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Every body in and about Highbury who had ever visited Mr. Elton, was
disposed to pay him attention on his marriage. Dinner-parties and
evening-parties were made for him and his lady; and invitations flowed
in so fast that she had soon the pleasure of apprehending they were
never to have a disengaged day.
"I see how it is," said she. "I see what a life I am to lead among you.
Upon my word we shall be absolutely dissipated. We really seem quite
the fashion. If this is living in the country, it is nothing very
formidable. From Monday next to Saturday, I assure you we have not a
disengaged day!--A woman with fewer resources than I have, need not have
been at a loss."
No invitation came amiss to her. Her Bath habits made evening-parties
perfectly natural to her, and Maple Grove had given her a taste for
dinners. She was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at
the poor attempt at rout-cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury
card-parties. Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Goddard and others, were a
good deal behind-hand in knowledge of the world, but she would soon shew
them how every thing ought to be arranged. In the course of the spring
she must return their civilities by one very superior party--in which
her card-tables should be set out with their separate candles and
unbroken packs in the true style--and more waiters engaged for the
evening than their own establishment could furnish, to carry round the
refreshments at exactly the proper hour, and in the proper order.
Emma, in the meanwhile, could not be satisfied without a dinner at
Hartfield for the Eltons. They must not do less than others, or she
should be exposed to odious suspicions, and imagined capable of pitiful
resentment. A dinner there must be. After Emma had talked about it for
ten minutes, Mr. Woodhouse felt no unwillingness, and only made the
usual stipulation of not sitting at the bottom of the table himself,
with the usual regular difficulty of deciding who should do it for him.
The persons to be invited, required little thought. Besides the
Eltons, it must be the Westons and Mr. Knightley; so far it was all of
course--and it was hardly less inevitable that poor little Harriet must
be asked to make the eighth:--but this invitation was not given with
equal satisfaction, and on many accounts Emma was particularly pleased
by Harriet's begging to be allowed to decline it. "She would rather not
be in his company more than she could help. She was not yet quite
able to see him and his charming happy wife together, without feeling
uncomfortable. If Miss Woodhouse would not be displeased, she would
rather stay at home." It was precisely what Emma would have wished, had
she deemed it possible enough for wishing. She was delighted with the
fortitude of her little friend--for fortitude she knew it was in her to
give up being in company and stay at home; and she could now invite the
very person whom she really wanted to make the eighth, Jane Fairfax.--
Since her last conversation with Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, she
was more conscience-stricken about Jane Fairfax than she had often
been.--Mr. Knightley's words dwelt with her. He had said that Jane
Fairfax received attentions from Mrs. Elton which nobody else paid her.
"This is very true," said she, "at least as far as relates to me, which
was all that was meant--and it is very shameful.--Of the same age--and
always knowing her--I ought to have been more her friend.--She will
never like me now. I have neglected her too long. But I will shew her
greater attention than I have done."
Every invitation was successful. They were all disengaged and all
happy.--The preparatory interest of this dinner, however, was not yet
over. A circumstance rather unlucky occurred. The two eldest little
Knightleys were engaged to pay their grandpapa and aunt a visit of some
weeks in the spring, and their papa now proposed bringing them, and
staying one whole day at Hartfield--which one day would be the very day
of this party.--His professional engagements did not allow of his being
put off, but both father and daughter were disturbed by its happening
so. Mr. Woodhouse considered eight persons at dinner together as the
utmost that his nerves could bear--and here would be a ninth--and Emma
apprehended that it would be a ninth very much out of humour at not
being able to come even to Hartfield for forty-eight hours without
falling in with a dinner-party.
She comforted her father better than she could comfort herself, by
representing that though he certainly would make them nine, yet
he always said so little, that the increase of noise would be very
immaterial. She thought it in reality a sad exchange for herself, to
have him with his grave looks and reluctant conversation opposed to her
instead of his brother.
The event was more favourable to Mr. Woodhouse than to Emma. John
Knightley came; but Mr. Weston was unexpectedly summoned to town and
must be absent on the very day. He might be able to join them in the
evening, but certainly not to dinner. Mr. Woodhouse was quite at ease;
and the seeing him so, with the arrival of the little boys and the
philosophic composure of her brother on hearing his fate, removed the
chief of even Emma's vexation.
The day came, the party were punctually assembled, and Mr. John
Knightley seemed early to devote himself to the business of being
agreeable. Instead of drawing his brother off to a window while they
waited for dinner, he was talking to Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton,
as elegant as lace and pearls could make her, he looked at in
silence--wanting only to observe enough for Isabella's information--but
Miss Fairfax was an old acquaintance and a quiet girl, and he could talk
to her. He had met her before breakfast as he was returning from a walk
with his little boys, when it had been just beginning to rain. It was
natural to have some civil hopes on the subject, and he said,
"I hope you did not venture far, Miss Fairfax, this morning, or I am
sure you must have been wet.--We scarcely got home in time. I hope you
turned directly."
"I went only to the post-office," said she, "and reached home before the
rain was much. It is my daily errand. I always fetch the letters when
I am here. It saves trouble, and is a something to get me out. A walk
before breakfast does me good."
"Not a walk in the rain, I should imagine."
"No, but it did not absolutely rain when I set out."
Mr. John Knightley smiled, and replied,
"That is to say, you chose to have your walk, for you were not six yards
from your own door when I had the pleasure of meeting you; and Henry
and John had seen more drops than they could count long before. The
post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have
lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going
through the rain for."
There was a little blush, and then this answer,
"I must not hope to be ever situated as you are, in the midst of every
dearest connexion, and therefore I cannot expect that simply growing
older should make me indifferent about letters."
"Indifferent! Oh! no--I never conceived you could become indifferent.
Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very
positive curse."
"You are speaking of letters of business; mine are letters of
friendship."
"I have often thought them the worst of the two," replied he coolly.
"Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does."
"Ah! you are not serious now. I know Mr. John Knightley too well--I am
very sure he understands the value of friendship as well as any body. I
can easily believe that letters are very little to you, much less than
to me, but it is not your being ten years older than myself which
makes the difference, it is not age, but situation. You have every
body dearest to you always at hand, I, probably, never shall again;
and therefore till I have outlived all my affections, a post-office,
I think, must always have power to draw me out, in worse weather than
to-day."
"When I talked of your being altered by time, by the progress of years,"
said John Knightley, "I meant to imply the change of situation which
time usually brings. I consider one as including the other. Time will
generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily
circle--but that is not the change I had in view for you. As an old
friend, you will allow me to hope, Miss Fairfax, that ten years hence
you may have as many concentrated objects as I have."
It was kindly said, and very far from giving offence. A pleasant "thank
you" seemed meant to laugh it off, but a blush, a quivering lip, a tear
in the eye, shewed that it was felt beyond a laugh. Her attention was
now claimed by Mr. Woodhouse, who being, according to his custom on such
occasions, making the circle of his guests, and paying his particular
compliments to the ladies, was ending with her--and with all his mildest
urbanity, said,
"I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning
in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves.--Young ladies
are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their
complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?"
"Yes, sir, I did indeed; and I am very much obliged by your kind
solicitude about me."
"My dear Miss Fairfax, young ladies are very sure to be cared for.--I
hope your good grand-mama and aunt are well. They are some of my very
old friends. I wish my health allowed me to be a better neighbour. You
do us a great deal of honour to-day, I am sure. My daughter and I
are both highly sensible of your goodness, and have the greatest
satisfaction in seeing you at Hartfield."
The kind-hearted, polite old man might then sit down and feel that he
had done his duty, and made every fair lady welcome and easy.
By this time, the walk in the rain had reached Mrs. Elton, and her
remonstrances now opened upon Jane.
"My dear Jane, what is this I hear?--Going to the post-office in the
rain!--This must not be, I assure you.--You sad girl, how could you do
such a thing?--It is a sign I was not there to take care of you."
Jane very patiently assured her that she had not caught any cold.
"Oh! do not tell _me_. You really are a very sad girl, and do not know
how to take care of yourself.--To the post-office indeed! Mrs. Weston,
did you ever hear the like? You and I must positively exert our
authority."
"My advice," said Mrs. Weston kindly and persuasively, "I certainly do
feel tempted to give. Miss Fairfax, you must not run such risks.--Liable
as you have been to severe colds, indeed you ought to be particularly
careful, especially at this time of year. The spring I always think
requires more than common care. Better wait an hour or two, or even
half a day for your letters, than run the risk of bringing on your cough
again. Now do not you feel that you had? Yes, I am sure you are much too
reasonable. You look as if you would not do such a thing again."
"Oh! she _shall_ _not_ do such a thing again," eagerly rejoined Mrs.
Elton. "We will not allow her to do such a thing again:"--and nodding
significantly--"there must be some arrangement made, there must indeed.
I shall speak to Mr. E. The man who fetches our letters every morning
(one of our men, I forget his name) shall inquire for yours too and
bring them to you. That will obviate all difficulties you know; and from
_us_ I really think, my dear Jane, you can have no scruple to accept
such an accommodation."
"You are extremely kind," said Jane; "but I cannot give up my early
walk. I am advised to be out of doors as much as I can, I must walk
somewhere, and the post-office is an object; and upon my word, I have
scarcely ever had a bad morning before."
"My dear Jane, say no more about it. The thing is determined, that is
(laughing affectedly) as far as I can presume to determine any thing
without the concurrence of my lord and master. You know, Mrs. Weston,
you and I must be cautious how we express ourselves. But I do flatter
myself, my dear Jane, that my influence is not entirely worn out. If I
meet with no insuperable difficulties therefore, consider that point as
settled."
"Excuse me," said Jane earnestly, "I cannot by any means consent to such
an arrangement, so needlessly troublesome to your servant. If the errand
were not a pleasure to me, it could be done, as it always is when I am
not here, by my grandmama's."
"Oh! my dear; but so much as Patty has to do!--And it is a kindness to
employ our men."
Jane looked as if she did not mean to be conquered; but instead of
answering, she began speaking again to Mr. John Knightley.
"The post-office is a wonderful establishment!" said she.--"The
regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do,
and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!"
"It is certainly very well regulated."
"So seldom that any negligence or blunder appears! So seldom that
a letter, among the thousands that are constantly passing about the
kingdom, is even carried wrong--and not one in a million, I suppose,
actually lost! And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad
hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder."
"The clerks grow expert from habit.--They must begin with some quickness
of sight and hand, and exercise improves them. If you want any farther
explanation," continued he, smiling, "they are paid for it. That is
the key to a great deal of capacity. The public pays and must be served
well."
The varieties of handwriting were farther talked of, and the usual
observations made.
"I have heard it asserted," said John Knightley, "that the same sort
of handwriting often prevails in a family; and where the same master
teaches, it is natural enough. But for that reason, I should imagine
the likeness must be chiefly confined to the females, for boys have very
little teaching after an early age, and scramble into any hand they can
get. Isabella and Emma, I think, do write very much alike. I have not
always known their writing apart."
"Yes," said his brother hesitatingly, "there is a likeness. I know what
you mean--but Emma's hand is the strongest."
"Isabella and Emma both write beautifully," said Mr. Woodhouse; "and
always did. And so does poor Mrs. Weston"--with half a sigh and half a
smile at her.
"I never saw any gentleman's handwriting"--Emma began, looking also at
Mrs. Weston; but stopped, on perceiving that Mrs. Weston was attending
to some one else--and the pause gave her time to reflect, "Now, how am
I going to introduce him?--Am I unequal to speaking his name at once
before all these people? Is it necessary for me to use any roundabout
phrase?--Your Yorkshire friend--your correspondent in Yorkshire;--that
would be the way, I suppose, if I were very bad.--No, I can pronounce
his name without the smallest distress. I certainly get better and
better.--Now for it."
Mrs. Weston was disengaged and Emma began again--"Mr. Frank Churchill
writes one of the best gentleman's hands I ever saw."
"I do not admire it," said Mr. Knightley. "It is too small--wants
strength. It is like a woman's writing."
This was not submitted to by either lady. They vindicated him against
the base aspersion. "No, it by no means wanted strength--it was not a
large hand, but very clear and certainly strong. Had not Mrs. Weston any
letter about her to produce?" No, she had heard from him very lately,
but having answered the letter, had put it away.
"If we were in the other room," said Emma, "if I had my writing-desk, I
am sure I could produce a specimen. I have a note of his.--Do not you
remember, Mrs. Weston, employing him to write for you one day?"
"He chose to say he was employed"--
"Well, well, I have that note; and can shew it after dinner to convince
Mr. Knightley."
"Oh! when a gallant young man, like Mr. Frank Churchill," said Mr.
Knightley dryly, "writes to a fair lady like Miss Woodhouse, he will, of
course, put forth his best."
Dinner was on table.--Mrs. Elton, before she could be spoken to, was
ready; and before Mr. Woodhouse had reached her with his request to be
allowed to hand her into the dining-parlour, was saying--
"Must I go first? I really am ashamed of always leading the way."
Jane's solicitude about fetching her own letters had not escaped Emma.
She had heard and seen it all; and felt some curiosity to know whether
the wet walk of this morning had produced any. She suspected that it
_had_; that it would not have been so resolutely encountered but in full
expectation of hearing from some one very dear, and that it had not been
in vain. She thought there was an air of greater happiness than usual--a
glow both of complexion and spirits.
She could have made an inquiry or two, as to the expedition and the
expense of the Irish mails;--it was at her tongue's end--but she
abstained. She was quite determined not to utter a word that should hurt
Jane Fairfax's feelings; and they followed the other ladies out of the
room, arm in arm, with an appearance of good-will highly becoming to the
beauty and grace of each. | Emma decides to have a party for the Eltons at Hartfield to hide her contempt for the couple. Besides the Eltons, Emma invites Mr. Knightley, the Westons, and Jane Fairfax. During the party, they discuss Jane's trip to the post office and her handwriting. Mr. Knightley makes another disparaging comment about Frank Churchill, claiming his writing is like a woman's, while Emma wonders what letters Jane might receive. Are they sent by Mr. Dixon, or the Campbells, or another person altogether. |
THE HUNTING OF THE INVISIBLE MAN
For a space Kemp was too inarticulate to make Adye understand the
swift things that had just happened. They stood on the landing,
Kemp speaking swiftly, the grotesque swathings of Griffin still on
his arm. But presently Adye began to grasp something of the
situation.
"He is mad," said Kemp; "inhuman. He is pure selfishness. He thinks
of nothing but his own advantage, his own safety. I have listened
to such a story this morning of brutal self-seeking.... He has wounded
men. He will kill them unless we can prevent him. He will create a
panic. Nothing can stop him. He is going out now--furious!"
"He must be caught," said Adye. "That is certain."
"But how?" cried Kemp, and suddenly became full of ideas. "You must
begin at once. You must set every available man to work; you must
prevent his leaving this district. Once he gets away, he may go
through the countryside as he wills, killing and maiming. He dreams
of a reign of terror! A reign of terror, I tell you. You must set a
watch on trains and roads and shipping. The garrison must help. You
must wire for help. The only thing that may keep him here is the
thought of recovering some books of notes he counts of value. I will
tell you of that! There is a man in your police station--Marvel."
"I know," said Adye, "I know. Those books--yes. But the tramp...."
"Says he hasn't them. But he thinks the tramp has. And you must
prevent him from eating or sleeping; day and night the country must
be astir for him. Food must be locked up and secured, all food, so
that he will have to break his way to it. The houses everywhere must
be barred against him. Heaven send us cold nights and rain! The
whole country-side must begin hunting and keep hunting. I tell you,
Adye, he is a danger, a disaster; unless he is pinned and secured,
it is frightful to think of the things that may happen."
"What else can we do?" said Adye. "I must go down at once and begin
organising. But why not come? Yes--you come too! Come, and we
must hold a sort of council of war--get Hopps to help--and the
railway managers. By Jove! it's urgent. Come along--tell me as we
go. What else is there we can do? Put that stuff down."
In another moment Adye was leading the way downstairs. They found
the front door open and the policemen standing outside staring at
empty air. "He's got away, sir," said one.
"We must go to the central station at once," said Adye. "One of you
go on down and get a cab to come up and meet us--quickly. And
now, Kemp, what else?"
"Dogs," said Kemp. "Get dogs. They don't see him, but they wind
him. Get dogs."
"Good," said Adye. "It's not generally known, but the prison
officials over at Halstead know a man with bloodhounds. Dogs. What
else?"
"Bear in mind," said Kemp, "his food shows. After eating, his food
shows until it is assimilated. So that he has to hide after eating.
You must keep on beating. Every thicket, every quiet corner. And
put all weapons--all implements that might be weapons, away. He
can't carry such things for long. And what he can snatch up and
strike men with must be hidden away."
"Good again," said Adye. "We shall have him yet!"
"And on the roads," said Kemp, and hesitated.
"Yes?" said Adye.
"Powdered glass," said Kemp. "It's cruel, I know. But think of what
he may do!"
Adye drew the air in sharply between his teeth. "It's
unsportsmanlike. I don't know. But I'll have powdered glass got
ready. If he goes too far...."
"The man's become inhuman, I tell you," said Kemp. "I am as sure he
will establish a reign of terror--so soon as he has got over the
emotions of this escape--as I am sure I am talking to you. Our
only chance is to be ahead. He has cut himself off from his kind.
His blood be upon his own head." | Kemp explains to Adye that they have to take measures against Griffin because he's insane, a person of "pure selfishness" . They have some advantages, though. For one thing, they know that Griffin wants to get to Marvel and his stolen books. Also, Griffin basically told Kemp his life story, so they have all that information. Kemp knows that they can keep him unstable by making sure he doesn't get a moment to eat or sleep. And of course, he knows that they can use dogs against Griffin. Kemp even suggests that they put powdered glass on the roads, but Adye objects that "t's unsportsmanlike" . At least someone's worried about that. Kemp counters that Griffin is inhuman, that "e has cut himself off from his kind. His blood be upon his own head" . Man, we wish we could think of a joke to put here, but this is dark. |
SCENE V.
Another part of the forest
Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and OTHERS
SONG
AMIENS. Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
JAQUES. More, more, I prithee, more.
AMIENS. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.
JAQUES. I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy
out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.
AMIENS. My voice is ragged; I know I cannot please you.
JAQUES. I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing.
Come, more; another stanzo. Call you 'em stanzos?
AMIENS. What you will, Monsieur Jaques.
JAQUES. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing.
Will you sing?
AMIENS. More at your request than to please myself.
JAQUES. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you; but
that they call compliment is like th' encounter of two dog-apes;
and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks have given him a
penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you
that will not, hold your tongues.
AMIENS. Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the Duke
will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look
you.
JAQUES. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is to
disputable for my company. I think of as many matters as he; but
I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble,
come.
SONG
[All together here]
Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' th' sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleas'd with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
JAQUES. I'll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in
despite of my invention.
AMIENS. And I'll sing it.
JAQUES. Thus it goes:
If it do come to pass
That any man turn ass,
Leaving his wealth and ease
A stubborn will to please,
Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame;
Here shall he see
Gross fools as he,
An if he will come to me.
AMIENS. What's that 'ducdame'?
JAQUES. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle.
I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the
first-born of Egypt.
AMIENS. And I'll go seek the Duke; his banquet is prepar'd.
Exeunt severally | Amiens, Jaques, and several lords of Duke Senior are gathered in another part of the forest. Amiens has been singing, and Jaques urges him to continue while the others sing along. Amiens does so and orders the others to lay out a meal under the trees. Jaques has been avoiding the duke all day, calling him "too disputable for my company." He contributes a cynical verse of his own composition to Amiens' song, then lies down to rest while Amiens goes to seek the duke. |
From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the
next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had
closed her eyes.
Elinor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt; and
before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and
again; and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on
Elinor's side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on
Marianne's, as before. Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as
unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every
consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him. At one moment she
was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at
another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third
could resist it with energy. In one thing, however, she was uniform,
when it came to the point, in avoiding, where it was possible, the
presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to
endure it. Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs.
Jennings's entering into her sorrows with any compassion.
"No, no, no, it cannot be," she cried; "she cannot feel. Her kindness
is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness. All that she wants
is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it."
Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her
sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable
refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her
on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished
manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be
that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an
excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected
from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she
judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on
herself. Thus a circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together
in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs.
Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own
weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though
Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.
With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling,
from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying,
"Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good."
Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination placed before her
a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition,
explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and
instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room
to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances
of his letter. The work of one moment was destroyed by the next. The
hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her;
and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an
ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had
never suffered.
The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her
moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could
reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with
passionate violence--a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its
object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still
referring her to the letter of comfort. But the letter, when she was
calm enough to read it, brought little comfort. Willoughby filled
every page. Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and
relying as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by
Elinor's application, to intreat from Marianne greater openness towards
them both; and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection
for Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each
other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it.
All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was
dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken
confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone.
Elinor, unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne
to be in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of
patience till their mother's wishes could be known; and at length she
obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge.
Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy
till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself;
and positively refusing Elinor's offered attendance, went out alone for
the rest of the morning. Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the
pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne's
letter, how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then
sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat
her directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the
drawing-room on Mrs. Jennings's going away, remained fixed at the table
where Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over
her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly
over its effect on her mother.
In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when
Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was
startled by a rap at the door.
