toward perdition." He did not expect to find such a noble and loving person; he thought he would find a "wicked soul." Realizing that even those who appear wicked can be loving, caring people gives Alyosha new strength. He overhears one of the monks recounting a verse from John about the wedding at Cana. Exhausted from his day, Alyosha falls asleep. He dreams of being in the wedding at Cana, and Father Zossima is there. He tells Alyosha not to despair; even on this gloomy day, Alyosha has helped Grushenka find redemption. There is good that comes out of every situation, and Alyosha should be cheerful. Alyosha realizes that no miracle can be as important as the necessity of loving all of humanity. Alyosha wakes and leaves the monastery, refreshed and filled with hope.

This section seems like a grand turning point in the novel. Father Zossima represents all that Alyosha loves and aspires to be. He has dedicated his life to following this man, but when Father Zossima's body decays, it feels as if Alyosha's adulation has been nullified. The man he has emulated and admired may not be a saint but just another person. If Alyosha has been wrong about Father Zossima's sainthood, his entire life's purpose is thrown into question. To this point, Alyosha has been the most steadfast, consistent character in the novel. He is calm and straightforward, helping those who need help and selflessly taking on responsibility. When Zossima dies, however, he seems a bit lost. Without the guiding hand of a mentor, Alyosha's stability is shaken. Without the assurance of his divine purpose, Alyosha's momentum is temporarily stalled, and he falters. He becomes quiet and sullen; he agrees to immoral behavior such as visiting a woman of questionable character, eating sausage, and drinking vodka. The hero of the novel seems to have lost hope. At this point, the story could move in a new direction. Alyosha could withdraw, leaving all the characters to their own vices. Without Alyosha's helpful hand, these characters would hardly communicate peacefully with each other, tempers would not be calmed, and everything could fall apart. But Alyosha finds faith again. He regains hope and embraces the world anew. His interaction with Grushenka reminds him that his spiritual strength comes from within, from his tradition, and from God, not merely from Father Zossima. This realization is a testament to Alyosha's strong character, and it becomes a saving grace for all the characters in the novel. One could argue that things do not turn out so well for many of the characters in The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan has a nervous breakdown, Dmitri goes to jail, and Smerdyakov commits suicide. Alyosha's help does not significantly improve anyone's situation, it seems; he does not focus his effort on improving the material conditions of those around him. Instead, he focuses on showing everyone love, which does improve their situations. His continued love helps characters such as Dmitri and Grushenka find peace and direction, and though they have not avoided tragedy, their lives are more meaningful because of Alyosha. Grushenka does undergo quite a change in this book. To this point, she has been something of a discursive presence. Fyodor and Dmitri are in love with her, and everyone seems to know gossip about her. The reader has met her once before in person, but this meeting is more telling of her character. Her coy, flirtatious side gives way to a more sensitive impulse toward Alyosha. Like Dmitri's, Grushenka's character is pulled in opposite directions by competing desires. She is sweet and good-natured, but she can be hot-tempered. She can be loving and cruel. Alyosha draws out the good in her, and she saves him, for all intents and purposes, from spiraling into despondency. Though she can seem manipulative and calculating, playing men off each other for fun, she is actually quite sad. She feels trapped by her situation and is considering turning to a man who left her years ago, humiliating her, because her will has grown weak from her life's strife. She has had a difficult life and does not hope to gain respect, only money and power over men. She tells Alyosha she thinks she is wicked. Her contrition reminds the reader of Dmitri's guilty confessions. Perhaps the two are a good match for each other, for both try to do good but are sometimes swayed from the righteous course by their impulsive natures. Grushenka asked Alyosha to come to her because she wanted to "ruin" him. She desired to conquer a pious, good person. In reality, she ended up conquering him in a different way. She conquered his despair and gave him new life, simply by offering him sympathy and honesty. It is she, not Father Zossima, who confirmed Alyosha's desire to embrace humanity. After years of being taught the importance of love and compassion, the first thing Zossima's gathered followers look for after Father Zossima's death is a miracle. Zossima taught practical love of one's fellow man, but once he passes away, the emphasis immediately shifts to mysticism. His sainthood is discussed in terms of how fast his body is decomposing. Sadly, his years of compassion and patience are not much discussed. Even Alyosha feels distraught. He knows that Father Zossima is a great man because of what he believes, but he yearns for some divine confirmation of Zossima's greatness. As practical-minded as Alyosha is, he is still a Christian who believes in a reality beyond the physical world. The fact that Zossima's death is surrounded by so much superstition is not necessarily a sign that people do not understand his teachings . Rather, it shows that the Russian people have a strong desire to experience something greater than their everyday experience of life. Theirs is a standard expression of a spiritualized hope among people living in strife. The church not only represents a way of living on earth but also offers an account of the afterlife, a second chance to be at peace, free from misery and the struggle for survival. Some express this hope for a better life with piety. Others, like Ivan, wish merely for changes in this world. Ivan criticizes religious institutions, political institutions, and even human nature, but this is because he hopes for a better life, just as the most superstitious, God-fearing Russian peasant does. The difference is in what they ground their hopes on. Father Zossima was a physical embodiment of this hope, and the lack of a miracle following his death threatens that hope. Their spiritual beliefs are not challenged just because the physical world turned out to be different from what they expected, yet Ivan does not need to face such challenges. The craze after Zossima's death is less about religion that about desperate persons longing for something remarkable.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/34.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_3_part_10.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 34

chapter 34

{"name": "Chapter 34", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34", "summary": "Tess and Angel go to Wellbridge, where they stay in one of the d'Urberville ancestral mansions. On entering, they find that they have only a couple of rooms. Two life-size portraits of d'Urberville ladies frighten Tess, for she can see her form in theirs. Jonathan Kail, the servant, brings a package from Reverend Clare to Tess, containing a necklace with pendant, bracelets and earrings. Angel has Tess put on the jewelry, and imagines how wonderful she would appear in a ballroom. Tess thinks that the jewelry must be sold. Jonathan tells Tess how Retty Priddle attempted to drown herself when the Clares left, and how Marian was found drunk. Only Izzy remains as usual, but her spirits remain low. Tess feels guilty about her fate, thinking herself undeserving. Angel promises to tell Tess all of his faults. Angel admits how in London he plunged into a forty-eight hour dissipation with a stranger. Tess decides to tell Angel about her sin, and enters into her story about Alec d'Urberville and its results.", "analysis": "Several events in this chapter serve to precipitate Tess's confession in this chapter. Along with the earlier established feelings of guilt and anxiety, at Wellbridge Tess must face the imposition of her d'Urberville past upon her. The d'Urberville history literally faces Tess at Wellbridge, as foreboding and forbidding portraits of Tess's ancestors loom throughout the mansion. Furthermore, Tess also faces the irony of Angel's treatment of her; when he insists that she wear the jewelry sent by the Clare family, he envisions her as an esteemed lady, which starkly contrasts with her actual history. A third precipitating factor for Tess's confession comes from her realization of the consequences of her marriage; by marrying a man of whom she believes herself unworthy, Tess instigates Retty Priddle's suicide attempt and Marian's and Izz's depression. While the possibility that Tess actually prevented a romance between Angel and one of these women seems low, Tess nevertheless believes herself responsible. The final precipitating factor in this chapter is Angel's confession of his own sins. There is considerable irony in Angel's confession, for he admits to a premarital affair that seems worse than Tess's single moment of weakness; a further, tragic irony will result from Angel's reaction to Tess's similar admission. While Tess feels relieved by Angel's honesty, Angel will have a far more unforgiving reaction to Tess's sin, which he himself has committed"}

They drove by the level road along the valley to a distance of a few miles, and, reaching Wellbridge, turned away from the village to the left, and over the great Elizabethan bridge which gives the place half its name. Immediately behind it stood the house wherein they had engaged lodgings, whose exterior features are so well known to all travellers through the Froom Valley; once portion of a fine manorial residence, and the property and seat of a d'Urberville, but since its partial demolition a farmhouse. "Welcome to one of your ancestral mansions!" said Clare as he handed her down. But he regretted the pleasantry; it was too near a satire. On entering they found that, though they had only engaged a couple of rooms, the farmer had taken advantage of their proposed presence during the coming days to pay a New Year's visit to some friends, leaving a woman from a neighbouring cottage to minister to their few wants. The absoluteness of possession pleased them, and they realized it as the first moment of their experience under their own exclusive roof-tree. But he found that the mouldy old habitation somewhat depressed his bride. When the carriage was gone they ascended the stairs to wash their hands, the charwoman showing the way. On the landing Tess stopped and started. "What's the matter?" said he. "Those horrid women!" she answered with a smile. "How they frightened me." He looked up, and perceived two life-size portraits on panels built into the masonry. As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these paintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten. The long pointed features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so suggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook nose, large teeth, and bold eye of the other suggesting arrogance to the point of ferocity, haunt the beholder afterwards in his dreams. "Whose portraits are those?" asked Clare of the charwoman. "I have been told by old folk that they were ladies of the d'Urberville family, the ancient lords of this manor," she said, "Owing to their being builded into the wall they can't be moved away." The unpleasantness of the matter was that, in addition to their effect upon Tess, her fine features were unquestionably traceable in these exaggerated forms. He said nothing of this, however, and, regretting that he had gone out of his way to choose the house for their bridal time, went on into the adjoining room. The place having been rather hastily prepared for them, they washed their hands in one basin. Clare touched hers under the water. "Which are my fingers and which are yours?" he said, looking up. "They are very much mixed." "They are all yours," said she, very prettily, and endeavoured to be gayer than she was. He had not been displeased with her thoughtfulness on such an occasion; it was what every sensible woman would show: but Tess knew that she had been thoughtful to excess, and struggled against it. The sun was so low on that short last afternoon of the year that it shone in through a small opening and formed a golden staff which stretched across to her skirt, where it made a spot like a paint-mark set upon her. They went into the ancient parlour to tea, and here they shared their first common meal alone. Such was their childishness, or rather his, that he found it interesting to use the same bread-and-butter plate as herself, and to brush crumbs from her lips with his own. He wondered a little that she did not enter into these frivolities with his own zest. Looking at her silently for a long time; "She is a dear dear Tess," he thought to himself, as one deciding on the true construction of a difficult passage. "Do I realize solemnly enough how utterly and irretrievably this little womanly thing is the creature of my good or bad faith and fortune? I think not. I think I could not, unless I were a woman myself. What I am in worldly estate, she is. What I become, she must become. What I cannot be, she cannot be. And shall I ever neglect her, or hurt her, or even forget to consider her? God forbid such a crime!" They sat on over the tea-table waiting for their luggage, which the dairyman had promised to send before it grew dark. But evening began to close in, and the luggage did not arrive, and they had brought nothing more than they stood in. With the departure of the sun the calm mood of the winter day changed. Out of doors there began noises as of silk smartly rubbed; the restful dead leaves of the preceding autumn were stirred to irritated resurrection, and whirled about unwillingly, and tapped against the shutters. It soon began to rain. "That cock knew the weather was going to change," said Clare. The woman who had attended upon them had gone home for the night, but she had placed candles upon the table, and now they lit them. Each candle-flame drew towards the fireplace. "These old houses are so draughty," continued Angel, looking at the flames, and at the grease guttering down the sides. "I wonder where that luggage is. We haven't even a brush and comb." "I don't know," she answered, absent-minded. "Tess, you are not a bit cheerful this evening--not at all as you used to be. Those harridans on the panels upstairs have unsettled you. I am sorry I brought you here. I wonder if you really love me, after all?" He knew that she did, and the words had no serious intent; but she was surcharged with emotion, and winced like a wounded animal. Though she tried not to shed tears, she could not help showing one or two. "I did not mean it!" said he, sorry. "You are worried at not having your things, I know. I cannot think why old Jonathan has not come with them. Why, it is seven o'clock? Ah, there he is!" A knock had come to the door, and, there being nobody else to answer it, Clare went out. He returned to the room with a small package in his hand. "It is not Jonathan, after all," he said. "How vexing!" said Tess. The packet had been brought by a special messenger, who had arrived at Talbothays from Emminster Vicarage immediately after the departure of the married couple, and had followed them hither, being under injunction to deliver it into nobody's hands but theirs. Clare brought it to the light. It was less than a foot long, sewed up in canvas, sealed in red wax with his father's seal, and directed in his father's hand to "Mrs Angel Clare." "It is a little wedding-present for you, Tess," said he, handing it to her. "How thoughtful they are!" Tess looked a little flustered as she took it. "I think I would rather have you open it, dearest," said she, turning over the parcel. "I don't like to break those great seals; they look so serious. Please open it for me!" He undid the parcel. Inside was a case of morocco leather, on the top of which lay a note and a key. The note was for Clare, in the following words: MY DEAR SON-- Possibly you have forgotten that on the death of your godmother, Mrs Pitney, when you were a lad, she--vain, kind woman that she was--left to me a portion of the contents of her jewel-case in trust for your wife, if you should ever have one, as a mark of her affection for you and whomsoever you should choose. This trust I have fulfilled, and the diamonds have been locked up at my banker's ever since. Though I feel it to be a somewhat incongruous act in the circumstances, I am, as you will see, bound to hand over the articles to the woman to whom the use of them for her lifetime will now rightly belong, and they are therefore promptly sent. They become, I believe, heirlooms, strictly speaking, according to the terms of your godmother's will. The precise words of the clause that refers to this matter are enclosed. "I do remember," said Clare; "but I had quite forgotten." Unlocking the case, they found it to contain a necklace, with pendant, bracelets, and ear-rings; and also some other small ornaments. Tess seemed afraid to touch them at first, but her eyes sparkled for a moment as much as the stones when Clare spread out the set. "Are they mine?" she asked incredulously. "They are, certainly," said he. He looked into the fire. He remembered how, when he was a lad of fifteen, his godmother, the Squire's wife--the only rich person with whom he had ever come in contact--had pinned her faith to his success; had prophesied a wondrous career for him. There had seemed nothing at all out of keeping with such a conjectured career in the storing up of these showy ornaments for his wife and the wives of her descendants. They gleamed somewhat ironically now. "Yet why?" he asked himself. It was but a question of vanity throughout; and if that were admitted into one side of the equation it should be admitted into the other. His wife was a d'Urberville: whom could they become better than her? Suddenly he said with enthusiasm-- "Tess, put them on--put them on!" And he turned from the fire to help her. But as if by magic she had already donned them--necklace, ear-rings, bracelets, and all. "But the gown isn't right, Tess," said Clare. "It ought to be a low one for a set of brilliants like that." "Ought it?" said Tess. "Yes," said he. He suggested to her how to tuck in the upper edge of her bodice, so as to make it roughly approximate to the cut for evening wear; and when she had done this, and the pendant to the necklace hung isolated amid the whiteness of her throat, as it was designed to do, he stepped back to survey her. "My heavens," said Clare, "how beautiful you are!" As everybody knows, fine feathers make fine birds; a peasant girl but very moderately prepossessing to the casual observer in her simple condition and attire will bloom as an amazing beauty if clothed as a woman of fashion with the aids that Art can render; while the beauty of the midnight crush would often cut but a sorry figure if placed inside the field-woman's wrapper upon a monotonous acreage of turnips on a dull day. He had never till now estimated the artistic excellence of Tess's limbs and features. "If you were only to appear in a ball-room!" he said. "But no--no, dearest; I think I love you best in the wing-bonnet and cotton-frock--yes, better than in this, well as you support these dignities." Tess's sense of her striking appearance had given her a flush of excitement, which was yet not happiness. "I'll take them off," she said, "in case Jonathan should see me. They are not fit for me, are they? They must be sold, I suppose?" "Let them stay a few minutes longer. Sell them? Never. It would be a breach of faith." Influenced by a second thought she readily obeyed. She had something to tell, and there might be help in these. She sat down with the jewels upon her; and they again indulged in conjectures as to where Jonathan could possibly be with their baggage. The ale they had poured out for his consumption when he came had gone flat with long standing. Shortly after this they began supper, which was already laid on a side-table. Ere they had finished there was a jerk in the fire-smoke, the rising skein of which bulged out into the room, as if some giant had laid his hand on the chimney-top for a moment. It had been caused by the opening of the outer door. A heavy step was now heard in the passage, and Angel went out. "I couldn' make nobody hear at all by knocking," apologized Jonathan Kail, for it was he at last; "and as't was raining out I opened the door. I've brought the things, sir." "I am very glad to see them. But you are very late." "Well, yes, sir." There was something subdued in Jonathan Kail's tone which had not been there in the day, and lines of concern were ploughed upon his forehead in addition to the lines of years. He continued-- "We've all been gallied at the dairy at what might ha' been a most terrible affliction since you and your Mis'ess--so to name her now--left us this a'ternoon. Perhaps you ha'nt forgot the cock's afternoon crow?" "Dear me;--what--" "Well, some says it do mane one thing, and some another; but what's happened is that poor little Retty Priddle hev tried to drown herself." "No! Really! Why, she bade us goodbye with the rest--" "Yes. Well, sir, when you and your Mis'ess--so to name what she lawful is--when you two drove away, as I say, Retty and Marian put on their bonnets and went out; and as there is not much doing now, being New Year's Eve, and folks mops and brooms from what's inside 'em, nobody took much notice. They went on to Lew-Everard, where they had summut to drink, and then on they vamped to Dree-armed Cross, and there they seemed to have parted, Retty striking across the water-meads as if for home, and Marian going on to the next village, where there's another public-house. Nothing more was zeed or heard o' Retty till the waterman, on his way home, noticed something by the Great Pool; 'twas her bonnet and shawl packed up. In the water he found her. He and another man brought her home, thinking a' was dead; but she fetched round by degrees." Angel, suddenly recollecting that Tess was overhearing this gloomy tale, went to shut the door between the passage and the ante-room to the inner parlour where she was; but his wife, flinging a shawl round her, had come to the outer room and was listening to the man's narrative, her eyes resting absently on the luggage and the drops of rain glistening upon it. "And, more than this, there's Marian; she's been found dead drunk by the withy-bed--a girl who hev never been known to touch anything before except shilling ale; though, to be sure, 'a was always a good trencher-woman, as her face showed. It seems as if the maids had all gone out o' their minds!" "And Izz?" asked Tess. "Izz is about house as usual; but 'a do say 'a can guess how it happened; and she seems to be very low in mind about it, poor maid, as well she mid be. And so you see, sir, as all this happened just when we was packing your few traps and your Mis'ess's night-rail and dressing things into the cart, why, it belated me." "Yes. Well, Jonathan, will you get the trunks upstairs, and drink a cup of ale, and hasten back as soon as you can, in case you should be wanted?" Tess had gone back to the inner parlour, and sat down by the fire, looking wistfully into it. She heard Jonathan Kail's heavy footsteps up and down the stairs till he had done placing the luggage, and heard him express his thanks for the ale her husband took out to him, and for the gratuity he received. Jonathan's footsteps then died from the door, and his cart creaked away. Angel slid forward the massive oak bar which secured the door, and coming in to where she sat over the hearth, pressed her cheeks between his hands from behind. He expected her to jump up gaily and unpack the toilet-gear that she had been so anxious about, but as she did not rise he sat down with her in the firelight, the candles on the supper-table being too thin and glimmering to interfere with its glow. "I am so sorry you should have heard this sad story about the girls," he said. "Still, don't let it depress you. Retty was naturally morbid, you know." "Without the least cause," said Tess. "While they who have cause to be, hide it, and pretend they are not." This incident had turned the scale for her. They were simple and innocent girls on whom the unhappiness of unrequited love had fallen; they had deserved better at the hands of Fate. She had deserved worse--yet she was the chosen one. It was wicked of her to take all without paying. She would pay to the uttermost farthing; she would tell, there and then. This final determination she came to when she looked into the fire, he holding her hand. A steady glare from the now flameless embers painted the sides and back of the fireplace with its colour, and the well-polished andirons, and the old brass tongs that would not meet. The underside of the mantel-shelf was flushed with the high-coloured light, and the legs of the table nearest the fire. Tess's face and neck reflected the same warmth, which each gem turned into an Aldebaran or a Sirius--a constellation of white, red, and green flashes, that interchanged their hues with her every pulsation. "Do you remember what we said to each other this morning about telling our faults?" he asked abruptly, finding that she still remained immovable. "We spoke lightly perhaps, and you may well have done so. But for me it was no light promise. I want to make a confession to you, Love." This, from him, so unexpectedly apposite, had the effect upon her of a Providential interposition. "You have to confess something?" she said quickly, and even with gladness and relief. "You did not expect it? Ah--you thought too highly of me. Now listen. Put your head there, because I want you to forgive me, and not to be indignant with me for not telling you before, as perhaps I ought to have done." How strange it was! He seemed to be her double. She did not speak, and Clare went on-- "I did not mention it because I was afraid of endangering my chance of you, darling, the great prize of my life--my Fellowship I call you. My brother's Fellowship was won at his college, mine at Talbothays Dairy. Well, I would not risk it. I was going to tell you a month ago--at the time you agreed to be mine, but I could not; I thought it might frighten you away from me. I put it off; then I thought I would tell you yesterday, to give you a chance at least of escaping me. But I did not. And I did not this morning, when you proposed our confessing our faults on the landing--the sinner that I was! But I must, now I see you sitting there so solemnly. I wonder if you will forgive me?" "O yes! I am sure that--" "Well, I hope so. But wait a minute. You don't know. To begin at the beginning. Though I imagine my poor father fears that I am one of the eternally lost for my doctrines, I am of course, a believer in good morals, Tess, as much as you. I used to wish to be a teacher of men, and it was a great disappointment to me when I found I could not enter the Church. I admired spotlessness, even though I could lay no claim to it, and hated impurity, as I hope I do now. Whatever one may think of plenary inspiration, one must heartily subscribe to these words of Paul: 'Be thou an example--in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.' It is the only safeguard for us poor human beings. '_Integer vitae_,' says a Roman poet, who is strange company for St Paul-- "The man of upright life, from frailties free, Stands not in need of Moorish spear or bow. "Well, a certain place is paved with good intentions, and having felt all that so strongly, you will see what a terrible remorse it bred in me when, in the midst of my fine aims for other people, I myself fell." He then told her of that time of his life to which allusion has been made when, tossed about by doubts and difficulties in London, like a cork on the waves, he plunged into eight-and-forty hours' dissipation with a stranger. "Happily I awoke almost immediately to a sense of my folly," he continued. "I would have no more to say to her, and I came home. I have never repeated the offence. But I felt I should like to treat you with perfect frankness and honour, and I could not do so without telling this. Do you forgive me?" She pressed his hand tightly for an answer. "Then we will dismiss it at once and for ever!--too painful as it is for the occasion--and talk of something lighter." "O, Angel--I am almost glad--because now YOU can forgive ME! I have not made my confession. I have a confession, too--remember, I said so." "Ah, to be sure! Now then for it, wicked little one." "Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as yours, or more so." "It can hardly be more serious, dearest." "It cannot--O no, it cannot!" She jumped up joyfully at the hope. "No, it cannot be more serious, certainly," she cried, "because 'tis just the same! I will tell you now." She sat down again. Their hands were still joined. The ashes under the grate were lit by the fire vertically, like a torrid waste. Imagination might have beheld a Last Day luridness in this red-coaled glow, which fell on his face and hand, and on hers, peering into the loose hair about her brow, and firing the delicate skin underneath. A large shadow of her shape rose upon the wall and ceiling. She bent forward, at which each diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's; and pressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of her acquaintance with Alec d'Urberville and its results, murmuring the words without flinching, and with her eyelids drooping down. END OF PHASE THE FOURTH Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays

Chapter 34

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34

Tess and Angel go to Wellbridge, where they stay in one of the d'Urberville ancestral mansions. On entering, they find that they have only a couple of rooms. Two life-size portraits of d'Urberville ladies frighten Tess, for she can see her form in theirs. Jonathan Kail, the servant, brings a package from Reverend Clare to Tess, containing a necklace with pendant, bracelets and earrings. Angel has Tess put on the jewelry, and imagines how wonderful she would appear in a ballroom. Tess thinks that the jewelry must be sold. Jonathan tells Tess how Retty Priddle attempted to drown herself when the Clares left, and how Marian was found drunk. Only Izzy remains as usual, but her spirits remain low. Tess feels guilty about her fate, thinking herself undeserving. Angel promises to tell Tess all of his faults. Angel admits how in London he plunged into a forty-eight hour dissipation with a stranger. Tess decides to tell Angel about her sin, and enters into her story about Alec d'Urberville and its results.

Several events in this chapter serve to precipitate Tess's confession in this chapter. Along with the earlier established feelings of guilt and anxiety, at Wellbridge Tess must face the imposition of her d'Urberville past upon her. The d'Urberville history literally faces Tess at Wellbridge, as foreboding and forbidding portraits of Tess's ancestors loom throughout the mansion. Furthermore, Tess also faces the irony of Angel's treatment of her; when he insists that she wear the jewelry sent by the Clare family, he envisions her as an esteemed lady, which starkly contrasts with her actual history. A third precipitating factor for Tess's confession comes from her realization of the consequences of her marriage; by marrying a man of whom she believes herself unworthy, Tess instigates Retty Priddle's suicide attempt and Marian's and Izz's depression. While the possibility that Tess actually prevented a romance between Angel and one of these women seems low, Tess nevertheless believes herself responsible. The final precipitating factor in this chapter is Angel's confession of his own sins. There is considerable irony in Angel's confession, for he admits to a premarital affair that seems worse than Tess's single moment of weakness; a further, tragic irony will result from Angel's reaction to Tess's similar admission. While Tess feels relieved by Angel's honesty, Angel will have a far more unforgiving reaction to Tess's sin, which he himself has committed

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/21.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_20_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 21

chapter 21

{"name": "Chapter 21", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-21", "summary": "The Palmers return to their home at Cleveland the next day, but there are more visitors in store for Barton Park. Mrs. Jennings has discovered some distant relatives on a brief trip to Exeter, and invited them to come stay. Lady Middleton is shaken by this rather odd invitation, but comes around. When the young cousins arrive, they don't disappoint - they're quite polite and fashionable. They simply love everything about Barton, and go out of their way to flatter Lady Middleton, who decides that she likes them after all. Sir John rushes over to fetch Marianne and Elinor, wanting them to meet the new arrivals. He's sure they'll all get along. Sir John can't believe that the Dashwoods aren't stumbling over themselves to get there - instead, they promise him that they'll come and visit within the next couple of days. He goes back to brag about them to the new arrivals, the two Miss Steeles. Elinor and Marianne finally go to see the visitors a couple of days later. The elder Miss Steele is nothing to write home about - she's almost thirty , and not very pretty. The younger sister, Lucy, is a different story, though. She's about 22, and is very pretty - she's very sharp and put-together, though not exactly elegant. Elinor admits to herself that the two sisters do have some common sense; they've figured out that the way into Lady Middleton's heart is by praising her children. Everyone sits and admires the children, even though one of them, Annamaria, has a screaming fit. The Miss Steeles pamper her wholeheartedly. Lady Middleton carries the screaming child away, leaving her four guests alone. They make small talk about Lady Middleton and Sir John; Marianne can't bear to participate in such niceties, so Elinor bears the brunt of the small talk. Miss Steele asks if they've been enjoying their new home in Devonshire, and comments that they must have been sad to leave Norland. Whoa - this is kind of a personal question for someone who's practically a stranger! Elinor is a little taken aback, and responds rather cautiously that she was. There's some small talk about Norland's beauties, in which Lucy seems a little apologetic for her rude older sister. Miss Steele then pushes forward, asking if the Dashwoods had many handsome beaux there - that is, did they have a lot of boyfriends? Lucy's embarrassed again by her sister's forthrightness. Miss Steele goes on and on about \"beaux\" - what men should be like to be a good beau. She's totally ridiculous, and it's obvious that this is all she ever thinks about. Everyone else is kind of mortified by the turn of conversation. Lucy changes the subject, but the damage is done - the Dashwoods leave, certain that they don't want to hang out with the Steeles anymore. Elinor can't stand the older one, and even pretty Lucy kind of turned her off with her obvious shrewdness. Unfortunately, the Steeles don't feel the same way - they simply loved the Dashwoods, and think they're going to be BFFs. Sir John joins the side of the Miss Steeles, and insist that the young ladies all hang out together. The Miss Steeles join in the Middleton family pastime of teasing Elinor and Marianne about their suitors. It's not a welcome addition. Sir John lets slip the name of Elinor's supposed \"beau\" - Ferrars. It turns out Lucy and Anne know him through their uncle. She wonders what exactly they know about him.", "analysis": ""}