"Who can this be?" cried Elinor. "So early too! I thought we HAD been
safe."
Marianne moved to the window--
"It is Colonel Brandon!" said she, with vexation. "We are never safe
from HIM."
"He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home."
"I will not trust to THAT," retreating to her own room. "A man who has
nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on
that of others."
The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on
injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon DID come in; and Elinor, who
was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who
saw THAT solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his
anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister
for esteeming him so lightly.
"I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street," said he, after the first
salutation, "and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more
easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you
alone, which I was very desirous of doing. My object--my wish--my sole
wish in desiring it--I hope, I believe it is--is to be a means of
giving comfort;--no, I must not say comfort--not present comfort--but
conviction, lasting conviction to your sister's mind. My regard for
her, for yourself, for your mother--will you allow me to prove it, by
relating some circumstances which nothing but a VERY sincere
regard--nothing but an earnest desire of being useful--I think I am
justified--though where so many hours have been spent in convincing
myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be
wrong?" He stopped.
"I understand you," said Elinor. "You have something to tell me of Mr.
Willoughby, that will open his character farther. Your telling it will
be the greatest act of friendship that can be shewn Marianne. MY
gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to
that end, and HERS must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray let me
hear it."
"You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,--but
this will give you no idea--I must go farther back. You will find me a
very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin. A
short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it SHALL be
a short one. On such a subject," sighing heavily, "can I have little
temptation to be diffuse."
He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went
on.
"You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation--(it is not to be
supposed that it could make any impression on you)--a conversation
between us one evening at Barton Park--it was the evening of a
dance--in which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling, in
some measure, your sister Marianne."
"Indeed," answered Elinor, "I have NOT forgotten it." He looked pleased
by this remembrance, and added,
"If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender
recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well
in mind as person. The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of
fancy and spirits. This lady was one of my nearest relations, an
orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father. Our
ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were
playfellows and friends. I cannot remember the time when I did not
love Eliza; and my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as
perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you
might think me incapable of having ever felt. Hers, for me, was, I
believe, fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and
it was, though from a different cause, no less unfortunate. At
seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married--married
against her inclination to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our
family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be
said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian.
My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her. I had hoped
that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for
some time it did; but at last the misery of her situation, for she
experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though
she had promised me that nothing--but how blindly I relate! I have
never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of
eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my
cousin's maid betrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation
far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement,
till my father's point was gained. I had depended on her fortitude too
far, and the blow was a severe one--but had her marriage been happy, so
young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at
least I should not have now to lament it. This however was not the
case. My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what
they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly.
The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so
inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural. She resigned
herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it
been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the
remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with such a
husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or
restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after their
marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should
fall? Had I remained in England, perhaps--but I meant to promote the
happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose
had procured my exchange. The shock which her marriage had given me,"
he continued, in a voice of great agitation, "was of trifling
weight--was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years
afterwards, of her divorce. It was THAT which threw this gloom,--even
now the recollection of what I suffered--"
He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about
the room. Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his
distress, could not speak. He saw her concern, and coming to her, took
her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few
minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure.
"It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned
to England. My first care, when I DID arrive, was of course to seek
for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could
not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to
fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of
sin. Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor
sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my
brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months
before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it,
that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to
dispose of it for some immediate relief. At last, however, and after I
had been six months in England, I DID find her. Regard for a former
servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to
visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and
there, in the same house, under a similar confinement, was my unfortunate
sister. So altered--so faded--worn down by acute suffering of every
kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before
me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom
I had once doted. What I endured in so beholding her--but I have no
right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it--I have
pained you too much already. That she was, to all appearance, in the
last stage of a consumption, was--yes, in such a situation it was my
greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time
for a better preparation for death; and that was given. I saw her
placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited
her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her
last moments."
Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in
an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate friend.
"Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended," said he, "by the resemblance
I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation. Their
fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet
disposition of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier
marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other
be. But to what does all this lead? I seem to have been distressing
you for nothing. Ah! Miss Dashwood--a subject such as this--untouched
for fourteen years--it is dangerous to handle it at all! I WILL be
more collected--more concise. She left to my care her only child, a
little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then
about three years old. She loved the child, and had always kept it
with her. It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I
have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her
education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I
had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at
school. I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my
brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the
possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford. I
called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in
general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her. It is now
three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I
removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very
respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four
or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I
had every reason to be pleased with her situation. But last February,
almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared. I had allowed
her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire,
to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her
father there for his health. I knew him to be a very good sort of man,
and I thought well of his daughter--better than she deserved, for, with
a most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would
give no clue, though she certainly knew all. He, her father, a
well-meaning, but not a quick-sighted man, could really, I believe,
give no information; for he had been generally confined to the house,
while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance
they chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was
convinced himself, of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the
business. In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone; all
the rest, for eight long months, was left to conjecture. What I
thought, what I feared, may be imagined; and what I suffered too."
"Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "could it be--could Willoughby!"--
"The first news that reached me of her," he continued, "came in a
letter from herself, last October. It was forwarded to me from
Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party
to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly,
which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body,
and which I believe gave offence to some. Little did Mr. Willoughby
imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in
breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom
he had made poor and miserable; but HAD he known it, what would it have
availed? Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of
your sister? No, he had already done that, which no man who CAN feel
for another would do. He had left the girl whose youth and innocence
he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no
creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had
left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor
relieved her."
"This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor.
"His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than
both. Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what
I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on
being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have felt
for all your sakes. When I came to you last week and found you alone,
I came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to do when
it WAS known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then; but
now you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so deceived; to
see your sister--but what could I do? I had no hope of interfering
with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet
reclaim him. But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what
were his designs on her. Whatever they may have been, however, she may
now, and hereafter doubtless WILL turn with gratitude towards her own
condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she
considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and
pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as
strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which
must attend her through life. Surely this comparison must have its use
with her. She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing. They
proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace. On the
contrary, every friend must be made still more her friend by them.
Concern for her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it,
must strengthen every attachment. Use your own discretion, however, in
communicating to her what I have told you. You must know best what
will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed
it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have
suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family
afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to
raise myself at the expense of others."
Elinor's thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness;
attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to
Marianne, from the communication of what had passed.
"I have been more pained," said she, "by her endeavors to acquit him
than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most
perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first
she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have
you," she continued, after a short silence, "ever seen Mr. Willoughby
since you left him at Barton?"
"Yes," he replied gravely, "once I have. One meeting was unavoidable."
Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying,
"What? have you met him to--"
"I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though most
reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town, which
was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to
defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the
meeting, therefore, never got abroad."
Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a
soldier she presumed not to censure it.
"Such," said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, "has been the unhappy
resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imperfectly
have I discharged my trust!"
"Is she still in town?"
"No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near
her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there
she remains."
Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor
from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again
the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion
and esteem for him. | Marianne awakes the next morning just as miserable as the day before. She and Elinor discuss the situation over and over again - she keeps going back and forth on the issue of how much blame to place on Willoughby. One thing Marianne doesn't waver on is her desire to not see Mrs. Jennings, who she finds profoundly unhelpful. Even Mrs. Jennings's good-natured idea that a letter from home will make Marianne feel better convinces the afflicted girl of her hostess's lack of sensitivity - after all, the only thing that could make Marianne feel better is the appearance of a contrite Willoughby. To make matters worse, the letter from Mrs. Dashwood is full of questions and hints about Willoughby, since she doesn't know what has happened yet. Marianne is more resolved to go home than ever, but Elinor convinces her to wait and see what their mother says about the situation. Mrs. Jennings goes out on her social calls earlier than usual that day; she can't wait to tell people the news about Marianne and Willoughby. While she's gone, Colonel Brandon shows up again. Marianne, not wanting to see him, leaves the room. Elinor meets with the Colonel alone - he has something to tell them about Willoughby that might make Marianne feel somewhat better, or at least make her feel lucky that she didn't actually get stuck marrying him. Finally, we get the story of Colonel's mysterious past, and his mysterious departure from Barton last fall. He takes us all the way back to a comment that he made to Elinor way early on in their acquaintance - about how Marianne reminds him of someone he once knew. The lady Marianne reminds him of is his orphaned cousin, Eliza, who he'd loved ever since they were both kids. We get their whole tragic love history: At seventeen, despite her love for Colonel Brandon, Eliza is married off to the Colonel's brother. The reason is this - Eliza has inherited a lot of money, and the Brandons are kind of in the lurch financially, so the Colonel's father strong-arms her into the marriage. Colonel Brandon and Eliza continue to love each other, despite the fact that she is married to his undeserving brother. They plan to elope, but they are thwarted by a treacherous maid - Eliza is punished by her father-in-law and husband, while Colonel Brandon is sent away, first to a distant relative's house, then to the East Indies with the army. Two years later, he hears that Eliza is divorced. At this point in telling his story, the Colonel has to pause - he's too distressed to continue. Elinor is concerned for her friend; he assures her that he's OK and continues. Three years later, Colonel Brandon finally returns home to England. The first thing he does is seek out Eliza - it's a difficult search. Apparently, she'd been seduced by a series of bad men, and fallen into a disreputable life. From what he gathers from his brother, Eliza doesn't even have enough money left to keep her in good health. Coincidence leads Colonel Brandon to a "spunging house," a kind of debtor's prison, where he finds Eliza, about to die of consumption . Colonel Brandon pays for Eliza to be moved to a better place to live, and tries to make her happy for the rest of her brief life. The Colonel pauses here in his story to assure Elinor that he doesn't think the same thing will happen to Marianne - their resemblance will surely not lead to similar fates. Back to his story: When Eliza dies, she leaves Colonel Brandon in charge of her only child, a little girl who was born out of wedlock after her first affair. The child is only about three years old. It turns out that this is the girl that Mrs. Jennings thought was Colonel Brandon's love child - in fact, she's his ward . Colonel Brandon provides the little girl with schooling and then with a caretaker in Dorset, where she lives with a bunch of other girls about her own age . Last February, though, Eliza disappeared. The Colonel had given her permission to go to Bath with a friend and the friend's family - and from there, she ran off somewhere. Nobody could or would say where - and she was gone for eight mysterious months. Elinor realizes that this, unfortunately, is probably where Willoughby comes in. Colonel Brandon goes on. Last October, when he had to flee from Barton, he'd received news of Eliza - actually, a letter from the girl herself. He confirms the fact that Eliza's disappearance was Willoughby's fault - he'd seduced her, left her, promised to return, but then never did. Basically, he got her pregnant and fled the scene. Elinor is shocked and dismayed. Colonel Brandon explains that this is why he's been so worried about Marianne's relationship with Willoughby - he didn't want to interfere, and he'd thought that maybe Marianne could reform him. However, it's clear that she couldn't. Colonel Brandon hopes that Marianne can at least feel grateful that she's not in the same situation as poor the poor young Eliza. Elinor asks if Colonel Brandon has seen Willoughby since this all went down. Apparently, he challenged the younger man to a duel, but both of them emerged unscathed. Elinor then inquires about Eliza's state - and learns that the girl, who just had her baby, has been moved to the country. His tale told, Colonel Brandon departs. |
[The DUKE's castle.]
Enter BEL-IMPERIA and HIERONIMO.
BEL-IMPERIA. Is this the love thou bear'st Horatio?
Is this the kindness that thou counterfeit'st,
Are these the fruits of thine incessant tears?
Hieronimo, are these thy passions,
Thy protestations and thy deep laments,
That thou wert wont to weary men withal?
O unkind father! O deceitful world!
With what excuses canst thou show thyself,--
With what dishonour, and the hate of men,--
Thus to neglect the loss and life of him
Whom both my letters and thine own belief
Assures thee to be causeless slaughtered?
Hieronimo! for shame, Hieronimo,
Be not a history to after times
Of such ingratitude unto thy son!
Unhappy mothers of such children then!
But monstrous fathers, to forget so soon
The death of those whom they with care and cost
Have tender'd so, thus careless should be lost!
Myself, a stranger in respect to thee,
So lov'd his life as still I wish their deaths.
Nor shall his death be unreveng'd by me.
Although I bear it out for fashion's sake;
For here I swear in sight of heav'n and earth,
Shouldst thou neglect the love thou shouldst retain
And give it over and devise no more,
Myself should send their hateful souls to hell
That wrought his downfall with extremest death!
HIE. But may it be that Bel-imperia
Vows such revenge as she hath deign'd to say?
Why then, I see that heav'n applies our drift,
And all the saints do sit soliciting
For vengeance on those cursed murtherers.
Madame, 'tis true, and now I find it so.
I found a letter, written in your name,
And in that letter, how Horatio died.
Pardon, O pardon, Bel-imperia,
My fear and care in not believing it!
Nor think I thoughtless think upon a mean
To let his death be unreveng'd at full.
And here I vow, so you but give consent
And will conceal my resolution,
I will ere long determine of their deaths
That causeless thus have murdered my son.
BEL. Hieronimo, I will consent, conceal,
And aught that may effect for thine avail,
Join with thee to revenge Horatio's death.
HIER. On then, and whatsoever I devise,
Let me entreat you grace my practice,
For-why the plot's already in mine head.--
Here they are!
Enter BALTHAZAR and LORENZO.
BAL. How now, Hieronimo?
What, courting Bel-imperia?
HIERO. Aye, my lord,
Such courting as, I promise you,
She hath my heart, but you, my lord, have hers.
LOR. But now, Hieronimo, or never
We are to entreat your help.
HIE. My help?
Why, my good lords, assure yourselves of me;
For you have giv'n me cause,--
Aye, by my faith, have you!
BAL. It pleased you
At the entertainment of the ambassador,
To grace the King so much as with a show;
Now were your study so well furnished
As, for the passing of the first night's sport,
To entertain my father with the like,
Or any such like pleasing motion,
Assure yourself it would content them well.
HIERO. Is this all?
BAL. Aye, this is all.
HIERO. Why then I'll fit you; say no more.
When I was young I gave my mind
And plied myself to fruitless poetry,
Which, though it profit the professor naught,
Yet is it passing pleasing to the world.
LOR. And how for that?
HIERO. Marry, my good lord, thus.--
And yet, me thinks, you are too quick with us!--
When in Toledo there I studied,
It was my chance to write a tragedy,--
See here, my lords,--
He shows them a book.
Which, long forgot, I found this other day.
Nor would your lordships favour me so much
As but to grace me with your acting it,
I mean each one of you to play a part.
Assure you it will prove most passing strange
And wondrous plausible to that assembly.
BAL. What, would you have us play a tragedy?
HIERO. Why, Nero thought it no disparagement,
And kings and emperors have ta'en delight
To make experience of their wit in plays!
LOR. Nay, be not angry, good Hieronimo;
The prince but ask'd a question.
BAL. In faith, Hieronimo, and you be in earnest,
I'll make one.
LOR. And I another.
HIERO. Now, my good lord, could you entreat,
Your sister, Bel-imperia, to make one,--
For what's a play without a woman in it?
BEL. Little entreaty shall serve me, Hieronimo,
For I must needs be employed in your play.
HIERO. Why, this is well! I tell you, lordings,
It was determined to have been acted,
By gentlemen and scholars too,
Such as could tell what to speak.
BAL. And now
It shall be play'd by princes and courtiers,
Such as can tell how to speak,
If, as it is our country manner,
You will but let us know the argument.
HIERO. That shall I roundly. The chronicles of Spain
Record this written of a knight of Rhodes;
He was betroth'd, and wedded at the length,
To one Perseda, an Italian dame,
Whose beauty ravish'd all that her beheld,
Especially the soul of Suleiman,
Who at the marriage was the chiefest guest.
By sundry means sought Suleiman to win
Perseda's love, and could not gain the same.
Then 'gan he break his passions to a friend,
One of his bashaws whom he held full dear.
Her has this bashaw long solicited,
And saw she was not otherwise to be won
But by her husband's death, this knight of Rhodes,
Whom presently by treachery he slew.
She, stirr'd with an exceeding hate therefore,
As cause of this, slew Sultan Suleiman,
And, to escape the bashaw's tyranny,
Did stab herself. And this is the tragedy.
LOR. O, excellent!
BEL. But say, Hieronimo:
What then became of him that was the bashaw?
HIERO.
Marry thus:
Moved with remorse of his misdeeds,
Ran to a mountain top and hung himself.
BAL. But which of us is to perform that part?
HIERO. O, that will I, my lords; make no doubt of it;
I'll play the murderer, I warrant you;
For I already have conceited that.
BAL. And what shall I?
HIERO. Great Suleiman, the Turkish emperor.
LOR. And I?
HIERO. Erastus, the knight of Rhodes.
BEL. And I?
HIERO. Perseda, chaste and resolute.
And here, my lords, are several abstracts drawn,
For each of you to note your several parts.
And act it as occasion's offer'd you.
You must provide you with a Turkish cap,
A black moustache and a fauchion.
Gives paper to BALTHAZAR.
You with a cross, like a knight of Rhodes.
Gives another to LORENZO.
And, madame, you must then attire yourself
He giveth BEL-IMPERIA another.
Like Phoebe, Flora, or the huntress Dian,
Which to your discretion shall seem best.
And as for me, my lords, I'll look to one,
And with the ransom that the viceroy sent
So furnish and perform this tragedy
As all the world shall say Hieronimo
Was liberal in gracing of it so.
BAL. Hieronimo, methinks a comedy were better.
HIERO. A comedy? fie! comedies are fit for common wits;
But to present a kingly troupe withal,
Give me a stately-written tragedy,--
Tragedia cothurnata, fitting kings,
Containing matter, and not common things!
My lords, all this our sport must be perform'd,
As fitting for the first night's revelling.
The Italian tragedians were so sharp
Of wit that in one hour's meditation
They would perform any-thing in action.
LOR. And well it may, for I have seen the like
In Paris, 'mongst the French tragedians.
HIERO. In Paris? mass, and well remembered!--
There's one thing more that rests for us to do.
BAL. What's that, Hieronimo?
Forget not anything.
HIERO. Each one of us
Must act his part in unknown languages,
That it may breed the more variety:
As you, my lord, in Latin, I in Greek,
You in Italian, and, for-because I know
That Bel-imperia hath practised the French,
In courtly French shall all her phrases be.
BEL. You mean to try my cunning then, Hieronimo!
BAL. But this will be a mere confusion,
And hardly shall we all be understood.
HEIRO. It must be so; for the conclusion
Shall prove the invention and all was good;
And I myself in an oration,
That I will have there behind a curtain,
And with a strange and wondrous show besides,
Assure yourself, shall make the matter known.
And all shall be concluded in one scene,
For there's no pleasure ta'en in tediousness.
BAL. [to LOR.] How like you this?
LOR. Why thus, my lord, we must resolve,
To soothe his humors up.
BAL. On then, Hieronimo; farewell till soon!
HIERO. You'll ply this gear?
LOR. I warrant you.
Exeuent all but HIERONIMO.
HIERO. Why, so! now shall I see the fall of Babylon
Wrought by the heav'ns in this confusion.
And, if the world like not this tragedy,
Hard is the hap of old Hieronimo.
Exit. | The scene opens with Bel-Imperia giving Hieronimo a hard time for slacking in his revenge duties. She is dismayed that her letter was not enough to inspire him into action. Hieronimo says something like, "my bad, but I didn't know if I could trust the letter." And she's probably thinking, "good thing I wrote the letter in blood." The two characters smooth everything over and Bel-Imperia promises to do anything she can to get revenge. Lorenzo and Balthazar roll up. Remember earlier when Hieronimo staged a little play in celebration of Spain defeating Portugal in war? Well, Lorenzo and Balthazar have now come along asking him to stage a new play for the wedding. Hieronimo accepts the job, reminding everyone along the way that he was a poet in his youth. Conveniently, Hieronimo says he actually has a tragedy he wrote long ago that he is prepared to stage. His only request is that Lorenzo and Balthazar star in the production. After a bit of reluctance on Balthazar's part, the two conspirators decide they are up for taking on major parts in the production. Bel-Imperia also says she's down for the play. Hieronimo explains that the play is about a knight betrothed to marry an Italian dame whose beauty has stolen the hearts of many a man, including the Turkish Emperor, Suleilman. In the play, Suleilman comes to the wedding to scheme on how to steal the Italian dame from her knight. But when the lady shames his game he hires some thugs to kill her man . Suleilman's plan goes haywire when the Italian dame kills herself after the murder. Lorenzo and Balthazar ignore the uncanny resemblance the play bears to their lives, and agree to take on the roles. Everyone wants to be a star. We now have a cast for the play: Balthazar will play Suleilman, Bel-Imperia takes on the Italian dame, and Lorenzo is cast as the dame's fiance. Does anyone else find it interesting/creepy that Lorenzo and Bel-Imperia will play lovers in the play? Oh yeah, one more thing: each character will speak a different language in the play, which sounds downright confusing. But maybe that's the point. Hieronimo announces that he will give the audience the script in a single language so they can read along with the action. This means the audience will know more than the actors--juicy stuff. |
My daughter--O my ducats--O my daughter!
------O my Christian ducats!
Justice--the Law--my ducats, and my daughter!
--Merchant of Venice
Leaving the Saxon chiefs to return to their banquet as soon as their
ungratified curiosity should permit them to attend to the calls of their
half-satiated appetite, we have to look in upon the yet more severe
imprisonment of Isaac of York. The poor Jew had been hastily thrust into
a dungeon-vault of the castle, the floor of which was deep beneath
the level of the ground, and very damp, being lower than even the moat
itself. The only light was received through one or two loop-holes far
above the reach of the captive's hand. These apertures admitted, even
at mid-day, only a dim and uncertain light, which was changed for utter
darkness long before the rest of the castle had lost the blessing of
day. Chains and shackles, which had been the portion of former captives,
from whom active exertions to escape had been apprehended, hung rusted
and empty on the walls of the prison, and in the rings of one of those
sets of fetters there remained two mouldering bones, which seemed to
have been once those of the human leg, as if some prisoner had been left
not only to perish there, but to be consumed to a skeleton.
At one end of this ghastly apartment was a large fire-grate, over the
top of which were stretched some transverse iron bars, half devoured
with rust.
The whole appearance of the dungeon might have appalled a stouter heart
than that of Isaac, who, nevertheless, was more composed under the
imminent pressure of danger, than he had seemed to be while affected by
terrors, of which the cause was as yet remote and contingent. The lovers
of the chase say that the hare feels more agony during the pursuit of
the greyhounds, than when she is struggling in their fangs. [27]
And thus it is probable, that the Jews, by the very frequency of their
fear on all occasions, had their minds in some degree prepared for
every effort of tyranny which could be practised upon them; so that no
aggression, when it had taken place, could bring with it that surprise
which is the most disabling quality of terror. Neither was it the first
time that Isaac had been placed in circumstances so dangerous. He had
therefore experience to guide him, as well as hope, that he might again,
as formerly, be delivered as a prey from the fowler. Above all, he had
upon his side the unyielding obstinacy of his nation, and that unbending
resolution, with which Israelites have been frequently known to submit
to the uttermost evils which power and violence can inflict upon them,
rather than gratify their oppressors by granting their demands.
In this humour of passive resistance, and with his garment collected
beneath him to keep his limbs from the wet pavement, Isaac sat in a
corner of his dungeon, where his folded hands, his dishevelled hair and
beard, his furred cloak and high cap, seen by the wiry and broken light,
would have afforded a study for Rembrandt, had that celebrated painter
existed at the period. The Jew remained, without altering his position,
for nearly three hours, at the expiry of which steps were heard on the
dungeon stair. The bolts screamed as they were withdrawn--the hinges
creaked as the wicket opened, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, followed by
the two Saracen slaves of the Templar, entered the prison.
Front-de-Boeuf, a tall and strong man, whose life had been spent in
public war or in private feuds and broils, and who had hesitated at no
means of extending his feudal power, had features corresponding to his
character, and which strongly expressed the fiercer and more malignant
passions of the mind. The scars with which his visage was seamed,
would, on features of a different cast, have excited the sympathy and
veneration due to the marks of honourable valour; but, in the peculiar
case of Front-de-Boeuf, they only added to the ferocity of his
countenance, and to the dread which his presence inspired. This
formidable baron was clad in a leathern doublet, fitted close to his
body, which was frayed and soiled with the stains of his armour. He
had no weapon, excepting a poniard at his belt, which served to
counterbalance the weight of the bunch of rusty keys that hung at his
right side.
The black slaves who attended Front-de-Boeuf were stripped of their
gorgeous apparel, and attired in jerkins and trowsers of coarse linen,
their sleeves being tucked up above the elbow, like those of butchers
when about to exercise their function in the slaughter-house. Each had
in his hand a small pannier; and, when they entered the dungeon, they
stopt at the door until Front-de-Boeuf himself carefully locked and
double-locked it. Having taken this precaution, he advanced slowly up
the apartment towards the Jew, upon whom he kept his eye fixed, as if
he wished to paralyze him with his glance, as some animals are said to
fascinate their prey. It seemed indeed as if the sullen and malignant
eye of Front-de-Boeuf possessed some portion of that supposed power over
his unfortunate prisoner. The Jew sat with his mouth agape, and his
eyes fixed on the savage baron with such earnestness of terror, that his
frame seemed literally to shrink together, and to diminish in size while
encountering the fierce Norman's fixed and baleful gaze. The unhappy
Isaac was deprived not only of the power of rising to make the obeisance
which his terror dictated, but he could not even doff his cap, or utter
any word of supplication; so strongly was he agitated by the conviction
that tortures and death were impending over him.
On the other hand, the stately form of the Norman appeared to dilate
in magnitude, like that of the eagle, which ruffles up its plumage when
about to pounce on its defenceless prey. He paused within three steps
of the corner in which the unfortunate Jew had now, as it were, coiled
himself up into the smallest possible space, and made a sign for one of
the slaves to approach. The black satellite came forward accordingly,
and, producing from his basket a large pair of scales and several
weights, he laid them at the feet of Front-de-Boeuf, and again retired
to the respectful distance, at which his companion had already taken his
station.
The motions of these men were slow and solemn, as if there impended over
their souls some preconception of horror and of cruelty. Front-de-Boeuf
himself opened the scene by thus addressing his ill-fated captive.
"Most accursed dog of an accursed race," he said, awaking with his deep
and sullen voice the sullen echoes of his dungeon vault, "seest thou
these scales?"
The unhappy Jew returned a feeble affirmative.
"In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out," said the relentless
Baron, "a thousand silver pounds, after the just measure and weight of
the Tower of London."
"Holy Abraham!" returned the Jew, finding voice through the very
extremity of his danger, "heard man ever such a demand?--Who ever
heard, even in a minstrel's tale, of such a sum as a thousand pounds
of silver?--What human sight was ever blessed with the vision of such
a mass of treasure?--Not within the walls of York, ransack my house
and that of all my tribe, wilt thou find the tithe of that huge sum of
silver that thou speakest of."
"I am reasonable," answered Front-de-Boeuf, "and if silver be scant, I
refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each six pounds of
silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass from such punishment as
thy heart has never even conceived."
"Have mercy on me, noble knight!" exclaimed Isaac; "I am old, and poor,
and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me--It is a poor deed to
crush a worm."
"Old thou mayst be," replied the knight; "more shame to their folly who
have suffered thee to grow grey in usury and knavery--Feeble thou mayst
be, for when had a Jew either heart or hand--But rich it is well known
thou art."
"I swear to you, noble knight," said the Jew "by all which I believe,
and by all which we believe in common---"
"Perjure not thyself," said the Norman, interrupting him, "and let not
thine obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and well considered
the fate that awaits thee. Think not I speak to thee only to excite thy
terror, and practise on the base cowardice thou hast derived from thy
tribe. I swear to thee by that which thou dost NOT believe, by the
gospel which our church teaches, and by the keys which are given her to
bind and to loose, that my purpose is deep and peremptory. This
dungeon is no place for trifling. Prisoners ten thousand times more
distinguished than thou have died within these walls, and their fate
hath never been known! But for thee is reserved a long and lingering
death, to which theirs were luxury."
He again made a signal for the slaves to approach, and spoke to them
apart, in their own language; for he also had been in Palestine, where
perhaps, he had learnt his lesson of cruelty. The Saracens produced from
their baskets a quantity of charcoal, a pair of bellows, and a flask
of oil. While the one struck a light with a flint and steel, the other
disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have already
mentioned, and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red glow.
"Seest thou, Isaac," said Front-de-Boeuf, "the range of iron bars above
the glowing charcoal?-- [28] on that warm couch thou shalt lie, stripped
of thy clothes as if thou wert to rest on a bed of down. One of these
slaves shall maintain the fire beneath thee, while the other shall
anoint thy wretched limbs with oil, lest the roast should burn.--Now,
choose betwixt such a scorching bed and the payment of a thousand pounds
of silver; for, by the head of my father, thou hast no other option."
"It is impossible," exclaimed the miserable Jew--"it is impossible that
your purpose can be real! The good God of nature never made a heart
capable of exercising such cruelty!"
"Trust not to that, Isaac," said Front-de-Boeuf, "it were a fatal error.
Dost thou think that I, who have seen a town sacked, in which thousands
of my Christian countrymen perished by sword, by flood, and by fire,
will blench from my purpose for the outcries or screams of one single
wretched Jew?--or thinkest thou that these swarthy slaves, who have
neither law, country, nor conscience, but their master's will--who use
the poison, or the stake, or the poniard, or the cord, at his slightest
wink--thinkest thou that THEY will have mercy, who do not even
understand the language in which it is asked?--Be wise, old man;
discharge thyself of a portion of thy superfluous wealth; repay to the
hands of a Christian a part of what thou hast acquired by the usury thou
hast practised on those of his religion. Thy cunning may soon swell
out once more thy shrivelled purse, but neither leech nor medicine can
restore thy scorched hide and flesh wert thou once stretched on these
bars. Tell down thy ransom, I say, and rejoice that at such rate thou
canst redeem thee from a dungeon, the secrets of which few have returned
to tell. I waste no more words with thee--choose between thy dross and
thy flesh and blood, and as thou choosest, so shall it be."
"So may Abraham, Jacob, and all the fathers of our people assist me,"
said Isaac, "I cannot make the choice, because I have not the means of
satisfying your exorbitant demand!"
"Seize him and strip him, slaves," said the knight, "and let the fathers
of his race assist him if they can."
The assistants, taking their directions more from the Baron's eye and
his hand than his tongue, once more stepped forward, laid hands on the
unfortunate Isaac, plucked him up from the ground, and, holding him
between them, waited the hard-hearted Baron's farther signal. The
unhappy Jew eyed their countenances and that of Front-de-Boeuf, in
hope of discovering some symptoms of relenting; but that of the Baron
exhibited the same cold, half-sullen, half-sarcastic smile which had
been the prelude to his cruelty; and the savage eyes of the Saracens,
rolling gloomily under their dark brows, acquiring a yet more sinister
expression by the whiteness of the circle which surrounds the pupil,
evinced rather the secret pleasure which they expected from the
approaching scene, than any reluctance to be its directors or agents.
The Jew then looked at the glowing furnace, over which he was presently
to be stretched, and seeing no chance of his tormentor's relenting, his
resolution gave way.
"I will pay," he said, "the thousand pounds of silver--That is," he
added, after a moment's pause, "I will pay it with the help of my
brethren; for I must beg as a mendicant at the door of our synagogue ere
I make up so unheard-of a sum.--When and where must it be delivered?"
"Here," replied Front-de-Boeuf, "here it must be delivered--weighed it
must be--weighed and told down on this very dungeon floor.--Thinkest
thou I will part with thee until thy ransom is secure?"
"And what is to be my surety," said the Jew, "that I shall be at liberty
after this ransom is paid?"
"The word of a Norman noble, thou pawn-broking slave," answered
Front-de-Boeuf; "the faith of a Norman nobleman, more pure than the gold
and silver of thee and all thy tribe."
"I crave pardon, noble lord," said Isaac timidly, "but wherefore should
I rely wholly on the word of one who will trust nothing to mine?"
"Because thou canst not help it, Jew," said the knight, sternly. "Wert
thou now in thy treasure-chamber at York, and were I craving a loan of
thy shekels, it would be thine to dictate the time of payment, and the
pledge of security. This is MY treasure-chamber. Here I have thee at
advantage, nor will I again deign to repeat the terms on which I grant
thee liberty."
The Jew groaned deeply.--"Grant me," he said, "at least with my own
liberty, that of the companions with whom I travel. They scorned me as
a Jew, yet they pitied my desolation, and because they tarried to aid me
by the way, a share of my evil hath come upon them; moreover, they may
contribute in some sort to my ransom."
"If thou meanest yonder Saxon churls," said Front-de-Boeuf, "their
ransom will depend upon other terms than thine. Mind thine own concerns,
Jew, I warn thee, and meddle not with those of others."
"I am, then," said Isaac, "only to be set at liberty, together with mine
wounded friend?"
"Shall I twice recommend it," said Front-de-Boeuf, "to a son of Israel,
to meddle with his own concerns, and leave those of others alone?--Since
thou hast made thy choice, it remains but that thou payest down thy
ransom, and that at a short day."
"Yet hear me," said the Jew--"for the sake of that very wealth which
thou wouldst obtain at the expense of thy---" Here he stopt short,
afraid of irritating the savage Norman. But Front-de-Boeuf only laughed,
and himself filled up the blank at which the Jew had hesitated.
"At the expense of my conscience, thou wouldst say, Isaac; speak it
out--I tell thee, I am reasonable. I can bear the reproaches of a loser,
even when that loser is a Jew. Thou wert not so patient, Isaac, when
thou didst invoke justice against Jacques Fitzdotterel, for calling thee
a usurious blood-sucker, when thy exactions had devoured his patrimony."
"I swear by the Talmud," said the Jew, "that your valour has been
misled in that matter. Fitzdotterel drew his poniard upon me in mine own
chamber, because I craved him for mine own silver. The term of payment
was due at the Passover."
"I care not what he did," said Front-de-Boeuf; "the question is, when
shall I have mine own?--when shall I have the shekels, Isaac?"
"Let my daughter Rebecca go forth to York," answered Isaac, "with your
safe conduct, noble knight, and so soon as man and horse can return, the
treasure---" Here he groaned deeply, but added, after the pause of a few
seconds,--"The treasure shall be told down on this very floor."
"Thy daughter!" said Front-de-Boeuf, as if surprised,--"By heavens,
Isaac, I would I had known of this. I deemed that yonder black-browed
girl had been thy concubine, and I gave her to be a handmaiden to Sir
Brian de Bois-Guilbert, after the fashion of patriarchs and heroes of
the days of old, who set us in these matters a wholesome example."
The yell which Isaac raised at this unfeeling communication made the
very vault to ring, and astounded the two Saracens so much that they let
go their hold of the Jew. He availed himself of his enlargement to throw
himself on the pavement, and clasp the knees of Front-de-Boeuf.
"Take all that you have asked," said he, "Sir Knight--take ten times
more--reduce me to ruin and to beggary, if thou wilt,--nay, pierce
me with thy poniard, broil me on that furnace, but spare my daughter,
deliver her in safety and honour!--As thou art born of woman, spare the
honour of a helpless maiden--She is the image of my deceased Rachel,
she is the last of six pledges of her love--Will you deprive a widowed
husband of his sole remaining comfort?--Will you reduce a father to wish
that his only living child were laid beside her dead mother, in the tomb
of our fathers?"
"I would," said the Norman, somewhat relenting, "that I had known
of this before. I thought your race had loved nothing save their
moneybags."
"Think not so vilely of us, Jews though we be," said Isaac, eager to
improve the moment of apparent sympathy; "the hunted fox, the tortured
wildcat loves its young--the despised and persecuted race of Abraham
love their children!"
"Be it so," said Front-de-Boeuf; "I will believe it in future, Isaac,
for thy very sake--but it aids us not now, I cannot help what has
happened, or what is to follow; my word is passed to my comrade in arms,
nor would I break it for ten Jews and Jewesses to boot. Besides, why
shouldst thou think evil is to come to the girl, even if she became
Bois-Guilbert's booty?"
"There will, there must!" exclaimed Isaac, wringing his hands in agony;
"when did Templars breathe aught but cruelty to men, and dishonour to
women!"
"Dog of an infidel," said Front-de-Boeuf, with sparkling eyes, and not
sorry, perhaps, to seize a pretext for working himself into a passion,
"blaspheme not the Holy Order of the Temple of Zion, but take thought
instead to pay me the ransom thou hast promised, or woe betide thy
Jewish throat!"
"Robber and villain!" said the Jew, retorting the insults of his
oppressor with passion, which, however impotent, he now found it
impossible to bridle, "I will pay thee nothing--not one silver penny
will I pay thee, unless my daughter is delivered to me in safety and
honour!"
"Art thou in thy senses, Israelite?" said the Norman, sternly--"has thy
flesh and blood a charm against heated iron and scalding oil?"
"I care not!" said the Jew, rendered desperate by paternal affection;
"do thy worst. My daughter is my flesh and blood, dearer to me a
thousand times than those limbs which thy cruelty threatens. No silver
will I give thee, unless I were to pour it molten down thy avaricious
throat--no, not a silver penny will I give thee, Nazarene, were it to
save thee from the deep damnation thy whole life has merited! Take my
life if thou wilt, and say, the Jew, amidst his tortures, knew how to
disappoint the Christian."
"We shall see that," said Front-de-Boeuf; "for by the blessed rood,
which is the abomination of thy accursed tribe, thou shalt feel the
extremities of fire and steel!--Strip him, slaves, and chain him down
upon the bars."
In spite of the feeble struggles of the old man, the Saracens had
already torn from him his upper garment, and were proceeding totally to
disrobe him, when the sound of a bugle, twice winded without the castle,
penetrated even to the recesses of the dungeon, and immediately
after loud voices were heard calling for Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf.
Unwilling to be found engaged in his hellish occupation, the savage
Baron gave the slaves a signal to restore Isaac's garment, and, quitting
the dungeon with his attendants, he left the Jew to thank God for
his own deliverance, or to lament over his daughter's captivity,
and probable fate, as his personal or parental feelings might prove
strongest. | Isaac of York has been thrown into a dark dungeon in Torquilstone Castle. Front-de-Boeuf demands a ransom of a thousand silver pounds, to which Isaac protests. The Normans threaten him with physical torture, so Isaac requests that his daughter Rebecca be sent with an escort to York to get the money. He is deeply upset when he learns that she has been given to Bois-Guilbert as his own personal captive. Isaac is willing to give up whatever wealth he possesses if only he can get Rebecca back. As his captors begin preparations for torture, the sound of a bugle is heard outside the castle, and Isaac is saved for the moment. |
Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian:
We are but mortals, and must sing of man.
An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly
furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me
this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of
polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and
multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a
lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will
seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round
that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going
everywhere impartially and it is only your candle which produces the
flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with
an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The
scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now
absent--of Miss Vincy, for example. Rosamond had a Providence of her
own who had kindly made her more charming than other girls, and who
seemed to have arranged Fred's illness and Mr. Wrench's mistake in
order to bring her and Lydgate within effective proximity. It would
have been to contravene these arrangements if Rosamond had consented to
go away to Stone Court or elsewhere, as her parents wished her to do,
especially since Mr. Lydgate thought the precaution needless.
Therefore, while Miss Morgan and the children were sent away to a
farmhouse the morning after Fred's illness had declared itself,
Rosamond refused to leave papa and mamma.
Poor mamma indeed was an object to touch any creature born of woman;
and Mr. Vincy, who doted on his wife, was more alarmed on her account
than on Fred's. But for his insistence she would have taken no rest:
her brightness was all bedimmed; unconscious of her costume which had
always been so fresh and gay, she was like a sick bird with languid eye
and plumage ruffled, her senses dulled to the sights and sounds that
used most to interest her. Fred's delirium, in which he seemed to be
wandering out of her reach, tore her heart. After her first outburst
against Mr. Wrench she went about very quietly: her one low cry was to
Lydgate. She would follow him out of the room and put her hand on his
arm moaning out, "Save my boy." Once she pleaded, "He has always been
good to me, Mr. Lydgate: he never had a hard word for his mother,"--as
if poor Fred's suffering were an accusation against him. All the
deepest fibres of the mother's memory were stirred, and the young man
whose voice took a gentler tone when he spoke to her, was one with the
babe whom she had loved, with a love new to her, before he was born.
"I have good hope, Mrs. Vincy," Lydgate would say. "Come down with me
and let us talk about the food." In that way he led her to the parlor
where Rosamond was, and made a change for her, surprising her into
taking some tea or broth which had been prepared for her. There was a
constant understanding between him and Rosamond on these matters. He
almost always saw her before going to the sickroom, and she appealed to
him as to what she could do for mamma. Her presence of mind and
adroitness in carrying out his hints were admirable, and it is not
wonderful that the idea of seeing Rosamond began to mingle itself with
his interest in the case. Especially when the critical stage was
passed, and he began to feel confident of Fred's recovery. In the more
doubtful time, he had advised calling in Dr. Sprague (who, if he could,
would rather have remained neutral on Wrench's account); but after two
consultations, the conduct of the case was left to Lydgate, and there
was every reason to make him assiduous. Morning and evening he was at
Mr. Vincy's, and gradually the visits became cheerful as Fred became
simply feeble, and lay not only in need of the utmost petting but
conscious of it, so that Mrs. Vincy felt as if, after all, the illness
had made a festival for her tenderness.
Both father and mother held it an added reason for good spirits, when
old Mr. Featherstone sent messages by Lydgate, saying that Fred must
make haste and get well, as he, Peter Featherstone, could not do
without him, and missed his visits sadly. The old man himself was
getting bedridden. Mrs. Vincy told these messages to Fred when he
could listen, and he turned towards her his delicate, pinched face,
from which all the thick blond hair had been cut away, and in which the
eyes seemed to have got larger, yearning for some word about
Mary--wondering what she felt about his illness. No word passed his
lips; but "to hear with eyes belongs to love's rare wit," and the
mother in the fulness of her heart not only divined Fred's longing, but
felt ready for any sacrifice in order to satisfy him.
"If I can only see my boy strong again," she said, in her loving folly;
"and who knows?--perhaps master of Stone Court! and he can marry
anybody he likes then."
"Not if they won't have me, mother," said Fred. The illness had made
him childish, and tears came as he spoke.
"Oh, take a bit of jelly, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy, secretly
incredulous of any such refusal.