The Palmers returned to Cleveland the next day, and the two families at Barton were again left to entertain each other. But this did not last long; Elinor had hardly got their last visitors out of her head, had hardly done wondering at Charlotte's being so happy without a cause, at Mr. Palmer's acting so simply, with good abilities, and at the strange unsuitableness which often existed between husband and wife, before Sir John's and Mrs. Jennings's active zeal in the cause of society, procured her some other new acquaintance to see and observe. In a morning's excursion to Exeter, they had met with two young ladies, whom Mrs. Jennings had the satisfaction of discovering to be her relations, and this was enough for Sir John to invite them directly to the park, as soon as their present engagements at Exeter were over. Their engagements at Exeter instantly gave way before such an invitation, and Lady Middleton was thrown into no little alarm on the return of Sir John, by hearing that she was very soon to receive a visit from two girls whom she had never seen in her life, and of whose elegance,--whose tolerable gentility even, she could have no proof; for the assurances of her husband and mother on that subject went for nothing at all. Their being her relations too made it so much the worse; and Mrs. Jennings's attempts at consolation were therefore unfortunately founded, when she advised her daughter not to care about their being so fashionable; because they were all cousins and must put up with one another. As it was impossible, however, now to prevent their coming, Lady Middleton resigned herself to the idea of it, with all the philosophy of a well-bred woman, contenting herself with merely giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject five or six times every day. The young ladies arrived: their appearance was by no means ungenteel or unfashionable. Their dress was very smart, their manners very civil, they were delighted with the house, and in raptures with the furniture, and they happened to be so doatingly fond of children that Lady Middleton's good opinion was engaged in their favour before they had been an hour at the Park. She declared them to be very agreeable girls indeed, which for her ladyship was enthusiastic admiration. Sir John's confidence in his own judgment rose with this animated praise, and he set off directly for the cottage to tell the Miss Dashwoods of the Miss Steeles' arrival, and to assure them of their being the sweetest girls in the world. From such commendation as this, however, there was not much to be learned; Elinor well knew that the sweetest girls in the world were to be met with in every part of England, under every possible variation of form, face, temper and understanding. Sir John wanted the whole family to walk to the Park directly and look at his guests. Benevolent, philanthropic man! It was painful to him even to keep a third cousin to himself. "Do come now," said he--"pray come--you must come--I declare you shall come--You can't think how you will like them. Lucy is monstrous pretty, and so good humoured and agreeable! The children are all hanging about her already, as if she was an old acquaintance. And they both long to see you of all things, for they have heard at Exeter that you are the most beautiful creatures in the world; and I have told them it is all very true, and a great deal more. You will be delighted with them I am sure. They have brought the whole coach full of playthings for the children. How can you be so cross as not to come? Why they are your cousins, you know, after a fashion. YOU are my cousins, and they are my wife's, so you must be related." But Sir John could not prevail. He could only obtain a promise of their calling at the Park within a day or two, and then left them in amazement at their indifference, to walk home and boast anew of their attractions to the Miss Steeles, as he had been already boasting of the Miss Steeles to them. When their promised visit to the Park and consequent introduction to these young ladies took place, they found in the appearance of the eldest, who was nearly thirty, with a very plain and not a sensible face, nothing to admire; but in the other, who was not more than two or three and twenty, they acknowledged considerable beauty; her features were pretty, and she had a sharp quick eye, and a smartness of air, which though it did not give actual elegance or grace, gave distinction to her person.-- Their manners were particularly civil, and Elinor soon allowed them credit for some kind of sense, when she saw with what constant and judicious attention they were making themselves agreeable to Lady Middleton. With her children they were in continual raptures, extolling their beauty, courting their notice, and humouring their whims; and such of their time as could be spared from the importunate demands which this politeness made on it, was spent in admiration of whatever her ladyship was doing, if she happened to be doing any thing, or in taking patterns of some elegant new dress, in which her appearance the day before had thrown them into unceasing delight. Fortunately for those who pay their court through such foibles, a fond mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands are exorbitant; but she will swallow any thing; and the excessive affection and endurance of the Miss Steeles towards her offspring were viewed therefore by Lady Middleton without the smallest surprise or distrust. She saw with maternal complacency all the impertinent encroachments and mischievous tricks to which her cousins submitted. She saw their sashes untied, their hair pulled about their ears, their work-bags searched, and their knives and scissors stolen away, and felt no doubt of its being a reciprocal enjoyment. It suggested no other surprise than that Elinor and Marianne should sit so composedly by, without claiming a share in what was passing. "John is in such spirits today!" said she, on his taking Miss Steeles's pocket handkerchief, and throwing it out of window--"He is full of monkey tricks." And soon afterwards, on the second boy's violently pinching one of the same lady's fingers, she fondly observed, "How playful William is!" "And here is my sweet little Annamaria," she added, tenderly caressing a little girl of three years old, who had not made a noise for the last two minutes; "And she is always so gentle and quiet--Never was there such a quiet little thing!" But unfortunately in bestowing these embraces, a pin in her ladyship's head dress slightly scratching the child's neck, produced from this pattern of gentleness such violent screams, as could hardly be outdone by any creature professedly noisy. The mother's consternation was excessive; but it could not surpass the alarm of the Miss Steeles, and every thing was done by all three, in so critical an emergency, which affection could suggest as likely to assuage the agonies of the little sufferer. She was seated in her mother's lap, covered with kisses, her wound bathed with lavender-water, by one of the Miss Steeles, who was on her knees to attend her, and her mouth stuffed with sugar plums by the other. With such a reward for her tears, the child was too wise to cease crying. She still screamed and sobbed lustily, kicked her two brothers for offering to touch her, and all their united soothings were ineffectual till Lady Middleton luckily remembering that in a scene of similar distress last week, some apricot marmalade had been successfully applied for a bruised temple, the same remedy was eagerly proposed for this unfortunate scratch, and a slight intermission of screams in the young lady on hearing it, gave them reason to hope that it would not be rejected.-- She was carried out of the room therefore in her mother's arms, in quest of this medicine, and as the two boys chose to follow, though earnestly entreated by their mother to stay behind, the four young ladies were left in a quietness which the room had not known for many hours. "Poor little creatures!" said Miss Steele, as soon as they were gone. "It might have been a very sad accident." "Yet I hardly know how," cried Marianne, "unless it had been under totally different circumstances. But this is the usual way of heightening alarm, where there is nothing to be alarmed at in reality." "What a sweet woman Lady Middleton is!" said Lucy Steele. Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion; and upon Elinor therefore the whole task of telling lies when politeness required it, always fell. She did her best when thus called on, by speaking of Lady Middleton with more warmth than she felt, though with far less than Miss Lucy. "And Sir John too," cried the elder sister, "what a charming man he is!" Here too, Miss Dashwood's commendation, being only simple and just, came in without any eclat. She merely observed that he was perfectly good humoured and friendly. "And what a charming little family they have! I never saw such fine children in my life.--I declare I quite doat upon them already, and indeed I am always distractedly fond of children." "I should guess so," said Elinor, with a smile, "from what I have witnessed this morning." "I have a notion," said Lucy, "you think the little Middletons rather too much indulged; perhaps they may be the outside of enough; but it is so natural in Lady Middleton; and for my part, I love to see children full of life and spirits; I cannot bear them if they are tame and quiet." "I confess," replied Elinor, "that while I am at Barton Park, I never think of tame and quiet children with any abhorrence." A short pause succeeded this speech, which was first broken by Miss Steele, who seemed very much disposed for conversation, and who now said rather abruptly, "And how do you like Devonshire, Miss Dashwood? I suppose you were very sorry to leave Sussex." In some surprise at the familiarity of this question, or at least of the manner in which it was spoken, Elinor replied that she was. "Norland is a prodigious beautiful place, is not it?" added Miss Steele. "We have heard Sir John admire it excessively," said Lucy, who seemed to think some apology necessary for the freedom of her sister. "I think every one MUST admire it," replied Elinor, "who ever saw the place; though it is not to be supposed that any one can estimate its beauties as we do." "And had you a great many smart beaux there? I suppose you have not so many in this part of the world; for my part, I think they are a vast addition always." "But why should you think," said Lucy, looking ashamed of her sister, "that there are not as many genteel young men in Devonshire as Sussex?" "Nay, my dear, I'm sure I don't pretend to say that there an't. I'm sure there's a vast many smart beaux in Exeter; but you know, how could I tell what smart beaux there might be about Norland; and I was only afraid the Miss Dashwoods might find it dull at Barton, if they had not so many as they used to have. But perhaps you young ladies may not care about the beaux, and had as lief be without them as with them. For my part, I think they are vastly agreeable, provided they dress smart and behave civil. But I can't bear to see them dirty and nasty. Now there's Mr. Rose at Exeter, a prodigious smart young man, quite a beau, clerk to Mr. Simpson, you know, and yet if you do but meet him of a morning, he is not fit to be seen.-- I suppose your brother was quite a beau, Miss Dashwood, before he married, as he was so rich?" "Upon my word," replied Elinor, "I cannot tell you, for I do not perfectly comprehend the meaning of the word. But this I can say, that if he ever was a beau before he married, he is one still for there is not the smallest alteration in him." "Oh! dear! one never thinks of married men's being beaux--they have something else to do." "Lord! Anne," cried her sister, "you can talk of nothing but beaux;--you will make Miss Dashwood believe you think of nothing else." And then to turn the discourse, she began admiring the house and the furniture. This specimen of the Miss Steeles was enough. The vulgar freedom and folly of the eldest left her no recommendation, and as Elinor was not blinded by the beauty, or the shrewd look of the youngest, to her want of real elegance and artlessness, she left the house without any wish of knowing them better. Not so the Miss Steeles.--They came from Exeter, well provided with admiration for the use of Sir John Middleton, his family, and all his relations, and no niggardly proportion was now dealt out to his fair cousins, whom they declared to be the most beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and agreeable girls they had ever beheld, and with whom they were particularly anxious to be better acquainted.-- And to be better acquainted therefore, Elinor soon found was their inevitable lot, for as Sir John was entirely on the side of the Miss Steeles, their party would be too strong for opposition, and that kind of intimacy must be submitted to, which consists of sitting an hour or two together in the same room almost every day. Sir John could do no more; but he did not know that any more was required: to be together was, in his opinion, to be intimate, and while his continual schemes for their meeting were effectual, he had not a doubt of their being established friends. To do him justice, he did every thing in his power to promote their unreserve, by making the Miss Steeles acquainted with whatever he knew or supposed of his cousins' situations in the most delicate particulars,--and Elinor had not seen them more than twice, before the eldest of them wished her joy on her sister's having been so lucky as to make a conquest of a very smart beau since she came to Barton. "'Twill be a fine thing to have her married so young to be sure," said she, "and I hear he is quite a beau, and prodigious handsome. And I hope you may have as good luck yourself soon,--but perhaps you may have a friend in the corner already." Elinor could not suppose that Sir John would be more nice in proclaiming his suspicions of her regard for Edward, than he had been with respect to Marianne; indeed it was rather his favourite joke of the two, as being somewhat newer and more conjectural; and since Edward's visit, they had never dined together without his drinking to her best affections with so much significancy and so many nods and winks, as to excite general attention. The letter F--had been likewise invariably brought forward, and found productive of such countless jokes, that its character as the wittiest letter in the alphabet had been long established with Elinor. The Miss Steeles, as she expected, had now all the benefit of these jokes, and in the eldest of them they raised a curiosity to know the name of the gentleman alluded to, which, though often impertinently expressed, was perfectly of a piece with her general inquisitiveness into the concerns of their family. But Sir John did not sport long with the curiosity which he delighted to raise, for he had at least as much pleasure in telling the name, as Miss Steele had in hearing it. "His name is Ferrars," said he, in a very audible whisper; "but pray do not tell it, for it's a great secret." "Ferrars!" repeated Miss Steele; "Mr. Ferrars is the happy man, is he? What! your sister-in-law's brother, Miss Dashwood? a very agreeable young man to be sure; I know him very well." "How can you say so, Anne?" cried Lucy, who generally made an amendment to all her sister's assertions. "Though we have seen him once or twice at my uncle's, it is rather too much to pretend to know him very well." Elinor heard all this with attention and surprise. "And who was this uncle? Where did he live? How came they acquainted?" She wished very much to have the subject continued, though she did not chuse to join in it herself; but nothing more of it was said, and for the first time in her life, she thought Mrs. Jennings deficient either in curiosity after petty information, or in a disposition to communicate it. The manner in which Miss Steele had spoken of Edward, increased her curiosity; for it struck her as being rather ill-natured, and suggested the suspicion of that lady's knowing, or fancying herself to know something to his disadvantage.--But her curiosity was unavailing, for no farther notice was taken of Mr. Ferrars's name by Miss Steele when alluded to, or even openly mentioned by Sir John.

Chapter 21

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-21

The Palmers return to their home at Cleveland the next day, but there are more visitors in store for Barton Park. Mrs. Jennings has discovered some distant relatives on a brief trip to Exeter, and invited them to come stay. Lady Middleton is shaken by this rather odd invitation, but comes around. When the young cousins arrive, they don't disappoint - they're quite polite and fashionable. They simply love everything about Barton, and go out of their way to flatter Lady Middleton, who decides that she likes them after all. Sir John rushes over to fetch Marianne and Elinor, wanting them to meet the new arrivals. He's sure they'll all get along. Sir John can't believe that the Dashwoods aren't stumbling over themselves to get there - instead, they promise him that they'll come and visit within the next couple of days. He goes back to brag about them to the new arrivals, the two Miss Steeles. Elinor and Marianne finally go to see the visitors a couple of days later. The elder Miss Steele is nothing to write home about - she's almost thirty , and not very pretty. The younger sister, Lucy, is a different story, though. She's about 22, and is very pretty - she's very sharp and put-together, though not exactly elegant. Elinor admits to herself that the two sisters do have some common sense; they've figured out that the way into Lady Middleton's heart is by praising her children. Everyone sits and admires the children, even though one of them, Annamaria, has a screaming fit. The Miss Steeles pamper her wholeheartedly. Lady Middleton carries the screaming child away, leaving her four guests alone. They make small talk about Lady Middleton and Sir John; Marianne can't bear to participate in such niceties, so Elinor bears the brunt of the small talk. Miss Steele asks if they've been enjoying their new home in Devonshire, and comments that they must have been sad to leave Norland. Whoa - this is kind of a personal question for someone who's practically a stranger! Elinor is a little taken aback, and responds rather cautiously that she was. There's some small talk about Norland's beauties, in which Lucy seems a little apologetic for her rude older sister. Miss Steele then pushes forward, asking if the Dashwoods had many handsome beaux there - that is, did they have a lot of boyfriends? Lucy's embarrassed again by her sister's forthrightness. Miss Steele goes on and on about "beaux" - what men should be like to be a good beau. She's totally ridiculous, and it's obvious that this is all she ever thinks about. Everyone else is kind of mortified by the turn of conversation. Lucy changes the subject, but the damage is done - the Dashwoods leave, certain that they don't want to hang out with the Steeles anymore. Elinor can't stand the older one, and even pretty Lucy kind of turned her off with her obvious shrewdness. Unfortunately, the Steeles don't feel the same way - they simply loved the Dashwoods, and think they're going to be BFFs. Sir John joins the side of the Miss Steeles, and insist that the young ladies all hang out together. The Miss Steeles join in the Middleton family pastime of teasing Elinor and Marianne about their suitors. It's not a welcome addition. Sir John lets slip the name of Elinor's supposed "beau" - Ferrars. It turns out Lucy and Anne know him through their uncle. She wonders what exactly they know about him.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/chapters_6_to_7.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Lord Jim/section_2_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapters 6-7

chapters 6-7

{"name": "Chapters 6-7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422054542/https://www.gradesaver.com/lord-jim/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-7", "summary": "Turning to the official Inquiry, Marlow describes the magistrate as \"patient\" and then dives into great detail about the assessor Brierly or \"Big Brierly.\" Brierly seems bored with the entire affair since he, Marlow conjectures, had never made such a mistake in his life. Brierly is 32 years old, a success, and the commander of the Ossa, the crack ship of the Blue Star line. The mysterious thing, of course, is that Brierly later commits suicide, a fact that Marlow overlays as he tells of Jim at the Inquiry. Brierly looks contemptuously at Jim, so Marlow guesses that perhaps there has been some sort of parallel inquiry into the depths of Brierly's own heart--and the discovery of some guilt. Marlow adds that Jones, Brierly's first mate and witness to Brierly's death-leap into the sea, had told Marlow that the last words on Brierly's lips had been for the safety of his dog Rover. Marlow then moves toward the telling of his own final conversation with Brierly, tinged now in his memory with this known end. He remembers that they were talking about the Patna and that Brierly had been furious. He had judged it all a shame and a disgrace. The discussion of Brierly is immediately followed by an account of Marlow's first personal encounter with Jim. There is an insult in the air, and Jim mistakes Marlow as the source; this misjudgment becomes the basis of their meeting. Jim is on the defensive, and yet, again, he seems \"strangely passive\" . He asks Marlow why Marlow was staring at him so particularly during the proceedings, and Jim's general sense of humiliation and disappointment is palpable. Marlow, apparently fascinated by his upfront view of the man, invites Jim to the Malabar House for dinner. The dining hall of the hotel teems, and Marlow studies Jim further, noting \"his frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness.\" He concludes, as he will conclude time and again, that \"he was one of us,\" meaning \"of the right sort\" . The reader now is afforded a more intimate view of Jim during this meeting. His father, Jim confides, must have seen it all in the home papers by then. Jim says he will never again be able to face him and, as if Marlow's own age and wisdom can stand in for the figure Jim feels he has lost, Jim now attempts to justify all of his fears--how he had not been thinking of himself in the boat incident, but of the pilgrims. There had only been seven boats.", "analysis": "As Marlow observes the progression of the official inquiry, he comments that, with regard to the proceedings, \"Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair\" . In other words, the \"how\" indicates an attention to facts and details regarding the occurrence, while the \"why\" requires a deeper meditation upon the event in question. While the \"how\" limits itself to an outside objective view of the facts and visible actions, the \"why\" requires an exploration of the state of a man's soul: why did he act in such a manner? Why did he not act otherwise? This distinction refigures Jim's discomfort with discussing only the facts of the event, while his own inner life is a whorl of confusion. However, the nature of official legal proceedings and judgments is often, if only for the sake of efficiency and objectivity, strictly geared toward collecting the undisputed facts. The deeper and more subtle details of a story require just that: a story. Hence, the novel undertakes the task of the \"why,\" which the Inquiry fails to address. The significant minor character Brierly is an assessor of the proceedings involving Jim and the Patna incident. According to Marlow--though he is not at all certain, because he does not know Brierly's inner life at all--Brierly may have begun an inquiry into his own soul during the proceedings. What he might have found there is later suggested as quite disturbing, given his suicide leap into the sea. So, with Brierly, the reader is offered an objective view of the facts, a little conjecture, and the actions of a man, which again introduce the question \"Why?\" When Marlow tells of how he and Jim first met, noting that the encounter is caused by a misjudgment on Jim's part, the incident shows how Jim continually misjudges or misreads a situation. It is also important in that Marlow, in the end, by telling Jim's story, arrives at a more complete picture and a profound and forgiving view of Jim's character. Marlow notes that Jim \"was one of us,\" and the statement assumes a variety of connotations throughout the novel. The root of the statement is the comment God makes in Genesis after Adam has eaten the forbidden fruit: \"Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.\" The implication, perhaps, is that Jim is the one carrying a heightened self-awareness regarding his qualities, his shortcomings, and his potential, even though he perhaps has not been the best judge of his situation. In any event, his character assumes more depth and detail at this point. We learn that he was adamant to see the proceeding through, despite the humiliating gossip that would follow him afterwards. Through this awareness, and plagued by feelings of grief, Jim is \"an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be\" . In another sense, the assertion that \"he was one of us\" binds Marlow more closely to Jim. Their joint presence in this novel, indicative of the level of common experience that binds humankind, may also hint that Marlow sees in Jim something of his own beginnings and youth--the same illusions, the same romantic ideals. The questions then become: how will Jim mature? What will Jim make of it all? What kind of man will he become?"}