She never left Fred's side when her husband was not in the house, and
thus Rosamond was in the unusual position of being much alone.
Lydgate, naturally, never thought of staying long with her, yet it
seemed that the brief impersonal conversations they had together were
creating that peculiar intimacy which consists in shyness. They were
obliged to look at each other in speaking, and somehow the looking
could not be carried through as the matter of course which it really
was. Lydgate began to feel this sort of consciousness unpleasant and
one day looked down, or anywhere, like an ill-worked puppet. But this
turned out badly: the next day, Rosamond looked down, and the
consequence was that when their eyes met again, both were more
conscious than before. There was no help for this in science, and as
Lydgate did not want to flirt, there seemed to be no help for it in
folly. It was therefore a relief when neighbors no longer considered
the house in quarantine, and when the chances of seeing Rosamond alone
were very much reduced.
But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the
other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to
be done away with. Talk about the weather and other well-bred topics
is apt to seem a hollow device, and behavior can hardly become easy
unless it frankly recognizes a mutual fascination--which of course need
not mean anything deep or serious. This was the way in which Rosamond
and Lydgate slid gracefully into ease, and made their intercourse
lively again. Visitors came and went as usual, there was once more
music in the drawing-room, and all the extra hospitality of Mr. Vincy's
mayoralty returned. Lydgate, whenever he could, took his seat by
Rosamond's side, and lingered to hear her music, calling himself her
captive--meaning, all the while, not to be her captive. The
preposterousness of the notion that he could at once set up a
satisfactory establishment as a married man was a sufficient guarantee
against danger. This play at being a little in love was agreeable, and
did not interfere with graver pursuits. Flirtation, after all, was not
necessarily a singeing process. Rosamond, for her part, had never
enjoyed the days so much in her life before: she was sure of being
admired by some one worth captivating, and she did not distinguish
flirtation from love, either in herself or in another. She seemed to
be sailing with a fair wind just whither she would go, and her thoughts
were much occupied with a handsome house in Lowick Gate which she hoped
would by-and-by be vacant. She was quite determined, when she was
married, to rid herself adroitly of all the visitors who were not
agreeable to her at her father's; and she imagined the drawing-room in
her favorite house with various styles of furniture.
Certainly her thoughts were much occupied with Lydgate himself; he
seemed to her almost perfect: if he had known his notes so that his
enchantment under her music had been less like an emotional elephant's,
and if he had been able to discriminate better the refinements of her
taste in dress, she could hardly have mentioned a deficiency in him.
How different he was from young Plymdale or Mr. Caius Larcher! Those
young men had not a notion of French, and could speak on no subject
with striking knowledge, except perhaps the dyeing and carrying trades,
which of course they were ashamed to mention; they were Middlemarch
gentry, elated with their silver-headed whips and satin stocks, but
embarrassed in their manners, and timidly jocose: even Fred was above
them, having at least the accent and manner of a university man.
Whereas Lydgate was always listened to, bore himself with the careless
politeness of conscious superiority, and seemed to have the right
clothes on by a certain natural affinity, without ever having to think
about them. Rosamond was proud when he entered the room, and when he
approached her with a distinguishing smile, she had a delicious sense
that she was the object of enviable homage. If Lydgate had been aware
of all the pride he excited in that delicate bosom, he might have been
just as well pleased as any other man, even the most densely ignorant
of humoral pathology or fibrous tissue: he held it one of the prettiest
attitudes of the feminine mind to adore a man's pre-eminence without
too precise a knowledge of what it consisted in. But Rosamond was not
one of those helpless girls who betray themselves unawares, and whose
behavior is awkwardly driven by their impulses, instead of being
steered by wary grace and propriety. Do you imagine that her rapid
forecast and rumination concerning house-furniture and society were
ever discernible in her conversation, even with her mamma? On the
contrary, she would have expressed the prettiest surprise and
disapprobation if she had heard that another young lady had been
detected in that immodest prematureness--indeed, would probably have
disbelieved in its possibility. For Rosamond never showed any
unbecoming knowledge, and was always that combination of correct
sentiments, music, dancing, drawing, elegant note-writing, private
album for extracted verse, and perfect blond loveliness, which made the
irresistible woman for the doomed man of that date. Think no unfair
evil of her, pray: she had no wicked plots, nothing sordid or
mercenary; in fact, she never thought of money except as something
necessary which other people would always provide. She was not in the
habit of devising falsehoods, and if her statements were no direct clew
to fact, why, they were not intended in that light--they were among
her elegant accomplishments, intended to please. Nature had inspired
many arts in finishing Mrs. Lemon's favorite pupil, who by general
consent (Fred's excepted) was a rare compound of beauty, cleverness,
and amiability.
Lydgate found it more and more agreeable to be with her, and there was
no constraint now, there was a delightful interchange of influence in
their eyes, and what they said had that superfluity of meaning for
them, which is observable with some sense of flatness by a third
person; still they had no interviews or asides from which a third
person need have been excluded. In fact, they flirted; and Lydgate was
secure in the belief that they did nothing else. If a man could not
love and be wise, surely he could flirt and be wise at the same time?
Really, the men in Middlemarch, except Mr. Farebrother, were great
bores, and Lydgate did not care about commercial politics or cards:
what was he to do for relaxation? He was often invited to the
Bulstrodes'; but the girls there were hardly out of the schoolroom; and
Mrs. Bulstrode's _naive_ way of conciliating piety and worldliness, the
nothingness of this life and the desirability of cut glass, the
consciousness at once of filthy rags and the best damask, was not a
sufficient relief from the weight of her husband's invariable
seriousness. The Vincys' house, with all its faults, was the
pleasanter by contrast; besides, it nourished Rosamond--sweet to look
at as a half-opened blush-rose, and adorned with accomplishments for
the refined amusement of man.
But he made some enemies, other than medical, by his success with Miss
Vincy. One evening he came into the drawing-room rather late, when
several other visitors were there. The card-table had drawn off the
elders, and Mr. Ned Plymdale (one of the good matches in Middlemarch,
though not one of its leading minds) was in tete-a-tete with Rosamond.
He had brought the last "Keepsake," the gorgeous watered-silk
publication which marked modern progress at that time; and he
considered himself very fortunate that he could be the first to look
over it with her, dwelling on the ladies and gentlemen with shiny
copper-plate cheeks and copper-plate smiles, and pointing to comic
verses as capital and sentimental stories as interesting. Rosamond was
gracious, and Mr. Ned was satisfied that he had the very best thing in
art and literature as a medium for "paying addresses"--the very thing
to please a nice girl. He had also reasons, deep rather than
ostensible, for being satisfied with his own appearance. To
superficial observers his chin had too vanishing an aspect, looking as
if it were being gradually reabsorbed. And it did indeed cause him
some difficulty about the fit of his satin stocks, for which chins were
at that time useful.
"I think the Honorable Mrs. S. is something like you," said Mr. Ned.
He kept the book open at the bewitching portrait, and looked at it
rather languishingly.
"Her back is very large; she seems to have sat for that," said
Rosamond, not meaning any satire, but thinking how red young Plymdale's
hands were, and wondering why Lydgate did not come. She went on with
her tatting all the while.
"I did not say she was as beautiful as you are," said Mr. Ned,
venturing to look from the portrait to its rival.
"I suspect you of being an adroit flatterer," said Rosamond, feeling
sure that she should have to reject this young gentleman a second time.
But now Lydgate came in; the book was closed before he reached
Rosamond's corner, and as he took his seat with easy confidence on the
other side of her, young Plymdale's jaw fell like a barometer towards
the cheerless side of change. Rosamond enjoyed not only Lydgate's
presence but its effect: she liked to excite jealousy.
"What a late comer you are!" she said, as they shook hands. "Mamma had
given you up a little while ago. How do you find Fred?"
"As usual; going on well, but slowly. I want him to go away--to Stone
Court, for example. But your mamma seems to have some objection."
"Poor fellow!" said Rosamond, prettily. "You will see Fred so
changed," she added, turning to the other suitor; "we have looked to
Mr. Lydgate as our guardian angel during this illness."
Mr. Ned smiled nervously, while Lydgate, drawing the "Keepsake" towards
him and opening it, gave a short scornful laugh and tossed up his
chin, as if in wonderment at human folly.
"What are you laughing at so profanely?" said Rosamond, with bland
neutrality.
"I wonder which would turn out to be the silliest--the engravings or
the writing here," said Lydgate, in his most convinced tone, while he
turned over the pages quickly, seeming to see all through the book in
no time, and showing his large white hands to much advantage, as
Rosamond thought. "Do look at this bridegroom coming out of church:
did you ever see such a 'sugared invention'--as the Elizabethans used
to say? Did any haberdasher ever look so smirking? Yet I will answer
for it the story makes him one of the first gentlemen in the land."
"You are so severe, I am frightened at you," said Rosamond, keeping her
amusement duly moderate. Poor young Plymdale had lingered with
admiration over this very engraving, and his spirit was stirred.
"There are a great many celebrated people writing in the 'Keepsake,' at
all events," he said, in a tone at once piqued and timid. "This is the
first time I have heard it called silly."
"I think I shall turn round on you and accuse you of being a Goth,"
said Rosamond, looking at Lydgate with a smile. "I suspect you know
nothing about Lady Blessington and L. E. L." Rosamond herself was not
without relish for these writers, but she did not readily commit
herself by admiration, and was alive to the slightest hint that
anything was not, according to Lydgate, in the very highest taste.
"But Sir Walter Scott--I suppose Mr. Lydgate knows him," said young
Plymdale, a little cheered by this advantage.
"Oh, I read no literature now," said Lydgate, shutting the book, and
pushing it away. "I read so much when I was a lad, that I suppose it
will last me all my life. I used to know Scott's poems by heart."
"I should like to know when you left off," said Rosamond, "because then
I might be sure that I knew something which you did not know."
"Mr. Lydgate would say that was not worth knowing," said Mr. Ned,
purposely caustic.
"On the contrary," said Lydgate, showing no smart; but smiling with
exasperating confidence at Rosamond. "It would be worth knowing by the
fact that Miss Vincy could tell it me."
Young Plymdale soon went to look at the whist-playing, thinking that
Lydgate was one of the most conceited, unpleasant fellows it had ever
been his ill-fortune to meet.
"How rash you are!" said Rosamond, inwardly delighted. "Do you see
that you have given offence?"
"What! is it Mr. Plymdale's book? I am sorry. I didn't think about
it."
"I shall begin to admit what you said of yourself when you first came
here--that you are a bear, and want teaching by the birds."
"Well, there is a bird who can teach me what she will. Don't I listen
to her willingly?"
To Rosamond it seemed as if she and Lydgate were as good as engaged.
That they were some time to be engaged had long been an idea in her
mind; and ideas, we know, tend to a more solid kind of existence, the
necessary materials being at hand. It is true, Lydgate had the
counter-idea of remaining unengaged; but this was a mere negative, a
shadow cast by other resolves which themselves were capable of
shrinking. Circumstance was almost sure to be on the side of
Rosamond's idea, which had a shaping activity and looked through
watchful blue eyes, whereas Lydgate's lay blind and unconcerned as a
jelly-fish which gets melted without knowing it.
That evening when he went home, he looked at his phials to see how a
process of maceration was going on, with undisturbed interest; and he
wrote out his daily notes with as much precision as usual. The
reveries from which it was difficult for him to detach himself were
ideal constructions of something else than Rosamond's virtues, and the
primitive tissue was still his fair unknown. Moreover, he was
beginning to feel some zest for the growing though half-suppressed feud
between him and the other medical men, which was likely to become more
manifest, now that Bulstrode's method of managing the new hospital was
about to be declared; and there were various inspiriting signs that his
non-acceptance by some of Peacock's patients might be counterbalanced
by the impression he had produced in other quarters. Only a few days
later, when he had happened to overtake Rosamond on the Lowick road and
had got down from his horse to walk by her side until he had quite
protected her from a passing drove, he had been stopped by a servant on
horseback with a message calling him in to a house of some importance
where Peacock had never attended; and it was the second instance of
this kind. The servant was Sir James Chettam's, and the house was
Lowick Manor. | Because of Fred's illness, Lydgate spends a lot of time at the Vincys' house, and necessarily spends most of that time with Rosamond. Mrs. Vincy is a mess - Fred was always her favorite child. But under Lydgate's care, Fred mends quickly. He continues to check on him twice a day, though, and spends evenings listening to Rosamond sing and play the piano. They flirt a lot, but Lydgate thinks he's safe from falling in love. Rosamond, meanwhile, is secretly planning her future with Lydgate. Not, mind, because she thinks he's rich. She knows he's not - but then, she doesn't really think about money at all. She knows money is necessary, but doesn't think about where it comes from. She just assumes someone will always provide it. One evening, Ned Plymdale, the son of a local businessman, is visiting the Vincys. He's already proposed to Rosamond once, and was rejected. He's persistent, though. He brought a magazine to look through with Rosamond. It's called the Keepsake, and it's pretty cheesy. . When Lydgate arrives, he plops down on the couch next to Rosamond , and picks up the magazine. He glances through it, and makes fun of it for being so cheesy. Plymdale is displeased, and tries to defend it, but Rosamond doesn't exactly help. At the end of the chapter, Lydgate is called by a servant of Sir James Chettam's to attend a patient at Lowick manor. |
The day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Hurst and Miss
Bingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who
continued, though slowly, to mend; and in the evening Elizabeth joined
their party in the drawing-room. The loo table, however, did not appear.
Mr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching
the progress of his letter, and repeatedly calling off his attention by
messages to his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet, and
Mrs. Hurst was observing their game.
Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in
attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual
commendations of the lady either on his hand-writing, or on the evenness
of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern
with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was
exactly in unison with her opinion of each.
"How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!"
He made no answer.
"You write uncommonly fast."
"You are mistaken. I write rather slowly."
"How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of the
year! Letters of business too! How odious I should think them!"
"It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours."
"Pray tell your sister that I long to see her."
"I have already told her so once, by your desire."
"I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend
pens remarkably well."
"Thank you--but I always mend my own."
"How can you contrive to write so even?"
He was silent.
"Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp,
and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful
little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss
Grantley's."
"Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again?--At
present I have not room to do them justice."
"Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you
always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?"
"They are generally long; but whether always charming, it is not for me
to determine."
"It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter, with
ease, cannot write ill."
"That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline," cried her
brother--"because he does _not_ write with ease. He studies too much for
words of four syllables.--Do not you, Darcy?"
"My style of writing is very different from yours."
"Oh!" cried Miss Bingley, "Charles writes in the most careless way
imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest."
"My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them--by which
means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents."
"Your humility, Mr. Bingley," said Elizabeth, "must disarm reproof."
"Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of
humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an
indirect boast."
"And which of the two do you call _my_ little recent piece of modesty?"
"The indirect boast;--for you are really proud of your defects in
writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of
thought and carelessness of execution, which if not estimable, you think
at least highly interesting. The power of doing any thing with
quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any
attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs.
Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield
you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of
panegyric, of compliment to yourself--and yet what is there so very
laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business
undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or any one else?"
"Nay," cried Bingley, "this is too much, to remember at night all the
foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I
believed what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this
moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless
precipitance merely to shew off before the ladies."
"I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that you
would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as
dependant on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were
mounting your horse, a friend were to say, 'Bingley, you had better stay
till next week,' you would probably do it, you would probably not
go--and, at another word, might stay a month."
"You have only proved by this," cried Elizabeth, "that Mr. Bingley did
not do justice to his own disposition. You have shewn him off now much
more than he did himself."
"I am exceedingly gratified," said Bingley, "by your converting what my
friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am
afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means
intend; for he would certainly think the better of me, if under such a
circumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I
could."
"Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intention
as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?"
"Upon my word I cannot exactly explain the matter, Darcy must speak for
himself."
"You expect me to account for opinions which you chuse to call mine, but
which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to stand
according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet, that
the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house, and the
delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering one
argument in favour of its propriety."
"To yield readily--easily--to the _persuasion_ of a friend is no merit
with you."
"To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of
either."
"You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of
friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make
one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason
one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have
supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the
circumstance occurs, before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour
thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend,
where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no
very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying
with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?"
"Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to arrange
with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to
appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting
between the parties?"
"By all means," cried Bingley; "let us hear all the particulars, not
forgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more
weight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure
you that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with
myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not
know a more aweful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in
particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening
when he has nothing to do."
Mr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was
rather offended; and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly
resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her
brother for talking such nonsense.
"I see your design, Bingley," said his friend.--"You dislike an
argument, and want to silence this."
"Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss
Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very
thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me."
"What you ask," said Elizabeth, "is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr.
Darcy had much better finish his letter."
Mr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter.
When that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth
for the indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with alacrity to
the piano-forte, and after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead
the way, which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she
seated herself.
Mrs. Hurst sang with her sister, and while they were thus employed
Elizabeth could not help observing as she turned over some music books
that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed
on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of
admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her because
he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine however
at last, that she drew his notice because there was a something about
her more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than
in any other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked
him too little to care for his approbation.
After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by a
lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near
Elizabeth, said to her--
"Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an
opportunity of dancing a reel?"
She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some
surprise at her silence.
"Oh!" said she, "I heard you before; but I could not immediately
determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,'
that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always
delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of
their premeditated contempt. I have therefore made up my mind to tell
you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all--and now despise me if
you dare."
"Indeed I do not dare."
Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his
gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her
manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy had
never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really
believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he
should be in some danger.
Miss Bingley saw, or suspected enough to be jealous; and her great
anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane, received some
assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth.
She often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of
their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance.
"I hope," said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery the
next day, "you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this
desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue;
and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after
the officers.--And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to
check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence,
which your lady possesses."
"Have you any thing else to propose for my domestic felicity?"
"Oh! yes.--Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Philips be
placed in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great uncle
the judge. They are in the same profession, you know; only in different
lines. As for your Elizabeth's picture, you must not attempt to have it
taken, for what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?"
"It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their
colour and shape, and the eye-lashes, so remarkably fine, might be
copied."
At that moment they were met from another walk, by Mrs. Hurst and
Elizabeth herself.
"I did not know that you intended to walk," said Miss Bingley, in some
confusion, lest they had been overheard.
"You used us abominably ill," answered Mrs. Hurst, "in running away
without telling us that you were coming out."
Then taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk
by herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness
and immediately said,--
"This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the
avenue."
But Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them,
laughingly answered,
"No, no; stay where you are.--You are charmingly group'd, and appear to
uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a
fourth. Good bye."
She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of
being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered
as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening.
When the ladies removed after dinner, Elizabeth ran up to her sister,
and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the
drawing-room; where she was welcomed by her two friends with many
professions of pleasure; and Elizabeth had never seen them so agreeable
as they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared.
Their powers of conversation were considerable. They could describe an
entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh
at their acquaintance with spirit.
But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object.
Miss Bingley's eyes were instantly turned towards Darcy, and she had
something to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed
himself directly to Miss Bennet, with a polite congratulation; Mr. Hurst
also made her a slight bow, and said he was "very glad;" but diffuseness
and warmth remained for Bingley's salutation. He was full of joy and
attention. The first half hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she
should suffer from the change of room; and she removed at his desire to
the other side of the fire-place, that she might be farther from the
door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to any one else.
Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great
delight.
When tea was over, Mr. Hurst reminded his sister-in-law of the
card-table--but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr.
Darcy did not wish for cards; and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open
petition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and the
silence of the whole party on the subject, seemed to justify her. Mr.
Hurst had therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the
sophas and go to sleep. Darcy took up a book; Miss Bingley did the same;
and Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets and
rings, joined now and then in her brother's conversation with Miss
Bennet.
Miss Bingley's attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr.
Darcy's progress through _his_ book, as in reading her own; and she was
perpetually either making some inquiry, or looking at his page. She
could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her
question, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be
amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the
second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, "How pleasant it
is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no
enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a
book!--When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not
an excellent library."
No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and
cast her eyes round the room in quest of some amusement; when hearing
her brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned suddenly
towards him and said,
"By the bye, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at
Netherfield?--I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult
the wishes of the present party; I am much mistaken if there are not
some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a
pleasure."
"If you mean Darcy," cried her brother, "he may go to bed, if he chuses,
before it begins--but as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing; and
as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough I shall send round my
cards."
"I should like balls infinitely better," she replied, "if they were
carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably
tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much
more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the
day."
"Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be
near so much like a ball."
Miss Bingley made no answer; and soon afterwards got up and walked about
the room. Her figure was elegant, and she walked well;--but Darcy, at
whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In the desperation
of her feelings she resolved on one effort more; and, turning to
Elizabeth, said,
"Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a
turn about the room.--I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting
so long in one attitude."
Elizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately. Miss Bingley
succeeded no less in the real object of her civility; Mr. Darcy looked
up. He was as much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as
Elizabeth herself could be, and unconsciously closed his book. He was
directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing,
that he could imagine but two motives for their chusing to walk up and
down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them
would interfere. "What could he mean? she was dying to know what could
be his meaning"--and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand
him?
"Not at all," was her answer; "but depend upon it, he means to be severe
on us, and our surest way of disappointing him, will be to ask nothing
about it."
Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in any
thing, and persevered therefore in requiring an explanation of his two
motives.
"I have not the smallest objection to explaining them," said he, as soon
as she allowed him to speak. "You either chuse this method of passing
the evening because you are in each other's confidence and have secret
affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures
appear to the greatest advantage in walking;--if the first, I should be
completely in your way;--and if the second, I can admire you much better
as I sit by the fire."
"Oh! shocking!" cried Miss Bingley. "I never heard any thing so
abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?"
"Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination," said Elizabeth. "We
can all plague and punish one another. Teaze him--laugh at
him.--Intimate as you are, you must know how it is to be done."
"But upon my honour I do _not_. I do assure you that my intimacy has not
yet taught me _that_. Teaze calmness of temper and presence of mind! No,
no--I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will not expose
ourselves, if you please, by attempting to laugh without a subject. Mr.
Darcy may hug himself."
"Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!" cried Elizabeth. "That is an
uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would
be a great loss to _me_ to have many such acquaintance. I dearly love a
laugh."
"Miss Bingley," said he, "has given me credit for more than can be. The
wisest and the best of men, nay, the wisest and best of their actions,
may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a
joke."
"Certainly," replied Elizabeth--"there are such people, but I hope I am
not one of _them_. I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies
and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies _do_ divert me, I own, and I
laugh at them whenever I can.--But these, I suppose, are precisely what
you are without."
"Perhaps that is not possible for any one. But it has been the study of
my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong
understanding to ridicule."
"Such as vanity and pride."
"Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride--where there is a real
superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation."
Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile.
"Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume," said Miss
Bingley;--"and pray what is the result?"
"I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it
himself without disguise."
"No"--said Darcy, "I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough,
but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch
for.--It is I believe too little yielding--certainly too little for the
convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of
others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My
feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper
would perhaps be called resentful.--My good opinion once lost is lost
for ever."
"_That_ is a failing indeed!"--cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment
_is_ a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well.--I
really cannot _laugh_ at it. You are safe from me."
"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular
evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
"And _your_ defect is a propensity to hate every body."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand
them."
"Do let us have a little music,"--cried Miss Bingley, tired of a
conversation in which she had no share.--"Louisa, you will not mind my
waking Mr. Hurst."
Her sister made not the smallest objection, and the piano-forte was
opened, and Darcy, after a few moments recollection, was not sorry for
it. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.
In consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the
next morning to her mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for
them in the course of the day. But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on
her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which
would exactly finish Jane's week, could not bring herself to receive
them with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at
least not to Elizabeth's wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs.
Bennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage
before Tuesday; and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley
and his sister pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them very
well.--Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively
resolved--nor did she much expect it would be asked; and fearful, on the
contrary, as being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long,
she urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley's carriage immediately, and at
length it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield
that morning should be mentioned, and the request made.
The communication excited many professions of concern; and enough was
said of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work on
Jane; and till the morrow, their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was
then sorry that she had proposed the delay, for her jealousy and dislike
of one sister much exceeded her affection for the other.
The master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so
soon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be
safe for her--that she was not enough recovered; but Jane was firm where
she felt herself to be right.
To Mr. Darcy it was welcome intelligence--Elizabeth had been at
Netherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he liked--and Miss
Bingley was uncivil to _her_, and more teazing than usual to himself.
He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration
should _now_ escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope of
influencing his felicity; sensible that if such an idea had been
suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight
in confirming or crushing it. Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke
ten words to her through the whole of Saturday, and though they were at
one time left by themselves for half an hour, he adhered most
conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her.
On Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost
all, took place. Miss Bingley's civility to Elizabeth increased at last
very rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane; and when they parted,
after assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her to
see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most
tenderly, she even shook hands with the former.--Elizabeth took leave of
the whole party in the liveliest spirits.
They were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet
wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much
trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again.--But their
father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really
glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The
evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of its
animation, and almost all its sense, by the absence of Jane and
Elizabeth.
They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough bass and human
nature; and had some new extracts to admire, and some new observations
of thread-bare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had
information for them of a different sort. Much had been done, and much
had been said in the regiment since the preceding Wednesday; several of
the officers had dined lately with their uncle, a private had been
flogged, and it had actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going
to be married.
"I hope, my dear," said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at
breakfast the next morning, "that you have ordered a good dinner to-day,
because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party."
"Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming I am sure,
unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in, and I hope _my_ dinners
are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home."
"The person of whom I speak, is a gentleman and a stranger." Mrs.
Bennet's eyes sparkled.--"A gentleman and a stranger! It is Mr. Bingley
I am sure. Why Jane--you never dropt a word of this; you sly thing!
Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr. Bingley.--But--good
lord! how unlucky! there is not a bit of fish to be got to-day. Lydia,
my love, ring the bell. I must speak to Hill, this moment."
"It is _not_ Mr. Bingley," said her husband; "it is a person whom I
never saw in the whole course of my life."
This roused a general astonishment; and he had the pleasure of being
eagerly questioned by his wife and five daughters at once.
After amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained.
"About a month ago I received this letter, and about a fortnight ago I
answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring
early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead,
may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases."
"Oh! my dear," cried his wife, "I cannot bear to hear that mentioned.
Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing
in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own
children; and I am sure if I had been you, I should have tried long ago
to do something or other about it."
Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail.
They had often attempted it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs.
Bennet was beyond the reach of reason; and she continued to rail
bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of
five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about.
"It certainly is a most iniquitous affair," said Mr. Bennet, "and
nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn.
But if you will listen to his letter, you may perhaps be a little
softened by his manner of expressing himself."
"No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it was very impertinent of
him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false
friends. Why could not he keep on quarrelling with you, as his father
did before him?"
"Why, indeed, he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that
head, as you will hear."
_Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent,
15th October._
DEAR SIR,
The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured
father, always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the
misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the
breach; but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing
lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good
terms with any one, with whom it had always pleased him to be at
variance.--"There, Mrs. Bennet."--My mind however is now made up on
the subject, for having received ordination at Easter, I have been
so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right
Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh,
whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable
rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to
demean myself with grateful respect towards her Ladyship, and be
ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are
instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I
feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in
all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds
I flatter myself that my present overtures of good-will are highly
commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the
entail of Longbourn estate, will be kindly overlooked on your side,
and not lead you to reject the offered olive branch. I cannot be
otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your
amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to
assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends,--but
of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to receive me
into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on
you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o'clock, and
shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday
se'night following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as
Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a
Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the
duty of the day. I remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to
your lady and daughters, your well-wisher and friend,
WILLIAM COLLINS."
"At four o'clock, therefore, we may expect this peace-making gentleman,"
said Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter. "He seems to be a most
conscientious and polite young man, upon my word; and I doubt not will
prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so
indulgent as to let him come to us again."
"There is some sense in what he says about the girls however; and if he
is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to
discourage him."
"Though it is difficult," said Jane, "to guess in what way he can mean
to make us the atonement he thinks our due, the wish is certainly to his
credit."
Elizabeth was chiefly struck with his extraordinary deference for Lady
Catherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying
his parishioners whenever it were required.
"He must be an oddity, I think," said she. "I cannot make him
out.--There is something very pompous in his style.--And what can he
mean by apologizing for being next in the entail?--We cannot suppose he
would help it, if he could.--Can he be a sensible man, sir?"
"No, my dear; I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the
reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his
letter, which promises well. I am impatient to see him."
"In point of composition," said Mary, "his letter does not seem
defective. The idea of the olive branch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I
think it is well expressed."
To Catherine and Lydia, neither the letter nor its writer were in any
degree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should
come in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had
received pleasure from the society of a man in any other colour. As for
their mother, Mr. Collins's letter had done away much of her ill-will,
and she was preparing to see him with a degree of composure, which
astonished her husband and daughters.
Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great
politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the
ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in need
of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a tall,
heavy looking young man of five and twenty. His air was grave and
stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated
before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of
daughters, said he had heard much of their beauty, but that, in this
instance, fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did
not doubt her seeing them all in due time well disposed of in marriage.
This gallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers, but
Mrs. Bennet, who quarrelled with no compliments, answered most readily,
"You are very kind, sir, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may
prove so; for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so
oddly."
"You allude perhaps to the entail of this estate."
"Ah! sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you
must confess. Not that I mean to find fault with _you_, for such things
I know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates
will go when once they come to be entailed."
"I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins,--and
could say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing
forward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies that I come
prepared to admire them. At present I will not say more, but perhaps
when we are better acquainted----"
He was interrupted by a summons to dinner; and the girls smiled on each
other. They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins's admiration. The
hall, the dining-room, and all its furniture were examined and praised;
and his commendation of every thing would have touched Mrs. Bennet's
heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his
own future property. The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and
he begged to know to which of his fair cousins, the excellence of its
cookery was owing. But here he was set right by Mrs. Bennet, who assured
him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good
cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He begged
pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared
herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologise for about a
quarter of an hour.
During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants
were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his
guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to
shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady
Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for his
comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen
better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him
to more than usual solemnity of manner, and with a most important aspect
he protested that he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in a
person of rank--such affability and condescension, as he had himself
experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to
approve of both the discourses, which he had already had the honour of
preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings,
and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of
quadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many
people he knew, but _he_ had never seen any thing but affability in her.
She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she
made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the
neighbourhood, nor to his leaving his parish occasionally for a week or
two, to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to
marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had
once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage; where she had perfectly
approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed
to suggest some herself,--some shelves in the closets up stairs.
"That is all very proper and civil, I am sure," said Mrs. Bennet, "and I
dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies
in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?"
"The garden in which stands my humble abode, is separated only by a lane
from Rosings Park, her ladyship's residence."
"I think you said she was a widow, sir? has she any family?"
"She has one only daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very
extensive property."
"Ah!" cried Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, "then she is better off than
many girls. And what sort of young lady is she? is she handsome?"
"She is a most charming young lady indeed. Lady Catherine herself says
that in point of true beauty, Miss De Bourgh is far superior to the
handsomest of her sex; because there is that in her features which marks
the young woman of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly
constitution, which has prevented her making that progress in many
accomplishments, which she could not otherwise have failed of; as I am
informed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still
resides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends
to drive by my humble abode in her little phaeton and ponies."
"Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at
court."
"Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town;
and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine myself one day, has deprived
the British court of its brightest ornament. Her ladyship seemed pleased
with the idea, and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to
offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to
ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her
charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most
elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by
her.--These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and
it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to
pay."
"You judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet, "and it is happy for you
that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask
whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the
moment, or are the result of previous study?"
"They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I
sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant
compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to
give them as unstudied an air as possible."
Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd
as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment,
maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance,
and except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in
his pleasure.
By tea-time however the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad to
take his guest into the drawing-room again, and when tea was over, glad
to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins readily assented,
and a book was produced; but on beholding it, (for every thing announced
it to be from a circulating library,) he started back, and begging
pardon, protested that he never read novels.--Kitty stared at him, and
Lydia exclaimed.--Other books were produced, and after some deliberation
he chose Fordyce's Sermons. Lydia gaped as he opened the volume, and
before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she
interrupted him with,
"Do you know, mama, that my uncle Philips talks of turning away Richard,
and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me so
herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more
about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town."
Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr.
Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said,
"I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books
of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes
me, I confess;--for certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to
them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin."
Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at
backgammon. Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted
very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements. Mrs.
Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia's
interruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would
resume his book; but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his
young cousin no ill will, and should never resent her behaviour as any
affront, seated himself at another table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared
for backgammon. | As Jane continues to recuperate at Netherfield, Elizabeth again spends the evening in the drawing room with the Bingleys, Hursts, and Mr. Darcy. She observes Miss Bingley's obvious attempts to flirt with Darcy, but Darcy seems unmoved by her efforts. Elizabeth is energized by the group's discussion of character, especially the contrast between Bingley and Darcy. Bingley, they note, is impetuous and impressionable, while Darcy is ruled by reason and reflection. Although Elizabeth frequently challenges Darcy's comments, he continues to find her more and more attractive and realizes that he "had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her." Only the social class of some of her relatives prevent him from pursuing the attraction. The next evening, Jane is feeling well enough to join the group in the drawing room after dinner. Jane's attention is quickly monopolized by Bingley, leaving Elizabeth to again watch Miss Bingley disturbing Darcy with idle chatter. Eventually, Miss Bingley asks Elizabeth to walk around the room with her and then draws Darcy into a conversation with them, which soon turns into a debate between Darcy and Elizabeth over folly, weakness, and pride. Troubled by his fascination with Elizabeth, Darcy resolves to pay her less attention while she remains at Netherfield. Meanwhile, with Jane feeling better, both Jane and Elizabeth are eager to return home. Mrs. Bennet resists sending them the carriage, so they borrow Bingley's and depart on Sunday, five days after Jane's arrival at Netherfield. Although Mrs. Bennet is displeased that they left Netherfield so quickly, Mr. Bennet is glad to have them home again. The day after Jane and Elizabeth return home, their father announces that a visitor will be arriving that afternoon. The visitor is William Collins, Mr. Bennet's cousin and the man who will inherit Longbourn after Mr. Bennet dies. The estate is entailed, meaning that, according to the terms of inheritance, it must go to a male heir. Because Mr. Bennet's children are all female, the property will, by law, go to the next closest male relative: Mr. Collins. Mr. Bennet points out to his wife and daughters that Mr. Collins, as heir, "may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases" when Mr. Bennet is dead. Mr. Collins proves himself to be a curious blend of pompousness and obsequiousness. He is proud of his standing as the rector of the Hunsford parish and his patronage by Lady Catherine De Bourgh, and he does not hesitate to speak at length about his opinions. At the same time, however, he displays a relentlessly deferential manner, apologizing at length, for example, when he offends Mrs. Bennet by implying that they cannot afford to have a cook on staff. Mr. Bennet finds his cousin absurd and is amused by him, while Kitty and Lydia are shocked at Mr. Collins' announcement that he never reads novels. When he instead tries to read to them from Fordyce's Sermons, Lydia offends him by beginning to talk of something else. |
SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE
THAT evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre
spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of
a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire, a
volume of some dry divinity on his reading-desk, until the clock of
the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would
go soberly and gratefully to bed. On this night, however, as soon as
the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went into his
business-room. There he opened his safe, took from the most private
part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will,
and sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents. The will was
holograph, for Mr. Utterson, though he took charge of it now that it
was made, had refused to lend the least assistance in the making of
it; it provided not only that, in case of the decease of Henry
Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S., etc., all his possessions were
to pass into the hands of his "friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,"
but that in case of
12)
Dr. Jekyll's "disappearance or unexplained absence for any period
exceeding three calendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step
into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free
from any burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small
sums to the members of the doctor's household. This document had
long been the lawyer's eyesore. It offended him both as a lawyer and
as a lover of the sane and customary sides of life, to whom the
fanciful was the immodest. And hitherto it was his ignorance of Mr.
Hyde that had swelled his indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was
his knowledge. It was already bad enough when the name was but a
name of which he could learn no more. It was worse when it began to
be clothed upon with detestable attributes; and out of the shifting,
insubstantial mists that had so long baffled his eye, there leaped
up the sudden, definite presentment of a fiend.
"I thought it was madness," he said, as he replaced the obnoxious
paper in the safe, "and now I begin to fear it is disgrace."
With that he blew out his candle, put on a great-coat, and set
forth in the direction of Cavendish Square, that citadel of
medicine, where his friend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his house and
received his crowding patients. "If any one knows, it will be
Lanyon," he had thought.
The solemn butler knew and welcomed him;
13)
he was subjected to no stage of delay, but ushered direct from the
door to the dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone over his wine.
This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a
shock of hair prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided
manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and
welcomed him with both hands. The geniality, as was the way of the
man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine
feeling. For these two were old friends, old mates both at school
and college, both thorough respecters of themselves and of each
other, and, what does not always follow, men who thoroughly enjoyed
each other's company.
After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject
which so disagreeably pre-occupied his mind.
"I suppose, Lanyon," said he "you and I must be the two oldest
friends that Henry Jekyll has?"
"I wish the friends were younger," chuckled Dr. Lanyon. "But I
suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now."
"Indeed?" said Utterson. "I thought you had a bond of common
interest."
"We had," was the reply. "But it is more than ten years since Henry
Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in
mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for
old sake's sake, as they say,
14)
I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific
balderdash," added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, "would have
estranged Damon and Pythias."
This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to Mr.
Utterson. "They have only differed on some point of science," he
thought; and being a man of no scientific passions (except in the
matter of conveyancing), he even added: "It is nothing worse than
that!" He gave his friend a few seconds to recover his composure,
and then approached the question he had come to put. "Did you ever
come across a protege of his--one Hyde?" he asked.
"Hyde?" repeated Lanyon. "No. Never heard of him. Since my time."
That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried back
with him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and fro,
until the small hours of the morning began to grow large. It was a
night of little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness
and besieged by questions.
Six o'clock struck on the bells of the church that was so
conveniently near to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was
digging at the problem. Hitherto it had touched him on the
intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged,
or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness
of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by
15)
before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be aware
of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the figure
of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the doctor's;
and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the child down
and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else he would see a room
in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling
at his dreams; and then the door of that room would be opened, the
curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled, and lo!
there would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given, and
even at that dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The figure
in these two phases haunted the lawyer all night; and if at any time
he dozed over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily through
sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the more
swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamplighted
city, and at every street-corner crush a child and leave her
screaming. And still the figure had no face by which he might know
it; even in his dreams, it had no face, or one that baffled him and
melted before his eyes; and thus it was that there sprang up and
grew apace in the lawyer's mind a singularly strong, almost an
inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde.
If he could but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would
lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was the habit of
mysterious
16)
things when well examined. He might see a reason for his friend's
strange preference or bondage (call it which you please) and even
for the startling clause of the will. At least it would be a face
worth seeing: the face of a man who was without bowels of mercy: a
face which had but to show itself to raise up, in the mind of the
unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.
From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in the
by-street of shops. In the morning before office hours, at noon when
business was plenty, and time scarce, at night under the face of the
fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude or
concourse, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post.
"If he be Mr. Hyde," he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek."
And at last his patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night;
frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; the
lamps, unshaken, by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of light
and shadow. By ten o'clock, when the shops were closed, the
by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of
London from all round, very silent. Small sounds carried far;
domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either
side of the roadway; and the rumour of the approach of any
passenger preceded him by a long time. Mr. Utterson had been some
minutes at his post, when he was
17)
aware of an odd, light footstep drawing near. In the course of his
nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect
with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a
great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and
clatter of the city. Yet his attention had never before been so
sharply and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong,
superstitious prevision of success that he withdrew into the entry
of the court.
The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as
they turned the end of the street. The lawyer, looking forth from
the entry, could soon see what manner of man he had to deal with.
He was small and very plainly dressed, and the look of him, even at
that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher's
inclination. But he made straight for the door, crossing the
roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a key from his pocket
like one approaching home.
Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he
passed. "Mr. Hyde, I think?"
Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath. But his
fear was only momentary; and though he did not look the lawyer in
the face, he answered coolly enough: "That is my name. What do you
want?"
"I see you are going in," returned the lawyer. "I am an old friend
of Dr. Jekyll's--Mr. Utter-
18)
son of Gaunt Street--you must have heard my name; and meeting you
so conveniently, I thought you might admit me."
"You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home," replied Mr. Hyde,
blowing in the key. And then suddenly, but still without looking up,
"How did you know me?" he asked.
"On your side," said Mr. Utterson, "will you do me a favour?"
"With pleasure," replied the other. "What shall it be?"
"Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer.
Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as if upon some sudden
reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair
stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. "Now I shall
know you again," said Mr. Utterson. "It may be useful."
"Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, "it is as well we have, met; and a
propos, you should have my address." And he gave a number of a
street in Soho.
"Good God!" thought Mr. Utterson, "can he, too, have been thinking
of the will?" But he kept his feelings to himself and only grunted
in acknowledgment of the address.
"And now," said the other, "how did you know me?"
"By description," was the reply.
"Whose description?"
19)
"We have common friends," said Mr. Utterson.
"Common friends?" echoed Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely. "Who are
they?"
"Jekyll, for instance," said the lawyer.
"He never told you," cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of anger. "I did
not think you would have lied."
"Come," said Mr. Utterson, "that is not fitting language."
The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment,
with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and
disappeared into the house.
The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, the picture of
disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing
every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in
mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked,
was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and
dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable
malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to
the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and
boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken
voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these
together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing, and
fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. "There must be some-
20)
thing else," said the perplexed gentleman. "There is something
more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems
hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it be the
old story of Dr. Fell? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul
that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent?
The last, I think; for, O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read
Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend."
Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of ancient,
handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high
estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of
men: map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers, and the agents of
obscure enterprises. One house, however, second from the corner, was
still occupied entire; and at the door of this, which wore a great
air of wealth and comfort, though it was now plunged in darkness
except for the fan-light, Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A
well-dressed, elderly servant opened the door.
"Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole?" asked the lawyer.
"I will see, Mr. Utterson," said Poole, admitting the visitor, as
he spoke, into a large, low-roofed, comfortable hall, paved with
flags, warmed (after the fashion of a country house) by a bright,
open fire, and furnished with costly cabinets of oak. "Will you
wait here by the
21)
fire, sir? or shall I give you a light in the dining room?"