'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that watery-eyed old Jones mopping his bald head with a red cotton handkerchief, the sorrowing yelp of the dog, the squalor of that fly-blown cuddy which was the only shrine of his memory, threw a veil of inexpressibly mean pathos over Brierly's remembered figure, the posthumous revenge of fate for that belief in his own splendour which had almost cheated his life of its legitimate terrors. Almost! Perhaps wholly. Who can tell what flattering view he had induced himself to take of his own suicide? '"Why did he commit the rash act, Captain Marlow--can you think?" asked Jones, pressing his palms together. "Why? It beats me! Why?" He slapped his low and wrinkled forehead. "If he had been poor and old and in debt--and never a show--or else mad. But he wasn't of the kind that goes mad, not he. You trust me. What a mate don't know about his skipper isn't worth knowing. Young, healthy, well off, no cares. . . . I sit here sometimes thinking, thinking, till my head fairly begins to buzz. There was some reason." '"You may depend on it, Captain Jones," said I, "it wasn't anything that would have disturbed much either of us two," I said; and then, as if a light had been flashed into the muddle of his brain, poor old Jones found a last word of amazing profundity. He blew his nose, nodding at me dolefully: "Ay, ay! neither you nor I, sir, had ever thought so much of ourselves." 'Of course the recollection of my last conversation with Brierly is tinged with the knowledge of his end that followed so close upon it. I spoke with him for the last time during the progress of the inquiry. It was after the first adjournment, and he came up with me in the street. He was in a state of irritation, which I noticed with surprise, his usual behaviour when he condescended to converse being perfectly cool, with a trace of amused tolerance, as if the existence of his interlocutor had been a rather good joke. "They caught me for that inquiry, you see," he began, and for a while enlarged complainingly upon the inconveniences of daily attendance in court. "And goodness knows how long it will last. Three days, I suppose." I heard him out in silence; in my then opinion it was a way as good as another of putting on side. "What's the use of it? It is the stupidest set-out you can imagine," he pursued hotly. I remarked that there was no option. He interrupted me with a sort of pent-up violence. "I feel like a fool all the time." I looked up at him. This was going very far--for Brierly--when talking of Brierly. He stopped short, and seizing the lapel of my coat, gave it a slight tug. "Why are we tormenting that young chap?" he asked. This question chimed in so well to the tolling of a certain thought of mine that, with the image of the absconding renegade in my eye, I answered at once, "Hanged if I know, unless it be that he lets you." I was astonished to see him fall into line, so to speak, with that utterance, which ought to have been tolerably cryptic. He said angrily, "Why, yes. Can't he see that wretched skipper of his has cleared out? What does he expect to happen? Nothing can save him. He's done for." We walked on in silence a few steps. "Why eat all that dirt?" he exclaimed, with an oriental energy of expression--about the only sort of energy you can find a trace of east of the fiftieth meridian. I wondered greatly at the direction of his thoughts, but now I strongly suspect it was strictly in character: at bottom poor Brierly must have been thinking of himself. I pointed out to him that the skipper of the Patna was known to have feathered his nest pretty well, and could procure almost anywhere the means of getting away. With Jim it was otherwise: the Government was keeping him in the Sailors' Home for the time being, and probably he hadn't a penny in his pocket to bless himself with. It costs some money to run away. "Does it? Not always," he said, with a bitter laugh, and to some further remark of mine--"Well, then, let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there! By heavens! _I_ would." I don't know why his tone provoked me, and I said, "There is a kind of courage in facing it out as he does, knowing very well that if he went away nobody would trouble to run after him." "Courage be hanged!" growled Brierly. "That sort of courage is of no use to keep a man straight, and I don't care a snap for such courage. If you were to say it was a kind of cowardice now--of softness. I tell you what, I will put up two hundred rupees if you put up another hundred and undertake to make the beggar clear out early to-morrow morning. The fellow's a gentleman if he ain't fit to be touched--he will understand. He must! This infernal publicity is too shocking: there he sits while all these confounded natives, serangs, lascars, quartermasters, are giving evidence that's enough to burn a man to ashes with shame. This is abominable. Why, Marlow, don't you think, don't you feel, that this is abominable; don't you now--come--as a seaman? If he went away all this would stop at once." Brierly said these words with a most unusual animation, and made as if to reach after his pocket-book. I restrained him, and declared coldly that the cowardice of these four men did not seem to me a matter of such great importance. "And you call yourself a seaman, I suppose," he pronounced angrily. I said that's what I called myself, and I hoped I was too. He heard me out, and made a gesture with his big arm that seemed to deprive me of my individuality, to push me away into the crowd. "The worst of it," he said, "is that all you fellows have no sense of dignity; you don't think enough of what you are supposed to be." 'We had been walking slowly meantime, and now stopped opposite the harbour office, in sight of the very spot from which the immense captain of the Patna had vanished as utterly as a tiny feather blown away in a hurricane. I smiled. Brierly went on: "This is a disgrace. We've got all kinds amongst us--some anointed scoundrels in the lot; but, hang it, we must preserve professional decency or we become no better than so many tinkers going about loose. We are trusted. Do you understand?--trusted! Frankly, I don't care a snap for all the pilgrims that ever came out of Asia, but a decent man would not have behaved like this to a full cargo of old rags in bales. We aren't an organised body of men, and the only thing that holds us together is just the name for that kind of decency. Such an affair destroys one's confidence. A man may go pretty near through his whole sea-life without any call to show a stiff upper lip. But when the call comes . . . Aha! . . . If I . . ." 'He broke off, and in a changed tone, "I'll give you two hundred rupees now, Marlow, and you just talk to that chap. Confound him! I wish he had never come out here. Fact is, I rather think some of my people know his. The old man's a parson, and I remember now I met him once when staying with my cousin in Essex last year. If I am not mistaken, the old chap seemed rather to fancy his sailor son. Horrible. I can't do it myself--but you . . ." 'Thus, apropos of Jim, I had a glimpse of the real Brierly a few days before he committed his reality and his sham together to the keeping of the sea. Of course I declined to meddle. The tone of this last "but you" (poor Brierly couldn't help it), that seemed to imply I was no more noticeable than an insect, caused me to look at the proposal with indignation, and on account of that provocation, or for some other reason, I became positive in my mind that the inquiry was a severe punishment to that Jim, and that his facing it--practically of his own free will--was a redeeming feature in his abominable case. I hadn't been so sure of it before. Brierly went off in a huff. At the time his state of mind was more of a mystery to me than it is now. 'Next day, coming into court late, I sat by myself. Of course I could not forget the conversation I had with Brierly, and now I had them both under my eyes. The demeanour of one suggested gloomy impudence and of the other a contemptuous boredom; yet one attitude might not have been truer than the other, and I was aware that one was not true. Brierly was not bored--he was exasperated; and if so, then Jim might not have been impudent. According to my theory he was not. I imagined he was hopeless. Then it was that our glances met. They met, and the look he gave me was discouraging of any intention I might have had to speak to him. Upon either hypothesis--insolence or despair--I felt I could be of no use to him. This was the second day of the proceedings. Very soon after that exchange of glances the inquiry was adjourned again to the next day. The white men began to troop out at once. Jim had been told to stand down some time before, and was able to leave amongst the first. I saw his broad shoulders and his head outlined in the light of the door, and while I made my way slowly out talking with some one--some stranger who had addressed me casually--I could see him from within the court-room resting both elbows on the balustrade of the verandah and turning his back on the small stream of people trickling down the few steps. There was a murmur of voices and a shuffle of boots. 'The next case was that of assault and battery committed upon a money-lender, I believe; and the defendant--a venerable villager with a straight white beard--sat on a mat just outside the door with his sons, daughters, sons-in-law, their wives, and, I should think, half the population of his village besides, squatting or standing around him. A slim dark woman, with part of her back and one black shoulder bared, and with a thin gold ring in her nose, suddenly began to talk in a high-pitched, shrewish tone. The man with me instinctively looked up at her. We were then just through the door, passing behind Jim's burly back. 'Whether those villagers had brought the yellow dog with them, I don't know. Anyhow, a dog was there, weaving himself in and out amongst people's legs in that mute stealthy way native dogs have, and my companion stumbled over him. The dog leaped away without a sound; the man, raising his voice a little, said with a slow laugh, "Look at that wretched cur," and directly afterwards we became separated by a lot of people pushing in. I stood back for a moment against the wall while the stranger managed to get down the steps and disappeared. I saw Jim spin round. He made a step forward and barred my way. We were alone; he glared at me with an air of stubborn resolution. I became aware I was being held up, so to speak, as if in a wood. The verandah was empty by then, the noise and movement in court had ceased: a great silence fell upon the building, in which, somewhere far within, an oriental voice began to whine abjectly. The dog, in the very act of trying to sneak in at the door, sat down hurriedly to hunt for fleas. '"Did you speak to me?" asked Jim very low, and bending forward, not so much towards me but at me, if you know what I mean. I said "No" at once. Something in the sound of that quiet tone of his warned me to be on my defence. I watched him. It was very much like a meeting in a wood, only more uncertain in its issue, since he could possibly want neither my money nor my life--nothing that I could simply give up or defend with a clear conscience. "You say you didn't," he said, very sombre. "But I heard." "Some mistake," I protested, utterly at a loss, and never taking my eyes off him. To watch his face was like watching a darkening sky before a clap of thunder, shade upon shade imperceptibly coming on, the doom growing mysteriously intense in the calm of maturing violence. '"As far as I know, I haven't opened my lips in your hearing," I affirmed with perfect truth. I was getting a little angry, too, at the absurdity of this encounter. It strikes me now I have never in my life been so near a beating--I mean it literally; a beating with fists. I suppose I had some hazy prescience of that eventuality being in the air. Not that he was actively threatening me. On the contrary, he was strangely passive--don't you know? but he was lowering, and, though not exceptionally big, he looked generally fit to demolish a wall. The most reassuring symptom I noticed was a kind of slow and ponderous hesitation, which I took as a tribute to the evident sincerity of my manner and of my tone. We faced each other. In the court the assault case was proceeding. I caught the words: "Well--buffalo--stick--in the greatness of my fear. . . ." '"What did you mean by staring at me all the morning?" said Jim at last. He looked up and looked down again. "Did you expect us all to sit with downcast eyes out of regard for your susceptibilities?" I retorted sharply. I was not going to submit meekly to any of his nonsense. He raised his eyes again, and this time continued to look me straight in the face. "No. That's all right," he pronounced with an air of deliberating with himself upon the truth of this statement--"that's all right. I am going through with that. Only"--and there he spoke a little faster--"I won't let any man call me names outside this court. There was a fellow with you. You spoke to him--oh yes--I know; 'tis all very fine. You spoke to him, but you meant me to hear. . . ." 'I assured him he was under some extraordinary delusion. I had no conception how it came about. "You thought I would be afraid to resent this," he said, with just a faint tinge of bitterness. I was interested enough to discern the slightest shades of expression, but I was not in the least enlightened; yet I don't know what in these words, or perhaps just the intonation of that phrase, induced me suddenly to make all possible allowances for him. I ceased to be annoyed at my unexpected predicament. It was some mistake on his part; he was blundering, and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature. I was anxious to end this scene on grounds of decency, just as one is anxious to cut short some unprovoked and abominable confidence. The funniest part was, that in the midst of all these considerations of the higher order I was conscious of a certain trepidation as to the possibility--nay, likelihood--of this encounter ending in some disreputable brawl which could not possibly be explained, and would make me ridiculous. I did not hanker after a three days' celebrity as the man who got a black eye or something of the sort from the mate of the Patna. He, in all probability, did not care what he did, or at any rate would be fully justified in his own eyes. It took no magician to see he was amazingly angry about something, for all his quiet and even torpid demeanour. I don't deny I was extremely desirous to pacify him at all costs, had I only known what to do. But I didn't know, as you may well imagine. It was a blackness without a single gleam. We confronted each other in silence. He hung fire for about fifteen seconds, then made a step nearer, and I made ready to ward off a blow, though I don't think I moved a muscle. "If you were as big as two men and as strong as six," he said very softly, "I would tell you what I think of you. You . . ." "Stop!" I exclaimed. This checked him for a second. "Before you tell me what you think of me," I went on quickly, "will you kindly tell me what it is I've said or done?" During the pause that ensued he surveyed me with indignation, while I made supernatural efforts of memory, in which I was hindered by the oriental voice within the court-room expostulating with impassioned volubility against a charge of falsehood. Then we spoke almost together. "I will soon show you I am not," he said, in a tone suggestive of a crisis. "I declare I don't know," I protested earnestly at the same time. He tried to crush me by the scorn of his glance. "Now that you see I am not afraid you try to crawl out of it," he said. "Who's a cur now--hey?" Then, at last, I understood. 'He had been scanning my features as though looking for a place where he would plant his fist. "I will allow no man," . . . he mumbled threateningly. It was, indeed, a hideous mistake; he had given himself away utterly. I can't give you an idea how shocked I was. I suppose he saw some reflection of my feelings in my face, because his expression changed just a little. "Good God!" I stammered, "you don't think I . . ." "But I am sure I've heard," he persisted, raising his voice for the first time since the beginning of this deplorable scene. Then with a shade of disdain he added, "It wasn't you, then? Very well; I'll find the other." "Don't be a fool," I cried in exasperation; "it wasn't that at all." "I've heard," he said again with an unshaken and sombre perseverance. 'There may be those who could have laughed at his pertinacity; I didn't. Oh, I didn't! There had never been a man so mercilessly shown up by his own natural impulse. A single word had stripped him of his discretion--of that discretion which is more necessary to the decencies of our inner being than clothing is to the decorum of our body. "Don't be a fool," I repeated. "But the other man said it, you don't deny that?" he pronounced distinctly, and looking in my face without flinching. "No, I don't deny," said I, returning his gaze. At last his eyes followed downwards the direction of my pointing finger. He appeared at first uncomprehending, then confounded, and at last amazed and scared as though a dog had been a monster and he had never seen a dog before. "Nobody dreamt of insulting you," I said. 'He contemplated the wretched animal, that moved no more than an effigy: it sat with ears pricked and its sharp muzzle pointed into the doorway, and suddenly snapped at a fly like a piece of mechanism. 'I looked at him. The red of his fair sunburnt complexion deepened suddenly under the down of his cheeks, invaded his forehead, spread to the roots of his curly hair. His ears became intensely crimson, and even the clear blue of his eyes was darkened many shades by the rush of blood to his head. His lips pouted a little, trembling as though he had been on the point of bursting into tears. I perceived he was incapable of pronouncing a word from the excess of his humiliation. From disappointment too--who knows? Perhaps he looked forward to that hammering he was going to give me for rehabilitation, for appeasement? Who can tell what relief he expected from this chance of a row? He was naive enough to expect anything; but he had given himself away for nothing in this case. He had been frank with himself--let alone with me--in the wild hope of arriving in that way at some effective refutation, and the stars had been ironically unpropitious. He made an inarticulate noise in his throat like a man imperfectly stunned by a blow on the head. It was pitiful. 'I didn't catch up again with him till well outside the gate. I had even to trot a bit at the last, but when, out of breath at his elbow, I taxed him with running away, he said, "Never!" and at once turned at bay. I explained I never meant to say he was running away from _me_. "From no man--from not a single man on earth," he affirmed with a stubborn mien. I forbore to point out the one obvious exception which would hold good for the bravest of us; I thought he would find out by himself very soon. He looked at me patiently while I was thinking of something to say, but I could find nothing on the spur of the moment, and he began to walk on. I kept up, and anxious not to lose him, I said hurriedly that I couldn't think of leaving him under a false impression of my--of my--I stammered. The stupidity of the phrase appalled me while I was trying to finish it, but the power of sentences has nothing to do with their sense or the logic of their construction. My idiotic mumble seemed to please him. He cut it short by saying, with courteous placidity that argued an immense power of self-control or else a wonderful elasticity of spirits--"Altogether my mistake." I marvelled greatly at this expression: he might have been alluding to some trifling occurrence. Hadn't he understood its deplorable meaning? "You may well forgive me," he continued, and went on a little moodily, "All these staring people in court seemed such fools that--that it might have been as I supposed." 'This opened suddenly a new view of him to my wonder. I looked at him curiously and met his unabashed and impenetrable eyes. "I can't put up with this kind of thing," he said, very simply, "and I don't mean to. In court it's different; I've got to stand that--and I can do it too." 'I don't pretend I understood him. The views he let me have of himself were like those glimpses through the shifting rents in a thick fog--bits of vivid and vanishing detail, giving no connected idea of the general aspect of a country. They fed one's curiosity without satisfying it; they were no good for purposes of orientation. Upon the whole he was misleading. That's how I summed him up to myself after he left me late in the evening. I had been staying at the Malabar House for a few days, and on my pressing invitation he dined with me there.''An outward-bound mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and the big dining-room of the hotel was more than half full of people with a-hundred-pounds-round-the-world tickets in their pockets. There were married couples looking domesticated and bored with each other in the midst of their travels; there were small parties and large parties, and lone individuals dining solemnly or feasting boisterously, but all thinking, conversing, joking, or scowling as was their wont at home; and just as intelligently receptive of new impressions as their trunks upstairs. Henceforth they would be labelled as having passed through this and that place, and so would be their luggage. They would cherish this distinction of their persons, and preserve the gummed tickets on their portmanteaus as documentary evidence, as the only permanent trace of their improving enterprise. The dark-faced servants tripped without noise over the vast and polished floor; now and then a girl's laugh would be heard, as innocent and empty as her mind, or, in a sudden hush of crockery, a few words in an affected drawl from some wit embroidering for the benefit of a grinning tableful the last funny story of shipboard scandal. Two nomadic old maids, dressed up to kill, worked acrimoniously through the bill of fare, whispering to each other with faded lips, wooden-faced and bizarre, like two sumptuous scarecrows. A little wine opened Jim's heart and loosened his tongue. His appetite was good, too, I noticed. He seemed to have buried somewhere the opening episode of our acquaintance. It was like a thing of which there would be no more question in this world. And all the time I had before me these blue, boyish eyes looking straight into mine, this young face, these capable shoulders, the open bronzed forehead with a white line under the roots of clustering fair hair, this appearance appealing at sight to all my sympathies: this frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness. He was of the right sort; he was one of us. He talked soberly, with a sort of composed unreserve, and with a quiet bearing that might have been the outcome of manly self-control, of impudence, of callousness, of a colossal unconsciousness, of a gigantic deception. Who can tell! From our tone we might have been discussing a third person, a football match, last year's weather. My mind floated in a sea of conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being offensive, to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been pretty trying to him. He darted his arm across the tablecloth, and clutching my hand by the side of my plate, glared fixedly. I was startled. "It must be awfully hard," I stammered, confused by this display of speechless feeling. "It is--hell," he burst out in a muffled voice. 'This movement and these words caused two well-groomed male globe-trotters at a neighbouring table to look up in alarm from their iced pudding. I rose, and we passed into the front gallery for coffee and cigars. 'On little octagon tables candles burned in glass globes; clumps of stiff-leaved plants separated sets of cosy wicker chairs; and between the pairs of columns, whose reddish shafts caught in a long row the sheen from the tall windows, the night, glittering and sombre, seemed to hang like a splendid drapery. The riding lights of ships winked afar like setting stars, and the hills across the roadstead resembled rounded black masses of arrested thunder-clouds. '"I couldn't clear out," Jim began. "The skipper did--that's all very well for him. I couldn't, and I wouldn't. They all got out of it in one way or another, but it wouldn't do for me." 'I listened with concentrated attention, not daring to stir in my chair; I wanted to know--and to this day I don't know, I can only guess. He would be confident and depressed all in the same breath, as if some conviction of innate blamelessness had checked the truth writhing within him at every turn. He began by saying, in the tone in which a man would admit his inability to jump a twenty-foot wall, that he could never go home now; and this declaration recalled to my mind what Brierly had said, "that the old parson in Essex seemed to fancy his sailor son not a little." 'I can't tell you whether Jim knew he was especially "fancied," but the tone of his references to "my Dad" was calculated to give me a notion that the good old rural dean was about the finest man that ever had been worried by the cares of a large family since the beginning of the world. This, though never stated, was implied with an anxiety that there should be no mistake about it, which was really very true and charming, but added a poignant sense of lives far off to the other elements of the story. "He has seen it all in the home papers by this time," said Jim. "I can never face the poor old chap." I did not dare to lift my eyes at this till I heard him add, "I could never explain. He wouldn't understand." Then I looked up. He was smoking reflectively, and after a moment, rousing himself, began to talk again. He discovered at once a desire that I should not confound him with his partners in--in crime, let us call it. He was not one of them; he was altogether of another sort. I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come in his way. I didn't know how much of it he believed himself. I didn't know what he was playing up to--if he was playing up to anything at all--and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. I made no sound all the time he was wondering what he had better do after "that stupid inquiry was over." 'Apparently he shared Brierly's contemptuous opinion of these proceedings ordained by law. He would not know where to turn, he confessed, clearly thinking aloud rather than talking to me. Certificate gone, career broken, no money to get away, no work that he could obtain as far as he could see. At home he could perhaps get something; but it meant going to his people for help, and that he would not do. He saw nothing for it but ship before the mast--could get perhaps a quartermaster's billet in some steamer. Would do for a quartermaster. . . . "Do you think you would?" I asked pitilessly. He jumped up, and going to the stone balustrade looked out into the night. In a moment he was back, towering above my chair with his youthful face clouded yet by the pain of a conquered emotion. He had understood very well I did not doubt his ability to steer a ship. In a voice that quavered a bit he asked me why did I say that? I had been "no end kind" to him. I had not even laughed at him when--here he began to mumble--"that mistake, you know--made a confounded ass of myself." I broke in by saying rather warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to laugh at. He sat down and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the last drop. "That does not mean I admit for a moment the cap fitted," he declared distinctly. "No?" I said. "No," he affirmed with quiet decision. "Do you know what _you_ would have done? Do you? And you don't think yourself" . . . he gulped something . . . "you don't think yourself a--a--cur?" 'And with this--upon my honour!--he looked up at me inquisitively. It was a question it appears--a bona fide question! However, he didn't wait for an answer. Before I could recover he went on, with his eyes straight before him, as if reading off something written on the body of the night. "It is all in being ready. I wasn't; not--not then. I don't want to excuse myself; but I would like to explain--I would like somebody to understand--somebody--one person at least! You! Why not you?" 'It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure. He began his story quietly enough. On board that Dale Line steamer that had picked up these four floating in a boat upon the discreet sunset glow of the sea, they had been after the first day looked askance upon. The fat skipper told some story, the others had been silent, and at first it had been accepted. You don't cross-examine poor castaways you had the good luck to save, if not from cruel death, then at least from cruel suffering. Afterwards, with time to think it over, it might have struck the officers of the Avondale that there was "something fishy" in the affair; but of course they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had picked up the captain, the mate, and two engineers of the steamer Patna sunk at sea, and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about the nature of his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From the way he narrated that part I was at liberty to infer he was partly stunned by the discovery he had made--the discovery about himself--and no doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who was capable of appreciating all its tremendous magnitude. You must understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure; and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the tale in which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and it is difficult to imagine. 'I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder? But no doubt he managed to get a fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore a whole fortnight waiting in the Sailors' Home, and as there were six or seven men staying there at the time, I had heard of him a little. Their languid opinion seemed to be that, in addition to his other shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He had passed these days on the verandah, buried in a long chair, and coming out of his place of sepulture only at meal-times or late at night, when he wandered on the quays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and silent, like a ghost without a home to haunt. "I don't think I've spoken three words to a living soul in all that time," he said, making me very sorry for him; and directly he added, "One of these fellows would have been sure to blurt out something I had made up my mind not to put up with, and I didn't want a row. No! Not then. I was too--too . . . I had no heart for it." "So that bulkhead held out after all," I remarked cheerfully. "Yes," he murmured, "it held. And yet I swear to you I felt it bulge under my hand." "It's extraordinary what strains old iron will stand sometimes," I said. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly several times. You could not conceive a sadder spectacle. Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up; he slapped his thigh. "Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last "missed" resembled a cry wrung out by pain. 'He was silent again with a still, far-away look of fierce yearning after that missed distinction, with his nostrils for an instant dilated, sniffing the intoxicating breath of that wasted opportunity. If you think I was either surprised or shocked you do me an injustice in more ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar! He would give himself away; he would give himself up. I could see in his glance darted into the night all his inner being carried on, projected headlong into the fanciful realm of recklessly heroic aspirations. He had no leisure to regret what he had lost, he was so wholly and naturally concerned for what he had failed to obtain. He was very far away from me who watched him across three feet of space. With every instant he was penetrating deeper into the impossible world of romantic achievements. He got to the heart of it at last! A strange look of beatitude overspread his features, his eyes sparkled in the light of the candle burning between us; he positively smiled! He had penetrated to the very heart--to the very heart. It was an ecstatic smile that your faces--or mine either--will never wear, my dear boys. I whisked him back by saying, "If you had stuck to the ship, you mean!" 'He turned upon me, his eyes suddenly amazed and full of pain, with a bewildered, startled, suffering face, as though he had tumbled down from a star. Neither you nor I will ever look like this on any man. He shuddered profoundly, as if a cold finger-tip had touched his heart. Last of all he sighed. 'I was not in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradictory indiscretions. "It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell harmless--dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not even seen it. Presently, lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was holding up my lamp along the angle-iron in the lower deck when a flake of rust as big as the palm of my hand fell off the plate, all of itself." He passed his hand over his forehead. "The thing stirred and jumped off like something alive while I was looking at it." "That made you feel pretty bad," I observed casually. "Do you suppose," he said, "that I was thinking of myself, with a hundred and sixty people at my back, all fast asleep in that fore-'tween-deck alone--and more of them aft; more on the deck--sleeping--knowing nothing about it--three times as many as there were boats for, even if there had been time? I expected to see the iron open out as I stood there and the rush of water going over them as they lay. . . . What could I do--what?" 'I can easily picture him to myself in the peopled gloom of the cavernous place, with the light of the globe-lamp falling on a small portion of the bulkhead that had the weight of the ocean on the other side, and the breathing of unconscious sleepers in his ears. I can see him glaring at the iron, startled by the falling rust, overburdened by the knowledge of an imminent death. This, I gathered, was the second time he had been sent forward by that skipper of his, who, I rather think, wanted to keep him away from the bridge. He told me that his first impulse was to shout and straightway make all those people leap out of sleep into terror; but such an overwhelming sense of his helplessness came over him that he was not able to produce a sound. This is, I suppose, what people mean by the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth. "Too dry," was the concise expression he used in reference to this state. Without a sound, then, he scrambled out on deck through the number one hatch. A windsail rigged down there swung against him accidentally, and he remembered that the light touch of the canvas on his face nearly knocked him off the hatchway ladder. 'He confessed that his knees wobbled a good deal as he stood on the foredeck looking at another sleeping crowd. The engines having been stopped by that time, the steam was blowing off. Its deep rumble made the whole night vibrate like a bass string. The ship trembled to it. 'He saw here and there a head lifted off a mat, a vague form uprise in sitting posture, listen sleepily for a moment, sink down again into the billowy confusion of boxes, steam-winches, ventilators. He was aware all these people did not know enough to take intelligent notice of that strange noise. The ship of iron, the men with white faces, all the sights, all the sounds, everything on board to that ignorant and pious multitude was strange alike, and as trustworthy as it would for ever remain incomprehensible. It occurred to him that the fact was fortunate. The idea of it was simply terrible. 'You must remember he believed, as any other man would have done in his place, that the ship would go down at any moment; the bulging, rust-eaten plates that kept back the ocean, fatally must give way, all at once like an undermined dam, and let in a sudden and overwhelming flood. He stood still looking at these recumbent bodies, a doomed man aware of his fate, surveying the silent company of the dead. They _were_ dead! Nothing could save them! There were boats enough for half of them perhaps, but there was no time. No time! No time! It did not seem worth while to open his lips, to stir hand or foot. Before he could shout three words, or make three steps, he would be floundering in a sea whitened awfully by the desperate struggles of human beings, clamorous with the distress of cries for help. There was no help. He imagined what would happen perfectly; he went through it all motionless by the hatchway with the lamp in his hand--he went through it to the very last harrowing detail. I think he went through it again while he was telling me these things he could not tell the court. '"I saw as clearly as I see you now that there was nothing I could do. It seemed to take all life out of my limbs. I thought I might just as well stand where I was and wait. I did not think I had many seconds. . . ." Suddenly the steam ceased blowing off. The noise, he remarked, had been distracting, but the silence at once became intolerably oppressive. '"I thought I would choke before I got drowned," he said. 'He protested he did not think of saving himself. The only distinct thought formed, vanishing, and re-forming in his brain, was: eight hundred people and seven boats; eight hundred people and seven boats. '"Somebody was speaking aloud inside my head," he said a little wildly. "Eight hundred people and seven boats--and no time! Just think of it." He leaned towards me across the little table, and I tried to avoid his stare. "Do you think I was afraid of death?" he asked in a voice very fierce and low. He brought down his open hand with a bang that made the coffee-cups dance. "I am ready to swear I was not--I was not. . . . By God--no!" He hitched himself upright and crossed his arms; his chin fell on his breast. 'The soft clashes of crockery reached us faintly through the high windows. There was a burst of voices, and several men came out in high good-humour into the gallery. They were exchanging jocular reminiscences of the donkeys in Cairo. A pale anxious youth stepping softly on long legs was being chaffed by a strutting and rubicund globe-trotter about his purchases in the bazaar. "No, really--do you think I've been done to that extent?" he inquired very earnest and deliberate. The band moved away, dropping into chairs as they went; matches flared, illuminating for a second faces without the ghost of an expression and the flat glaze of white shirt-fronts; the hum of many conversations animated with the ardour of feasting sounded to me absurd and infinitely remote. '"Some of the crew were sleeping on the number one hatch within reach of my arm," began Jim again. 'You must know they kept Kalashee watch in that ship, all hands sleeping through the night, and only the reliefs of quartermasters and look-out men being called. He was tempted to grip and shake the shoulder of the nearest lascar, but he didn't. Something held his arms down along his sides. He was not afraid--oh no! only he just couldn't--that's all. He was not afraid of death perhaps, but I'll tell you what, he was afraid of the emergency. His confounded imagination had evoked for him all the horrors of panic, the trampling rush, the pitiful screams, boats swamped--all the appalling incidents of a disaster at sea he had ever heard of. He might have been resigned to die but I suspect he wanted to die without added terrors, quietly, in a sort of peaceful trance. A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person--this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well,--the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.'

Chapters 6-7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210422054542/https://www.gradesaver.com/lord-jim/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-7

Turning to the official Inquiry, Marlow describes the magistrate as "patient" and then dives into great detail about the assessor Brierly or "Big Brierly." Brierly seems bored with the entire affair since he, Marlow conjectures, had never made such a mistake in his life. Brierly is 32 years old, a success, and the commander of the Ossa, the crack ship of the Blue Star line. The mysterious thing, of course, is that Brierly later commits suicide, a fact that Marlow overlays as he tells of Jim at the Inquiry. Brierly looks contemptuously at Jim, so Marlow guesses that perhaps there has been some sort of parallel inquiry into the depths of Brierly's own heart--and the discovery of some guilt. Marlow adds that Jones, Brierly's first mate and witness to Brierly's death-leap into the sea, had told Marlow that the last words on Brierly's lips had been for the safety of his dog Rover. Marlow then moves toward the telling of his own final conversation with Brierly, tinged now in his memory with this known end. He remembers that they were talking about the Patna and that Brierly had been furious. He had judged it all a shame and a disgrace. The discussion of Brierly is immediately followed by an account of Marlow's first personal encounter with Jim. There is an insult in the air, and Jim mistakes Marlow as the source; this misjudgment becomes the basis of their meeting. Jim is on the defensive, and yet, again, he seems "strangely passive" . He asks Marlow why Marlow was staring at him so particularly during the proceedings, and Jim's general sense of humiliation and disappointment is palpable. Marlow, apparently fascinated by his upfront view of the man, invites Jim to the Malabar House for dinner. The dining hall of the hotel teems, and Marlow studies Jim further, noting "his frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness." He concludes, as he will conclude time and again, that "he was one of us," meaning "of the right sort" . The reader now is afforded a more intimate view of Jim during this meeting. His father, Jim confides, must have seen it all in the home papers by then. Jim says he will never again be able to face him and, as if Marlow's own age and wisdom can stand in for the figure Jim feels he has lost, Jim now attempts to justify all of his fears--how he had not been thinking of himself in the boat incident, but of the pilgrims. There had only been seven boats.

As Marlow observes the progression of the official inquiry, he comments that, with regard to the proceedings, "Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair" . In other words, the "how" indicates an attention to facts and details regarding the occurrence, while the "why" requires a deeper meditation upon the event in question. While the "how" limits itself to an outside objective view of the facts and visible actions, the "why" requires an exploration of the state of a man's soul: why did he act in such a manner? Why did he not act otherwise? This distinction refigures Jim's discomfort with discussing only the facts of the event, while his own inner life is a whorl of confusion. However, the nature of official legal proceedings and judgments is often, if only for the sake of efficiency and objectivity, strictly geared toward collecting the undisputed facts. The deeper and more subtle details of a story require just that: a story. Hence, the novel undertakes the task of the "why," which the Inquiry fails to address. The significant minor character Brierly is an assessor of the proceedings involving Jim and the Patna incident. According to Marlow--though he is not at all certain, because he does not know Brierly's inner life at all--Brierly may have begun an inquiry into his own soul during the proceedings. What he might have found there is later suggested as quite disturbing, given his suicide leap into the sea. So, with Brierly, the reader is offered an objective view of the facts, a little conjecture, and the actions of a man, which again introduce the question "Why?" When Marlow tells of how he and Jim first met, noting that the encounter is caused by a misjudgment on Jim's part, the incident shows how Jim continually misjudges or misreads a situation. It is also important in that Marlow, in the end, by telling Jim's story, arrives at a more complete picture and a profound and forgiving view of Jim's character. Marlow notes that Jim "was one of us," and the statement assumes a variety of connotations throughout the novel. The root of the statement is the comment God makes in Genesis after Adam has eaten the forbidden fruit: "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." The implication, perhaps, is that Jim is the one carrying a heightened self-awareness regarding his qualities, his shortcomings, and his potential, even though he perhaps has not been the best judge of his situation. In any event, his character assumes more depth and detail at this point. We learn that he was adamant to see the proceeding through, despite the humiliating gossip that would follow him afterwards. Through this awareness, and plagued by feelings of grief, Jim is "an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be" . In another sense, the assertion that "he was one of us" binds Marlow more closely to Jim. Their joint presence in this novel, indicative of the level of common experience that binds humankind, may also hint that Marlow sees in Jim something of his own beginnings and youth--the same illusions, the same romantic ideals. The questions then become: how will Jim mature? What will Jim make of it all? What kind of man will he become?

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/58.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_7_part_5.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter lvii

chapter lvii

{"name": "Chapter LVII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase7-chapter53-59", "summary": "As Angel walks to catch the train, he turns to see Tess running behind him. She tells him that she has just killed d'Urberville, and the couple flees. She pleads with him to forgive her and, thinking she is merely hysterical, he declares his love: \"it is all come back\". Soon however, it becomes apparent that she has in fact stabbed d'Urberville, but still can't believe he is dead. Angel buys food, the couple flees into the woods, and they plan to run away from England. They come across an old empty mansion, climb in the window and remain overnight after the housekeeper closes the windows and leaves", "analysis": ""}

Meanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along the way by which he had come, and, entering his hotel, sat down over the breakfast, staring at nothingness. He went on eating and drinking unconsciously till on a sudden he demanded his bill; having paid which, he took his dressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him, and went out. At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him--a few words from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his address, and informing him that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to and been accepted by Mercy Chant. Clare crumpled up the paper and followed the route to the station; reaching it, he found that there would be no train leaving for an hour and more. He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of an hour felt that he could wait there no longer. Broken in heart and numbed, he had nothing to hurry for; but he wished to get out of a town which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned to walk to the first station onward, and let the train pick him up there. The highway that he followed was open, and at a little distance dipped into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge to edge. He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and was climbing the western acclivity when, pausing for breath, he unconsciously looked back. Why he did so he could not say, but something seemed to impel him to the act. The tape-like surface of the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he gazed a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective. It was a human figure running. Clare waited, with a dim sense that somebody was trying to overtake him. The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even when she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally changed attire in which he now beheld her. It was not till she was quite close that he could believe her to be Tess. "I saw you--turn away from the station--just before I got there--and I have been following you all this way!" She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling it within his arm, he led her along. To avoid meeting any possible wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some fir-trees. When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped and looked at her inquiringly. "Angel," she said, as if waiting for this, "do you know what I have been running after you for? To tell you that I have killed him!" A pitiful white smile lit her face as she spoke. "What!" said he, thinking from the strangeness of her manner that she was in some delirium. "I have done it--I don't know how," she continued. "Still, I owed it to you, and to myself, Angel. I feared long ago, when I struck him on the mouth with my glove, that I might do it some day for the trap he set for me in my simple youth, and his wrong to you through me. He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any more. I never loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you. You know it, don't you? You believe it? You didn't come back to me, and I was obliged to go back to him. Why did you go away--why did you--when I loved you so? I can't think why you did it. But I don't blame you; only, Angel, will you forgive me my sin against you, now I have killed him? I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to forgive me now I have done that. It came to me as a shining light that I should get you back that way. I could not bear the loss of you any longer--you don't know how entirely I was unable to bear your not loving me! Say you do now, dear, dear husband; say you do, now I have killed him!" "I do love you, Tess--O, I do--it is all come back!" he said, tightening his arms round her with fervid pressure. "But how do you mean--you have killed him?" "I mean that I have," she murmured in a reverie. "What, bodily? Is he dead?" "Yes. He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly taunted me; and called you by a foul name; and then I did it. My heart could not bear it. He had nagged me about you before. And then I dressed myself and came away to find you." By degrees he was inclined to believe that she had faintly attempted, at least, what she said she had done; and his horror at her impulse was mixed with amazement at the strength of her affection for himself, and at the strangeness of its quality, which had apparently extinguished her moral sense altogether. Unable to realize the gravity of her conduct, she seemed at last content; and he looked at her as she lay upon his shoulder, weeping with happiness, and wondered what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to this aberration--if it were an aberration. There momentarily flashed through his mind that the family tradition of the coach and murder might have arisen because the d'Urbervilles had been known to do these things. As well as his confused and excited ideas could reason, he supposed that in the moment of mad grief of which she spoke, her mind had lost its balance, and plunged her into this abyss. It was very terrible if true; if a temporary hallucination, sad. But, anyhow, here was this deserted wife of his, this passionately-fond woman, clinging to him without a suspicion that he would be anything to her but a protector. He saw that for him to be otherwise was not, in her mind, within the region of the possible. Tenderness was absolutely dominant in Clare at last. He kissed her endlessly with his white lips, and held her hand, and said-- "I will not desert you! I will protect you by every means in my power, dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have done!" They then walked on under the trees, Tess turning her head every now and then to look at him. Worn and unhandsome as he had become, it was plain that she did not discern the least fault in his appearance. To her he was, as of old, all that was perfection, personally and mentally. He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even; his sickly face was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on this day no less than when she first beheld him; for was it not the face of the one man on earth who had loved her purely, and who had believed in her as pure! With an instinct as to possibilities, he did not now, as he had intended, make for the first station beyond the town, but plunged still farther under the firs, which here abounded for miles. Each clasping the other round the waist they promenaded over the dry bed of fir-needles, thrown into a vague intoxicating atmosphere at the consciousness of being together at last, with no living soul between them; ignoring that there was a corpse. Thus they proceeded for several miles till Tess, arousing herself, looked about her, and said, timidly-- "Are we going anywhere in particular?" "I don't know, dearest. Why?" "I don't know." "Well, we might walk a few miles further, and when it is evening find lodgings somewhere or other--in a lonely cottage, perhaps. Can you walk well, Tessy?" "O yes! I could walk for ever and ever with your arm round me!" Upon the whole it seemed a good thing to do. Thereupon they quickened their pace, avoiding high roads, and following obscure paths tending more or less northward. But there was an unpractical vagueness in their movements throughout the day; neither one of them seemed to consider any question of effectual escape, disguise, or long concealment. Their every idea was temporary and unforefending, like the plans of two children. At mid-day they drew near to a roadside inn, and Tess would have entered it with him to get something to eat, but he persuaded her to remain among the trees and bushes of this half-woodland, half-moorland part of the country till he should come back. Her clothes were of recent fashion; even the ivory-handled parasol that she carried was of a shape unknown in the retired spot to which they had now wandered; and the cut of such articles would have attracted attention in the settle of a tavern. He soon returned, with food enough for half-a-dozen people and two bottles of wine--enough to last them for a day or more, should any emergency arise. They sat down upon some dead boughs and shared their meal. Between one and two o'clock they packed up the remainder and went on again. "I feel strong enough to walk any distance," said she. "I think we may as well steer in a general way towards the interior of the country, where we can hide for a time, and are less likely to be looked for than anywhere near the coast," Clare remarked. "Later on, when they have forgotten us, we can make for some port." She made no reply to this beyond that of grasping him more tightly, and straight inland they went. Though the season was an English May, the weather was serenely bright, and during the afternoon it was quite warm. Through the latter miles of their walk their footpath had taken them into the depths of the New Forest, and towards evening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived behind a brook and bridge a large board on which was painted in white letters, "This desirable Mansion to be Let Furnished"; particulars following, with directions to apply to some London agents. Passing through the gate they could see the house, an old brick building of regular design and large accommodation. "I know it," said Clare. "It is Bramshurst Court. You can see that it is shut up, and grass is growing on the drive." "Some of the windows are open," said Tess. "Just to air the rooms, I suppose." "All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to our heads!" "You are getting tired, my Tess!" he said. "We'll stop soon." And kissing her sad mouth, he again led her onwards. He was growing weary likewise, for they had wandered a dozen or fifteen miles, and it became necessary to consider what they should do for rest. They looked from afar at isolated cottages and little inns, and were inclined to approach one of the latter, when their hearts failed them, and they sheered off. At length their gait dragged, and they stood still. "Could we sleep under the trees?" she asked. He thought the season insufficiently advanced. "I have been thinking of that empty mansion we passed," he said. "Let us go back towards it again." They retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before they stood without the entrance-gate as earlier. He then requested her to stay where she was, whilst he went to see who was within. She sat down among the bushes within the gate, and Clare crept towards the house. His absence lasted some considerable time, and when he returned Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for him. He had found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in charge as caretaker, and she only came there on fine days, from the hamlet near, to open and shut the windows. She would come to shut them at sunset. "Now, we can get in through one of the lower windows, and rest there," said he. Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose shuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility of watchers. The door was reached a few steps further, and one of the windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess in after him. Except the hall, the rooms were all in darkness, and they ascended the staircase. Up here also the shutters were tightly closed, the ventilation being perfunctorily done, for this day at least, by opening the hall-window in front and an upper window behind. Clare unlatched the door of a large chamber, felt his way across it, and parted the shutters to the width of two or three inches. A shaft of dazzling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy, old-fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an enormous four-post bedstead, along the head of which were carved running figures, apparently Atalanta's race. "Rest at last!" said he, setting down his bag and the parcel of viands. They remained in great quietness till the caretaker should have come to shut the windows: as a precaution, putting themselves in total darkness by barring the shutters as before, lest the woman should open the door of their chamber for any casual reason. Between six and seven o'clock she came, but did not approach the wing they were in. They heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the door, and go away. Then Clare again stole a chink of light from the window, and they shared another meal, till by-and-by they were enveloped in the shades of night which they had no candle to disperse.