"Here, thank you," said the lawyer, and he drew near and leaned on
the tall fender. This hall, in which he was now left alone, was a
pet fancy of his friend the doctor's; and Utterson himself was wont
to speak of it as the pleasantest room in London. But to-night there
was a shudder in his blood; the face of Hyde sat heavy on his
memory; he felt (what was rare with him) a nausea and distaste of
life; and in the gloom of his spirits, he seemed to read a menace in
the flickering of the firelight on the polished cabinets and the
uneasy starting of the shadow on the roof. He was ashamed of his
relief, when Poole presently returned to announce that Dr. Jekyll
was gone out.
"I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting-room door, Poole," he
said. "Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"
"Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant. "Mr. Hyde
has a key."
"Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that young
man, Poole," resumed the other musingly.
"Yes, sir, he do indeed," said Poole. "We have all orders to obey
him."
"I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?" asked Utterson.
"O, dear no, sir. He never dines here," replied the butler. "Indeed
we see very little of
22)
him on this side of the house; he mostly comes and goes by the
laboratory."
"Well, good-night, Poole."
"Good-night, Mr. Utterson." And the lawyer set out homeward with a
very heavy heart. "Poor Harry Jekyll," he thought, "my mind
misgives me he is in deep waters! He was wild when he was young; a
long while ago to be sure; but in the law of God, there is no
statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old
sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace: punishment coming, PEDE
CLAUDO, years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the
fault." And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded a while on
his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance
some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there.
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their
life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the
many ill things he had done, and raised up again into a sober and
fearful gratitude by the many that he had come so near to doing, yet
avoided. And then by a return on his former subject, he conceived a
spark of hope. "This Master Hyde, if he were studied," thought he,
"must have secrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him;
secrets compared to which poor Jekyll's worst would be like
sunshine. Things cannot continue as they are. It turns me cold to
think of this creature stealing like a
23)
thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry, what a wakening! And the
danger of it; for if this Hyde suspects the existence of the will,
he may grow impatient to inherit. Ay, I must put my shoulder to the
wheel if Jekyll will but let me," he added, "if Jekyll will only let
me." For once more he saw before his mind's eye, as clear as a
transparency, the strange clauses of the will. | That evening after his walk with Enfield, Utterson returns home and examines Dr. Jekyll's will, which he remembers had strange stipulations referring to the Mr. Hyde Enfield discussed. The will provides that in the case of Henry Jekyll's death or disappearance, all of his possessions should be given to the Edward Hyde. Utterson was uncomfortable when Jekyll originally requested this stipulation, and is further upset by it after hearing of Mr. Hyde's despicable behavior. After considering the implications of the will with what he has learned about Edward Hyde, Utterson goes to visit Dr. Lanyon, another dear friend of Dr. Jekyll's. When the men begin talking about Jekyll, Utterson discovers that Lanyon has not spoken to Jekyll for a long period of time due to a disagreement over "unscientific balderdash. Utterson also learns that Lanyon has never heard of Hyde. After leaving Lanyon, Utterson's sleep is haunted by terrifying dreams of the evil Hyde, who is faceless in the dream, trampling a young girl and then standing by Jekyll's bedside ordering him to rise. Upon waking, Utterson reasons that if he can only see the face of Hyde, he might understand a reason for his friend's relationship with the man. From that point forward, Utterson begins to haunt the streets around the mysterious door, looking for Mr. Hyde to either enter or exit the portal. One night, he finally runs into Mr. Hyde and confronts him as he is about to enter the building. Utterson introduces himself as an old friend of Dr. Jekyll. Hyde then asks for Utterson's address and Utterson, in response, gives him a business card. Utterson, asks Hyde for a favor - to see the man's face. After complying, Hyde asks how Utterson knew him, and Utterson replies that he recognized him by description, claiming that they have common friends such as Jekyll. Mr. Hyde angrily replies that he knows for a fact that Jekyll never told Utterson anything about him and promptly disappears into the building. After leaving this scene, Utterson goes to see Dr. Jekyll, but Poole, Jekyll's butler, reports that the doctor is not at home. From this conversation, Utterson gleans that Jekyll's house, around the corner from the mysterious door, is L-shaped, and that Hyde's mysterious door is actually an entrance to Jekyll's old dissecting room. Utterson also learns that Hyde never dines in the house, but visits often. After leaving Jekyll's home, Utterson walks home and decides that Hyde must be blackmailing Jekyll, perhaps for some terrible act he committed earlier in his life. |
Party is Nature too, and you shall see
By force of Logic how they both agree:
The Many in the One, the One in Many;
All is not Some, nor Some the same as Any:
Genus holds species, both are great or small;
One genus highest, one not high at all;
Each species has its differentia too,
This is not That, and He was never You,
Though this and that are AYES, and you and he
Are like as one to one, or three to three.
No gossip about Mr. Casaubon's will had yet reached Ladislaw: the air
seemed to be filled with the dissolution of Parliament and the coming
election, as the old wakes and fairs were filled with the rival clatter
of itinerant shows; and more private noises were taken little notice
of. The famous "dry election" was at hand, in which the depths of
public feeling might be measured by the low flood-mark of drink. Will
Ladislaw was one of the busiest at this time; and though Dorothea's
widowhood was continually in his thought, he was so far from wishing to
be spoken to on the subject, that when Lydgate sought him out to tell
him what had passed about the Lowick living, he answered rather
waspishly--
"Why should you bring me into the matter? I never see Mrs. Casaubon,
and am not likely to see her, since she is at Freshitt. I never go
there. It is Tory ground, where I and the 'Pioneer' are no more
welcome than a poacher and his gun."
The fact was that Will had been made the more susceptible by observing
that Mr. Brooke, instead of wishing him, as before, to come to the
Grange oftener than was quite agreeable to himself, seemed now to
contrive that he should go there as little as possible. This was a
shuffling concession of Mr. Brooke's to Sir James Chettam's indignant
remonstrance; and Will, awake to the slightest hint in this direction,
concluded that he was to be kept away from the Grange on Dorothea's
account. Her friends, then, regarded him with some suspicion? Their
fears were quite superfluous: they were very much mistaken if they
imagined that he would put himself forward as a needy adventurer trying
to win the favor of a rich woman.
Until now Will had never fully seen the chasm between himself and
Dorothea--until now that he was come to the brink of it, and saw her on
the other side. He began, not without some inward rage, to think of
going away from the neighborhood: it would be impossible for him to
show any further interest in Dorothea without subjecting himself to
disagreeable imputations--perhaps even in her mind, which others might
try to poison.
"We are forever divided," said Will. "I might as well be at Rome; she
would be no farther from me." But what we call our despair is often
only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. There were plenty of reasons
why he should not go--public reasons why he should not quit his post at
this crisis, leaving Mr. Brooke in the lurch when he needed "coaching"
for the election, and when there was so much canvassing, direct and
indirect, to be carried on. Will could not like to leave his own
chessmen in the heat of a game; and any candidate on the right side,
even if his brain and marrow had been as soft as was consistent with a
gentlemanly bearing, might help to turn a majority. To coach Mr.
Brooke and keep him steadily to the idea that he must pledge himself to
vote for the actual Reform Bill, instead of insisting on his
independence and power of pulling up in time, was not an easy task.
Mr. Farebrother's prophecy of a fourth candidate "in the bag" had not
yet been fulfilled, neither the Parliamentary Candidate Society nor any
other power on the watch to secure a reforming majority seeing a worthy
nodus for interference while there was a second reforming candidate
like Mr. Brooke, who might be returned at his own expense; and the
fight lay entirely between Pinkerton the old Tory member, Bagster the
new Whig member returned at the last election, and Brooke the future
independent member, who was to fetter himself for this occasion only.
Mr. Hawley and his party would bend all their forces to the return of
Pinkerton, and Mr. Brooke's success must depend either on plumpers
which would leave Bagster in the rear, or on the new minting of Tory
votes into reforming votes. The latter means, of course, would be
preferable.
This prospect of converting votes was a dangerous distraction to Mr.
Brooke: his impression that waverers were likely to be allured by
wavering statements, and also the liability of his mind to stick afresh
at opposing arguments as they turned up in his memory, gave Will
Ladislaw much trouble.
"You know there are tactics in these things," said Mr. Brooke; "meeting
people half-way--tempering your ideas--saying, 'Well now, there's
something in that,' and so on. I agree with you that this is a
peculiar occasion--the country with a will of its own--political
unions--that sort of thing--but we sometimes cut with rather too sharp
a knife, Ladislaw. These ten-pound householders, now: why ten? Draw
the line somewhere--yes: but why just at ten? That's a difficult
question, now, if you go into it."
"Of course it is," said Will, impatiently. "But if you are to wait
till we get a logical Bill, you must put yourself forward as a
revolutionist, and then Middlemarch would not elect you, I fancy. As
for trimming, this is not a time for trimming."
Mr. Brooke always ended by agreeing with Ladislaw, who still appeared
to him a sort of Burke with a leaven of Shelley; but after an interval
the wisdom of his own methods reasserted itself, and he was again drawn
into using them with much hopefulness. At this stage of affairs he was
in excellent spirits, which even supported him under large advances of
money; for his powers of convincing and persuading had not yet been
tested by anything more difficult than a chairman's speech introducing
other orators, or a dialogue with a Middlemarch voter, from which he
came away with a sense that he was a tactician by nature, and that it
was a pity he had not gone earlier into this kind of thing. He was a
little conscious of defeat, however, with Mr. Mawmsey, a chief
representative in Middlemarch of that great social power, the retail
trader, and naturally one of the most doubtful voters in the
borough--willing for his own part to supply an equal quality of teas
and sugars to reformer and anti-reformer, as well as to agree
impartially with both, and feeling like the burgesses of old that this
necessity of electing members was a great burthen to a town; for even
if there were no danger in holding out hopes to all parties beforehand,
there would be the painful necessity at last of disappointing
respectable people whose names were on his books. He was accustomed to
receive large orders from Mr. Brooke of Tipton; but then, there were
many of Pinkerton's committee whose opinions had a great weight of
grocery on their side. Mr. Mawmsey thinking that Mr. Brooke, as not
too "clever in his intellects," was the more likely to forgive a grocer
who gave a hostile vote under pressure, had become confidential in his
back parlor.
"As to Reform, sir, put it in a family light," he said, rattling the
small silver in his pocket, and smiling affably. "Will it support Mrs.
Mawmsey, and enable her to bring up six children when I am no more? I
put the question _fictiously_, knowing what must be the answer. Very
well, sir. I ask you what, as a husband and a father, I am to do when
gentlemen come to me and say, 'Do as you like, Mawmsey; but if you vote
against us, I shall get my groceries elsewhere: when I sugar my liquor
I like to feel that I am benefiting the country by maintaining
tradesmen of the right color.' Those very words have been spoken to
me, sir, in the very chair where you are now sitting. I don't mean by
your honorable self, Mr. Brooke."
"No, no, no--that's narrow, you know. Until my butler complains to me
of your goods, Mr. Mawmsey," said Mr. Brooke, soothingly, "until I hear
that you send bad sugars, spices--that sort of thing--I shall never
order him to go elsewhere."
"Sir, I am your humble servant, and greatly obliged," said Mr. Mawmsey,
feeling that politics were clearing up a little. "There would be some
pleasure in voting for a gentleman who speaks in that honorable manner."
"Well, you know, Mr. Mawmsey, you would find it the right thing to put
yourself on our side. This Reform will touch everybody by-and-by--a
thoroughly popular measure--a sort of A, B, C, you know, that must come
first before the rest can follow. I quite agree with you that you've
got to look at the thing in a family light: but public spirit, now.
We're all one family, you know--it's all one cupboard. Such a thing
as a vote, now: why, it may help to make men's fortunes at the
Cape--there's no knowing what may be the effect of a vote," Mr. Brooke
ended, with a sense of being a little out at sea, though finding it
still enjoyable. But Mr. Mawmsey answered in a tone of decisive check.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I can't afford that. When I give a vote I
must know what I am doing; I must look to what will be the effects on
my till and ledger, speaking respectfully. Prices, I'll admit, are
what nobody can know the merits of; and the sudden falls after you've
bought in currants, which are a goods that will not keep--I've never;
myself seen into the ins and outs there; which is a rebuke to human
pride. But as to one family, there's debtor and creditor, I hope;
they're not going to reform that away; else I should vote for things
staying as they are. Few men have less need to cry for change than I
have, personally speaking--that is, for self and family. I am not one
of those who have nothing to lose: I mean as to respectability both in
parish and private business, and noways in respect of your honorable
self and custom, which you was good enough to say you would not
withdraw from me, vote or no vote, while the article sent in was
satisfactory."
After this conversation Mr. Mawmsey went up and boasted to his wife
that he had been rather too many for Brooke of Tipton, and that he
didn't mind so much now about going to the poll.
Mr. Brooke on this occasion abstained from boasting of his tactics to
Ladislaw, who for his part was glad enough to persuade himself that he
had no concern with any canvassing except the purely argumentative
sort, and that he worked no meaner engine than knowledge. Mr. Brooke,
necessarily, had his agents, who understood the nature of the
Middlemarch voter and the means of enlisting his ignorance on the side
of the Bill--which were remarkably similar to the means of enlisting it
on the side against the Bill. Will stopped his ears. Occasionally
Parliament, like the rest of our lives, even to our eating and apparel,
could hardly go on if our imaginations were too active about processes.
There were plenty of dirty-handed men in the world to do dirty
business; and Will protested to himself that his share in bringing Mr.
Brooke through would be quite innocent.
But whether he should succeed in that mode of contributing to the
majority on the right side was very doubtful to him. He had written
out various speeches and memoranda for speeches, but he had begun to
perceive that Mr. Brooke's mind, if it had the burthen of remembering
any train of thought, would let it drop, run away in search of it, and
not easily come back again. To collect documents is one mode of
serving your country, and to remember the contents of a document is
another. No! the only way in which Mr. Brooke could be coerced into
thinking of the right arguments at the right time was to be well plied
with them till they took up all the room in his brain. But here there
was the difficulty of finding room, so many things having been taken in
beforehand. Mr. Brooke himself observed that his ideas stood rather in
his way when he was speaking.
However, Ladislaw's coaching was forthwith to be put to the test, for
before the day of nomination Mr. Brooke was to explain himself to the
worthy electors of Middlemarch from the balcony of the White Hart,
which looked out advantageously at an angle of the market-place,
commanding a large area in front and two converging streets. It was a
fine May morning, and everything seemed hopeful: there was some
prospect of an understanding between Bagster's committee and Brooke's,
to which Mr. Bulstrode, Mr. Standish as a Liberal lawyer, and such
manufacturers as Mr. Plymdale and Mr. Vincy, gave a solidity which
almost counterbalanced Mr. Hawley and his associates who sat for
Pinkerton at the Green Dragon. Mr. Brooke, conscious of having
weakened the blasts of the "Trumpet" against him, by his reforms as a
landlord in the last half year, and hearing himself cheered a little as
he drove into the town, felt his heart tolerably light under his
buff-colored waistcoat. But with regard to critical occasions, it
often happens that all moments seem comfortably remote until the last.
"This looks well, eh?" said Mr. Brooke as the crowd gathered. "I shall
have a good audience, at any rate. I like this, now--this kind of
public made up of one's own neighbors, you know."
The weavers and tanners of Middlemarch, unlike Mr. Mawmsey, had never
thought of Mr. Brooke as a neighbor, and were not more attached to him
than if he had been sent in a box from London. But they listened
without much disturbance to the speakers who introduced the candidate,
one of them--a political personage from Brassing, who came to tell
Middlemarch its duty--spoke so fully, that it was alarming to think
what the candidate could find to say after him. Meanwhile the crowd
became denser, and as the political personage neared the end of his
speech, Mr. Brooke felt a remarkable change in his sensations while he
still handled his eye-glass, trifled with documents before him, and
exchanged remarks with his committee, as a man to whom the moment of
summons was indifferent.
"I'll take another glass of sherry, Ladislaw," he said, with an easy
air, to Will, who was close behind him, and presently handed him the
supposed fortifier. It was ill-chosen; for Mr. Brooke was an
abstemious man, and to drink a second glass of sherry quickly at no
great interval from the first was a surprise to his system which tended
to scatter his energies instead of collecting them. Pray pity him: so
many English gentlemen make themselves miserable by speechifying on
entirely private grounds! whereas Mr. Brooke wished to serve his
country by standing for Parliament--which, indeed, may also be done on
private grounds, but being once undertaken does absolutely demand some
speechifying.
It was not about the beginning of his speech that Mr. Brooke was at all
anxious; this, he felt sure, would be all right; he should have it
quite pat, cut out as neatly as a set of couplets from Pope. Embarking
would be easy, but the vision of open sea that might come after was
alarming. "And questions, now," hinted the demon just waking up in his
stomach, "somebody may put questions about the schedules.--Ladislaw,"
he continued, aloud, "just hand me the memorandum of the schedules."
When Mr. Brooke presented himself on the balcony, the cheers were quite
loud enough to counterbalance the yells, groans, brayings, and other
expressions of adverse theory, which were so moderate that Mr. Standish
(decidedly an old bird) observed in the ear next to him, "This looks
dangerous, by God! Hawley has got some deeper plan than this." Still,
the cheers were exhilarating, and no candidate could look more amiable
than Mr. Brooke, with the memorandum in his breast-pocket, his left
hand on the rail of the balcony, and his right trifling with his
eye-glass. The striking points in his appearance were his buff
waistcoat, short-clipped blond hair, and neutral physiognomy. He began
with some confidence.
"Gentlemen--Electors of Middlemarch!"
This was so much the right thing that a little pause after it seemed
natural.
"I'm uncommonly glad to be here--I was never so proud and happy in my
life--never so happy, you know."
This was a bold figure of speech, but not exactly the right thing; for,
unhappily, the pat opening had slipped away--even couplets from Pope
may be but "fallings from us, vanishings," when fear clutches us, and a
glass of sherry is hurrying like smoke among our ideas. Ladislaw, who
stood at the window behind the speaker, thought, "it's all up now. The
only chance is that, since the best thing won't always do, floundering
may answer for once." Mr. Brooke, meanwhile, having lost other clews,
fell back on himself and his qualifications--always an appropriate
graceful subject for a candidate.
"I am a close neighbor of yours, my good friends--you've known me on
the bench a good while--I've always gone a good deal into public
questions--machinery, now, and machine-breaking--you're many of you
concerned with machinery, and I've been going into that lately. It
won't do, you know, breaking machines: everything must go on--trade,
manufactures, commerce, interchange of staples--that kind of
thing--since Adam Smith, that must go on. We must look all over the
globe:--'Observation with extensive view,' must look everywhere, 'from
China to Peru,' as somebody says--Johnson, I think, 'The Rambler,' you
know. That is what I have done up to a certain point--not as far as
Peru; but I've not always stayed at home--I saw it wouldn't do. I've
been in the Levant, where some of your Middlemarch goods go--and then,
again, in the Baltic. The Baltic, now."
Plying among his recollections in this way, Mr. Brooke might have got
along, easily to himself, and would have come back from the remotest
seas without trouble; but a diabolical procedure had been set up by the
enemy. At one and the same moment there had risen above the shoulders
of the crowd, nearly opposite Mr. Brooke, and within ten yards of him,
the effigy of himself: buff-colored waistcoat, eye-glass, and neutral
physiognomy, painted on rag; and there had arisen, apparently in the
air, like the note of the cuckoo, a parrot-like, Punch-voiced echo of
his words. Everybody looked up at the open windows in the houses at
the opposite angles of the converging streets; but they were either
blank, or filled by laughing listeners. The most innocent echo has an
impish mockery in it when it follows a gravely persistent speaker, and
this echo was not at all innocent; if it did not follow with the
precision of a natural echo, it had a wicked choice of the words it
overtook. By the time it said, "The Baltic, now," the laugh which had
been running through the audience became a general shout, and but for
the sobering effects of party and that great public cause which the
entanglement of things had identified with "Brooke of Tipton," the
laugh might have caught his committee. Mr. Bulstrode asked,
reprehensively, what the new police was doing; but a voice could not
well be collared, and an attack on the effigy of the candidate would
have been too equivocal, since Hawley probably meant it to be pelted.
Mr. Brooke himself was not in a position to be quickly conscious of
anything except a general slipping away of ideas within himself: he had
even a little singing in the ears, and he was the only person who had
not yet taken distinct account of the echo or discerned the image of
himself. Few things hold the perceptions more thoroughly captive than
anxiety about what we have got to say. Mr. Brooke heard the laughter;
but he had expected some Tory efforts at disturbance, and he was at
this moment additionally excited by the tickling, stinging sense that
his lost exordium was coming back to fetch him from the Baltic.
"That reminds me," he went on, thrusting a hand into his side-pocket,
with an easy air, "if I wanted a precedent, you know--but we never want
a precedent for the right thing--but there is Chatham, now; I can't say
I should have supported Chatham, or Pitt, the younger Pitt--he was not
a man of ideas, and we want ideas, you know."
"Blast your ideas! we want the Bill," said a loud rough voice from the
crowd below.