Chapter LVII

https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase7-chapter53-59

As Angel walks to catch the train, he turns to see Tess running behind him. She tells him that she has just killed d'Urberville, and the couple flees. She pleads with him to forgive her and, thinking she is merely hysterical, he declares his love: "it is all come back". Soon however, it becomes apparent that she has in fact stabbed d'Urberville, but still can't believe he is dead. Angel buys food, the couple flees into the woods, and they plan to run away from England. They come across an old empty mansion, climb in the window and remain overnight after the housekeeper closes the windows and leaves

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/03.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Sense and Sensibility/section_2_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 3

chapter 3

{"name": "Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility19.asp", "summary": "Mrs. Dashwood and her children are still living in Norland Estate because they are not able to find suitable accommodations elsewhere. Mrs. Dashwood hopes that her stepson will provide them with financial support. In the meantime, Fanny's brother pays the family a visit. His charming manners and grace win Elinor's heart. Mrs. Dashwood is happy for her daughter and hopes for a match between the two. But Marianne is not impressed by Edward Ferrars, as he does not fit the image of a dashing young man, which is her personal idea of a worthy suitor.", "analysis": "Notes Jane Austen here introduces one of the main characters in the novel. Edward Ferrars is Fanny's brother, but unlike her, he is courteous, refined and good-natured. His 'quiet and unassuming' manner win the approval of both Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor, but Marianne has reservations about him. As far as Marianne is concerned, he does not excite romantic feelings. In any case, Fanny, Edward Ferrars' sister, is likely to sabotage a relationship between him and Elinor. Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne resemble each other in their thinking. Both of them jump to the conclusion that Edward will marry Elinor, and they start imagining the future without Elinor. CHAPTER 4 Summary Marianne expresses her opinion about Edward to her sister, but Elinor does not agree with her views. Elinor considers Edward to be a good human being, reserved by nature but refined in taste. When Marianne becomes aware of Elinor's feelings for Edward, she decides to try to love him as a brother. In the meantime, Fanny takes note of the growing friendship between Edward and Elinor and warns Mrs. Dashwood against it. Mrs. Dashwood is offended and resolves to find a new home at the earliest possible convenience. Shortly afterwards, she receives a letter from her cousin, Sir John Middleton, who offers her a house at Barton Estate in Devonshire. The offer sounds reasonable. The Dashwood ladies start planning to move away from Norland. Notes Chapter 4 demonstrates the difference in the attitudes of Elinor and Marianne. Elinor carefully analyzes the character of Edward and approves of his manner and tastes, while Marianne shows her prejudice against Edward because he does not conform to her view of an ideal man. Elinor is rational, while Marianne is romantic. The affair between Edward and Elinor is cut short due to the interference of Fanny. This incident foreshadows future events, which will create obstacles to their happiness. Elinor displays maturity by agreeing to move from Norland to Devonshire. She likes Edward and would have loved to keep his company, but in order to maintain their prestige, she consents to her mother's decision to leave Norland. She is pragmatic and considers the option to move to Barton as the best possible course under the present circumstances. CHAPTER 5 Summary Mrs. Dashwood informs John and Fanny about her decision to move to Barton, in Devonshire. John Dashwood expresses concern about their going to such a distant place. Nevertheless, preparations begin for the journey. After taking Elinor's advice, Mrs. Dashwood sells off their carriage and keeps only three servants. They send their furniture and servants ahead so that their house will be ready for immediate occupation. After bidding farewell to John and Fanny, they set off for their new home. Notes Elinor acts as the head of the family by giving helpful suggestions to her mother. She assesses their situation and advises her mother to dispose of the carriage and some of the servants, as it would not be financially viable for them to retain them. Elinor is the only member of the family who clearly understands their changed status, and she believes in living within their means. In contrast to Elinor, Marianne is engrossed in her own thoughts. She does not participate actively in the preparations, but passionately declares her fondness for Norland before departing. She sheds tears and remarks poetically, \"Dear, dear Norland! when shall I cease to regret you--when learn to feel a home elsewhere?\""}

Mrs. Dashwood remained at Norland several months; not from any disinclination to move when the sight of every well known spot ceased to raise the violent emotion which it produced for a while; for when her spirits began to revive, and her mind became capable of some other exertion than that of heightening its affliction by melancholy remembrances, she was impatient to be gone, and indefatigable in her inquiries for a suitable dwelling in the neighbourhood of Norland; for to remove far from that beloved spot was impossible. But she could hear of no situation that at once answered her notions of comfort and ease, and suited the prudence of her eldest daughter, whose steadier judgment rejected several houses as too large for their income, which her mother would have approved. Mrs. Dashwood had been informed by her husband of the solemn promise on the part of his son in their favour, which gave comfort to his last earthly reflections. She doubted the sincerity of this assurance no more than he had doubted it himself, and she thought of it for her daughters' sake with satisfaction, though as for herself she was persuaded that a much smaller provision than 7000L would support her in affluence. For their brother's sake, too, for the sake of his own heart, she rejoiced; and she reproached herself for being unjust to his merit before, in believing him incapable of generosity. His attentive behaviour to herself and his sisters convinced her that their welfare was dear to him, and, for a long time, she firmly relied on the liberality of his intentions. The contempt which she had, very early in their acquaintance, felt for her daughter-in-law, was very much increased by the farther knowledge of her character, which half a year's residence in her family afforded; and perhaps in spite of every consideration of politeness or maternal affection on the side of the former, the two ladies might have found it impossible to have lived together so long, had not a particular circumstance occurred to give still greater eligibility, according to the opinions of Mrs. Dashwood, to her daughters' continuance at Norland. This circumstance was a growing attachment between her eldest girl and the brother of Mrs. John Dashwood, a gentleman-like and pleasing young man, who was introduced to their acquaintance soon after his sister's establishment at Norland, and who had since spent the greatest part of his time there. Some mothers might have encouraged the intimacy from motives of interest, for Edward Ferrars was the eldest son of a man who had died very rich; and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence, for, except a trifling sum, the whole of his fortune depended on the will of his mother. But Mrs. Dashwood was alike uninfluenced by either consideration. It was enough for her that he appeared to be amiable, that he loved her daughter, and that Elinor returned the partiality. It was contrary to every doctrine of hers that difference of fortune should keep any couple asunder who were attracted by resemblance of disposition; and that Elinor's merit should not be acknowledged by every one who knew her, was to her comprehension impossible. Edward Ferrars was not recommended to their good opinion by any peculiar graces of person or address. He was not handsome, and his manners required intimacy to make them pleasing. He was too diffident to do justice to himself; but when his natural shyness was overcome, his behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart. His understanding was good, and his education had given it solid improvement. But he was neither fitted by abilities nor disposition to answer the wishes of his mother and sister, who longed to see him distinguished--as--they hardly knew what. They wanted him to make a fine figure in the world in some manner or other. His mother wished to interest him in political concerns, to get him into parliament, or to see him connected with some of the great men of the day. Mrs. John Dashwood wished it likewise; but in the mean while, till one of these superior blessings could be attained, it would have quieted her ambition to see him driving a barouche. But Edward had no turn for great men or barouches. All his wishes centered in domestic comfort and the quiet of private life. Fortunately he had a younger brother who was more promising. Edward had been staying several weeks in the house before he engaged much of Mrs. Dashwood's attention; for she was, at that time, in such affliction as rendered her careless of surrounding objects. She saw only that he was quiet and unobtrusive, and she liked him for it. He did not disturb the wretchedness of her mind by ill-timed conversation. She was first called to observe and approve him farther, by a reflection which Elinor chanced one day to make on the difference between him and his sister. It was a contrast which recommended him most forcibly to her mother. "It is enough," said she; "to say that he is unlike Fanny is enough. It implies everything amiable. I love him already." "I think you will like him," said Elinor, "when you know more of him." "Like him!" replied her mother with a smile. "I feel no sentiment of approbation inferior to love." "You may esteem him." "I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem and love." Mrs. Dashwood now took pains to get acquainted with him. Her manners were attaching, and soon banished his reserve. She speedily comprehended all his merits; the persuasion of his regard for Elinor perhaps assisted her penetration; but she really felt assured of his worth: and even that quietness of manner, which militated against all her established ideas of what a young man's address ought to be, was no longer uninteresting when she knew his heart to be warm and his temper affectionate. No sooner did she perceive any symptom of love in his behaviour to Elinor, than she considered their serious attachment as certain, and looked forward to their marriage as rapidly approaching. "In a few months, my dear Marianne." said she, "Elinor will, in all probability be settled for life. We shall miss her; but SHE will be happy." "Oh! Mama, how shall we do without her?" "My love, it will be scarcely a separation. We shall live within a few miles of each other, and shall meet every day of our lives. You will gain a brother, a real, affectionate brother. I have the highest opinion in the world of Edward's heart. But you look grave, Marianne; do you disapprove your sister's choice?" "Perhaps," said Marianne, "I may consider it with some surprise. Edward is very amiable, and I love him tenderly. But yet--he is not the kind of young man--there is something wanting--his figure is not striking; it has none of that grace which I should expect in the man who could seriously attach my sister. His eyes want all that spirit, that fire, which at once announce virtue and intelligence. And besides all this, I am afraid, Mama, he has no real taste. Music seems scarcely to attract him, and though he admires Elinor's drawings very much, it is not the admiration of a person who can understand their worth. It is evident, in spite of his frequent attention to her while she draws, that in fact he knows nothing of the matter. He admires as a lover, not as a connoisseur. To satisfy me, those characters must be united. I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter into all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both. Oh! mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!" "He would certainly have done more justice to simple and elegant prose. I thought so at the time; but you WOULD give him Cowper." "Nay, Mama, if he is not to be animated by Cowper!--but we must allow for difference of taste. Elinor has not my feelings, and therefore she may overlook it, and be happy with him. But it would have broke MY heart, had I loved him, to hear him read with so little sensibility. Mama, the more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much! He must have all Edward's virtues, and his person and manners must ornament his goodness with every possible charm." "Remember, my love, that you are not seventeen. It is yet too early in life to despair of such a happiness. Why should you be less fortunate than your mother? In one circumstance only, my Marianne, may your destiny be different from hers!"

Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility19.asp

Mrs. Dashwood and her children are still living in Norland Estate because they are not able to find suitable accommodations elsewhere. Mrs. Dashwood hopes that her stepson will provide them with financial support. In the meantime, Fanny's brother pays the family a visit. His charming manners and grace win Elinor's heart. Mrs. Dashwood is happy for her daughter and hopes for a match between the two. But Marianne is not impressed by Edward Ferrars, as he does not fit the image of a dashing young man, which is her personal idea of a worthy suitor.

Notes Jane Austen here introduces one of the main characters in the novel. Edward Ferrars is Fanny's brother, but unlike her, he is courteous, refined and good-natured. His 'quiet and unassuming' manner win the approval of both Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor, but Marianne has reservations about him. As far as Marianne is concerned, he does not excite romantic feelings. In any case, Fanny, Edward Ferrars' sister, is likely to sabotage a relationship between him and Elinor. Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne resemble each other in their thinking. Both of them jump to the conclusion that Edward will marry Elinor, and they start imagining the future without Elinor. CHAPTER 4 Summary Marianne expresses her opinion about Edward to her sister, but Elinor does not agree with her views. Elinor considers Edward to be a good human being, reserved by nature but refined in taste. When Marianne becomes aware of Elinor's feelings for Edward, she decides to try to love him as a brother. In the meantime, Fanny takes note of the growing friendship between Edward and Elinor and warns Mrs. Dashwood against it. Mrs. Dashwood is offended and resolves to find a new home at the earliest possible convenience. Shortly afterwards, she receives a letter from her cousin, Sir John Middleton, who offers her a house at Barton Estate in Devonshire. The offer sounds reasonable. The Dashwood ladies start planning to move away from Norland. Notes Chapter 4 demonstrates the difference in the attitudes of Elinor and Marianne. Elinor carefully analyzes the character of Edward and approves of his manner and tastes, while Marianne shows her prejudice against Edward because he does not conform to her view of an ideal man. Elinor is rational, while Marianne is romantic. The affair between Edward and Elinor is cut short due to the interference of Fanny. This incident foreshadows future events, which will create obstacles to their happiness. Elinor displays maturity by agreeing to move from Norland to Devonshire. She likes Edward and would have loved to keep his company, but in order to maintain their prestige, she consents to her mother's decision to leave Norland. She is pragmatic and considers the option to move to Barton as the best possible course under the present circumstances. CHAPTER 5 Summary Mrs. Dashwood informs John and Fanny about her decision to move to Barton, in Devonshire. John Dashwood expresses concern about their going to such a distant place. Nevertheless, preparations begin for the journey. After taking Elinor's advice, Mrs. Dashwood sells off their carriage and keeps only three servants. They send their furniture and servants ahead so that their house will be ready for immediate occupation. After bidding farewell to John and Fanny, they set off for their new home. Notes Elinor acts as the head of the family by giving helpful suggestions to her mother. She assesses their situation and advises her mother to dispose of the carriage and some of the servants, as it would not be financially viable for them to retain them. Elinor is the only member of the family who clearly understands their changed status, and she believes in living within their means. In contrast to Elinor, Marianne is engrossed in her own thoughts. She does not participate actively in the preparations, but passionately declares her fondness for Norland before departing. She sheds tears and remarks poetically, "Dear, dear Norland! when shall I cease to regret you--when learn to feel a home elsewhere?"

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/80.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_14_part_1.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 12.chapter 1

book 12, chapter 1

{"name": "book 12, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section15/", "summary": "The Fatal Day Dmitri's trial opens at ten o'clock the next morning, amid an atmosphere of widespread curiosity. All Russia seems to be interested in the outcome, and the legendary defense attorney Fetyukovich has traveled all the way from Moscow to defend Dmitri. The judge is known to be an educated man, but the jury is made up of peasants, leading to some concern that Fetyukovich's defense will be above the heads of the jury members. The judge asks Dmitri for his plea, and he again asserts his innocence. The general consensus in the courtroom, given what most people consider to be overwhelming evidence, is that he is guilty", "analysis": ""}

Book XII. A Judicial Error Chapter I. The Fatal Day 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 arm-chairs had been placed there--something exceptional, which had never been allowed before. A large proportion--not less than half of the public--were 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 fact--established afterwards by many observations--was 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 them--Katerina Ivanovna--was 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 rivals--the 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 self-confidence 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 town--spacious, 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 dressing-gown, stained with blood; the fatal brass pestle with which the supposed murder had been committed; Mitya's shirt, with a blood-stained 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 arrived--the President, one honorary justice of the peace, and one other. The prosecutor, of course, entered immediately after. The President was a short, stout, thick-set 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 jurymen--four 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 gray-headed 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 close-shaven, 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 uninviting-looking 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 brand-new frock-coat. 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 yard-long 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, clean-shaven 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 proceedings--that is, of the witnesses and experts. It was a long list. Four of the witnesses were not present--Miuesov, 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.

book 12, Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section15/

The Fatal Day Dmitri's trial opens at ten o'clock the next morning, amid an atmosphere of widespread curiosity. All Russia seems to be interested in the outcome, and the legendary defense attorney Fetyukovich has traveled all the way from Moscow to defend Dmitri. The judge is known to be an educated man, but the jury is made up of peasants, leading to some concern that Fetyukovich's defense will be above the heads of the jury members. The judge asks Dmitri for his plea, and he again asserts his innocence. The general consensus in the courtroom, given what most people consider to be overwhelming evidence, is that he is guilty

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1130-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra/section_18_part_0.txt

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.act iii.scene vii

act iii, scene vii

{"name": "Act III, Scene vii", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iii-scene-vii", "summary": "Cleopatra readies to go to battle alongside Antony, though Enobarbus thinks it's not a place fit for women. Further, she'll be a distraction to Antony, when all his attention needs to be on the war. She won't hear any of it, despite the fact that the Romans are taunting that a woman and her maids are running the war. Antony interrupts this little discussion of gender roles and announces to Canidius, one of his soldiers, that they'll fight by sea. Enobarbus and Canidius plead with him; as his fleet and sea power are much weaker than Caesar's, they're sure to be doomed. Still, Caesar has challenged Antony at sea, so in spite of his good sense, he won't back down. Cleopatra pledges sixty ships, and Antony contends that if they lose at sea, they can still fight by land. A messenger enters with the news that Caesar is already conquering, so there's no time to waste. The main players exit with Antony preparing for war on the water. Canidius and a soldier stay back, lamenting Antony's decision to fight in the arena where he's weakest --he's being led not by tactics, but by a woman. Caesar has traveled quickly, and his power is only growing. Still, they'll take care of land preparations while Antony puts the brunt of their force into the sea.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE VII. ANTONY'S camp near Actium Enter CLEOPATRA and ENOBARBUS CLEOPATRA. I will be even with thee, doubt it not. ENOBARBUS. But why, why, CLEOPATRA. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars, And say'st it is not fit. ENOBARBUS. Well, is it, is it? CLEOPATRA. Is't not denounc'd against us? Why should not we Be there in person? ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Well, I could reply: If we should serve with horse and mares together The horse were merely lost; the mares would bear A soldier and his horse. CLEOPATRA. What is't you say? ENOBARBUS. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony; Take from his heart, take from his brain, from's time, What should not then be spar'd. He is already Traduc'd for levity; and 'tis said in Rome That Photinus an eunuch and your maids Manage this war. CLEOPATRA. Sink Rome, and their tongues rot That speak against us! A charge we bear i' th' war, And, as the president of my kingdom, will Appear there for a man. Speak not against it; I will not stay behind. Enter ANTONY and CANIDIUS ENOBARBUS. Nay, I have done. Here comes the Emperor. ANTONY. Is it not strange, Canidius, That from Tarentum and Brundusium He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea, And take in Toryne?- You have heard on't, sweet? CLEOPATRA. Celerity is never more admir'd Than by the negligent. ANTONY. A good rebuke, Which might have well becom'd the best of men To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we Will fight with him by sea. CLEOPATRA. By sea! What else? CANIDIUS. Why will my lord do so? ANTONY. For that he dares us to't. ENOBARBUS. So hath my lord dar'd him to single fight. CANIDIUS. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia, Where Caesar fought with Pompey. But these offers, Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off; And so should you. ENOBARBUS. Your ships are not well mann'd; Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people Ingross'd by swift impress. In Caesar's fleet Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought; Their ships are yare; yours heavy. No disgrace Shall fall you for refusing him at sea, Being prepar'd for land. ANTONY. By sea, by sea. ENOBARBUS. Most worthy sir, you therein throw away The absolute soldiership you have by land; Distract your army, which doth most consist Of war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted Your own renowned knowledge; quite forgo The way which promises assurance; and Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard From firm security. ANTONY. I'll fight at sea. CLEOPATRA. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better. ANTONY. Our overplus of shipping will we burn, And, with the rest full-mann'd, from th' head of Actium Beat th' approaching Caesar. But if we fail, We then can do't at land. Enter a MESSENGER Thy business? MESSENGER. The news is true, my lord: he is descried; Caesar has taken Toryne. ANTONY. Can he be there in person? 'Tis impossible- Strange that his power should be. Canidius, Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land, And our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship. Away, my Thetis! Enter a SOLDIER How now, worthy soldier? SOLDIER. O noble Emperor, do not fight by sea; Trust not to rotten planks. Do you misdoubt This sword and these my wounds? Let th' Egyptians And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we Have us'd to conquer standing on the earth And fighting foot to foot. ANTONY. Well, well- away. Exeunt ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, and ENOBARBUS SOLDIER. By Hercules, I think I am i' th' right. CANIDIUS. Soldier, thou art; but his whole action grows Not in the power on't. So our leader's led, And we are women's men. SOLDIER. You keep by land The legions and the horse whole, do you not? CANIDIUS. Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius, Publicola, and Caelius are for sea; But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's Carries beyond belief. SOLDIER. While he was yet in Rome, His power went out in such distractions as Beguil'd all spies. CANIDIUS. Who's his lieutenant, hear you? SOLDIER. They say one Taurus. CANIDIUS. Well I know the man. Enter a MESSENGER MESSENGER. The Emperor calls Canidius. CANIDIUS. With news the time's with labour and throes forth Each minute some. Exeunt ACT_3|SC_8

Act III, Scene vii

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iii-scene-vii

Cleopatra readies to go to battle alongside Antony, though Enobarbus thinks it's not a place fit for women. Further, she'll be a distraction to Antony, when all his attention needs to be on the war. She won't hear any of it, despite the fact that the Romans are taunting that a woman and her maids are running the war. Antony interrupts this little discussion of gender roles and announces to Canidius, one of his soldiers, that they'll fight by sea. Enobarbus and Canidius plead with him; as his fleet and sea power are much weaker than Caesar's, they're sure to be doomed. Still, Caesar has challenged Antony at sea, so in spite of his good sense, he won't back down. Cleopatra pledges sixty ships, and Antony contends that if they lose at sea, they can still fight by land. A messenger enters with the news that Caesar is already conquering, so there's no time to waste. The main players exit with Antony preparing for war on the water. Canidius and a soldier stay back, lamenting Antony's decision to fight in the arena where he's weakest --he's being led not by tactics, but by a woman. Caesar has traveled quickly, and his power is only growing. Still, they'll take care of land preparations while Antony puts the brunt of their force into the sea.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/36.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_6_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 5.chapter 5

book 5, chapter 5

{"name": "Book V Pro and Contra, Chapter 5 The Grand Inquisitor", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section7/", "summary": "Ivan explains his prose poem, \"The Grand Inquisitor.\" In a town in Spain, in the sixteenth century, Christ arrives, apparently reborn on Earth. As he walks through the streets, the people gather about him, staring. He begins to heal the sick, but his ministrations are interrupted by the arrival of a powerful cardinal who orders his guards to arrest Christ. Late that night, this cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, visits Christ's cell and explains why he has taken him prisoner and why he cannot allow Christ to perform his works. Throughout the Grand Inquisitor's lecture, Christ listens silently. The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that he cannot allow him to do his work on Earth, because his work is at odds with the work of the Church. The Inquisitor reminds Christ of the time, recorded in the Bible, when the Devil presented him with three temptations, each of which he rejected. The Grand Inquisitor says that by rejecting these three temptations, he guaranteed that human beings would have free will. Free will, he says, is a devastating, impossible burden for mankind. Christ gave humanity the freedom to choose whether or not to follow him, but almost no one is strong enough to be faithful, and those who are not will be damned forever. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people no choice, and instead taken power and given people security instead of freedom. That way, the same people who were too weak to follow Christ to begin with would still be damned, but at least they could have happiness and security on Earth, rather than the impossible burden of moral freedom. The Grand Inquisitor says that the Church has now undertaken to correct Christ's mistake. The Church is taking away freedom of choice and replacing it with security. Thus, the Grand Inquisitor must keep Christ in prison, because if Christ were allowed to go free, he might undermine the Church's work to lift the burden of free will from mankind. The first temptation Christ rejected was bread. Hungry after his forty days of fasting, Christ was confronted by Satan, who told him that if he were really the son of God, he could turn a stone to bread and satisfy his hunger. Christ refused, replying that man should not live by bread, but by the word of God. The Grand Inquisitor says that most people are too weak to live by the word of God when they are hungry. Christ should have taken the bread and offered mankind freedom from hunger instead of freedom of choice. The second temptation was to perform a miracle. Satan placed Christ upon a pinnacle in Jerusalem and told him to prove that he was the messiah by throwing himself off it. If Christ were really God's son, the angels would bear him up and not allow him to die. Christ refused, telling Satan that he could not tempt God. Beaten, Satan departed. But the Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people a miracle, for most people need to see the miraculous in order to be content in their religious faith. Man needs a supernatural being to worship, and Christ refused to appear as one. The third temptation was power. Satan showed Christ all the kingdoms in the world, and offered him control of them all. Christ refused. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have taken the power, but since he did not, the Church has now has to take it in his name, in order to convince men to give up their free will in favor of their security. The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that it was Satan, and not Christ, who was in the right during this exchange. He says that ever since the Church took over the Roman Empire, it has been secretly performing the work of Satan, not because it is evil, but because it seeks the best and most secure order for mankind. As the Grand Inquisitor finishes his indictment of Christ, Christ walks up to the old man and kisses him gently on the lips. The Grand Inquisitor suddenly sets Christ free, but tells him never to return again. As Ivan finishes his story, he worries that Alyosha will be disturbed by the idea that if there is no God, there are no moral limitations on man's behavior. But Alyosha leans forward and kisses Ivan on the lips. Ivan, moved, replies that Alyosha has stolen that action from his poem. Ivan and Alyosha leave the restaurant and split up. Ivan begins walking home and Alyosha walks to the monastery where Zosima is dying.", "analysis": "The story of the Grand Inquisitor strongly resembles a biblical parable, the kind of story that Christ tells in the New Testament to illustrate a philosophical point. Both Ivan's story and Christ's stories use a fictional narrative to address a deep philosophical concern and are open to various interpretations. The similarity between Ivan's story and Christ's stories illustrates the uneasy relationship between Ivan and religion. At the same time that Ivan rejects religion's ability to effectively guide human life, he relies on many of its principles in forming his own philosophical system. Like Christ, Ivan is deeply concerned with understanding the way we define what is right and what is wrong, and with understanding how morality guides human actions. However, Ivan ultimately rejects both Christ's and God's existence, as he cannot accept a supreme being with absolute power who would nonetheless allow the suffering that occurs on Earth. The story also implicitly brings up a new point with regard to Ivan's argument about expanding the power of ecclesiastical courts. By setting his story in sixteenth-century Spain, where ecclesiastical courts were at the height of their power to try and punish criminals, Ivan asks what verdict such a court would have reached in judging Christ's life. Since Christian religions teach that Christ lived a sinless life, presumably an ecclesiastical court would have been unable to find Christ guilty of any sin. However, the fact that Ivan's court finds Christ guilty of sins against mankind illustrates the difference between Ivan's religious beliefs and his beliefs in the efficacy of ecclesiastical courts. He sees the courts as an effective way to guide human action, but not necessarily as a way to induce men to believe more strongly in God or religion. The conflict between free will and security further illustrates the reasons for Ivan's dissent from Christianity. The fundamental difference between Christ's point of view and that of the Grand Inquisitor is the value that each of them places on freedom and comfort. Christ's responses to the three temptations emphasize the importance of man's ability to choose between right and wrong, while the Inquisitor's interpretation of Christ's actions emphasizes the greater value of living a comfortable life in which the right path has already been chosen by someone else. The assumption at the heart of the Inquisitor's case is that Christ's resistance of Satan's temptations is meant to provide a symbolic example for the rest of mankind. The Inquisitor interprets the rejection of the temptations as Christ's argument that humanity must reject certain securities: comfort, represented by bread; power and the safety that power brings, represented by the kingdoms; and superstition, represented by the miracle. The Inquisitor believes that Christ's example places an impossible burden on mankind, which is inherently too weak to use its free will to find salvation. Effectively, the Inquisitor argues, the only option is for people to lead sinful lives ending in damnation. The Inquisitor's Church, which is allied with Satan, seeks to provide people with stability and security in their lives, even if by doing so it ensures that they will be damned in the afterlife. Ivan's story presents the Inquisitor, a man who considers himself an ally of Satan, as an admirable human being, acting against God but with humanity's best interest at heart. Ivan does not believe that God acts in the best interest of mankind, but the implication that human nature is so weak that people are better off succumbing to the power of Satan is a radical response to the problem of free will. Ivan's attitude stems from the psychology of doubt. Ivan's over-riding skepticism makes it impossible for him to see anything but the bad side of human nature. As a result, he believes that people would be better off under the thumb of even a fraudulent religious authority rather than making their own decisions. Even though his argument is pessimistic, his reasoning is compelling. Just as Alyosha is unable to offer a satisfactory response to Ivan's critique of God, Christ says nothing during the Inquisitor's critique of him, one of several parallels between Alyosha and Christ during this chapter. But Christ's enigmatic kiss on the Inquisitor's lips after his indictment completely changes the tenor of the scene. Recalling Zosima's bow before Dmitri at the monastery in Book I, the kiss represents an overriding act of love and forgiveness so innate that it can only be expressed wordlessly. On its deepest level, it defies explanation. The power of faith and love, Dostoevsky implies, is rooted in mystery--not simply in the empty and easily digestible idea that God's will is too complex for people to understand, but in a resonant, active, unanswerable profundity. The kiss cannot overcome a logical argument, but at the same time there is no logical argument that can overcome the kiss. It represents the triumph of love and faith, on their own terms, over rational skepticism. In having Ivan end his poem on a note of such deep and moving ambiguity, Dostoevsky has his major opponent of religion acknowledge the power of faith, just as Dostoevsky himself, a proponent of faith, has used Ivan to acknowledge the power of doubt. Alyosha's kiss for Ivan indicates how well the young Alyosha understands the problems of faith and doubt in a world characterized by free will, and just how committed his own will is to the positive goodness of faith."}

Chapter V. The Grand Inquisitor "Even this must have a preface--that 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 Hotel 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 tres 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 poems--and 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 hell--for 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 to-day 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 fe_ 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 fe_, 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 He--it 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 Church--at 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 to-morrow I shall condemn Thee and burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics. And the very people who have to-day kissed Thy feet, to-morrow 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 man--some 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, over-excited by the _auto da fe_ 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 too--the 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, to-day, 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 self-destruction 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 earth--rulers, chief priests, learned men, philosophers, poets--and 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 humanity--dost 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 right--Thou 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 dread--for 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 them--so 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 humanity--to 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 alone--the 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 ill-fated 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 conscience--oh! 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 all--Thou 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 happiness--those 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 him--Thou 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 unhappiness--that 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 roots--and 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 _him_--that is our mystery. It's long--eight centuries--since 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 Caesar, 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 Caesars, and then we shall plan the universal happiness of man. But Thou mightest have taken even then the sword of Caesar. 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 earth--that is, some one to worship, some one to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant-heap, 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 world-wide union. The great conquerors, Timours and Ghenghis-Khans, 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 Caesar'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 Caesar, 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 awe-stricken 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 children--according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient--and 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, to-morrow 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. To-morrow 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 Him--as 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 false--those 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 domination--something like a universal serfdom with them as masters--that'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 Paissy's teaching?" "No, no, on the contrary, Father Paissy 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 gain--if 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 joined--the 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 Karamazovs--the 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 Miuesov--and which Dmitri pounced upon so naively, 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 renounce--will 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 to-morrow (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. Good-by, 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 Seraphicus--he got that name from somewhere--where 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 me--from 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.

Book V Pro and Contra, Chapter 5 The Grand Inquisitor

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section7/

Ivan explains his prose poem, "The Grand Inquisitor." In a town in Spain, in the sixteenth century, Christ arrives, apparently reborn on Earth. As he walks through the streets, the people gather about him, staring. He begins to heal the sick, but his ministrations are interrupted by the arrival of a powerful cardinal who orders his guards to arrest Christ. Late that night, this cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, visits Christ's cell and explains why he has taken him prisoner and why he cannot allow Christ to perform his works. Throughout the Grand Inquisitor's lecture, Christ listens silently. The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that he cannot allow him to do his work on Earth, because his work is at odds with the work of the Church. The Inquisitor reminds Christ of the time, recorded in the Bible, when the Devil presented him with three temptations, each of which he rejected. The Grand Inquisitor says that by rejecting these three temptations, he guaranteed that human beings would have free will. Free will, he says, is a devastating, impossible burden for mankind. Christ gave humanity the freedom to choose whether or not to follow him, but almost no one is strong enough to be faithful, and those who are not will be damned forever. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people no choice, and instead taken power and given people security instead of freedom. That way, the same people who were too weak to follow Christ to begin with would still be damned, but at least they could have happiness and security on Earth, rather than the impossible burden of moral freedom. The Grand Inquisitor says that the Church has now undertaken to correct Christ's mistake. The Church is taking away freedom of choice and replacing it with security. Thus, the Grand Inquisitor must keep Christ in prison, because if Christ were allowed to go free, he might undermine the Church's work to lift the burden of free will from mankind. The first temptation Christ rejected was bread. Hungry after his forty days of fasting, Christ was confronted by Satan, who told him that if he were really the son of God, he could turn a stone to bread and satisfy his hunger. Christ refused, replying that man should not live by bread, but by the word of God. The Grand Inquisitor says that most people are too weak to live by the word of God when they are hungry. Christ should have taken the bread and offered mankind freedom from hunger instead of freedom of choice. The second temptation was to perform a miracle. Satan placed Christ upon a pinnacle in Jerusalem and told him to prove that he was the messiah by throwing himself off it. If Christ were really God's son, the angels would bear him up and not allow him to die. Christ refused, telling Satan that he could not tempt God. Beaten, Satan departed. But the Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people a miracle, for most people need to see the miraculous in order to be content in their religious faith. Man needs a supernatural being to worship, and Christ refused to appear as one. The third temptation was power. Satan showed Christ all the kingdoms in the world, and offered him control of them all. Christ refused. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have taken the power, but since he did not, the Church has now has to take it in his name, in order to convince men to give up their free will in favor of their security. The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that it was Satan, and not Christ, who was in the right during this exchange. He says that ever since the Church took over the Roman Empire, it has been secretly performing the work of Satan, not because it is evil, but because it seeks the best and most secure order for mankind. As the Grand Inquisitor finishes his indictment of Christ, Christ walks up to the old man and kisses him gently on the lips. The Grand Inquisitor suddenly sets Christ free, but tells him never to return again. As Ivan finishes his story, he worries that Alyosha will be disturbed by the idea that if there is no God, there are no moral limitations on man's behavior. But Alyosha leans forward and kisses Ivan on the lips. Ivan, moved, replies that Alyosha has stolen that action from his poem. Ivan and Alyosha leave the restaurant and split up. Ivan begins walking home and Alyosha walks to the monastery where Zosima is dying.

The story of the Grand Inquisitor strongly resembles a biblical parable, the kind of story that Christ tells in the New Testament to illustrate a philosophical point. Both Ivan's story and Christ's stories use a fictional narrative to address a deep philosophical concern and are open to various interpretations. The similarity between Ivan's story and Christ's stories illustrates the uneasy relationship between Ivan and religion. At the same time that Ivan rejects religion's ability to effectively guide human life, he relies on many of its principles in forming his own philosophical system. Like Christ, Ivan is deeply concerned with understanding the way we define what is right and what is wrong, and with understanding how morality guides human actions. However, Ivan ultimately rejects both Christ's and God's existence, as he cannot accept a supreme being with absolute power who would nonetheless allow the suffering that occurs on Earth. The story also implicitly brings up a new point with regard to Ivan's argument about expanding the power of ecclesiastical courts. By setting his story in sixteenth-century Spain, where ecclesiastical courts were at the height of their power to try and punish criminals, Ivan asks what verdict such a court would have reached in judging Christ's life. Since Christian religions teach that Christ lived a sinless life, presumably an ecclesiastical court would have been unable to find Christ guilty of any sin. However, the fact that Ivan's court finds Christ guilty of sins against mankind illustrates the difference between Ivan's religious beliefs and his beliefs in the efficacy of ecclesiastical courts. He sees the courts as an effective way to guide human action, but not necessarily as a way to induce men to believe more strongly in God or religion. The conflict between free will and security further illustrates the reasons for Ivan's dissent from Christianity. The fundamental difference between Christ's point of view and that of the Grand Inquisitor is the value that each of them places on freedom and comfort. Christ's responses to the three temptations emphasize the importance of man's ability to choose between right and wrong, while the Inquisitor's interpretation of Christ's actions emphasizes the greater value of living a comfortable life in which the right path has already been chosen by someone else. The assumption at the heart of the Inquisitor's case is that Christ's resistance of Satan's temptations is meant to provide a symbolic example for the rest of mankind. The Inquisitor interprets the rejection of the temptations as Christ's argument that humanity must reject certain securities: comfort, represented by bread; power and the safety that power brings, represented by the kingdoms; and superstition, represented by the miracle. The Inquisitor believes that Christ's example places an impossible burden on mankind, which is inherently too weak to use its free will to find salvation. Effectively, the Inquisitor argues, the only option is for people to lead sinful lives ending in damnation. The Inquisitor's Church, which is allied with Satan, seeks to provide people with stability and security in their lives, even if by doing so it ensures that they will be damned in the afterlife. Ivan's story presents the Inquisitor, a man who considers himself an ally of Satan, as an admirable human being, acting against God but with humanity's best interest at heart. Ivan does not believe that God acts in the best interest of mankind, but the implication that human nature is so weak that people are better off succumbing to the power of Satan is a radical response to the problem of free will. Ivan's attitude stems from the psychology of doubt. Ivan's over-riding skepticism makes it impossible for him to see anything but the bad side of human nature. As a result, he believes that people would be better off under the thumb of even a fraudulent religious authority rather than making their own decisions. Even though his argument is pessimistic, his reasoning is compelling. Just as Alyosha is unable to offer a satisfactory response to Ivan's critique of God, Christ says nothing during the Inquisitor's critique of him, one of several parallels between Alyosha and Christ during this chapter. But Christ's enigmatic kiss on the Inquisitor's lips after his indictment completely changes the tenor of the scene. Recalling Zosima's bow before Dmitri at the monastery in Book I, the kiss represents an overriding act of love and forgiveness so innate that it can only be expressed wordlessly. On its deepest level, it defies explanation. The power of faith and love, Dostoevsky implies, is rooted in mystery--not simply in the empty and easily digestible idea that God's will is too complex for people to understand, but in a resonant, active, unanswerable profundity. The kiss cannot overcome a logical argument, but at the same time there is no logical argument that can overcome the kiss. It represents the triumph of love and faith, on their own terms, over rational skepticism. In having Ivan end his poem on a note of such deep and moving ambiguity, Dostoevsky has his major opponent of religion acknowledge the power of faith, just as Dostoevsky himself, a proponent of faith, has used Ivan to acknowledge the power of doubt. Alyosha's kiss for Ivan indicates how well the young Alyosha understands the problems of faith and doubt in a world characterized by free will, and just how committed his own will is to the positive goodness of faith.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/23042-chapters/6.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Tempest/section_5_part_0.txt

The Tempest.act 3.scene 2

scene 2

{"name": "Scene 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151049/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/the-tempest/summary-and-analysis/act-iii-scene-2", "summary": "This scene returns to Stefano, Trinculo, and Caliban -- all of whom are now very drunk. Caliban has a plan to kill Prospero and elicits help from his new friends. As Caliban explains that he is the rightful owner of the island, Ariel arrives and listens attentively. Caliban explains that they must burn Prospero's books, and after Prospero is dead, Stefano can marry Miranda, which will make her his queen of the island. Trinculo agrees to the plot. Ariel resolves to tell Prospero of the plot against him. When the drunken men begin singing, Ariel accompanies them on a tabor and pipe. The men hear the music and are afraid, but Caliban reassures them that such sounds are frequently heard on the island. Stefano finds the idea of free music a strong promise of his success on the island, and three drunken conspirators follow the sounds of the music offstage.", "analysis": "Caliban represents untamed nature in conflict with civilization. He intuitively understands that Prospero's power comes from his books; thus the books are to become the first victims of his rebellion. Prospero's books represent oppression to Caliban because all that Prospero's civilization and books have to offer is slavery. Although Caliban might be considered an uneducated savage by Elizabethan accounts , he existed quite happily on the island before Prospero's arrival. Civilization transformed Caliban from freedom to slavery, and he has received little benefit from Prospero's tutelage; even Caliban's use of language is limited to little more than cursing. Because civilization has failed Caliban, he quickly turns to the first possible source of help to appear: Stefano and Trinculo, the lowest forms of civilized behavior. Caliban's island paradise is not all that different from Gonzalo's ideal natural world. Both Caliban and Gonzalo see their ideal worlds as untouched by the confinements of civilization. In both visions, nature provides whatever is needed, and mankind has little effect on the island's existence. But there is one substantial difference. Where Gonzalo would make himself king, Caliban dreams of living in peaceful isolation, with no king to abuse him. Yet, to secure his freedom from Prospero, Caliban would subordinate himself to Stefano, who would take Prospero's place as ruler. Caliban is unable to appreciate that the crass butler, whom he has elevated to a god, would be a worse god than Prospero has been. After all, upon first finding Caliban, Stefano pulled Caliban's head back, forced open his mouth, and poured wine down his throat. His exploitation of Caliban, including the plan to exhibit him as a money-making proposition, reflects little concern for Caliban's well-being. Although Prospero's enslavement of Caliban also raises questions of propriety, his stated reasons are to restore order to the island. However, Prospero's sense of order ignores Caliban's needs. Caliban does not need civilization and its artifacts, education, and language to satisfy his needs. So desperate is Caliban to escape Prospero's oppression, that he would effectively trade one god for another: Prospero for Stefano. But Caliban appears unable or unwilling to comprehend this component of his plot. The murder of Prospero is his immediate concern, and he gives little thought to what might follow. Caliban's plot to murder Prospero offers a parallel to Antonio's plot to murder Alonso. Caliban enlists the assistance of Stefano and Trinculo, just as Antonio enlists the support of Sebastian. Each group of conspirators ignores reason and logic. At the moment, they are all isolated on the island, with little hope or expectation of rescue. Alonso's murder will render no gain for Antonio or Sebastian, since Sebastian would be king of nothing. In a parody of Antonio's plot, Prospero's murder will provide little benefit for Caliban, except to trade one ruler for another and, perhaps, slavery for worse abuse. But both plots illustrate the potential for violence that exists in all levels of society, whether in the aristocracy of Naples or in the natural beauty of an isolated island. Caliban, himself, is filled with contradictions. On one hand, he is brutal, instructing Stefano to \"Bite him to death\" . Caliban also describes in detail his plans to murder Prospero by \"knock a nail into his head\" . Later, Caliban gives his co-conspirators many choices of ways to murder Prospero, from striking him on the head to disemboweling him to cutting his throat. Any means is acceptable, and, as a reward, Caliban casually promises them Miranda. The brutality of Caliban's plan is countered with the poetry of his descriptions of the island: The isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometimes voicesThat if I then had waked after long sleepWill make me sleep again; and then in dreamingThe clouds methought would open and show richesReady to drop upon me, that when I wakedI cried to dream again. The songs that Caliban describes and the beauty of his dreams reveal a humanity that is lacking in his descriptions of the murder plot. Caliban is more than a wild beast of the island, and his personality is more complex than his brief scenes have thus far disclosed. The plot to murder Prospero is Caliban's rejection of civilization. He finds no alternative to brutality, if it will free him of the oppression of civilization. The natural beauty of the island permeates Caliban's world, but he is able to separate this beauty from the violent acts that he plans. In Caliban's world, there is no incongruity in the existence of both poetry and barbarity. Glossary case here, prepared. pied ninny a fool. patch a court jester; any clown or fool murrain a disease of cattle. wezand windpipe. troll the catch to sing the round lustily or in a full, rolling voice"}

SCENE II. _Another part of the island._ _Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO._ _Ste._ Tell not me;--when the butt is out, we will drink water; not a drop before: therefore bear up, and board 'em. Servant-monster, drink to me. _Trin._ Servant-monster! the folly of this island! They say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of them; if 5 th' other two be brained like us, the state totters. _Ste._ Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee: thy eyes are almost set in thy head. _Trin._ Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail. 10 _Ste._ My man-monster hath drowned his tongue in sack: for my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five-and-thirty leagues off and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my standard. 15 _Trin._ Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard. _Ste._ We'll not run, Monsieur Monster. _Trin._ Nor go neither; but you'll lie, like dogs, and yet say nothing neither. _Ste._ Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a 20 good moon-calf. _Cal._ How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe. I'll not serve him, he is not valiant. _Trin._ Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case to justle a constable. Why, thou debauched fish, thou, was 25 there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster? _Cal._ Lo, how he mocks me! wilt thou let him, my lord? _Trin._ 'Lord,' quoth he! That a monster should be 30 such a natural! _Cal._ Lo, lo, again! bite him to death, I prithee. _Ste._ Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head: if you prove a mutineer,--the next tree! The poor monster's my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity. 35 _Cal._ I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleased to hearken once again to the suit I made to thee? _Ste._ Marry, will I: kneel and repeat it; I will stand, and so shall Trinculo. _Enter ARIEL, invisible._ _Cal._ As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a 40 sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island. _Ari._ Thou liest. _Cal._ Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: I would my valiant master would destroy thee! I do not lie. _Ste._ Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale, by 45 this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth. _Trin._ Why, I said nothing. _Ste._ Mum, then, and no more. Proceed. _Cal._ I say, by sorcery he got this isle; From me he got it. If thy greatness will 50 Revenge it on him,--for I know thou darest, But this thing dare not,-- _Ste._ That's most certain. _Cal._ Thou shalt be lord of it, and I'll serve thee. _Ste._ How now shall this be compassed? Canst thou 55 bring me to the party? _Cal._ Yea, yea, my lord: I'll yield him thee asleep, Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head. _Ari._ Thou liest; thou canst not. _Cal._ What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch! 60 I do beseech thy Greatness, give him blows, And take his bottle from him: when that's gone, He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him Where the quick freshes are. _Ste._ Trinculo, run into no further danger: interrupt the 65 monster one word further, and, by this hand, I'll turn my mercy out o' doors, and make a stock-fish of thee. _Trin._ Why, what did I? I did nothing. I'll go farther off. _Ste._ Didst thou not say he lied? 70 _Ari._ Thou liest. _Ste._ Do I so? take thou that. [_Beats him._] As you like this, give me the lie another time. _Trin._ I did not give the lie. Out o' your wits, and hearing too? A pox o' your bottle! this can sack and 75 drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the devil take your fingers! _Cal._ Ha, ha, ha! _Ste._ Now, forward with your tale. --Prithee, stand farther off. 80 _Cal._ Beat him enough: after a little time, I'll beat him too. _Ste._ Stand farther. Come, proceed. _Cal._ Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him I' th' afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him, Having first seized his books; or with a log 85 Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command: they all do hate him 90 As rootedly as I. Burn but his books. He has brave utensils,--for so he calls them,-- Which, when he has a house, he'll deck withal. And that most deeply to consider is The beauty of his daughter; he himself 95 Calls her a nonpareil: I never saw a woman, But only Sycorax my dam and she; But she as far surpasseth Sycorax As great'st does least. _Ste._ Is it so brave a lass? _Cal._ Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant, 100 And bring thee forth brave brood. _Ste._ Monster, I will kill this man: his daughter and I will be king and queen,--save our Graces!--and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot, Trinculo? 105 _Trin._ Excellent. _Ste._ Give me thy hand: I am sorry I beat thee; but, while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head. _Cal._ Within this half hour will he be asleep: Wilt thou destroy him then? _Ste._ Ay, on mine honour. 110 _Ari._ This will I tell my master. _Cal._ Thou makest me merry; I am full of pleasure: Let us be jocund: will you troll the catch You taught me but while-ere? _Ste._ At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any 115 reason. --Come on. Trinculo, let us sing. [_Sings._ Flout 'em and scout 'em, and scout 'em and flout 'em; Thought is free. _Cal._ That's not the tune. [_Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe._ _Ste._ What is this same? 120 _Trin._ This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of Nobody. _Ste._ If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy likeness: if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list. _Trin._ O, forgive me my sins! 125 _Ste._ He that dies pays all debts: I defy thee. Mercy upon us! _Cal._ Art thou afeard? _Ste._ No, monster, not I. _Cal._ Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, 130 Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, 135 The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. _Ste._ This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing. 140 _Cal._ When Prospero is destroyed. _Ste._ That shall be by and by: I remember the story. _Trin._ The sound is going away; let's follow it, and after do our work. _Ste._ Lead, monster; we'll follow. I would I could see 145 this taborer; he lays it on. _Trin._ Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano. [_Exeunt._ Notes: III, 2. SCENE II. Another...] Theobald. The other... Pope. Enter ...] Enter S. and T. reeling, Caliban following with a bottle. Capell. Enter C. S. and T. with a bottle. Johnson.] 8: _head_] F1. _heart_ F2 F3 F4. 13, 14: _on. By this light, thou_] _on, by this light thou_ Ff. _on, by this light. --Thou_ Capell. 25: _debauched_] _debosh'd_ Ff. 37: _to the suit I made to thee_] _the suit I made thee_ Steevens, who prints all Caliban's speeches as verse. 60: Johnson conjectured that this line was spoken by Stephano. 68: _farther_] F1 _no further_ F2 F3 F4. 72: [Beats him.] Rowe. 84: _there_] _then_ Collier MS. 89: _nor_] _and_ Pope. 93: _deck_] _deck't_ Hanmer. 96: _I never saw a woman_] _I ne'er saw woman_ Pope. 99: _great'st does least_] _greatest does the least_ Rowe. 115, 116:] Printed as verse in Ff. 115: _any_] F1. _and_ F2 F3 F4. 117: _scout 'em, and scout 'em_] Pope. _cout 'em and skowt 'em_ Ff. 125: _sins_] _sin_ F4. 132: _twangling_] _twanging_ Pope. 133: _sometime_] F1. _sometimes_ F2 F3 F4. 137: _that_] om. Pope. 147: Trin. _Will come? I'll follow, Stephano_] Trin. _Wilt come?_ Ste. _I'll follow._ Capell. Ste. _... Wilt come?_ Trin. _I'll follow, Stephano._ Ritson conj.

Scene 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151049/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/the-tempest/summary-and-analysis/act-iii-scene-2

This scene returns to Stefano, Trinculo, and Caliban -- all of whom are now very drunk. Caliban has a plan to kill Prospero and elicits help from his new friends. As Caliban explains that he is the rightful owner of the island, Ariel arrives and listens attentively. Caliban explains that they must burn Prospero's books, and after Prospero is dead, Stefano can marry Miranda, which will make her his queen of the island. Trinculo agrees to the plot. Ariel resolves to tell Prospero of the plot against him. When the drunken men begin singing, Ariel accompanies them on a tabor and pipe. The men hear the music and are afraid, but Caliban reassures them that such sounds are frequently heard on the island. Stefano finds the idea of free music a strong promise of his success on the island, and three drunken conspirators follow the sounds of the music offstage.

Caliban represents untamed nature in conflict with civilization. He intuitively understands that Prospero's power comes from his books; thus the books are to become the first victims of his rebellion. Prospero's books represent oppression to Caliban because all that Prospero's civilization and books have to offer is slavery. Although Caliban might be considered an uneducated savage by Elizabethan accounts , he existed quite happily on the island before Prospero's arrival. Civilization transformed Caliban from freedom to slavery, and he has received little benefit from Prospero's tutelage; even Caliban's use of language is limited to little more than cursing. Because civilization has failed Caliban, he quickly turns to the first possible source of help to appear: Stefano and Trinculo, the lowest forms of civilized behavior. Caliban's island paradise is not all that different from Gonzalo's ideal natural world. Both Caliban and Gonzalo see their ideal worlds as untouched by the confinements of civilization. In both visions, nature provides whatever is needed, and mankind has little effect on the island's existence. But there is one substantial difference. Where Gonzalo would make himself king, Caliban dreams of living in peaceful isolation, with no king to abuse him. Yet, to secure his freedom from Prospero, Caliban would subordinate himself to Stefano, who would take Prospero's place as ruler. Caliban is unable to appreciate that the crass butler, whom he has elevated to a god, would be a worse god than Prospero has been. After all, upon first finding Caliban, Stefano pulled Caliban's head back, forced open his mouth, and poured wine down his throat. His exploitation of Caliban, including the plan to exhibit him as a money-making proposition, reflects little concern for Caliban's well-being. Although Prospero's enslavement of Caliban also raises questions of propriety, his stated reasons are to restore order to the island. However, Prospero's sense of order ignores Caliban's needs. Caliban does not need civilization and its artifacts, education, and language to satisfy his needs. So desperate is Caliban to escape Prospero's oppression, that he would effectively trade one god for another: Prospero for Stefano. But Caliban appears unable or unwilling to comprehend this component of his plot. The murder of Prospero is his immediate concern, and he gives little thought to what might follow. Caliban's plot to murder Prospero offers a parallel to Antonio's plot to murder Alonso. Caliban enlists the assistance of Stefano and Trinculo, just as Antonio enlists the support of Sebastian. Each group of conspirators ignores reason and logic. At the moment, they are all isolated on the island, with little hope or expectation of rescue. Alonso's murder will render no gain for Antonio or Sebastian, since Sebastian would be king of nothing. In a parody of Antonio's plot, Prospero's murder will provide little benefit for Caliban, except to trade one ruler for another and, perhaps, slavery for worse abuse. But both plots illustrate the potential for violence that exists in all levels of society, whether in the aristocracy of Naples or in the natural beauty of an isolated island. Caliban, himself, is filled with contradictions. On one hand, he is brutal, instructing Stefano to "Bite him to death" . Caliban also describes in detail his plans to murder Prospero by "knock a nail into his head" . Later, Caliban gives his co-conspirators many choices of ways to murder Prospero, from striking him on the head to disemboweling him to cutting his throat. Any means is acceptable, and, as a reward, Caliban casually promises them Miranda. The brutality of Caliban's plan is countered with the poetry of his descriptions of the island: The isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometimes voicesThat if I then had waked after long sleepWill make me sleep again; and then in dreamingThe clouds methought would open and show richesReady to drop upon me, that when I wakedI cried to dream again. The songs that Caliban describes and the beauty of his dreams reveal a humanity that is lacking in his descriptions of the murder plot. Caliban is more than a wild beast of the island, and his personality is more complex than his brief scenes have thus far disclosed. The plot to murder Prospero is Caliban's rejection of civilization. He finds no alternative to brutality, if it will free him of the oppression of civilization. The natural beauty of the island permeates Caliban's world, but he is able to separate this beauty from the violent acts that he plans. In Caliban's world, there is no incongruity in the existence of both poetry and barbarity. Glossary case here, prepared. pied ninny a fool. patch a court jester; any clown or fool murrain a disease of cattle. wezand windpipe. troll the catch to sing the round lustily or in a full, rolling voice

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/24.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_23_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 24

chapter 24

{"name": "Chapter 24", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-24", "summary": "Elinor starts right in, saying that she'd like to serve as Lucy's confidante. Lucy is relieved, since she was worried that Elinor was offended by the secret. Elinor assures her that it's not true. Lucy notes that Elinor was clearly made uncomfortable and unhappy by the fact that she and Edward are engaged, and says that she was sure that Elinor was angry with her. She's glad this isn't the case. The pair dive right in to a practical conversation about money matters - after all, Edward is dependent on his mother for income, and Lucy's resigned to waiting for a while longer for him to have enough money to support him. It's clear that he'd get more money out of his mom if he married \"well\" - that is to say, upwards. Elinor broaches a sensitive topic - isn't Lucy worried that Edward's affection will run out after all this waiting? Lucy denies that this is an issue. As for the problem of Mrs. Ferrars, Lucy doesn't want to be too hasty; she thinks that Mrs. Ferrars might be so angered by news of the engagement that she'd give all her money to the younger son, Robert. Elinor asks if Lucy knows Robert at all - she doesn't, but rumor has it he's foolish and vain, unlike Edward. Miss Steele unfortunately overhears this last comment and loudly observes that the two girls must be talking about \"beaux.\" There's a rather awkward moment where Mrs. Jennings refers jokingly to Elinor's beau , and Miss Steele, who knows about the secret engagement, says that Lucy's beau is just as nice as Elinor's. That is, we know, because he's the same guy. Seriously awkward. Marianne fortunately intervenes musically, with a particularly loud movement of the piano piece she's playing. Under cover of the music, Lucy exposes her new cunning plan, which is to get John and Fanny to give the Norland \"living\" to Edward . Of course, since John is Elinor's brother, Lucy wants Elinor's help in managing this plan. Elinor basically shoots this down - since Fanny wouldn't be satisfied with Edward becoming a pastor, surely her intervention wouldn't help at all. Lucy tries to pull the pity card, saying that the easiest thing would probably just to end the engagement. She asks for Elinor's advice on the matter. Hmm...what's poor Elinor supposed to say? Of course, this would be the best thing for her... Elinor smiles to disguise her emotional turmoil, saying that surely her opinion wouldn't make a difference to Lucy. Lucy denies it - she really wants to hear Elinor's advice, and even claims that it's within Elinor's powers to make her break off the engagement. Elinor again dodges the question; Lucy pushes her further. Several awkward moments of silence pass. Lucy gives up, and changes the subject - will the Dashwoods be in London in the winter? Elinor says that they absolutely won't. Lucy says she's sorry to hear it, but certainly doesn't look sorry. She says that she'd hoped to see them there, but otherwise, she's only going to see Edward. Finally, Elinor is called back to the card table; she goes back to the group, disgruntled and full of dislike for Lucy. The feeling appears to be mutual. From then on, Elinor doesn't bring up the engagement, though Lucy reminds her of it constantly. Lucy and Anne's stay is drawn out for longer than expected, and eventually, they end up staying almost two months. Two months too long, as far as we're concerned.", "analysis": ""}