Immediately the invisible Punch, who had hitherto followed Mr. Brooke,
repeated, "Blast your ideas! we want the Bill." The laugh was louder
than ever, and for the first time Mr. Brooke being himself silent,
heard distinctly the mocking echo. But it seemed to ridicule his
interrupter, and in that light was encouraging; so he replied with
amenity--
"There is something in what you say, my good friend, and what do we
meet for but to speak our minds--freedom of opinion, freedom of the
press, liberty--that kind of thing? The Bill, now--you shall have the
Bill"--here Mr. Brooke paused a moment to fix on his eye-glass and take
the paper from his breast-pocket, with a sense of being practical and
coming to particulars. The invisible Punch followed:--
"You shall have the Bill, Mr. Brooke, per electioneering contest, and a
seat outside Parliament as delivered, five thousand pounds, seven
shillings, and fourpence."
Mr. Brooke, amid the roars of laughter, turned red, let his eye-glass
fall, and looking about him confusedly, saw the image of himself, which
had come nearer. The next moment he saw it dolorously bespattered with
eggs. His spirit rose a little, and his voice too.
"Buffoonery, tricks, ridicule the test of truth--all that is very
well"--here an unpleasant egg broke on Mr. Brooke's shoulder, as the
echo said, "All that is very well;" then came a hail of eggs, chiefly
aimed at the image, but occasionally hitting the original, as if by
chance. There was a stream of new men pushing among the crowd;
whistles, yells, bellowings, and fifes made all the greater hubbub
because there was shouting and struggling to put them down. No voice
would have had wing enough to rise above the uproar, and Mr. Brooke,
disagreeably anointed, stood his ground no longer. The frustration
would have been less exasperating if it had been less gamesome and
boyish: a serious assault of which the newspaper reporter "can aver
that it endangered the learned gentleman's ribs," or can respectfully
bear witness to "the soles of that gentleman's boots having been
visible above the railing," has perhaps more consolations attached to
it.
Mr. Brooke re-entered the committee-room, saying, as carelessly as he
could, "This is a little too bad, you know. I should have got the ear
of the people by-and-by--but they didn't give me time. I should have
gone into the Bill by-and-by, you know," he added, glancing at
Ladislaw. "However, things will come all right at the nomination."
But it was not resolved unanimously that things would come right; on
the contrary, the committee looked rather grim, and the political
personage from Brassing was writing busily, as if he were brewing new
devices.
"It was Bowyer who did it," said Mr. Standish, evasively. "I know it
as well as if he had been advertised. He's uncommonly good at
ventriloquism, and he did it uncommonly well, by God! Hawley has been
having him to dinner lately: there's a fund of talent in Bowyer."
"Well, you know, you never mentioned him to me, Standish, else I would
have invited him to dine," said poor Mr. Brooke, who had gone through a
great deal of inviting for the good of his country.
"There's not a more paltry fellow in Middlemarch than Bowyer," said
Ladislaw, indignantly, "but it seems as if the paltry fellows were
always to turn the scale."
Will was thoroughly out of temper with himself as well as with his
"principal," and he went to shut himself in his rooms with a
half-formed resolve to throw up the "Pioneer" and Mr. Brooke together.
Why should he stay? If the impassable gulf between himself and
Dorothea were ever to be filled up, it must rather be by his going away
and getting into a thoroughly different position than by staying here
and slipping into deserved contempt as an understrapper of Brooke's.
Then came the young dream of wonders that he might do--in five years,
for example: political writing, political speaking, would get a higher
value now public life was going to be wider and more national, and they
might give him such distinction that he would not seem to be asking
Dorothea to step down to him. Five years:--if he could only be sure
that she cared for him more than for others; if he could only make her
aware that he stood aloof until he could tell his love without lowering
himself--then he could go away easily, and begin a career which at
five-and-twenty seemed probable enough in the inward order of things,
where talent brings fame, and fame everything else which is delightful.
He could speak and he could write; he could master any subject if he
chose, and he meant always to take the side of reason and justice, on
which he would carry all his ardor. Why should he not one day be
lifted above the shoulders of the crowd, and feel that he had won that
eminence well? Without doubt he would leave Middlemarch, go to town,
and make himself fit for celebrity by "eating his dinners."
But not immediately: not until some kind of sign had passed between him
and Dorothea. He could not be satisfied until she knew why, even if he
were the man she would choose to marry, he would not marry her. Hence
he must keep his post and bear with Mr. Brooke a little longer.
But he soon had reason to suspect that Mr. Brooke had anticipated him
in the wish to break up their connection. Deputations without and
voices within had concurred in inducing that philanthropist to take a
stronger measure than usual for the good of mankind; namely, to
withdraw in favor of another candidate, to whom he left the advantages
of his canvassing machinery. He himself called this a strong measure,
but observed that his health was less capable of sustaining excitement
than he had imagined.
"I have felt uneasy about the chest--it won't do to carry that too
far," he said to Ladislaw in explaining the affair. "I must pull up.
Poor Casaubon was a warning, you know. I've made some heavy advances,
but I've dug a channel. It's rather coarse work--this electioneering,
eh, Ladislaw? dare say you are tired of it. However, we have dug a
channel with the 'Pioneer'--put things in a track, and so on. A more
ordinary man than you might carry it on now--more ordinary, you know."
"Do you wish me to give it up?" said Will, the quick color coming in
his face, as he rose from the writing-table, and took a turn of three
steps with his hands in his pockets. "I am ready to do so whenever you
wish it."
"As to wishing, my dear Ladislaw, I have the highest opinion of your
powers, you know. But about the 'Pioneer,' I have been consulting a
little with some of the men on our side, and they are inclined to take
it into their hands--indemnify me to a certain extent--carry it on, in
fact. And under the circumstances, you might like to give up--might
find a better field. These people might not take that high view of you
which I have always taken, as an alter ego, a right hand--though I
always looked forward to your doing something else. I think of having
a run into France. But I'll write you any letters, you know--to
Althorpe and people of that kind. I've met Althorpe."
"I am exceedingly obliged to you," said Ladislaw, proudly. "Since you
are going to part with the 'Pioneer,' I need not trouble you about the
steps I shall take. I may choose to continue here for the present."
After Mr. Brooke had left him Will said to himself, "The rest of the
family have been urging him to get rid of me, and he doesn't care now
about my going. I shall stay as long as I like. I shall go of my own
movements and not because they are afraid of me." | Will hasn't heard the gossip about the codicil in Mr. Casaubon's will. He hasn't been invited to Brooke's house as often as before, but he continues to work on the Pioneer for Brooke. Will is afraid that they're trying to keep him away from Dorothea, and is annoyed at the thought that they suspect him of trying to seduce a rich and newly widowed woman. But he continues to see Brooke at the Pioneer office, and continues to coach him on speeches and politics. Brooke is as inconsistent as ever, but, with help from Will, it's not showing as badly. Or so Will hopes: the time has come for Brooke to give a public speech, and he's bad enough at speaking coherently in private that everyone is nervous for him. The speech starts out okay, but then Brooke starts rambling about nothing. And then someone in the crowd holds up a kind of effigy, or life-sized model, of Brooke on a stick to mimic him. Brooke has always been easily distracted, and the effigy pulls him even further off track. The speech really goes to pot when the crowd starts throwing rotten vegetables at him. Will Ladislaw and the rest of the committee that has been working for Brooke look "grim" when Brooke comes back in from his failed speech. Will considers quitting his job at the Pioneer. He wants to go away and do something brilliant that will elevate him socially. He wants to put himself on a level with Dorothea and erase the social gap between them. He doesn't want to go without seeing Dorothea first. But then Brooke tells him that he's planning on selling the Pioneer, and therefore he won't need Will to stay on as editor anymore. This is just the excuse Will needed to leave Middlemarch to seek his fortune elsewhere, but he doesn't want to leave "because they are afraid" of him. He has a feeling that Brooke and his friends are trying to push him away either because of politics or because of Dorothea. |
It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been
known of young people passing many, many months successively, without
being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue
either to body or mind;--but when a beginning is made--when the
felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt--it
must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.
Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury, and longed to dance again;
and the last half-hour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded
to spend with his daughter at Randalls, was passed by the two young
people in schemes on the subject. Frank's was the first idea; and his
the greatest zeal in pursuing it; for the lady was the best judge of the
difficulties, and the most solicitous for accommodation and appearance.
But still she had inclination enough for shewing people again how
delightfully Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse danced--for
doing that in which she need not blush to compare herself with Jane
Fairfax--and even for simple dancing itself, without any of the wicked
aids of vanity--to assist him first in pacing out the room they were in
to see what it could be made to hold--and then in taking the dimensions
of the other parlour, in the hope of discovering, in spite of all that
Mr. Weston could say of their exactly equal size, that it was a little
the largest.
His first proposition and request, that the dance begun at Mr. Cole's
should be finished there--that the same party should be collected,
and the same musician engaged, met with the readiest acquiescence. Mr.
Weston entered into the idea with thorough enjoyment, and Mrs. Weston
most willingly undertook to play as long as they could wish to dance;
and the interesting employment had followed, of reckoning up exactly who
there would be, and portioning out the indispensable division of space
to every couple.
"You and Miss Smith, and Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss
Coxes five," had been repeated many times over. "And there will be the
two Gilberts, young Cox, my father, and myself, besides Mr. Knightley.
Yes, that will be quite enough for pleasure. You and Miss Smith, and
Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss Coxes five; and for five
couple there will be plenty of room."
But soon it came to be on one side,
"But will there be good room for five couple?--I really do not think
there will."
On another,
"And after all, five couple are not enough to make it worth while to
stand up. Five couple are nothing, when one thinks seriously about it.
It will not do to _invite_ five couple. It can be allowable only as the
thought of the moment."
Somebody said that _Miss_ Gilbert was expected at her brother's, and
must be invited with the rest. Somebody else believed _Mrs_. Gilbert
would have danced the other evening, if she had been asked. A word was
put in for a second young Cox; and at last, Mr. Weston naming one family
of cousins who must be included, and another of very old acquaintance
who could not be left out, it became a certainty that the five couple
would be at least ten, and a very interesting speculation in what
possible manner they could be disposed of.
The doors of the two rooms were just opposite each other. "Might not
they use both rooms, and dance across the passage?" It seemed the
best scheme; and yet it was not so good but that many of them wanted a
better. Emma said it would be awkward; Mrs. Weston was in distress about
the supper; and Mr. Woodhouse opposed it earnestly, on the score of
health. It made him so very unhappy, indeed, that it could not be
persevered in.
"Oh! no," said he; "it would be the extreme of imprudence. I could not
bear it for Emma!--Emma is not strong. She would catch a dreadful cold.
So would poor little Harriet. So you would all. Mrs. Weston, you would
be quite laid up; do not let them talk of such a wild thing. Pray do
not let them talk of it. That young man (speaking lower) is very
thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite
the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening,
and keeping them open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the
draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but indeed he is not
quite the thing!"
Mrs. Weston was sorry for such a charge. She knew the importance of
it, and said every thing in her power to do it away. Every door was now
closed, the passage plan given up, and the first scheme of dancing only
in the room they were in resorted to again; and with such good-will on
Frank Churchill's part, that the space which a quarter of an hour before
had been deemed barely sufficient for five couple, was now endeavoured
to be made out quite enough for ten.
"We were too magnificent," said he. "We allowed unnecessary room. Ten
couple may stand here very well."
Emma demurred. "It would be a crowd--a sad crowd; and what could be
worse than dancing without space to turn in?"
"Very true," he gravely replied; "it was very bad." But still he went on
measuring, and still he ended with,
"I think there will be very tolerable room for ten couple."
"No, no," said she, "you are quite unreasonable. It would be dreadful
to be standing so close! Nothing can be farther from pleasure than to be
dancing in a crowd--and a crowd in a little room!"
"There is no denying it," he replied. "I agree with you exactly. A crowd
in a little room--Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures
in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!--Still, however, having
proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up. It would be
a disappointment to my father--and altogether--I do not know that--I am
rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well."
Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little
self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of
dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest.
Had she intended ever to _marry_ him, it might have been worth while to
pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference,
and the character of his temper; but for all the purposes of their
acquaintance, he was quite amiable enough.
Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield; and he entered
the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of
the scheme. It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement.
"Well, Miss Woodhouse," he almost immediately began, "your inclination
for dancing has not been quite frightened away, I hope, by the terrors
of my father's little rooms. I bring a new proposal on the subject:--a
thought of my father's, which waits only your approbation to be acted
upon. May I hope for the honour of your hand for the two first dances
of this little projected ball, to be given, not at Randalls, but at the
Crown Inn?"
"The Crown!"
"Yes; if you and Mr. Woodhouse see no objection, and I trust you cannot,
my father hopes his friends will be so kind as to visit him there.
Better accommodations, he can promise them, and not a less grateful
welcome than at Randalls. It is his own idea. Mrs. Weston sees no
objection to it, provided you are satisfied. This is what we all feel.
Oh! you were perfectly right! Ten couple, in either of the Randalls
rooms, would have been insufferable!--Dreadful!--I felt how right you
were the whole time, but was too anxious for securing _any_ _thing_
to like to yield. Is not it a good exchange?--You consent--I hope you
consent?"
"It appears to me a plan that nobody can object to, if Mr. and Mrs.
Weston do not. I think it admirable; and, as far as I can answer for
myself, shall be most happy--It seems the only improvement that could
be. Papa, do you not think it an excellent improvement?"
She was obliged to repeat and explain it, before it was fully
comprehended; and then, being quite new, farther representations were
necessary to make it acceptable.
"No; he thought it very far from an improvement--a very bad plan--much
worse than the other. A room at an inn was always damp and dangerous;
never properly aired, or fit to be inhabited. If they must dance, they
had better dance at Randalls. He had never been in the room at the Crown
in his life--did not know the people who kept it by sight.--Oh! no--a
very bad plan. They would catch worse colds at the Crown than anywhere."
"I was going to observe, sir," said Frank Churchill, "that one of the
great recommendations of this change would be the very little danger
of any body's catching cold--so much less danger at the Crown than at
Randalls! Mr. Perry might have reason to regret the alteration, but
nobody else could."
"Sir," said Mr. Woodhouse, rather warmly, "you are very much mistaken
if you suppose Mr. Perry to be that sort of character. Mr. Perry is
extremely concerned when any of us are ill. But I do not understand how
the room at the Crown can be safer for you than your father's house."
"From the very circumstance of its being larger, sir. We shall have no
occasion to open the windows at all--not once the whole evening; and it
is that dreadful habit of opening the windows, letting in cold air upon
heated bodies, which (as you well know, sir) does the mischief."
"Open the windows!--but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think of
opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent! I never
heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows!--I am sure, neither
your father nor Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) would suffer
it."
"Ah! sir--but a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind a
window-curtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected. I have
often known it done myself."
"Have you indeed, sir?--Bless me! I never could have supposed it. But I
live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear. However,
this does make a difference; and, perhaps, when we come to talk it
over--but these sort of things require a good deal of consideration. One
cannot resolve upon them in a hurry. If Mr. and Mrs. Weston will be so
obliging as to call here one morning, we may talk it over, and see what
can be done."
"But, unfortunately, sir, my time is so limited--"
"Oh!" interrupted Emma, "there will be plenty of time for talking every
thing over. There is no hurry at all. If it can be contrived to be at
the Crown, papa, it will be very convenient for the horses. They will be
so near their own stable."
"So they will, my dear. That is a great thing. Not that James ever
complains; but it is right to spare our horses when we can. If I could
be sure of the rooms being thoroughly aired--but is Mrs. Stokes to be
trusted? I doubt it. I do not know her, even by sight."
"I can answer for every thing of that nature, sir, because it will be
under Mrs. Weston's care. Mrs. Weston undertakes to direct the whole."
"There, papa!--Now you must be satisfied--Our own dear Mrs. Weston, who
is carefulness itself. Do not you remember what Mr. Perry said, so many
years ago, when I had the measles? 'If _Miss_ _Taylor_ undertakes to
wrap Miss Emma up, you need not have any fears, sir.' How often have I
heard you speak of it as such a compliment to her!"
"Aye, very true. Mr. Perry did say so. I shall never forget it. Poor
little Emma! You were very bad with the measles; that is, you would have
been very bad, but for Perry's great attention. He came four times a day
for a week. He said, from the first, it was a very good sort--which
was our great comfort; but the measles are a dreadful complaint. I hope
whenever poor Isabella's little ones have the measles, she will send for
Perry."
"My father and Mrs. Weston are at the Crown at this moment," said Frank
Churchill, "examining the capabilities of the house. I left them there
and came on to Hartfield, impatient for your opinion, and hoping you
might be persuaded to join them and give your advice on the spot. I was
desired to say so from both. It would be the greatest pleasure to
them, if you could allow me to attend you there. They can do nothing
satisfactorily without you."
Emma was most happy to be called to such a council; and her father,
engaging to think it all over while she was gone, the two young people
set off together without delay for the Crown. There were Mr. and Mrs.
Weston; delighted to see her and receive her approbation, very busy and
very happy in their different way; she, in some little distress; and he,
finding every thing perfect.
"Emma," said she, "this paper is worse than I expected. Look! in places
you see it is dreadfully dirty; and the wainscot is more yellow and
forlorn than any thing I could have imagined."
"My dear, you are too particular," said her husband. "What does all that
signify? You will see nothing of it by candlelight. It will be as
clean as Randalls by candlelight. We never see any thing of it on our
club-nights."
The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, "Men never know
when things are dirty or not;" and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to
himself, "Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares."
One perplexity, however, arose, which the gentlemen did not disdain.
It regarded a supper-room. At the time of the ballroom's being built,
suppers had not been in question; and a small card-room adjoining, was
the only addition. What was to be done? This card-room would be wanted
as a card-room now; or, if cards were conveniently voted unnecessary
by their four selves, still was it not too small for any comfortable
supper? Another room of much better size might be secured for the
purpose; but it was at the other end of the house, and a long awkward
passage must be gone through to get at it. This made a difficulty. Mrs.
Weston was afraid of draughts for the young people in that passage;
and neither Emma nor the gentlemen could tolerate the prospect of being
miserably crowded at supper.
Mrs. Weston proposed having no regular supper; merely sandwiches,
&c., set out in the little room; but that was scouted as a wretched
suggestion. A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was
pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women; and
Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again. She then took another line of
expediency, and looking into the doubtful room, observed,
"I do not think it _is_ so very small. We shall not be many, you know."
And Mr. Weston at the same time, walking briskly with long steps through
the passage, was calling out,
"You talk a great deal of the length of this passage, my dear. It is a
mere nothing after all; and not the least draught from the stairs."
"I wish," said Mrs. Weston, "one could know which arrangement our guests
in general would like best. To do what would be most generally pleasing
must be our object--if one could but tell what that would be."
"Yes, very true," cried Frank, "very true. You want your neighbours'
opinions. I do not wonder at you. If one could ascertain what the chief
of them--the Coles, for instance. They are not far off. Shall I call
upon them? Or Miss Bates? She is still nearer.--And I do not know
whether Miss Bates is not as likely to understand the inclinations of
the rest of the people as any body. I think we do want a larger council.
Suppose I go and invite Miss Bates to join us?"
"Well--if you please," said Mrs. Weston rather hesitating, "if you think
she will be of any use."
"You will get nothing to the purpose from Miss Bates," said Emma. "She
will be all delight and gratitude, but she will tell you nothing. She
will not even listen to your questions. I see no advantage in consulting
Miss Bates."
"But she is so amusing, so extremely amusing! I am very fond of hearing
Miss Bates talk. And I need not bring the whole family, you know."
Here Mr. Weston joined them, and on hearing what was proposed, gave it
his decided approbation.
"Aye, do, Frank.--Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter at
once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure; and I do not know a properer
person for shewing us how to do away difficulties. Fetch Miss Bates.
We are growing a little too nice. She is a standing lesson of how to be
happy. But fetch them both. Invite them both."
"Both sir! Can the old lady?"...
"The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you a great
blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece."
"Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I did not immediately recollect.
Undoubtedly if you wish it, I will endeavour to persuade them both." And
away he ran.
Long before he reappeared, attending the short, neat, brisk-moving aunt,
and her elegant niece,--Mrs. Weston, like a sweet-tempered woman and
a good wife, had examined the passage again, and found the evils of it
much less than she had supposed before--indeed very trifling; and here
ended the difficulties of decision. All the rest, in speculation at
least, was perfectly smooth. All the minor arrangements of table and
chair, lights and music, tea and supper, made themselves; or were left
as mere trifles to be settled at any time between Mrs. Weston and Mrs.
Stokes.--Every body invited, was certainly to come; Frank had already
written to Enscombe to propose staying a few days beyond his fortnight,
which could not possibly be refused. And a delightful dance it was to
be.
Most cordially, when Miss Bates arrived, did she agree that it must.