In a firm, though cautious tone, Elinor thus began. "I should be undeserving of the confidence you have honoured me with, if I felt no desire for its continuance, or no farther curiosity on its subject. I will not apologize therefore for bringing it forward again." "Thank you," cried Lucy warmly, "for breaking the ice; you have set my heart at ease by it; for I was somehow or other afraid I had offended you by what I told you that Monday." "Offended me! How could you suppose so? Believe me," and Elinor spoke it with the truest sincerity, "nothing could be farther from my intention than to give you such an idea. Could you have a motive for the trust, that was not honourable and flattering to me?" "And yet I do assure you," replied Lucy, her little sharp eyes full of meaning, "there seemed to me to be a coldness and displeasure in your manner that made me quite uncomfortable. I felt sure that you was angry with me; and have been quarrelling with myself ever since, for having took such a liberty as to trouble you with my affairs. But I am very glad to find it was only my own fancy, and that you really do not blame me. If you knew what a consolation it was to me to relieve my heart speaking to you of what I am always thinking of every moment of my life, your compassion would make you overlook every thing else I am sure." "Indeed, I can easily believe that it was a very great relief to you, to acknowledge your situation to me, and be assured that you shall never have reason to repent it. Your case is a very unfortunate one; you seem to me to be surrounded with difficulties, and you will have need of all your mutual affection to support you under them. Mr. Ferrars, I believe, is entirely dependent on his mother." "He has only two thousand pounds of his own; it would be madness to marry upon that, though for my own part, I could give up every prospect of more without a sigh. I have been always used to a very small income, and could struggle with any poverty for him; but I love him too well to be the selfish means of robbing him, perhaps, of all that his mother might give him if he married to please her. We must wait, it may be for many years. With almost every other man in the world, it would be an alarming prospect; but Edward's affection and constancy nothing can deprive me of I know." "That conviction must be every thing to you; and he is undoubtedly supported by the same trust in your's. If the strength of your reciprocal attachment had failed, as between many people, and under many circumstances it naturally would during a four years' engagement, your situation would have been pitiable, indeed." Lucy here looked up; but Elinor was careful in guarding her countenance from every expression that could give her words a suspicious tendency. "Edward's love for me," said Lucy, "has been pretty well put to the test, by our long, very long absence since we were first engaged, and it has stood the trial so well, that I should be unpardonable to doubt it now. I can safely say that he has never gave me one moment's alarm on that account from the first." Elinor hardly knew whether to smile or sigh at this assertion. Lucy went on. "I am rather of a jealous temper too by nature, and from our different situations in life, from his being so much more in the world than me, and our continual separation, I was enough inclined for suspicion, to have found out the truth in an instant, if there had been the slightest alteration in his behaviour to me when we met, or any lowness of spirits that I could not account for, or if he had talked more of one lady than another, or seemed in any respect less happy at Longstaple than he used to be. I do not mean to say that I am particularly observant or quick-sighted in general, but in such a case I am sure I could not be deceived." "All this," thought Elinor, "is very pretty; but it can impose upon neither of us." "But what," said she after a short silence, "are your views? or have you none but that of waiting for Mrs. Ferrars's death, which is a melancholy and shocking extremity?--Is her son determined to submit to this, and to all the tediousness of the many years of suspense in which it may involve you, rather than run the risk of her displeasure for a while by owning the truth?" "If we could be certain that it would be only for a while! But Mrs. Ferrars is a very headstrong proud woman, and in her first fit of anger upon hearing it, would very likely secure every thing to Robert, and the idea of that, for Edward's sake, frightens away all my inclination for hasty measures." "And for your own sake too, or you are carrying your disinterestedness beyond reason." Lucy looked at Elinor again, and was silent. "Do you know Mr. Robert Ferrars?" asked Elinor. "Not at all--I never saw him; but I fancy he is very unlike his brother--silly and a great coxcomb." "A great coxcomb!" repeated Miss Steele, whose ear had caught those words by a sudden pause in Marianne's music.-- "Oh, they are talking of their favourite beaux, I dare say." "No sister," cried Lucy, "you are mistaken there, our favourite beaux are NOT great coxcombs." "I can answer for it that Miss Dashwood's is not," said Mrs. Jennings, laughing heartily; "for he is one of the modestest, prettiest behaved young men I ever saw; but as for Lucy, she is such a sly little creature, there is no finding out who SHE likes." "Oh," cried Miss Steele, looking significantly round at them, "I dare say Lucy's beau is quite as modest and pretty behaved as Miss Dashwood's." Elinor blushed in spite of herself. Lucy bit her lip, and looked angrily at her sister. A mutual silence took place for some time. Lucy first put an end to it by saying in a lower tone, though Marianne was then giving them the powerful protection of a very magnificent concerto-- "I will honestly tell you of one scheme which has lately come into my head, for bringing matters to bear; indeed I am bound to let you into the secret, for you are a party concerned. I dare say you have seen enough of Edward to know that he would prefer the church to every other profession; now my plan is that he should take orders as soon as he can, and then through your interest, which I am sure you would be kind enough to use out of friendship for him, and I hope out of some regard to me, your brother might be persuaded to give him Norland living; which I understand is a very good one, and the present incumbent not likely to live a great while. That would be enough for us to marry upon, and we might trust to time and chance for the rest." "I should always be happy," replied Elinor, "to show any mark of my esteem and friendship for Mr. Ferrars; but do you not perceive that my interest on such an occasion would be perfectly unnecessary? He is brother to Mrs. John Dashwood--THAT must be recommendation enough to her husband." "But Mrs. John Dashwood would not much approve of Edward's going into orders." "Then I rather suspect that my interest would do very little." They were again silent for many minutes. At length Lucy exclaimed with a deep sigh, "I believe it would be the wisest way to put an end to the business at once by dissolving the engagement. We seem so beset with difficulties on every side, that though it would make us miserable for a time, we should be happier perhaps in the end. But you will not give me your advice, Miss Dashwood?" "No," answered Elinor, with a smile, which concealed very agitated feelings, "on such a subject I certainly will not. You know very well that my opinion would have no weight with you, unless it were on the side of your wishes." "Indeed you wrong me," replied Lucy, with great solemnity; "I know nobody of whose judgment I think so highly as I do of yours; and I do really believe, that if you was to say to me, 'I advise you by all means to put an end to your engagement with Edward Ferrars, it will be more for the happiness of both of you,' I should resolve upon doing it immediately." Elinor blushed for the insincerity of Edward's future wife, and replied, "This compliment would effectually frighten me from giving any opinion on the subject had I formed one. It raises my influence much too high; the power of dividing two people so tenderly attached is too much for an indifferent person." "'Tis because you are an indifferent person," said Lucy, with some pique, and laying a particular stress on those words, "that your judgment might justly have such weight with me. If you could be supposed to be biased in any respect by your own feelings, your opinion would not be worth having." Elinor thought it wisest to make no answer to this, lest they might provoke each other to an unsuitable increase of ease and unreserve; and was even partly determined never to mention the subject again. Another pause therefore of many minutes' duration, succeeded this speech, and Lucy was still the first to end it. "Shall you be in town this winter, Miss Dashwood?" said she with all her accustomary complacency. "Certainly not." "I am sorry for that," returned the other, while her eyes brightened at the information, "it would have gave me such pleasure to meet you there! But I dare say you will go for all that. To be sure, your brother and sister will ask you to come to them." "It will not be in my power to accept their invitation if they do." "How unlucky that is! I had quite depended upon meeting you there. Anne and me are to go the latter end of January to some relations who have been wanting us to visit them these several years! But I only go for the sake of seeing Edward. He will be there in February, otherwise London would have no charms for me; I have not spirits for it." Elinor was soon called to the card-table by the conclusion of the first rubber, and the confidential discourse of the two ladies was therefore at an end, to which both of them submitted without any reluctance, for nothing had been said on either side to make them dislike each other less than they had done before; and Elinor sat down to the card table with the melancholy persuasion that Edward was not only without affection for the person who was to be his wife; but that he had not even the chance of being tolerably happy in marriage, which sincere affection on HER side would have given, for self-interest alone could induce a woman to keep a man to an engagement, of which she seemed so thoroughly aware that he was weary. From this time the subject was never revived by Elinor, and when entered on by Lucy, who seldom missed an opportunity of introducing it, and was particularly careful to inform her confidante, of her happiness whenever she received a letter from Edward, it was treated by the former with calmness and caution, and dismissed as soon as civility would allow; for she felt such conversations to be an indulgence which Lucy did not deserve, and which were dangerous to herself. The visit of the Miss Steeles at Barton Park was lengthened far beyond what the first invitation implied. Their favour increased; they could not be spared; Sir John would not hear of their going; and in spite of their numerous and long arranged engagements in Exeter, in spite of the absolute necessity of returning to fulfill them immediately, which was in full force at the end of every week, they were prevailed on to stay nearly two months at the park, and to assist in the due celebration of that festival which requires a more than ordinary share of private balls and large dinners to proclaim its importance.

Chapter 24

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-24

Elinor starts right in, saying that she'd like to serve as Lucy's confidante. Lucy is relieved, since she was worried that Elinor was offended by the secret. Elinor assures her that it's not true. Lucy notes that Elinor was clearly made uncomfortable and unhappy by the fact that she and Edward are engaged, and says that she was sure that Elinor was angry with her. She's glad this isn't the case. The pair dive right in to a practical conversation about money matters - after all, Edward is dependent on his mother for income, and Lucy's resigned to waiting for a while longer for him to have enough money to support him. It's clear that he'd get more money out of his mom if he married "well" - that is to say, upwards. Elinor broaches a sensitive topic - isn't Lucy worried that Edward's affection will run out after all this waiting? Lucy denies that this is an issue. As for the problem of Mrs. Ferrars, Lucy doesn't want to be too hasty; she thinks that Mrs. Ferrars might be so angered by news of the engagement that she'd give all her money to the younger son, Robert. Elinor asks if Lucy knows Robert at all - she doesn't, but rumor has it he's foolish and vain, unlike Edward. Miss Steele unfortunately overhears this last comment and loudly observes that the two girls must be talking about "beaux." There's a rather awkward moment where Mrs. Jennings refers jokingly to Elinor's beau , and Miss Steele, who knows about the secret engagement, says that Lucy's beau is just as nice as Elinor's. That is, we know, because he's the same guy. Seriously awkward. Marianne fortunately intervenes musically, with a particularly loud movement of the piano piece she's playing. Under cover of the music, Lucy exposes her new cunning plan, which is to get John and Fanny to give the Norland "living" to Edward . Of course, since John is Elinor's brother, Lucy wants Elinor's help in managing this plan. Elinor basically shoots this down - since Fanny wouldn't be satisfied with Edward becoming a pastor, surely her intervention wouldn't help at all. Lucy tries to pull the pity card, saying that the easiest thing would probably just to end the engagement. She asks for Elinor's advice on the matter. Hmm...what's poor Elinor supposed to say? Of course, this would be the best thing for her... Elinor smiles to disguise her emotional turmoil, saying that surely her opinion wouldn't make a difference to Lucy. Lucy denies it - she really wants to hear Elinor's advice, and even claims that it's within Elinor's powers to make her break off the engagement. Elinor again dodges the question; Lucy pushes her further. Several awkward moments of silence pass. Lucy gives up, and changes the subject - will the Dashwoods be in London in the winter? Elinor says that they absolutely won't. Lucy says she's sorry to hear it, but certainly doesn't look sorry. She says that she'd hoped to see them there, but otherwise, she's only going to see Edward. Finally, Elinor is called back to the card table; she goes back to the group, disgruntled and full of dislike for Lucy. The feeling appears to be mutual. From then on, Elinor doesn't bring up the engagement, though Lucy reminds her of it constantly. Lucy and Anne's stay is drawn out for longer than expected, and eventually, they end up staying almost two months. Two months too long, as far as we're concerned.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/04.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Sense and Sensibility/section_3_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 4

chapter 4

{"name": "Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility19.asp", "summary": "Mrs. Dashwood and her children are still living in Norland Estate because they are not able to find suitable accommodations elsewhere. Mrs. Dashwood hopes that her stepson will provide them with financial support. In the meantime, Fanny's brother pays the family a visit. His charming manners and grace win Elinor's heart. Mrs. Dashwood is happy for her daughter and hopes for a match between the two. But Marianne is not impressed by Edward Ferrars, as he does not fit the image of a dashing young man, which is her personal idea of a worthy suitor.", "analysis": "Notes Jane Austen here introduces one of the main characters in the novel. Edward Ferrars is Fanny's brother, but unlike her, he is courteous, refined and good-natured. His 'quiet and unassuming' manner win the approval of both Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor, but Marianne has reservations about him. As far as Marianne is concerned, he does not excite romantic feelings. In any case, Fanny, Edward Ferrars' sister, is likely to sabotage a relationship between him and Elinor. Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne resemble each other in their thinking. Both of them jump to the conclusion that Edward will marry Elinor, and they start imagining the future without Elinor. CHAPTER 4 Summary Marianne expresses her opinion about Edward to her sister, but Elinor does not agree with her views. Elinor considers Edward to be a good human being, reserved by nature but refined in taste. When Marianne becomes aware of Elinor's feelings for Edward, she decides to try to love him as a brother. In the meantime, Fanny takes note of the growing friendship between Edward and Elinor and warns Mrs. Dashwood against it. Mrs. Dashwood is offended and resolves to find a new home at the earliest possible convenience. Shortly afterwards, she receives a letter from her cousin, Sir John Middleton, who offers her a house at Barton Estate in Devonshire. The offer sounds reasonable. The Dashwood ladies start planning to move away from Norland. Notes Chapter 4 demonstrates the difference in the attitudes of Elinor and Marianne. Elinor carefully analyzes the character of Edward and approves of his manner and tastes, while Marianne shows her prejudice against Edward because he does not conform to her view of an ideal man. Elinor is rational, while Marianne is romantic. The affair between Edward and Elinor is cut short due to the interference of Fanny. This incident foreshadows future events, which will create obstacles to their happiness. Elinor displays maturity by agreeing to move from Norland to Devonshire. She likes Edward and would have loved to keep his company, but in order to maintain their prestige, she consents to her mother's decision to leave Norland. She is pragmatic and considers the option to move to Barton as the best possible course under the present circumstances. CHAPTER 5 Summary Mrs. Dashwood informs John and Fanny about her decision to move to Barton, in Devonshire. John Dashwood expresses concern about their going to such a distant place. Nevertheless, preparations begin for the journey. After taking Elinor's advice, Mrs. Dashwood sells off their carriage and keeps only three servants. They send their furniture and servants ahead so that their house will be ready for immediate occupation. After bidding farewell to John and Fanny, they set off for their new home. Notes Elinor acts as the head of the family by giving helpful suggestions to her mother. She assesses their situation and advises her mother to dispose of the carriage and some of the servants, as it would not be financially viable for them to retain them. Elinor is the only member of the family who clearly understands their changed status, and she believes in living within their means. In contrast to Elinor, Marianne is engrossed in her own thoughts. She does not participate actively in the preparations, but passionately declares her fondness for Norland before departing. She sheds tears and remarks poetically, \"Dear, dear Norland! when shall I cease to regret you--when learn to feel a home elsewhere?\""}

"What a pity it is, Elinor," said Marianne, "that Edward should have no taste for drawing." "No taste for drawing!" replied Elinor, "why should you think so? He does not draw himself, indeed, but he has great pleasure in seeing the performances of other people, and I assure you he is by no means deficient in natural taste, though he has not had opportunities of improving it. Had he ever been in the way of learning, I think he would have drawn very well. He distrusts his own judgment in such matters so much, that he is always unwilling to give his opinion on any picture; but he has an innate propriety and simplicity of taste, which in general direct him perfectly right." Marianne was afraid of offending, and said no more on the subject; but the kind of approbation which Elinor described as excited in him by the drawings of other people, was very far from that rapturous delight, which, in her opinion, could alone be called taste. Yet, though smiling within herself at the mistake, she honoured her sister for that blind partiality to Edward which produced it. "I hope, Marianne," continued Elinor, "you do not consider him as deficient in general taste. Indeed, I think I may say that you cannot, for your behaviour to him is perfectly cordial, and if THAT were your opinion, I am sure you could never be civil to him." Marianne hardly knew what to say. She would not wound the feelings of her sister on any account, and yet to say what she did not believe was impossible. At length she replied: "Do not be offended, Elinor, if my praise of him is not in every thing equal to your sense of his merits. I have not had so many opportunities of estimating the minuter propensities of his mind, his inclinations and tastes, as you have; but I have the highest opinion in the world of his goodness and sense. I think him every thing that is worthy and amiable." "I am sure," replied Elinor, with a smile, "that his dearest friends could not be dissatisfied with such commendation as that. I do not perceive how you could express yourself more warmly." Marianne was rejoiced to find her sister so easily pleased. "Of his sense and his goodness," continued Elinor, "no one can, I think, be in doubt, who has seen him often enough to engage him in unreserved conversation. The excellence of his understanding and his principles can be concealed only by that shyness which too often keeps him silent. You know enough of him to do justice to his solid worth. But of his minuter propensities, as you call them you have from peculiar circumstances been kept more ignorant than myself. He and I have been at times thrown a good deal together, while you have been wholly engrossed on the most affectionate principle by my mother. I have seen a great deal of him, have studied his sentiments and heard his opinion on subjects of literature and taste; and, upon the whole, I venture to pronounce that his mind is well-informed, enjoyment of books exceedingly great, his imagination lively, his observation just and correct, and his taste delicate and pure. His abilities in every respect improve as much upon acquaintance as his manners and person. At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is perceived. At present, I know him so well, that I think him really handsome; or at least, almost so. What say you, Marianne?" "I shall very soon think him handsome, Elinor, if I do not now. When you tell me to love him as a brother, I shall no more see imperfection in his face, than I now do in his heart." Elinor started at this declaration, and was sorry for the warmth she had been betrayed into, in speaking of him. She felt that Edward stood very high in her opinion. She believed the regard to be mutual; but she required greater certainty of it to make Marianne's conviction of their attachment agreeable to her. She knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next--that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister. "I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of him--that I greatly esteem, that I like him." Marianne here burst forth with indignation-- "Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment." Elinor could not help laughing. "Excuse me," said she; "and be assured that I meant no offence to you, by speaking, in so quiet a way, of my own feelings. Believe them to be stronger than I have declared; believe them, in short, to be such as his merit, and the suspicion--the hope of his affection for me may warrant, without imprudence or folly. But farther than this you must not believe. I am by no means assured of his regard for me. There are moments when the extent of it seems doubtful; and till his sentiments are fully known, you cannot wonder at my wishing to avoid any encouragement of my own partiality, by believing or calling it more than it is. In my heart I feel little--scarcely any doubt of his preference. But there are other points to be considered besides his inclination. He is very far from being independent. What his mother really is we cannot know; but, from Fanny's occasional mention of her conduct and opinions, we have never been disposed to think her amiable; and I am very much mistaken if Edward is not himself aware that there would be many difficulties in his way, if he were to wish to marry a woman who had not either a great fortune or high rank." Marianne was astonished to find how much the imagination of her mother and herself had outstripped the truth. "And you really are not engaged to him!" said she. "Yet it certainly soon will happen. But two advantages will proceed from this delay. I shall not lose you so soon, and Edward will have greater opportunity of improving that natural taste for your favourite pursuit which must be so indispensably necessary to your future felicity. Oh! if he should be so far stimulated by your genius as to learn to draw himself, how delightful it would be!" Elinor had given her real opinion to her sister. She could not consider her partiality for Edward in so prosperous a state as Marianne had believed it. There was, at times, a want of spirits about him which, if it did not denote indifference, spoke of something almost as unpromising. A doubt of her regard, supposing him to feel it, need not give him more than inquietude. It would not be likely to produce that dejection of mind which frequently attended him. A more reasonable cause might be found in the dependent situation which forbade the indulgence of his affection. She knew that his mother neither behaved to him so as to make his home comfortable at present, nor to give him any assurance that he might form a home for himself, without strictly attending to her views for his aggrandizement. With such a knowledge as this, it was impossible for Elinor to feel easy on the subject. She was far from depending on that result of his preference of her, which her mother and sister still considered as certain. Nay, the longer they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard; and sometimes, for a few painful minutes, she believed it to be no more than friendship. But, whatever might really be its limits, it was enough, when perceived by his sister, to make her uneasy, and at the same time, (which was still more common,) to make her uncivil. She took the first opportunity of affronting her mother-in-law on the occasion, talking to her so expressively of her brother's great expectations, of Mrs. Ferrars's resolution that both her sons should marry well, and of the danger attending any young woman who attempted to DRAW HIM IN; that Mrs. Dashwood could neither pretend to be unconscious, nor endeavor to be calm. She gave her an answer which marked her contempt, and instantly left the room, resolving that, whatever might be the inconvenience or expense of so sudden a removal, her beloved Elinor should not be exposed another week to such insinuations. In this state of her spirits, a letter was delivered to her from the post, which contained a proposal particularly well timed. It was the offer of a small house, on very easy terms, belonging to a relation of her own, a gentleman of consequence and property in Devonshire. The letter was from this gentleman himself, and written in the true spirit of friendly accommodation. He understood that she was in need of a dwelling; and though the house he now offered her was merely a cottage, he assured her that everything should be done to it which she might think necessary, if the situation pleased her. He earnestly pressed her, after giving the particulars of the house and garden, to come with her daughters to Barton Park, the place of his own residence, from whence she might judge, herself, whether Barton Cottage, for the houses were in the same parish, could, by any alteration, be made comfortable to her. He seemed really anxious to accommodate them and the whole of his letter was written in so friendly a style as could not fail of giving pleasure to his cousin; more especially at a moment when she was suffering under the cold and unfeeling behaviour of her nearer connections. She needed no time for deliberation or inquiry. Her resolution was formed as she read. The situation of Barton, in a county so far distant from Sussex as Devonshire, which, but a few hours before, would have been a sufficient objection to outweigh every possible advantage belonging to the place, was now its first recommendation. To quit the neighbourhood of Norland was no longer an evil; it was an object of desire; it was a blessing, in comparison of the misery of continuing her daughter-in-law's guest; and to remove for ever from that beloved place would be less painful than to inhabit or visit it while such a woman was its mistress. She instantly wrote Sir John Middleton her acknowledgment of his kindness, and her acceptance of his proposal; and then hastened to shew both letters to her daughters, that she might be secure of their approbation before her answer were sent. Elinor had always thought it would be more prudent for them to settle at some distance from Norland, than immediately amongst their present acquaintance. On THAT head, therefore, it was not for her to oppose her mother's intention of removing into Devonshire. The house, too, as described by Sir John, was on so simple a scale, and the rent so uncommonly moderate, as to leave her no right of objection on either point; and, therefore, though it was not a plan which brought any charm to her fancy, though it was a removal from the vicinity of Norland beyond her wishes, she made no attempt to dissuade her mother from sending a letter of acquiescence.

Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility19.asp

Mrs. Dashwood and her children are still living in Norland Estate because they are not able to find suitable accommodations elsewhere. Mrs. Dashwood hopes that her stepson will provide them with financial support. In the meantime, Fanny's brother pays the family a visit. His charming manners and grace win Elinor's heart. Mrs. Dashwood is happy for her daughter and hopes for a match between the two. But Marianne is not impressed by Edward Ferrars, as he does not fit the image of a dashing young man, which is her personal idea of a worthy suitor.

Notes Jane Austen here introduces one of the main characters in the novel. Edward Ferrars is Fanny's brother, but unlike her, he is courteous, refined and good-natured. His 'quiet and unassuming' manner win the approval of both Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor, but Marianne has reservations about him. As far as Marianne is concerned, he does not excite romantic feelings. In any case, Fanny, Edward Ferrars' sister, is likely to sabotage a relationship between him and Elinor. Mrs. Dashwood and Marianne resemble each other in their thinking. Both of them jump to the conclusion that Edward will marry Elinor, and they start imagining the future without Elinor. CHAPTER 4 Summary Marianne expresses her opinion about Edward to her sister, but Elinor does not agree with her views. Elinor considers Edward to be a good human being, reserved by nature but refined in taste. When Marianne becomes aware of Elinor's feelings for Edward, she decides to try to love him as a brother. In the meantime, Fanny takes note of the growing friendship between Edward and Elinor and warns Mrs. Dashwood against it. Mrs. Dashwood is offended and resolves to find a new home at the earliest possible convenience. Shortly afterwards, she receives a letter from her cousin, Sir John Middleton, who offers her a house at Barton Estate in Devonshire. The offer sounds reasonable. The Dashwood ladies start planning to move away from Norland. Notes Chapter 4 demonstrates the difference in the attitudes of Elinor and Marianne. Elinor carefully analyzes the character of Edward and approves of his manner and tastes, while Marianne shows her prejudice against Edward because he does not conform to her view of an ideal man. Elinor is rational, while Marianne is romantic. The affair between Edward and Elinor is cut short due to the interference of Fanny. This incident foreshadows future events, which will create obstacles to their happiness. Elinor displays maturity by agreeing to move from Norland to Devonshire. She likes Edward and would have loved to keep his company, but in order to maintain their prestige, she consents to her mother's decision to leave Norland. She is pragmatic and considers the option to move to Barton as the best possible course under the present circumstances. CHAPTER 5 Summary Mrs. Dashwood informs John and Fanny about her decision to move to Barton, in Devonshire. John Dashwood expresses concern about their going to such a distant place. Nevertheless, preparations begin for the journey. After taking Elinor's advice, Mrs. Dashwood sells off their carriage and keeps only three servants. They send their furniture and servants ahead so that their house will be ready for immediate occupation. After bidding farewell to John and Fanny, they set off for their new home. Notes Elinor acts as the head of the family by giving helpful suggestions to her mother. She assesses their situation and advises her mother to dispose of the carriage and some of the servants, as it would not be financially viable for them to retain them. Elinor is the only member of the family who clearly understands their changed status, and she believes in living within their means. In contrast to Elinor, Marianne is engrossed in her own thoughts. She does not participate actively in the preparations, but passionately declares her fondness for Norland before departing. She sheds tears and remarks poetically, "Dear, dear Norland! when shall I cease to regret you--when learn to feel a home elsewhere?"

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/part_1_chapters_1_to_3.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_0_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 1.chapters 1-3

chapters 1-3

{"name": "Chapters 1-3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-1-chapters-13", "summary": "M. de Renal is the mayor and wealthy owner of the nail factory in the small mountain village of Verrieres in the eastern province of Franche-Comte. Situated above the river Doubs, the village owes the prosperity of its peasant citizenry to sawmills and to the manufacture of calico. The sudden arrival of M. Appert, sent from M. de La Mole in Paris to inspect the municipal workhouse and prison administered by M. Valenod, the mayor's assistant, has erupted on the otherwise peaceful existence of the village. The village, a microcosm of Paris and of all of France in this respect, is politically divided into two camps: royalists like the mayor and a liberal element dissatisfied with the Restoration. They are in agreement, however, upon the importance that they attribute to money and in their slavish respect for small-town public opinion. Father Chelan, Jansenist and village priest for many years, takes M. Appert on a tour of the workhouse and prison, thereby disobeying the wishes of M. Valenod, who risks being exposed for misuse of funds, given the pitiable conditions existing in these institutions. Renal and Valenod have, in fact, visited Chelan and reprimanded him for this action. This is the subject of the conversation between M. and Mme. de Renal one day as they are strolling with their three children on the \"Cours de La Fidelite,\" a public promenade sustained by an enormous retaining wall, the glory of Verrieres, the construction of which is due to the administration of Mayor de Renal. The latter then proposes to his wife that they hire Julien Sorel, student priest of Chelan, as tutor for their children, a move destined to increase his own social prestige since it will cause envy among the liberal textile mill owners. Julien's father, a crafty sawyer, has already, in the past, outwitted Renal in a land transaction.", "analysis": "Note that Stendhal does not rely for his exposition on many pages of description and documentation. His method might be called \"free associational\" and characterizes the entire novel since the exposition never ends. It is clearly not that of his famous contemporary Balzac or of the latter's predecessor Scott. Stendhal moves rather swiftly back and forth from background description to an action scene as the need arises, after an initial five pages of introductory setting. Chapter divisions are entirely arbitrary: Chapter 1 situates Verrieres, characterizes the economy of the town, then introduces a hypothetical Parisian visitor who will encounter the mayor, giving Stendhal the opportunity to present him for the first time. Most of the short chapter is, in fact, devoted to M. de Renal, to his home, his past, and his relationship with Sorel even before Stendhal reaches Chapter 2, which, as the title indicates, is to be devoted to M. de Renal. Stendhal does not exhaust the description of a newly introduced character upon initial presentation, but rather he returns periodically to \"round it out,\" having been led astray into digressions. Nothing is seen out of relation to other considerations: describing Renal physically leads Stendhal to ascribe to the passerby a moral judgment about Renal, condensing time; this then leads Stendhal to Renal's home; then a parenthetical note about his ancestry; next Renal's imposing \"retaining walls\" are evoked; then a comparison with gardens of other manufacturing towns; this leads the author to mention Sorel since it is through him that the land was acquired; follows a necessary remark about the shrewdness of Sorel; and finally an incident which illustrates that M. de Renal suspected that he had been bettered in the bargain. Had Stendhal followed the path into Verrieres consistently as his means of introduction, the reader would have been enlightened about Sorel's sawmill at an earlier point. This omission is not an oversight, however. Before Sorel and especially his son Julien, the hero of the novel, can be introduced, the adversary against which Julien will pit himself in its various forms must be defined. The adversary will be all of society as it incarnates the corruption and stagnation of the Restoration, thereby oppressing a superior being. Chapter 1 thus gives us a sweeping, superficial tour; Chapter 2 repeats this gesture, now evoking Valenod and Maslon by the same \"afterthought\" technique before introducing the action proper: the Renals' conversation on the promenade. The last few lines of this chapter begin the conversation, the meaning of which escapes the reader, and Stendhal must reappear to furnish more background details at the beginning of Chapter 3. The latter, in turn, involves a \"flashback\" to an episode having occurred the day before -- this before we hear the end of the conversation between the Renals. Thus, we hear briefly of Julien for the first time in Chapter 3, and we see him through the eyes of M. de Renal, whose judgment we have already learned to question. Julien can't be a liberal, reasons Renal, since he has been studying theology for the last three years. These recurring views of M. de Renal in interaction with other people permit us to judge him as pretentious, vain, easily duped, proud, and avaricious. Stendhal next turns to Mme. de Renal and devotes a page to her character and history, taking care to emphasize her virtue and resignation to her lot. She is unaware that life holds anything better than what her husband offers her. Even the method of exposition fits a description of Stendhal's style as that of \"improvisation.\" It suggests the image of ever-widening, superimposed circles."}

CHAPTER I A SMALL TOWN Put thousands together less bad, But the cage less gay.--_Hobbes_. The little town of Verrieres can pass for one of the prettiest in Franche-Comte. Its white houses with their pointed red-tiled roofs stretch along the slope of a hill, whose slightest undulations are marked by groups of vigorous chestnuts. The Doubs flows to within some hundred feet above its fortifications, which were built long ago by the Spaniards, and are now in ruins. Verrieres is sheltered on the north by a high mountain which is one of the branches of the Jura. The jagged peaks of the Verra are covered with snow from the beginning of the October frosts. A torrent which rushes down from the mountains traverses Verrieres before throwing itself into the Doubs, and supplies the motive power for a great number of saw mills. The industry is very simple, and secures a certain prosperity to the majority of the inhabitants who are more peasant than bourgeois. It is not, however, the wood saws which have enriched this little town. It is the manufacture of painted tiles, called Mulhouse tiles, that is responsible for that general affluence which has caused the facades of nearly all the houses in Verrieres to be rebuilt since the fall of Napoleon. One has scarcely entered the town, before one is stunned by the din of a strident machine of terrifying aspect. Twenty heavy hammers which fall with a noise that makes the paved floor tremble, are lifted up by a wheel set in motion by the torrent. Each of these hammers manufactures every day I don't know how many thousands of nails. The little pieces of iron which are rapidly transformed into nails by these enormous hammers, are put in position by fresh pretty young girls. This labour so rough at first sight is one of the industries which most surprises the traveller who penetrates for the first time the mountains which separate France and Helvetia. If when he enters Verrieres, the traveller asks who owns this fine nail factory which deafens everybody who goes up the Grande-Rue, he is answered in a drawling tone "Eh! it belongs to M. the Mayor." And if the traveller stops a few minutes in that Grande-Rue of Verrieres which goes on an upward incline from the bank of the Doubs to nearly as far as the summit of the hill, it is a hundred to one that he will see a big man with a busy and important air. When he comes in sight all hats are quickly taken off. His hair is grizzled and he is dressed in grey. He is a Knight of several Orders, has a large forehead and an aquiline nose, and if you take him all round, his features are not devoid of certain regularity. One might even think on the first inspection that it combines with the dignity of the village mayor that particular kind of comfortableness which is appropriate to the age of forty-eight or fifty. But soon the traveller from Paris will be shocked by a certain air of self-satisfaction and self-complacency mingled with an almost indefinable narrowness and lack of inspiration. One realises at last that this man's talent is limited to seeing that he is paid exactly what he is owed, and in paying his own debts at the latest possible moment. Such is M. de Renal, the mayor of Verrieres. After having crossed the road with a solemn step, he enters the mayoral residence and disappears from the eye of the traveller. But if the latter continues to walk a hundred steps further up, he will perceive a house with a fairly fine appearance, with some magnificent gardens behind an iron grill belonging to the house. Beyond that is an horizon line formed by the hills of Burgundy, which seem ideally made to delight the eyes. This view causes the traveller to forget that pestilential atmosphere of petty money-grubbing by which he is beginning to be suffocated. He is told that this house belongs to M. de Renal. It is to the profits which he has made out of his big nail factory that the mayor of Verrieres owes this fine residence of hewn stone which he is just finishing. His family is said to be Spanish and ancient, and is alleged to have been established in the country well before the conquest of Louis XIV. Since 1815, he blushes at being a manufacturer: 1815 made him mayor of Verrieres. The terraced walls of this magnificent garden which descends to the Doubs, plateau by plateau, also represent the reward of M. de Renal's proficiency in the iron-trade. Do not expect to find in France those picturesque gardens which surround the manufacturing towns of Germany, like Leipsic, Frankfurt and Nurenburgh, etc. The more walls you build in Franche-Comte and the more you fortify your estate with piles of stone, the more claim you will acquire on the respect of your neighbours. Another reason for the admiration due to M. de Renal's gardens and their numerous walls, is the fact that he has purchased, through sheer power of the purse, certain small parcels of the ground on which they stand. That saw-mill, for instance, whose singular position on the banks of the Doubs struck you when you entered Verrieres, and where you notice the name of SOREL written in gigantic characters on the chief beam of the roof, used to occupy six years ago that precise space on which is now reared the wall of the fourth terrace in M. de Renal's gardens. Proud man that he was, the mayor had none the less to negotiate with that tough, stubborn peasant, old Sorel. He had to pay him in good solid golden louis before he could induce him to transfer his workshop elsewhere. As to the _public_ stream which supplied the motive power for the saw-mill, M. de Renal obtained its diversion, thanks to the influence which he enjoyed at Paris. This favour was accorded him after the election of 182-. He gave Sorel four acres for every one he had previously held, five hundred yards lower down on the banks of the Doubs. Although this position was much more advantageous for his pine-plank trade, father Sorel (as he is called since he has become rich) knew how to exploit the impatience and _mania for landed ownership_ which animated his neighbour to the tune of six thousand francs. It is true that this arrangement was criticised by the wiseacres of the locality. One day, it was on a Sunday four years later, as M. de Renal was coming back from church in his mayor's uniform, he saw old Sorel smiling at him, as he stared at him some distance away surrounded by his three sons. That smile threw a fatal flood of light into the soul of the mayor. From that time on, he is of opinion that he could have obtained the exchange at a cheaper rate. In order to win the public esteem of Verrieres it is essential that, though you should build as many walls as you can, you should not adopt some plan imported from Italy by those masons who cross the passes of the Jura in the spring on their way to Paris. Such an innovation would bring down upon the head of the imprudent builder an eternal reputation for _wrongheadedness_, and he will be lost for ever in the sight of those wise, well-balanced people who dispense public esteem in Franche-Comte. As a matter of fact, these prudent people exercise in the place the most offensive despotism. It is by reason of this awful word, that anyone who has lived in that great republic which is called Paris, finds living in little towns quite intolerable. The tyranny of public opinion (and what public opinion!) is as _stupid_ in the little towns of France as in the United States of America. CHAPTER II A MAYOR Importance! What is it, sir after all? The respect of fools, the wonder of children, the envy of the rich, the contempt of the wise man.--_Barnave_ Happily for the reputation of M. de Renal as an administrator an immense wall of support was necessary for the public promenade which goes along the hill, a hundred steps above the course of the Doubs. This admirable position secures for the promenade one of the most picturesque views in the whole of France. But the rain water used to make furrows in the walk every spring, caused ditches to appear, and rendered it generally impracticable. This nuisance, which was felt by the whole town, put M. de Renal in the happy position of being compelled to immortalise his administration by building a wall twenty feet high and thirty to forty yards long. The parapet of this wall, which occasioned M. de Renal three journeys to Paris (for the last Minister of the Interior but one had declared himself the mortal enemy of the promenade of Verrieres), is now raised to a height of four feet above the ground, and as though to defy all ministers whether past or present, it is at present adorned with tiles of hewn stone. How many times have my looks plunged into the valley of the Doubs, as I thought of the Paris balls which I had abandoned on the previous night, and leant my breast against the great blocks of stone, whose beautiful grey almost verged on blue. Beyond the left bank, there wind five or six valleys, at the bottom of which I could see quite distinctly several small streams. There is a view of them falling into the Doubs, after a series of cascades. The sun is very warm in these mountains. When it beats straight down, the pensive traveller on the terrace finds shelter under some magnificent plane trees. They owe their rapid growth and their fine verdure with its almost bluish shade to the new soil, which M. the mayor has had placed behind his immense wall of support for (in spite of the opposition of the Municipal Council) he has enlarged the promenade by more than six feet (and although he is an Ultra and I am a Liberal, I praise him for it), and that is why both in his opinion and in that of M. Valenod, the fortunate Director of the workhouse of Verrieres, this terrace can brook comparison with that of Saint-Germain en Laye. I find personally only one thing at which to cavil in the COURS DE LA FIDELITE, (this official name is to be read in fifteen to twenty places on those immortal tiles which earned M. de Renal an extra cross.) The grievance I find in the Cours de la Fidelite is the barbarous manner in which the authorities have cut these vigorous plane trees and clipped them to the quick. In fact they really resemble with their dwarfed, rounded and flattened heads the most vulgar plants of the vegetable garden, while they are really capable of attaining the magnificent development of the English plane trees. But the wish of M. the mayor is despotic, and all the trees belonging to the municipality are ruthlessly pruned twice a year. The local Liberals suggest, but they are probably exaggerating, that the hand of the official gardener has become much more severe, since M. the Vicar Maslon started appropriating the clippings. This young ecclesiastic was sent to Besancon some years ago to keep watch on the abbe Chelan and some cures in the neighbouring districts. An old Surgeon-Major of Napoleon's Italian Army, who was living in retirement at Verrieres, and who had been in his time described by M. the mayor as both a Jacobin and a Bonapartiste, dared to complain to the mayor one day of the periodical mutilation of these fine trees. "I like the shade," answered M. de Renal, with just a tinge of that hauteur which becomes a mayor when he is talking to a surgeon, who is a member of the Legion of Honour. "I like the shade, I have _my_ trees clipped in order to give shade, and I cannot conceive that a tree can have any other purpose, provided of course _it is not bringing in any profit_, like the useful walnut tree." This is the great word which is all decisive at Verrieres. "BRINGING IN PROFIT," this word alone sums up the habitual trend of thought of more than three-quarters of the inhabitants. _Bringing in profit_ is the consideration which decides everything in this little town which you thought so pretty. The stranger who arrives in the town is fascinated by the beauty of the fresh deep valleys which surround it, and he imagines at first that the inhabitants have an appreciation of the beautiful. They talk only too frequently of the beauty of their country, and it cannot be denied that they lay great stress on it, but the reason is that it attracts a number of strangers, whose money enriches the inn-keepers, a process which _brings in profit_ to the town, owing to the machinery of the octroi. It was on a fine, autumn day that M. de Renal was taking a promenade on the Cours de la Fidelite with his wife on his arm. While listening to her husband (who was talking in a somewhat solemn manner) Madame de Renal followed anxiously with her eyes the movements of three little boys. The eldest, who might have been eleven years old, went too frequently near the parapet and looked as though he was going to climb up it. A sweet voice then pronounced the name of Adolphe and the child gave up his ambitious project. Madame de Renal seemed a woman of thirty years of age but still fairly pretty. "He may be sorry for it, may this fine gentleman from Paris," said M. de Renal, with an offended air and a face even paler than usual. "I am not without a few friends at court!" But though I want to talk to you about the provinces for two hundred pages, I lack the requisite barbarity to make you undergo all the long-windedness and circumlocutions of a provincial dialogue. This fine gentleman from Paris, who was so odious to the mayor of Verrieres, was no other than the M. Appert, who had two days previously managed to find his way not only into the prison and workhouse of Verrieres, but also into the hospital, which was gratuitously conducted by the mayor and the principal proprietors of the district. "But," said Madame de Renal timidly, "what harm can this Paris gentleman do you, since you administer the poor fund with the utmost scrupulous honesty?" "He only comes to _throw_ blame and afterwards he will get some articles into the Liberal press." "You never read them, my dear." "But they always talk to us about those Jacobin articles, all that distracts us and prevents us from doing good.[1] Personally, I shall never forgive the cure." [1] Historically true. CHAPTER III THE POOR FUND A virtuous cure who does not intrigue is a providence for the village.--_Fleury_ It should be mentioned that the cure of Verrieres, an old man of ninety, who owed to the bracing mountain air an iron constitution and an iron character, had the right to visit the prison, the hospital and the workhouse at any hour. It had been at precisely six o'clock in the morning that M. Appert, who had a Paris recommendation to the cure, had been shrewd enough to arrive at a little inquisitive town. He had immediately gone on to the cure's house. The cure Chelan became pensive as he read the letter written to him by the M. le Marquis de La Mole, Peer of France, and the richest landed proprietor of the province. "I am old and beloved here," he said to himself in a whisper, "they would not dare!" Then he suddenly turned to the gentleman from Paris, with eyes, which in spite of his great age, shone with that sacred fire which betokens the delight of doing a fine but slightly dangerous act. "Come with me, sir," he said, "but please do not express any opinion of the things which we shall see, in the presence of the jailer, and above all not in the presence of the superintendents of the workhouse." M. Appert realised that he had to do with a man of spirit. He followed the venerable cure, visited the hospital and workhouse, put a lot of questions, but in spite of somewhat extraordinary answers, did not indulge in the slightest expression of censure. This visit lasted several hours; the cure invited M. Appert to dine, but the latter made the excuse of having some letters to write; as a matter of fact, he did not wish to compromise his generous companion to any further extent. About three o'clock these gentlemen went to finish their inspection of the workhouse and then returned to the prison. There they found the jailer by the gate, a kind of giant, six feet high, with bow legs. His ignoble face had become hideous by reason of his terror. "Ah, monsieur," he said to the cure as soon as he saw him, "is not the gentleman whom I see there, M. Appert?" "What does that matter?" said the cure. "The reason is that I received yesterday the most specific orders, and M. the Prefect sent a message by a gendarme who must have galloped during the whole of the night, that M. Appert was not to be allowed in the prisons." "I can tell you, M. Noiroud," said the cure, "that the traveller who is with me is M. Appert, but do you or do you not admit that I have the right to enter the prison at any hour of the day or night accompanied by anybody I choose?" "Yes, M. the cure," said the jailer in a low voice, lowering his head like a bull-dog, induced to a grudging obedience by fear of the stick, "only, M. the cure, I have a wife and children, and shall be turned out if they inform against me. I only have my place to live on." "I, too, should be sorry enough to lose mine," answered the good cure, with increasing emotion in his voice. "What a difference!" answered the jailer keenly. "As for you, M. le cure, we all know that you have eight hundred francs a year, good solid money." Such were the facts which, commented upon and exaggerated in twenty different ways, had been agitating for the last two days all the odious passions of the little town of Verrieres. At the present time they served as the text for the little discussion which M. de Renal was having with his wife. He had visited the cure earlier in the morning accompanied by M. Valenod, the director of the workhouse, in order to convey their most emphatic displeasure. M. Chelan had no protector, and felt all the weight of their words. "Well, gentlemen, I shall be the third cure of eighty years of age who has been turned out in this district. I have been here for fifty-six years. I have baptized nearly all the inhabitants of the town, which was only a hamlet when I came to it. Every day I marry young people whose grandparents I have married in days gone by. Verrieres is my family, but I said to myself when I saw the stranger, 'This man from Paris may as a matter of fact be a Liberal, there are only too many of them about, but what harm can he do to our poor and to our prisoners?'" The reproaches of M. de Renal, and above all, those of M. Valenod, the director of the workhouse, became more and more animated. "Well, gentlemen, turn me out then," the old cure exclaimed in a trembling voice; "I shall still continue to live in the district. As you know, I inherited forty-eight years ago a piece of land that brings in eight hundred francs a year; I shall live on that income. I do not save anything out of my living, gentlemen; and that is perhaps why, when you talk to me about it, I am not particularly frightened." M. de Renal always got on very well with his wife, but he did not know what to answer when she timidly repeated the phrase of M. le cure, "What harm can this Paris gentleman do the prisoners?" He was on the point of quite losing his temper when she gave a cry. Her second son had mounted the parapet of the terrace wall and was running along it, although the wall was raised to a height of more than twenty feet above the vineyard on the other side. The fear of frightening her son and making him fall prevented Madame de Renal speaking to him. But at last the child, who was smiling at his own pluck, looked at his mother, saw her pallor, jumped down on to the walk and ran to her. He was well scolded. This little event changed the course of the conversation. "I really mean to take Sorel, the son of the sawyer, into the house," said M. de Renal; "he will look after the children, who are getting too naughty for us to manage. He is a young priest, or as good as one, a good Latin scholar, and will make the children get on. According to the cure, he has a steady character. I will give him three hundred francs a year and his board. I have some doubts as to his morality, for he used to be the favourite of that old Surgeon-Major, Member of the Legion of Honour, who went to board with the Sorels, on the pretext that he was their cousin. It is quite possible that that man was really simply a secret agent of the Liberals. He said that the mountain air did his asthma good, but that is something which has never been proved. He has gone through all _Buonaparte's_ campaigns in Italy, and had even, it was said, voted against the Empire in the plebiscite. This Liberal taught the Sorel boy Latin, and left him a number of books which he had brought with him. Of course, in the ordinary way, I should have never thought of allowing a carpenter's son to come into contact with our children, but the cure told me, the very day before the scene which has just estranged us for ever, that Sorel has been studying theology for three years with the intention of entering a seminary. He is, consequently, not a Liberal, and he certainly is a good Latin scholar. "This arrangement will be convenient in more than one way," continued M. de Renal, looking at his wife with a diplomatic air. "That Valenod is proud enough of his two fine Norman horses which he has just bought for his carriage, but he hasn't a tutor for his children." "He might take this one away from us." "You approve of my plan, then?" said M. de Renal, thanking his wife with a smile for the excellent idea which she had just had. "Well, that's settled." "Good gracious, my dear, how quickly you make up your mind!" "It is because I'm a man of character, as the cure found out right enough. Don't let us deceive ourselves; we are surrounded by Liberals in this place. All those cloth merchants are jealous of me, I am certain of it; two or three are becoming rich men. Well, I should rather fancy it for them to see M. de Renal's children pass along the street as they go out for their walk, escorted by _their tutor_. It will impress people. My grandfather often used to tell us that he had a tutor when he was young. It may run me into a hundred crowns, but that ought to be looked upon as an expense necessary for keeping up our position." This sudden resolution left Madame de Renal quite pensive. She was a big, well-made woman, who had been the beauty of the country, to use the local expression. She had a certain air of simplicity and youthfulness in her deportment. This naive grace, with its innocence and its vivacity, might even have recalled to a Parisian some suggestion of the sweets he had left behind him. If she had realised this particular phase of her success, Madame de Renal would have been quite ashamed of it. All coquetry, all affectation, were absolutely alien to her temperament. M. Valenod, the rich director of the workhouse, had the reputation of having paid her court, a fact which had cast a singular glamour over her virtue; for this M. Valenod, a big young man with a square, sturdy frame, florid face, and big, black whiskers, was one of those coarse, blustering, and noisy people who pass in the provinces for a "fine man." Madame de Renal, who had a very shy, and apparently a very uneven temperament, was particularly shocked by M. Valenod's lack of repose, and by his boisterous loudness. Her aloofness from what, in the Verrieres' jargon, was called "having a good time," had earned her the reputation of being very proud of her birth. In fact, she never thought about it, but she had been extremely glad to find the inhabitants of the town visit her less frequently. We shall not deny that she passed for a fool in the eyes of _their_ good ladies because she did not wheedle her husband, and allowed herself to miss the most splendid opportunities of getting fine hats from Paris or Besancon. Provided she was allowed to wander in her beautiful garden, she never complained. She was a naive soul, who had never educated herself up to the point of judging her husband and confessing to herself that he bored her. She supposed, without actually formulating the thought, that there was no greater sweetness in the relationship between husband and wife than she herself had experienced. She loved M. de Renal most when he talked about his projects for their children. The elder he had destined for the army, the second for the law, and the third for the Church. To sum up, she found M. de Renal much less boring than all the other men of her acquaintance. This conjugal opinion was quite sound. The Mayor of Verrieres had a reputation for wit, and above all, a reputation for good form, on the strength of half-a-dozen "chestnuts" which he had inherited from an uncle. Old Captain de Renal had served, before the Revolution, in the infantry regiment of M. the Duke of Orleans, and was admitted to the Prince's salons when he went to Paris. He had seen Madame de Montesson, the famous Madame de Genlis, M. Ducret, the inventor, of the Palais-Royal. These personages would crop up only too frequently in M. de Renal's anecdotes. He found it, however, more and more of a strain to remember stories which required such delicacy in the telling, and for some time past it had only been on great occasions that he would trot out his anecdotes concerning the House of Orleans. As, moreover, he was extremely polite, except on money matters, he passed, and justly so, for the most aristocratic personage in Verrieres.

Chapters 1-3

https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-1-chapters-13

M. de Renal is the mayor and wealthy owner of the nail factory in the small mountain village of Verrieres in the eastern province of Franche-Comte. Situated above the river Doubs, the village owes the prosperity of its peasant citizenry to sawmills and to the manufacture of calico. The sudden arrival of M. Appert, sent from M. de La Mole in Paris to inspect the municipal workhouse and prison administered by M. Valenod, the mayor's assistant, has erupted on the otherwise peaceful existence of the village. The village, a microcosm of Paris and of all of France in this respect, is politically divided into two camps: royalists like the mayor and a liberal element dissatisfied with the Restoration. They are in agreement, however, upon the importance that they attribute to money and in their slavish respect for small-town public opinion. Father Chelan, Jansenist and village priest for many years, takes M. Appert on a tour of the workhouse and prison, thereby disobeying the wishes of M. Valenod, who risks being exposed for misuse of funds, given the pitiable conditions existing in these institutions. Renal and Valenod have, in fact, visited Chelan and reprimanded him for this action. This is the subject of the conversation between M. and Mme. de Renal one day as they are strolling with their three children on the "Cours de La Fidelite," a public promenade sustained by an enormous retaining wall, the glory of Verrieres, the construction of which is due to the administration of Mayor de Renal. The latter then proposes to his wife that they hire Julien Sorel, student priest of Chelan, as tutor for their children, a move destined to increase his own social prestige since it will cause envy among the liberal textile mill owners. Julien's father, a crafty sawyer, has already, in the past, outwitted Renal in a land transaction.

Note that Stendhal does not rely for his exposition on many pages of description and documentation. His method might be called "free associational" and characterizes the entire novel since the exposition never ends. It is clearly not that of his famous contemporary Balzac or of the latter's predecessor Scott. Stendhal moves rather swiftly back and forth from background description to an action scene as the need arises, after an initial five pages of introductory setting. Chapter divisions are entirely arbitrary: Chapter 1 situates Verrieres, characterizes the economy of the town, then introduces a hypothetical Parisian visitor who will encounter the mayor, giving Stendhal the opportunity to present him for the first time. Most of the short chapter is, in fact, devoted to M. de Renal, to his home, his past, and his relationship with Sorel even before Stendhal reaches Chapter 2, which, as the title indicates, is to be devoted to M. de Renal. Stendhal does not exhaust the description of a newly introduced character upon initial presentation, but rather he returns periodically to "round it out," having been led astray into digressions. Nothing is seen out of relation to other considerations: describing Renal physically leads Stendhal to ascribe to the passerby a moral judgment about Renal, condensing time; this then leads Stendhal to Renal's home; then a parenthetical note about his ancestry; next Renal's imposing "retaining walls" are evoked; then a comparison with gardens of other manufacturing towns; this leads the author to mention Sorel since it is through him that the land was acquired; follows a necessary remark about the shrewdness of Sorel; and finally an incident which illustrates that M. de Renal suspected that he had been bettered in the bargain. Had Stendhal followed the path into Verrieres consistently as his means of introduction, the reader would have been enlightened about Sorel's sawmill at an earlier point. This omission is not an oversight, however. Before Sorel and especially his son Julien, the hero of the novel, can be introduced, the adversary against which Julien will pit himself in its various forms must be defined. The adversary will be all of society as it incarnates the corruption and stagnation of the Restoration, thereby oppressing a superior being. Chapter 1 thus gives us a sweeping, superficial tour; Chapter 2 repeats this gesture, now evoking Valenod and Maslon by the same "afterthought" technique before introducing the action proper: the Renals' conversation on the promenade. The last few lines of this chapter begin the conversation, the meaning of which escapes the reader, and Stendhal must reappear to furnish more background details at the beginning of Chapter 3. The latter, in turn, involves a "flashback" to an episode having occurred the day before -- this before we hear the end of the conversation between the Renals. Thus, we hear briefly of Julien for the first time in Chapter 3, and we see him through the eyes of M. de Renal, whose judgment we have already learned to question. Julien can't be a liberal, reasons Renal, since he has been studying theology for the last three years. These recurring views of M. de Renal in interaction with other people permit us to judge him as pretentious, vain, easily duped, proud, and avaricious. Stendhal next turns to Mme. de Renal and devotes a page to her character and history, taking care to emphasize her virtue and resignation to her lot. She is unaware that life holds anything better than what her husband offers her. Even the method of exposition fits a description of Stendhal's style as that of "improvisation." It suggests the image of ever-widening, superimposed circles.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/28.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Sense and Sensibility/section_2_part_8.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 28

chapter 28

{"name": "Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-30", "summary": "Marianne and Elinor are obliged to accompany Lady Middleton to a party, though Marianne clearly has no heart for it. At the party, Elinor and Marianne see Willoughby; Marianne approaches him, although he turns and addresses Elinor instead, trying to avoid Marianne. Willoughby turns away from them abruptly when Marianne plies him with questions, and Marianne becomes faint and disturbed at this. Elinor takes her home, and is convinced that they must have been engaged, though Willoughby seems to have since discounted their relationship. Elinor is glad that at least she can continue to like Edward, although they cannot be together; Willoughby's conduct does not allow Marianne that luxury, and it will be hard for her to realize their relationship is finally over.", "analysis": "Elinor's prudence has triumphed over Marianne's passion, with grave consequences for Marianne; her very nature is offended by Willoughby's rejection, and her innocent hopes are also destroyed. It seems that there is no hope of Marianne and Willoughby getting back together after this incident, as Austen even describes it as an \"immediate and irreconcilable rupture. This asks the question, will Marianne find a new love for herself, and overcome her indulgent, romantic tendencies which will probably make her grieve over Willoughby for a long period to come"}

Nothing occurred during the next three or four days, to make Elinor regret what she had done, in applying to her mother; for Willoughby neither came nor wrote. They were engaged about the end of that time to attend Lady Middleton to a party, from which Mrs. Jennings was kept away by the indisposition of her youngest daughter; and for this party, Marianne, wholly dispirited, careless of her appearance, and seeming equally indifferent whether she went or staid, prepared, without one look of hope or one expression of pleasure. She sat by the drawing-room fire after tea, till the moment of Lady Middleton's arrival, without once stirring from her seat, or altering her attitude, lost in her own thoughts, and insensible of her sister's presence; and when at last they were told that Lady Middleton waited for them at the door, she started as if she had forgotten that any one was expected. They arrived in due time at the place of destination, and as soon as the string of carriages before them would allow, alighted, ascended the stairs, heard their names announced from one landing-place to another in an audible voice, and entered a room splendidly lit up, quite full of company, and insufferably hot. When they had paid their tribute of politeness by curtsying to the lady of the house, they were permitted to mingle in the crowd, and take their share of the heat and inconvenience, to which their arrival must necessarily add. After some time spent in saying little or doing less, Lady Middleton sat down to Cassino, and as Marianne was not in spirits for moving about, she and Elinor luckily succeeding to chairs, placed themselves at no great distance from the table. They had not remained in this manner long, before Elinor perceived Willoughby, standing within a few yards of them, in earnest conversation with a very fashionable looking young woman. She soon caught his eye, and he immediately bowed, but without attempting to speak to her, or to approach Marianne, though he could not but see her; and then continued his discourse with the same lady. Elinor turned involuntarily to Marianne, to see whether it could be unobserved by her. At that moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance glowing with sudden delight, she would have moved towards him instantly, had not her sister caught hold of her. "Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "he is there--he is there--Oh! why does he not look at me? why cannot I speak to him?" "Pray, pray be composed," cried Elinor, "and do not betray what you feel to every body present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet." This however was more than she could believe herself; and to be composed at such a moment was not only beyond the reach of Marianne, it was beyond her wish. She sat in an agony of impatience which affected every feature. At last he turned round again, and regarded them both; she started up, and pronouncing his name in a tone of affection, held out her hand to him. He approached, and addressing himself rather to Elinor than Marianne, as if wishing to avoid her eye, and determined not to observe her attitude, inquired in a hurried manner after Mrs. Dashwood, and asked how long they had been in town. Elinor was robbed of all presence of mind by such an address, and was unable to say a word. But the feelings of her sister were instantly expressed. Her face was crimsoned over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion, "Good God! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? Have you not received my letters? Will you not shake hands with me?" He could not then avoid it, but her touch seemed painful to him, and he held her hand only for a moment. During all this time he was evidently struggling for composure. Elinor watched his countenance and saw its expression becoming more tranquil. After a moment's pause, he spoke with calmness. "I did myself the honour of calling in Berkeley Street last Tuesday, and very much regretted that I was not fortunate enough to find yourselves and Mrs. Jennings at home. My card was not lost, I hope." "But have you not received my notes?" cried Marianne in the wildest anxiety. "Here is some mistake I am sure--some dreadful mistake. What can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven's sake tell me, what is the matter?" He made no reply; his complexion changed and all his embarrassment returned; but as if, on catching the eye of the young lady with whom he had been previously talking, he felt the necessity of instant exertion, he recovered himself again, and after saying, "Yes, I had the pleasure of receiving the information of your arrival in town, which you were so good as to send me," turned hastily away with a slight bow and joined his friend. Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair, and Elinor, expecting every moment to see her faint, tried to screen her from the observation of others, while reviving her with lavender water. "Go to him, Elinor," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "and force him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again--must speak to him instantly.-- I cannot rest--I shall not have a moment's peace till this is explained--some dreadful misapprehension or other.-- Oh go to him this moment." "How can that be done? No, my dearest Marianne, you must wait. This is not the place for explanations. Wait only till tomorrow." With difficulty however could she prevent her from following him herself; and to persuade her to check her agitation, to wait, at least, with the appearance of composure, till she might speak to him with more privacy and more effect, was impossible; for Marianne continued incessantly to give way in a low voice to the misery of her feelings, by exclamations of wretchedness. In a short time Elinor saw Willoughby quit the room by the door towards the staircase, and telling Marianne that he was gone, urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that evening, as a fresh argument for her to be calm. She instantly begged her sister would entreat Lady Middleton to take them home, as she was too miserable to stay a minute longer. Lady Middleton, though in the middle of a rubber, on being informed that Marianne was unwell, was too polite to object for a moment to her wish of going away, and making over her cards to a friend, they departed as soon the carriage could be found. Scarcely a word was spoken during their return to Berkeley Street. Marianne was in a silent agony, too much oppressed even for tears; but as Mrs. Jennings was luckily not come home, they could go directly to their own room, where hartshorn restored her a little to herself. She was soon undressed and in bed, and as she seemed desirous of being alone, her sister then left her, and while she waited the return of Mrs. Jennings, had leisure enough for thinking over the past. That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and Marianne she could not doubt, and that Willoughby was weary of it, seemed equally clear; for however Marianne might still feed her own wishes, SHE could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it. Her indignation would have been still stronger than it was, had she not witnessed that embarrassment which seemed to speak a consciousness of his own misconduct, and prevented her from believing him so unprincipled as to have been sporting with the affections of her sister from the first, without any design that would bear investigation. Absence might have weakened his regard, and convenience might have determined him to overcome it, but that such a regard had formerly existed she could not bring herself to doubt. As for Marianne, on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she could ESTEEM Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby--in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him.

Chapter 28

https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-30

Marianne and Elinor are obliged to accompany Lady Middleton to a party, though Marianne clearly has no heart for it. At the party, Elinor and Marianne see Willoughby; Marianne approaches him, although he turns and addresses Elinor instead, trying to avoid Marianne. Willoughby turns away from them abruptly when Marianne plies him with questions, and Marianne becomes faint and disturbed at this. Elinor takes her home, and is convinced that they must have been engaged, though Willoughby seems to have since discounted their relationship. Elinor is glad that at least she can continue to like Edward, although they cannot be together; Willoughby's conduct does not allow Marianne that luxury, and it will be hard for her to realize their relationship is finally over.

Elinor's prudence has triumphed over Marianne's passion, with grave consequences for Marianne; her very nature is offended by Willoughby's rejection, and her innocent hopes are also destroyed. It seems that there is no hope of Marianne and Willoughby getting back together after this incident, as Austen even describes it as an "immediate and irreconcilable rupture. This asks the question, will Marianne find a new love for herself, and overcome her indulgent, romantic tendencies which will probably make her grieve over Willoughby for a long period to come

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/32.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_31_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 2

part 2, chapter 2

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-2", "summary": "Father Pirard leads Julien to the Marquis de La Mole. The man is so polite and courteous that Julien is caught off guard. After the meeting, Julien goes to a tailor to get some new clothes. Julien's first tasks for the marquis don't go well, since he doesn't spell very well. He's more of an oral learner. Julien also makes the blunder of not being properly dressed for certain hours of the day. He later meets the Marquis' wife, who barely looks at him. The Marquis' son, Count Norbert, seems like a nice enough guy. At dinner, Julien is able to win much of the family over with his knowledge of old books. Even The Marquis' wife gives him the benefit of the doubt, since he seems to amuse her husband.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER XXXII ENTRY INTO SOCIETY Ludicrous and pathetic memory: the first drawing-room where one appeared alone and without support at the age of eighteen! the look of a woman sufficed to intimidate me. The more I wished to please the more clumsy I became. I evolved the most unfounded ideas about everything. I would either abandon myself without any reason, or I would regard a man as an enemy simply because he had looked at me with a serious air; but all the same, in the middle of the unhappiness of my timidity, how beautiful did I find a beautiful day--_Kant_. Julien stopped in amazement in the middle of the courtyard. "Pull yourself together," said the abbe Pirard. "You get horrible ideas into your head, besides you are only a child. What has happened to the nil mirari of Horace (no enthusiasm) remember that when they see you established here this crowd of lackeys will make fun of you. They will see in you an equal who has been unjustly placed above them; and, under a masquerade of good advice and a desire to help you, they will try to make you fall into some gross blunder." "Let them do their worst," said Julien biting his lip, and he became as distrustful as ever. The salons on the first storey which our gentlemen went through before reaching the marquis' study, would have seemed to you, my reader, as gloomy as they were magnificent. If they had been given to you just as they were, you would have refused to live in them. This was the domain of yawning and melancholy reasoning. They redoubled Julien's rapture. "How can any one be unhappy?" he thought, "who lives in so splendid an abode." Finally our gentlemen arrived at the ugliest rooms in this superb suite. There was scarcely any light. They found there a little keen man with a lively eye and a blonde wig. The abbe turned round to Julien and presented him. It was the marquis. Julien had much difficulty in recognising him, he found his manner was so polite. It was no longer the grand seigneur with that haughty manner of the abbey of Bray-le-Haut. Julien thought that his wig had much too many hairs. As the result of this opinion he was not at all intimidated. The descendant of the friend of Henry III. seemed to him at first of a rather insignificant appearance. He was extremely thin and very restless, but he soon noticed that the marquis had a politeness which was even more pleasant to his listener than that of the Bishop of Besancon himself. The audience only lasted three minutes. As they went out the abbe said to Julien, "You looked at the marquis just as you would have looked at a picture. I am not a great expert in what these people here call politeness. You will soon know more about it than I do, but really the boldness of your looks seemed scarcely polite." They had got back into the fiacre. The driver stopped near the boulevard; the abbe ushered Julien into a suite of large rooms. Julien noticed that there was no furniture. He was looking at the magnificent gilded clock representing a subject which he thought very indecent, when a very elegant gentleman approached him with a smiling air. Julien bowed slightly. The gentleman smiled and put his hand on his shoulder. Julien shuddered and leapt back, he reddened with rage. The abbe Pirard, in spite of his gravity, laughed till the tears came into his eyes. The gentleman was a tailor. "I give you your liberty for two days," said the abbe as they went out. "You cannot be introduced before then to Madame de la Mole. Any one else would watch over you as if you were a young girl during these first few moments of your life in this new Babylon. Get ruined at once if you have got to be ruined, and I will be rid of my own weakness of being fond of you. The day after to-morrow this tailor will bring you two suits, you will give the man who tries them on five francs. Apart from that don't let these Parisians hear the sound of your voice. If you say a word they will manage somehow to make fun of you. They have a talent for it. Come and see me the day after to-morrow at noon.... Go and ruin yourself.... I was forgetting, go and order boots and a hat at these addresses." Julien scrutinised the handwriting of the addresses. "It's the marquis's hand," said the abbe; "he is an energetic man who foresees everything, and prefers doing to ordering. He is taking you into his house, so that you may spare him that kind of trouble. Will you have enough brains to execute efficiently all the instructions which he will give you with scarcely a word of explanation? The future will show, look after yourself." Julien entered the shops indicated by the addresses without saying a single word. He observed that he was received with respect, and that the bootmaker as he wrote his name down in the ledger put M. de Sorel. When he was in the Cemetery of Pere La Chaise a very obliging gentleman, and what is more, one who was Liberal in his views, suggested that he should show Julien the tomb of Marshal Ney which a sagacious statecraft had deprived of the honour of an epitaph, but when he left this Liberal, who with tears in his eyes almost clasped him in his arms, Julien was without his watch. Enriched by this experience two days afterwards he presented himself to the abbe Pirard, who looked at him for a long time. "Perhaps you are going to become a fop," said the abbe to him severely. Julien looked like a very young man in full mourning; as a matter of fact, he looked very well, but the good abbe was too provincial himself to see that Julien still carried his shoulders in that particular way which signifies in the provinces both elegance and importance. When the marquis saw Julien his opinion of his graces differed so radically from that of the good abbe as he said, "Would you have any objection to M. le Sorel taking some dancing lessons?" The abbe was thunderstruck. "No," he answered at last. "Julien is not a priest." The marquis went up the steps of a little secret staircase two at a time, and installed our hero in a pretty attic which looked out on the big garden of the hotel. He asked him how many shirts he had got at the linen drapers. "Two," answered Julien, intimidated at seeing so great a lord condescend to such details. "Very good," replied the marquis quite seriously, and with a certain curt imperiousness which gave Julien food for thought. "Very good, get twenty-two more shirts. Here are your first quarter's wages." As he went down from the attic the marquis called an old man. "Arsene," he said to him, "you will serve M. Sorel." A few minutes afterwards Julien found himself alone in a magnificent library. It was a delicious moment. To prevent his emotion being discovered he went and hid in a little dark corner. From there he contemplated with rapture the brilliant backs of the books. "I shall be able to read all these," he said to himself. "How can I fail to like it here? M. de Renal would have thought himself dishonoured for ever by doing one-hundredth part of what the Marquis de la Mole has just done for me. "But let me have a look at the copies I have to make." Having finished this work Julien ventured to approach the books. He almost went mad with joy as he opened an edition of Voltaire. He ran and opened the door of the library to avoid being surprised. He then indulged in the luxury of opening each of the eighty volumes. They were magnificently bound and were the masterpiece of the best binder in London. It was even more than was required to raise Julien's admiration to the maximum. An hour afterwards the marquis came in and was surprised to notice that Julien spelt cela with two "ll" cella. "Is all that the abbe told me of his knowledge simply a fairy tale?" The marquis was greatly discouraged and gently said to him, "You are not sure of your spelling?" "That is true," said Julien without thinking in the least of the injustice that he was doing to himself. He was overcome by the kindness of the marquis which recalled to him through sheer force of contrast the superciliousness of M. de Renal. "This trial of the little Franc-comtois abbe is waste of time," thought the marquis, "but I had such great need of a reliable man." "You spell cela with one 'l,'" said the marquis to him, "and when you have finished your copies look the words whose spelling you are not sure of up in the dictionary." The marquis sent for him at six o'clock. He looked at Julien's boots with manifest pain. "I am sorry for a mistake I made. I did not tell you that you must dress every day at half-past five." Julien looked at him but did not understand. "I mean to say put on stockings. Arsene will remind you. To-day I will make your apologies." As he finished the sentence M. de la Mole escorted Julien into a salon resplendent with gilding. On similar occasions M. de Renal always made a point of doubling his pace so as to have the privilege of being the first to pass the threshold. His former employer's petty vanity caused Julien to tread on the marquis's feet and hurt him a great deal because of his gout. "So he is clumsy to the bargain," he said to himself. He presented him to a woman of high stature and of imposing appearance. It was the marquise. Julien thought that her manner was impertinent, and that she was a little like Madame de Maugiron, the wife of the sub-prefect of the arrondissement of Verrieres when she was present at the Saint-Charles dinner. Rendered somewhat nervous by the extreme magnificence of the salon Julien did not hear what M. de la Mole was saying. The marquise scarcely deigned to look at him. There were several men there, among whom Julien recognised with an inexpressible pleasure the young bishop of Agde who had deigned to speak to him some months before at the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. This young prelate was doubtless frightened by the tender look which the timidity of Julien fixed on him, and did not bother to recognise "the provincial." The men assembled in this salon seemed to Julien to have a certain element of gloom and constraint. Conversation takes place in a low voice in Paris and little details are not exaggerated. A handsome young man with moustaches, came in about half-past six. He was very pale, and had a very small head. "You always keep us waiting" said the marquise, as he kissed her hand. Julien realised that it was the Count de la Mole. From the very first he thought he was charming. "Is it possible," he said to himself "that this is the man whose offensive jests are going to drive me out of the house." As the result of scrutinising count Norbert, Julien noticed that he was in boots and spurs. "And I have got to be in shoes just like an inferior apparently." They sat down at table, Julien heard the marquise raising her voice a little and saying something severe. Almost simultaneously he noticed an extremely blonde and very well developed young person who had just sat down opposite him. Nevertheless she made no appeal to him. Looking at her attentively he thought that he had never seen such beautiful eyes, although they betokened a great coldness of soul. Subsequently Julien thought that, though they looked bored and sceptical, they were conscious of the duty of being impressive. "Madame de Renal of course had very fine eyes" he said to himself, "she used to be universally complimented on them, but they had nothing in common with these." Julien did not know enough of society to appreciate that it was the fire of repartee which from time to time gave their brilliancy to the eyes of Mademoiselle Mathilde (for that was the name he heard her called by). When Madame de Renal's eyes became animated, it was with the fire of passion, or as the result of a generous indignation on hearing of some evil deed. Towards the end of the meal Julien found a word to express Mademoiselle de la Mole's type of beauty. Her eyes are scintillating, he said to himself. Apart from her eyes she was cruelly like her mother, whom he liked less and less, and he ceased looking at her. By way of compensation he thought Count Norbert admirable in every respect. Julien was so fascinated that the idea never occurred to him of being jealous, and hating him because he was richer and of nobler birth than he was himself. Julien thought that the marquis looked bored. About the second course he said to his son: "Norbert, I ask all your good offices for M. Julien Sorel, whom I have just taken into my staff and of whom I hope to make a man _si cella se peut_." "He is my secretary," said the marquis to his neighbour, "and he spells cela with two ll's." Everybody looked at Julien, who bowed to Norbert in a manner that was slightly too marked, but speaking generally they were satisfied with his expression. The marquis must have spoken about the kind of education which Julien had received for one of the guests tackled him on Horace. "It was just by talking about Horace that I succeeded with the bishop of Besancon," said Julien to himself. Apparently that is the only author they know. From that instant he was master of himself. This transition was rendered easy because he had just decided that he would never look upon Madamoiselle de la Mole as a woman after his own taste. Since the seminary he had the lowest opinion of men, and was not to be easily intimidated by them. He would have enjoyed all his self-possession if the dining-room had been furnished with less magnificence. It was, as a matter of fact, two mirrors each eight feet high in which he would look from time to time at the man who was speaking to him about Horace, which continued to impress him. His phrases were not too long for a provincial, he had fine eyes whose brilliancy was doubled by his quavering timidity, or by his happy bashfulness when he had given a good answer. They found him pleasant. This kind of examination gave a little interest to a solemn dinner. The marquis signed to Julien's questioner to press him sharply. "Can he possibly know something?" he thought. Julien answered and thought out new ideas. He lost sufficient of his nervousness, not indeed to exhibit any wit, for that is impossible for any one ignorant of the special language which is used in Paris, but to show himself possessed of ideas which, though presented out of place and ungracefully, were yet original. They saw that he knew Latin perfectly. Julien's adversary was a member of the Academy Inscriptions who chanced to know Latin. He found Julien a very good humanist, was not frightened of making him feel uncomfortable, and really tried to embarrass him. In the heat of the controversy Julien eventually forgot the magnificent furniture of the dining-room. He managed to expound theories concerning the Latin poets which his questioner had never read of anywhere. Like an honest man, he gave the young secretary all due credit for them. As luck would have it, they started a discussion on the question of whether Horace was poor or rich, a good humoured and careless voluptuary who made verses to amuse himself, like Chapelle the friend of Moliere and de la Fontaine, or a poor devil of a poet laureate who wrote odes for the king's birthday like Southey, the accuser of Lord Byron. They talked about the state of society under Augustus and under George IV. At both periods the aristocracy was all-powerful, but, while at Rome it was despoiled of its power by Maecenas who was only a simple knight, it had in England reduced George IV practically to the position of a Venetian doge. This discussion seemed to lift the marquis out of that state of bored torpor in which he had been plunged at the beginning of the dinner. Julien found meaningless such modern names as Southey, Lord Byron, and George IV, which he now heard pronounced for the first time. But every one noticed that whenever the conversation dealt with events that had taken place in Rome and about which knowledge could be obtained by a perusal of the works of Horace, Martial or Tacitus, etc., he showed an indisputable superiority. Julien coolly appropriated several ideas which he had learnt from the bishop of Besancon in the historic conversation which he had had with that prelate. These ideas were not the least appreciated. When every one was tired of talking about poets the marquise, who always made it a rule to admire whatever amused her husband, deigned to look at Julien. "Perhaps an educated man lies hid beneath the clumsy manners of this young abbe," said the Academician who happened to be near the marquise. Julien caught a few words of what he said. Ready-made phrases suited the intellect of the mistress of the house quite well. She adopted this one about Julien, and was very pleased with herself for having invited the academician to dinner. "He has amused M. de la Mole" she thought.

Part 2, Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-2

Father Pirard leads Julien to the Marquis de La Mole. The man is so polite and courteous that Julien is caught off guard. After the meeting, Julien goes to a tailor to get some new clothes. Julien's first tasks for the marquis don't go well, since he doesn't spell very well. He's more of an oral learner. Julien also makes the blunder of not being properly dressed for certain hours of the day. He later meets the Marquis' wife, who barely looks at him. The Marquis' son, Count Norbert, seems like a nice enough guy. At dinner, Julien is able to win much of the family over with his knowledge of old books. Even The Marquis' wife gives him the benefit of the doubt, since he seems to amuse her husband.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/29.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_3_part_5.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 29

chapter 29

{"name": "Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34", "summary": "Dairyman Crick tells the milkers at breakfast that Jack Dollop just got married to a widow-woman, and never married the matron's daughter. However, by marrying the widow lost her yearly allowance. Mrs. Crick remarks that the widow should have told Jack sooner that the ghost of her first husband would trouble him. Beck Knibbs, a married helper from one of the cottages, says that she was justified in not telling him, for all is fair in love and war. For Tess, what is comedy to her fellow workers is tragedy to her. Tess refuses Angel once more. Dairyman Crick sends Angel to go to the station, and Tess agrees to accompany him.", "analysis": "The second anecdote about Jack Dollop serves an instructional purpose in this chapter, suggesting to Tess that she is justified in not telling Angel about her now dead child. Although Tess approaches this decision as one of tragedy, she nevertheless appears ready to accept the idea that she may rightfully withhold this information from Angel. The decreased likelihood that Tess will reveal her experience with Alec d'Urberville foreshadows greater conflict between Angel and Tess rather than negating the possibility of it; now that Tess may not tell Angel about her past at an opportune moment, Angel may learn of her secrets under less fortuitous conditions"}

"Now, who mid ye think I've heard news o' this morning?" said Dairyman Crick, as he sat down to breakfast next day, with a riddling gaze round upon the munching men and maids. "Now, just who mid ye think?" One guessed, and another guessed. Mrs Crick did not guess, because she knew already. "Well," said the dairyman, "'tis that slack-twisted 'hore's-bird of a feller, Jack Dollop. He's lately got married to a widow-woman." "Not Jack Dollop? A villain--to think o' that!" said a milker. The name entered quickly into Tess Durbeyfield's consciousness, for it was the name of the lover who had wronged his sweetheart, and had afterwards been so roughly used by the young woman's mother in the butter-churn. "And had he married the valiant matron's daughter, as he promised?" asked Angel Clare absently, as he turned over the newspaper he was reading at the little table to which he was always banished by Mrs Crick, in her sense of his gentility. "Not he, sir. Never meant to," replied the dairyman. "As I say, 'tis a widow-woman, and she had money, it seems--fifty poun' a year or so; and that was all he was after. They were married in a great hurry; and then she told him that by marrying she had lost her fifty poun' a year. Just fancy the state o' my gentleman's mind at that news! Never such a cat-and-dog life as they've been leading ever since! Serves him well beright. But onluckily the poor woman gets the worst o't." "Well, the silly body should have told en sooner that the ghost of her first man would trouble him," said Mrs Crick. "Ay, ay," responded the dairyman indecisively. "Still, you can see exactly how 'twas. She wanted a home, and didn't like to run the risk of losing him. Don't ye think that was something like it, maidens?" He glanced towards the row of girls. "She ought to ha' told him just before they went to church, when he could hardly have backed out," exclaimed Marian. "Yes, she ought," agreed Izz. "She must have seen what he was after, and should ha' refused him," cried Retty spasmodically. "And what do you say, my dear?" asked the dairyman of Tess. "I think she ought--to have told him the true state of things--or else refused him--I don't know," replied Tess, the bread-and-butter choking her. "Be cust if I'd have done either o't," said Beck Knibbs, a married helper from one of the cottages. "All's fair in love and war. I'd ha' married en just as she did, and if he'd said two words to me about not telling him beforehand anything whatsomdever about my first chap that I hadn't chose to tell, I'd ha' knocked him down wi' the rolling-pin--a scram little feller like he! Any woman could do it." The laughter which followed this sally was supplemented only by a sorry smile, for form's sake, from Tess. What was comedy to them was tragedy to her; and she could hardly bear their mirth. She soon rose from table, and, with an impression that Clare would soon follow her, went along a little wriggling path, now stepping to one side of the irrigating channels, and now to the other, till she stood by the main stream of the Var. Men had been cutting the water-weeds higher up the river, and masses of them were floating past her--moving islands of green crow-foot, whereon she might almost have ridden; long locks of which weed had lodged against the piles driven to keep the cows from crossing. Yes, there was the pain of it. This question of a woman telling her story--the heaviest of crosses to herself--seemed but amusement to others. It was as if people should laugh at martyrdom. "Tessy!" came from behind her, and Clare sprang across the gully, alighting beside her feet. "My wife--soon!" "No, no; I cannot. For your sake, O Mr Clare; for your sake, I say no!" "Tess!" "Still I say no!" she repeated. Not expecting this, he had put his arm lightly round her waist the moment after speaking, beneath her hanging tail of hair. (The younger dairymaids, including Tess, breakfasted with their hair loose on Sunday mornings before building it up extra high for attending church, a style they could not adopt when milking with their heads against the cows.) If she had said "Yes" instead of "No" he would have kissed her; it had evidently been his intention; but her determined negative deterred his scrupulous heart. Their condition of domiciliary comradeship put her, as the woman, to such disadvantage by its enforced intercourse, that he felt it unfair to her to exercise any pressure of blandishment which he might have honestly employed had she been better able to avoid him. He released her momentarily-imprisoned waist, and withheld the kiss. It all turned on that release. What had given her strength to refuse him this time was solely the tale of the widow told by the dairyman; and that would have been overcome in another moment. But Angel said no more; his face was perplexed; he went away. Day after day they met--somewhat less constantly than before; and thus two or three weeks went by. The end of September drew near, and she could see in his eye that he might ask her again. His plan of procedure was different now--as though he had made up his mind that her negatives were, after all, only coyness and youth startled by the novelty of the proposal. The fitful evasiveness of her manner when the subject was under discussion countenanced the idea. So he played a more coaxing game; and while never going beyond words, or attempting the renewal of caresses, he did his utmost orally. In this way Clare persistently wooed her in undertones like that of the purling milk--at the cow's side, at skimmings, at butter-makings, at cheese-makings, among broody poultry, and among farrowing pigs--as no milkmaid was ever wooed before by such a man. Tess knew that she must break down. Neither a religious sense of a certain moral validity in the previous union nor a conscientious wish for candour could hold out against it much longer. She loved him so passionately, and he was so godlike in her eyes; and being, though untrained, instinctively refined, her nature cried for his tutelary guidance. And thus, though Tess kept repeating to herself, "I can never be his wife," the words were vain. A proof of her weakness lay in the very utterance of what calm strength would not have taken the trouble to formulate. Every sound of his voice beginning on the old subject stirred her with a terrifying bliss, and she coveted the recantation she feared. His manner was--what man's is not?--so much that of one who would love and cherish and defend her under any conditions, changes, charges, or revelations, that her gloom lessened as she basked in it. The season meanwhile was drawing onward to the equinox, and though it was still fine, the days were much shorter. The dairy had again worked by morning candlelight for a long time; and a fresh renewal of Clare's pleading occurred one morning between three and four. She had run up in her bedgown to his door to call him as usual; then had gone back to dress and call the others; and in ten minutes was walking to the head of the stairs with the candle in her hand. At the same moment he came down his steps from above in his shirt-sleeves and put his arm across the stairway. "Now, Miss Flirt, before you go down," he said peremptorily. "It is a fortnight since I spoke, and this won't do any longer. You MUST tell me what you mean, or I shall have to leave this house. My door was ajar just now, and I saw you. For your own safety I must go. You don't know. Well? Is it to be yes at last?" "I am only just up, Mr Clare, and it is too early to take me to task!" she pouted. "You need not call me Flirt. 'Tis cruel and untrue. Wait till by and by. Please wait till by and by! I will really think seriously about it between now and then. Let me go downstairs!" She looked a little like what he said she was as, holding the candle sideways, she tried to smile away the seriousness of her words. "Call me Angel, then, and not Mr Clare." "Angel." "Angel dearest--why not?" "'Twould mean that I agree, wouldn't it?" "It would only mean that you love me, even if you cannot marry me; and you were so good as to own that long ago." "Very well, then, 'Angel dearest', if I MUST," she murmured, looking at her candle, a roguish curl coming upon her mouth, notwithstanding her suspense. Clare had resolved never to kiss her until he had obtained her promise; but somehow, as Tess stood there in her prettily tucked-up milking gown, her hair carelessly heaped upon her head till there should be leisure to arrange it when skimming and milking were done, he broke his resolve, and brought his lips to her cheek for one moment. She passed downstairs very quickly, never looking back at him or saying another word. The other maids were already down, and the subject was not pursued. Except Marian, they all looked wistfully and suspiciously at the pair, in the sad yellow rays which the morning candles emitted in contrast with the first cold signals of the dawn without. When skimming was done--which, as the milk diminished with the approach of autumn, was a lessening process day by day--Retty and the rest went out. The lovers followed them. "Our tremulous lives are so different from theirs, are they not?" he musingly observed to her, as he regarded the three figures tripping before him through the frigid pallor of opening day. "Not so very different, I think," she said. "Why do you think that?" "There are very few women's lives that are not--tremulous," Tess replied, pausing over the new word as if it impressed her. "There's more in those three than you think." "What is in them?" "Almost either of 'em," she began, "would make--perhaps would make--a properer wife than I. And perhaps they love you as well as I--almost." "O, Tessy!" There were signs that it was an exquisite relief to her to hear the impatient exclamation, though she had resolved so intrepidly to let generosity make one bid against herself. That was now done, and she had not the power to attempt self-immolation a second time then. They were joined by a milker from one of the cottages, and no more was said on that which concerned them so deeply. But Tess knew that this day would decide it. In the afternoon several of the dairyman's household and assistants went down to the meads as usual, a long way from the dairy, where many of the cows were milked without being driven home. The supply was getting less as the animals advanced in calf, and the supernumerary milkers of the lush green season had been dismissed. The work progressed leisurely. Each pailful was poured into tall cans that stood in a large spring-waggon which had been brought upon the scene; and when they were milked, the cows trailed away. Dairyman Crick, who was there with the rest, his wrapper gleaming miraculously white against a leaden evening sky, suddenly looked at his heavy watch. "Why, 'tis later than I thought," he said. "Begad! We shan't be soon enough with this milk at the station, if we don't mind. There's no time to-day to take it home and mix it with the bulk afore sending off. It must go to station straight from here. Who'll drive it across?" Mr Clare volunteered to do so, though it was none of his business, asking Tess to accompany him. The evening, though sunless, had been warm and muggy for the season, and Tess had come out with her milking-hood only, naked-armed and jacketless; certainly not dressed for a drive. She therefore replied by glancing over her scant habiliments; but Clare gently urged her. She assented by relinquishing her pail and stool to the dairyman to take home, and mounted the spring-waggon beside Clare.

Chapter 29

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34

Dairyman Crick tells the milkers at breakfast that Jack Dollop just got married to a widow-woman, and never married the matron's daughter. However, by marrying the widow lost her yearly allowance. Mrs. Crick remarks that the widow should have told Jack sooner that the ghost of her first husband would trouble him. Beck Knibbs, a married helper from one of the cottages, says that she was justified in not telling him, for all is fair in love and war. For Tess, what is comedy to her fellow workers is tragedy to her. Tess refuses Angel once more. Dairyman Crick sends Angel to go to the station, and Tess agrees to accompany him.

The second anecdote about Jack Dollop serves an instructional purpose in this chapter, suggesting to Tess that she is justified in not telling Angel about her now dead child. Although Tess approaches this decision as one of tragedy, she nevertheless appears ready to accept the idea that she may rightfully withhold this information from Angel. The decreased likelihood that Tess will reveal her experience with Alec d'Urberville foreshadows greater conflict between Angel and Tess rather than negating the possibility of it; now that Tess may not tell Angel about her past at an opportune moment, Angel may learn of her secrets under less fortuitous conditions

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/58.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_11_part_5.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 9.chapter 5

book 9, chapter 5

{"name": "book 9, Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section12/", "summary": "The Third Torment The officers continue to question Dmitri and to explore the evidence against him, trying to decide whether to charge him formally or set him free. Convinced that the truth is his ally, Dmitri seems to try to answer their questions honestly, but his evasions about the money continue to make him appear suspicious", "analysis": ""}

Chapter V. The Third Ordeal 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. "Well--and 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 word--that'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 I--after dramatically describing how I wanted to kill him, and how I snatched up the pestle--I 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 you--are 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 conviction--my 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 chicken--sickly, epileptic, weak-minded--a 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 know--his 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 me--that'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, gentlemen--Smerdyakov, 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 everything--every 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 man--there'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 blood--Grigory'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 to-morrow." "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 blood-stained hands ... your money ... a lot of money ... a bundle of hundred-rouble notes, and that his servant-boy 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 apart"--Mitya 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 good-natured 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, write--write 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 it--no 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's--how 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 money--count it--take it. That's all, I think." He turned it all out of his pockets; even the small change--two pieces of twenty copecks--he pulled out of his waistcoat pocket. They counted the money, which amounted to eight hundred and thirty-six 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.

book 9, Chapter 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section12/

The Third Torment The officers continue to question Dmitri and to explore the evidence against him, trying to decide whether to charge him formally or set him free. Convinced that the truth is his ally, Dmitri seems to try to answer their questions honestly, but his evasions about the money continue to make him appear suspicious

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/95.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_94_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.epilogue.chapter 2

epilogue, chapter 2

{"name": "Epilogue, Book 12, Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/epilogue-book-12-chapter-2", "summary": "Alyosha then heads straight to the hospital, where Dmitri, who had come down with a fever after the trial, is being kept in a special area. Alyosha tells Dmitri not to feel bad about trying to escape - after all, he is innocent. He admonishes Dmitri just to remember his promise to reform his ways and become a new man. Dmitri tells Alyosha about his plans to escape with Grushenka to America, learn English, and return to Russia disguised as an American. Suddenly Katerina appears in the doorway. She rushes to Dmitri and clasps his hands, and they seem to come to a reconciliation over everything that's happened between them. Although they are both involved with other people now, they promise to love each other forever. Katerina also affirms that she too believes in Dmitri's innocence; she only revealed his letter at the trial out of petty jealousy. As Katerina leaves, she encounters Grushenka and asks her forgiveness, which Grushenka will give only if Katerina pulls off Dmitri's escape. Alyosha follows Katerina out the door, then heads over to a funeral.", "analysis": ""}

Chapter II. For A Moment The Lie Becomes Truth 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 kind-hearted 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 dressing-gown, 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 time--the 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 to-day, 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 declare--the superintendent of that _etape_ told Ivan himself--that 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 grammar--that'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 it--good-by to America! We'll run here to Russia as American citizens. Don't be uneasy--we 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 face--what'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 to-day. 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 yours--so 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 hurts--you remember how in Moscow I used to squeeze them--to 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 is--the bells are ringing for the service.... Leave me, please!"

Epilogue, Book 12, Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/epilogue-book-12-chapter-2

Alyosha then heads straight to the hospital, where Dmitri, who had come down with a fever after the trial, is being kept in a special area. Alyosha tells Dmitri not to feel bad about trying to escape - after all, he is innocent. He admonishes Dmitri just to remember his promise to reform his ways and become a new man. Dmitri tells Alyosha about his plans to escape with Grushenka to America, learn English, and return to Russia disguised as an American. Suddenly Katerina appears in the doorway. She rushes to Dmitri and clasps his hands, and they seem to come to a reconciliation over everything that's happened between them. Although they are both involved with other people now, they promise to love each other forever. Katerina also affirms that she too believes in Dmitri's innocence; she only revealed his letter at the trial out of petty jealousy. As Katerina leaves, she encounters Grushenka and asks her forgiveness, which Grushenka will give only if Katerina pulls off Dmitri's escape. Alyosha follows Katerina out the door, then heads over to a funeral.