As a counsellor she was not wanted; but as an approver, (a much safer
character,) she was truly welcome. Her approbation, at once general
and minute, warm and incessant, could not but please; and for another
half-hour they were all walking to and fro, between the different rooms,
some suggesting, some attending, and all in happy enjoyment of the
future. The party did not break up without Emma's being positively
secured for the two first dances by the hero of the evening, nor without
her overhearing Mr. Weston whisper to his wife, "He has asked her, my
dear. That's right. I knew he would!" | While the Woodhouses are visiting Randalls, Frank and Emma work on planning a ball so they can finish the dancing inaugurated at the Coles'. They decide the room at Randalls is too small. Mr. Woodhouse privately tells Mrs. Weston his concern that Frank is so thoughtless about opening and shutting doors that he exposes Emma, Harriet, and Mrs. Weston to dangerous drafts. The next solution proposed by Frank on behalf of Mr. Weston is that the ball be given at the Crown Inn. Though Frank does a poor job reassuring Mr. Woodhouse that this plan will not give them all colds, Emma comforts her father, and she agrees to the plan. There are further practical difficulties, and Frank proposes he go fetch Miss Bates along with her niece, whom Frank admits he does not immediately recollect, for advice. By the time he returns, the difficulties have been resolved, the date of the ball has been set, and Frank secures from Emma a promise to dance the first two dances with him |
The Letter on the Pincushion
How they were married is not of the slightest consequence to anybody.
What is to hinder a Captain who is a major, and a young lady who is of
age, from purchasing a licence, and uniting themselves at any church in
this town? Who needs to be told, that if a woman has a will she will
assuredly find a way?--My belief is that one day, when Miss Sharp had
gone to pass the forenoon with her dear friend Miss Amelia Sedley in
Russell Square, a lady very like her might have been seen entering a
church in the City, in company with a gentleman with dyed mustachios,
who, after a quarter of an hour's interval, escorted her back to the
hackney-coach in waiting, and that this was a quiet bridal party.
And who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can question the
probability of a gentleman marrying anybody? How many of the wise and
learned have married their cooks? Did not Lord Eldon himself, the most
prudent of men, make a runaway match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both
in love with their servant maids? And are we to expect a heavy dragoon
with strong desires and small brains, who had never controlled a
passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden, and to refuse
to pay any price for an indulgence to which he had a mind? If people
only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!
It seems to me, for my part, that Mr. Rawdon's marriage was one of the
honestest actions which we shall have to record in any portion of that
gentleman's biography which has to do with the present history. No one
will say it is unmanly to be captivated by a woman, or, being
captivated, to marry her; and the admiration, the delight, the passion,
the wonder, the unbounded confidence, and frantic adoration with which,
by degrees, this big warrior got to regard the little Rebecca, were
feelings which the ladies at least will pronounce were not altogether
discreditable to him. When she sang, every note thrilled in his dull
soul, and tingled through his huge frame. When she spoke, he brought
all the force of his brains to listen and wonder. If she was jocular,
he used to revolve her jokes in his mind, and explode over them half an
hour afterwards in the street, to the surprise of the groom in the
tilbury by his side, or the comrade riding with him in Rotten Row. Her
words were oracles to him, her smallest actions marked by an infallible
grace and wisdom. "How she sings,--how she paints," thought he. "How
she rode that kicking mare at Queen's Crawley!" And he would say to
her in confidential moments, "By Jove, Beck, you're fit to be
Commander-in-Chief, or Archbishop of Canterbury, by Jove." Is his
case a rare one? and don't we see every day in the world many an honest
Hercules at the apron-strings of Omphale, and great whiskered Samsons
prostrate in Delilah's lap?
When, then, Becky told him that the great crisis was near, and the time
for action had arrived, Rawdon expressed himself as ready to act under
her orders, as he would be to charge with his troop at the command of
his colonel. There was no need for him to put his letter into the
third volume of Porteus. Rebecca easily found a means to get rid of
Briggs, her companion, and met her faithful friend in "the usual place"
on the next day. She had thought over matters at night, and
communicated to Rawdon the result of her determinations. He agreed, of
course, to everything; was quite sure that it was all right: that what
she proposed was best; that Miss Crawley would infallibly relent, or
"come round," as he said, after a time. Had Rebecca's resolutions been
entirely different, he would have followed them as implicitly. "You
have head enough for both of us, Beck," said he. "You're sure to get
us out of the scrape. I never saw your equal, and I've met with some
clippers in my time too." And with this simple confession of faith, the
love-stricken dragoon left her to execute his part of the project which
she had formed for the pair.
It consisted simply in the hiring of quiet lodgings at Brompton, or in
the neighbourhood of the barracks, for Captain and Mrs. Crawley. For
Rebecca had determined, and very prudently, we think, to fly. Rawdon
was only too happy at her resolve; he had been entreating her to take
this measure any time for weeks past. He pranced off to engage the
lodgings with all the impetuosity of love. He agreed to pay two
guineas a week so readily, that the landlady regretted she had asked
him so little. He ordered in a piano, and half a nursery-house full of
flowers: and a heap of good things. As for shawls, kid gloves, silk
stockings, gold French watches, bracelets and perfumery, he sent them
in with the profusion of blind love and unbounded credit. And having
relieved his mind by this outpouring of generosity, he went and dined
nervously at the club, waiting until the great moment of his life
should come.
The occurrences of the previous day; the admirable conduct of
Rebecca in refusing an offer so advantageous to her, the secret
unhappiness preying upon her, the sweetness and silence with which she
bore her affliction, made Miss Crawley much more tender than usual. An
event of this nature, a marriage, or a refusal, or a proposal, thrills
through a whole household of women, and sets all their hysterical
sympathies at work. As an observer of human nature, I regularly
frequent St. George's, Hanover Square, during the genteel marriage
season; and though I have never seen the bridegroom's male friends give
way to tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy any way affected,
yet it is not at all uncommon to see women who are not in the least
concerned in the operations going on--old ladies who are long past
marrying, stout middle-aged females with plenty of sons and daughters,
let alone pretty young creatures in pink bonnets, who are on their
promotion, and may naturally take an interest in the ceremony--I say it
is quite common to see the women present piping, sobbing, sniffling;
hiding their little faces in their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs;
and heaving, old and young, with emotion. When my friend, the
fashionable John Pimlico, married the lovely Lady Belgravia Green
Parker, the excitement was so general that even the little snuffy old
pew-opener who let me into the seat was in tears. And wherefore? I
inquired of my own soul: she was not going to be married.
Miss Crawley and Briggs in a word, after the affair of Sir Pitt,
indulged in the utmost luxury of sentiment, and Rebecca became an
object of the most tender interest to them. In her absence Miss
Crawley solaced herself with the most sentimental of the novels in her
library. Little Sharp, with her secret griefs, was the heroine of the
day.
That night Rebecca sang more sweetly and talked more pleasantly than
she had ever been heard to do in Park Lane. She twined herself round
the heart of Miss Crawley. She spoke lightly and laughingly of Sir
Pitt's proposal, ridiculed it as the foolish fancy of an old man; and
her eyes filled with tears, and Briggs's heart with unutterable pangs
of defeat, as she said she desired no other lot than to remain for ever
with her dear benefactress. "My dear little creature," the old lady
said, "I don't intend to let you stir for years, that you may depend
upon it. As for going back to that odious brother of mine after what
has passed, it is out of the question. Here you stay with me and
Briggs. Briggs wants to go to see her relations very often. Briggs,
you may go when you like. But as for you, my dear, you must stay and
take care of the old woman."
If Rawdon Crawley had been then and there present, instead of being at
the club nervously drinking claret, the pair might have gone down on
their knees before the old spinster, avowed all, and been forgiven in a
twinkling. But that good chance was denied to the young couple,
doubtless in order that this story might be written, in which numbers
of their wonderful adventures are narrated--adventures which could
never have occurred to them if they had been housed and sheltered under
the comfortable uninteresting forgiveness of Miss Crawley.
Under Mrs. Firkin's orders, in the Park Lane establishment, was a young
woman from Hampshire, whose business it was, among other duties, to
knock at Miss Sharp's door with that jug of hot water which Firkin
would rather have perished than have presented to the intruder. This
girl, bred on the family estate, had a brother in Captain Crawley's
troop, and if the truth were known, I daresay it would come out that
she was aware of certain arrangements, which have a great deal to do
with this history. At any rate she purchased a yellow shawl, a pair of
green boots, and a light blue hat with a red feather with three guineas
which Rebecca gave her, and as little Sharp was by no means too liberal
with her money, no doubt it was for services rendered that Betty Martin
was so bribed.
On the second day after Sir Pitt Crawley's offer to Miss Sharp, the sun
rose as usual, and at the usual hour Betty Martin, the upstairs maid,
knocked at the door of the governess's bedchamber.
No answer was returned, and she knocked again. Silence was still
uninterrupted; and Betty, with the hot water, opened the door and
entered the chamber.
The little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as on the day
previous, when Betty's own hands had helped to make it. Two little
trunks were corded in one end of the room; and on the table before the
window--on the pincushion--the great fat pincushion lined with pink
inside, and twilled like a lady's nightcap--lay a letter. It had been
reposing there probably all night.
Betty advanced towards it on tiptoe, as if she were afraid to awake
it--looked at it, and round the room, with an air of great wonder and
satisfaction; took up the letter, and grinned intensely as she turned
it round and over, and finally carried it into Miss Briggs's room below.
How could Betty tell that the letter was for Miss Briggs, I should like
to know? All the schooling Betty had had was at Mrs. Bute Crawley's
Sunday school, and she could no more read writing than Hebrew.
"La, Miss Briggs," the girl exclaimed, "O, Miss, something must have
happened--there's nobody in Miss Sharp's room; the bed ain't been slep
in, and she've run away, and left this letter for you, Miss."
"WHAT!" cries Briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp of faded hair
falling over her shoulders; "an elopement! Miss Sharp a fugitive! What,
what is this?" and she eagerly broke the neat seal, and, as they say,
"devoured the contents" of the letter addressed to her.
Dear Miss Briggs [the refugee wrote], the kindest heart in the world,
as yours is, will pity and sympathise with me and excuse me. With
tears, and prayers, and blessings, I leave the home where the poor
orphan has ever met with kindness and affection. Claims even superior
to those of my benefactress call me hence. I go to my duty--to my
HUSBAND. Yes, I am married. My husband COMMANDS me to seek the HUMBLE
HOME which we call ours. Dearest Miss Briggs, break the news as your
delicate sympathy will know how to do it--to my dear, my beloved friend
and benefactress. Tell her, ere I went, I shed tears on her dear
pillow--that pillow that I have so often soothed in sickness--that I
long AGAIN to watch--Oh, with what joy shall I return to dear Park
Lane! How I tremble for the answer which is to SEAL MY FATE! When Sir
Pitt deigned to offer me his hand, an honour of which my beloved Miss
Crawley said I was DESERVING (my blessings go with her for judging the
poor orphan worthy to be HER SISTER!) I told Sir Pitt that I was
already A WIFE. Even he forgave me. But my courage failed me, when I
should have told him all--that I could not be his wife, for I WAS HIS
DAUGHTER! I am wedded to the best and most generous of men--Miss
Crawley's Rawdon is MY Rawdon. At his COMMAND I open my lips, and
follow him to our humble home, as I would THROUGH THE WORLD. O, my
excellent and kind friend, intercede with my Rawdon's beloved aunt for
him and the poor girl to whom all HIS NOBLE RACE have shown such
UNPARALLELED AFFECTION. Ask Miss Crawley to receive HER CHILDREN. I
can say no more, but blessings, blessings on all in the dear house I
leave, prays
Your affectionate and GRATEFUL Rebecca Crawley. Midnight.
Just as Briggs had finished reading this affecting and interesting
document, which reinstated her in her position as first confidante of
Miss Crawley, Mrs. Firkin entered the room. "Here's Mrs. Bute Crawley
just arrived by the mail from Hampshire, and wants some tea; will you
come down and make breakfast, Miss?"
And to the surprise of Firkin, clasping her dressing-gown around her,
the wisp of hair floating dishevelled behind her, the little
curl-papers still sticking in bunches round her forehead, Briggs sailed
down to Mrs. Bute with the letter in her hand containing the wonderful
news.
"Oh, Mrs. Firkin," gasped Betty, "sech a business. Miss Sharp have a
gone and run away with the Capting, and they're off to Gretney Green!"
We would devote a chapter to describe the emotions of Mrs. Firkin, did
not the passions of her mistresses occupy our genteeler muse.
When Mrs. Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight travelling, and warming
herself at the newly crackling parlour fire, heard from Miss Briggs the
intelligence of the clandestine marriage, she declared it was quite
providential that she should have arrived at such a time to assist poor
dear Miss Crawley in supporting the shock--that Rebecca was an artful
little hussy of whom she had always had her suspicions; and that as for
Rawdon Crawley, she never could account for his aunt's infatuation
regarding him, and had long considered him a profligate, lost, and
abandoned being. And this awful conduct, Mrs. Bute said, will have at
least this good effect, it will open poor dear Miss Crawley's eyes to
the real character of this wicked man. Then Mrs. Bute had a
comfortable hot toast and tea; and as there was a vacant room in the
house now, there was no need for her to remain at the Gloster Coffee
House where the Portsmouth mail had set her down, and whence she
ordered Mr. Bowls's aide-de-camp the footman to bring away her trunks.
Miss Crawley, be it known, did not leave her room until near noon--taking
chocolate in bed in the morning, while Becky Sharp read the
Morning Post to her, or otherwise amusing herself or dawdling. The
conspirators below agreed that they would spare the dear lady's
feelings until she appeared in her drawing-room: meanwhile it was
announced to her that Mrs. Bute Crawley had come up from Hampshire by
the mail, was staying at the Gloster, sent her love to Miss Crawley,
and asked for breakfast with Miss Briggs. The arrival of Mrs. Bute,
which would not have caused any extreme delight at another period, was
hailed with pleasure now; Miss Crawley being pleased at the notion of a
gossip with her sister-in-law regarding the late Lady Crawley, the
funeral arrangements pending, and Sir Pitt's abrupt proposal to Rebecca.
It was not until the old lady was fairly ensconced in her usual
arm-chair in the drawing-room, and the preliminary embraces and inquiries
had taken place between the ladies, that the conspirators thought it
advisable to submit her to the operation. Who has not admired the
artifices and delicate approaches with which women "prepare" their
friends for bad news? Miss Crawley's two friends made such an
apparatus of mystery before they broke the intelligence to her, that
they worked her up to the necessary degree of doubt and alarm.
"And she refused Sir Pitt, my dear, dear Miss Crawley, prepare yourself
for it," Mrs. Bute said, "because--because she couldn't help herself."
"Of course there was a reason," Miss Crawley answered. "She liked
somebody else. I told Briggs so yesterday."
"LIKES somebody else!" Briggs gasped. "O my dear friend, she is
married already."
"Married already," Mrs. Bute chimed in; and both sate with clasped
hands looking from each other at their victim.
"Send her to me, the instant she comes in. The little sly wretch: how
dared she not tell me?" cried out Miss Crawley.
"She won't come in soon. Prepare yourself, dear friend--she's gone out
for a long time--she's--she's gone altogether."
"Gracious goodness, and who's to make my chocolate? Send for her and
have her back; I desire that she come back," the old lady said.
"She decamped last night, Ma'am," cried Mrs. Bute.
"She left a letter for me," Briggs exclaimed. "She's married to--"
"Prepare her, for heaven's sake. Don't torture her, my dear Miss
Briggs."
"She's married to whom?" cries the spinster in a nervous fury.
"To--to a relation of--"
"She refused Sir Pitt," cried the victim. "Speak at once. Don't drive
me mad."
"O Ma'am--prepare her, Miss Briggs--she's married to Rawdon Crawley."
"Rawdon married Rebecca--governess--nobod-- Get out of my house, you
fool, you idiot--you stupid old Briggs--how dare you? You're in the
plot--you made him marry, thinking that I'd leave my money from him--you
did, Martha," the poor old lady screamed in hysteric sentences.
"I, Ma'am, ask a member of this family to marry a drawing-master's
daughter?"
"Her mother was a Montmorency," cried out the old lady, pulling at the
bell with all her might.
"Her mother was an opera girl, and she has been on the stage or worse
herself," said Mrs. Bute.
Miss Crawley gave a final scream, and fell back in a faint. They were
forced to take her back to the room which she had just quitted. One fit
of hysterics succeeded another. The doctor was sent for--the
apothecary arrived. Mrs. Bute took up the post of nurse by her bedside.
"Her relations ought to be round about her," that amiable woman said.
She had scarcely been carried up to her room, when a new person arrived
to whom it was also necessary to break the news. This was Sir Pitt.
"Where's Becky?" he said, coming in. "Where's her traps? She's coming
with me to Queen's Crawley."
"Have you not heard the astonishing intelligence regarding her
surreptitious union?" Briggs asked.
"What's that to me?" Sir Pitt asked. "I know she's married. That
makes no odds. Tell her to come down at once, and not keep me."
"Are you not aware, sir," Miss Briggs asked, "that she has left our
roof, to the dismay of Miss Crawley, who is nearly killed by the
intelligence of Captain Rawdon's union with her?"
When Sir Pitt Crawley heard that Rebecca was married to his son, he
broke out into a fury of language, which it would do no good to repeat
in this place, as indeed it sent poor Briggs shuddering out of the
room; and with her we will shut the door upon the figure of the
frenzied old man, wild with hatred and insane with baffled desire.
One day after he went to Queen's Crawley, he burst like a madman into
the room she had used when there--dashed open her boxes with his foot,
and flung about her papers, clothes, and other relics. Miss Horrocks,
the butler's daughter, took some of them. The children dressed
themselves and acted plays in the others. It was but a few days after
the poor mother had gone to her lonely burying-place; and was laid,
unwept and disregarded, in a vault full of strangers.
"Suppose the old lady doesn't come to," Rawdon said to his little wife,
as they sate together in the snug little Brompton lodgings. She had
been trying the new piano all the morning. The new gloves fitted her
to a nicety; the new shawls became her wonderfully; the new rings
glittered on her little hands, and the new watch ticked at her waist;
"suppose she don't come round, eh, Becky?"
"I'LL make your fortune," she said; and Delilah patted Samson's cheek.
"You can do anything," he said, kissing the little hand. "By Jove you
can; and we'll drive down to the Star and Garter, and dine, by Jove." | The narrator fills in some details for us. How could Becky and Rawdon have gotten married? Easy enough - they are both of age, so they slipped off and just did it one day. It might not have been Rawdon's best decision, but probably his most honorable. After all, isn't that what men are supposed to do - meet a girl, fall in love, then make it legal? Rawdon is happy to leave all the details of their future in his wife's hands. He is at least smart enough to realize that she has a much better head on her shoulders than he does. While Becky is dealing with things, Rawdon rents an apartment for the two of them in a middle-class London neighborhood. That night Becky is playing it to the hilt. She sings, tells stories, plays cards - everything possible to make Miss Crawley happy. The narrator drops in to let us know that if Rawdon had been there that night, and if he and Becky had confessed, Miss Crawley would have instantly forgiven them. But then we'd have no novel. As it is, the next morning, a maid named Betty Martin finds a note addressed to Briggs on Becky's bed, which has clearly not been slept in. Becky's letter tells Briggs that Rawdon is her husband, and that Becky has gone to be with him. Right at that moment, Mrs. Bute comes to Miss Crawley's house . Briggs tells Mrs. Bute the news, and together they very slowly, suspensefully, with as much freaking out as possible, tell Miss Crawley. She totally loses it. Sir Pitt then comes to the house to pick Becky up and take her back to Queen's Crawley. Briggs tells him that she is married to Rawdon and he really flips out. He is beyond jealous of his son , storms back home, and trashes her room and all her stuff. |
Actus Quintus. Scene 1.
Enter Leonato and his brother.
Brother. If you goe on thus, you will kill your selfe,
And 'tis not wisedome thus to second griefe,
Against your selfe
Leon. I pray thee cease thy counsaile,
Which falls into mine eares as profitlesse,
As water in a siue: giue not me counsaile,
Nor let no comfort delight mine eare,
But such a one whose wrongs doth sute with mine.
Bring me a father that so lou'd his childe,
Whose ioy of her is ouer-whelmed like mine,
And bid him speake of patience,
Measure his woe the length and bredth of mine,
And let it answere euery straine for straine,
As thus for thus, and such a griefe for such,
In euery lineament, branch, shape, and forme:
If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,
And sorrow, wagge, crie hem, when he should grone,
Patch griefe with prouerbs, make misfortune drunke,
With candle-wasters: bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience:
But there is no such man, for brother, men
Can counsaile, and speake comfort to that griefe,
Which they themselues not feele, but tasting it,
Their counsaile turnes to passion, which before,
Would giue preceptiall medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madnesse in a silken thred,
Charme ache with ayre, and agony with words,
No, no, 'tis all mens office, to speake patience
To those that wring vnder the load of sorrow:
But no mans vertue nor sufficiencie
To be so morall, when he shall endure
The like himselfe: therefore giue me no counsaile,
My griefs cry lowder then aduertisement
Broth. Therein do men from children nothing differ
Leonato. I pray thee peace, I will be flesh and bloud,
For there was neuer yet Philosopher,
That could endure the tooth-ake patiently,
How euer they haue writ the stile of gods,
And made a push at chance and sufferance
Brother. Yet bend not all the harme vpon your selfe,
Make those that doe offend you, suffer too
Leon. There thou speak'st reason, nay I will doe so,
My soule doth tell me, Hero is belied,
And that shall Claudio know, so shall the Prince,
And all of them that thus dishonour her.
Enter Prince and Claudio.
Brot. Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily
Prin. Good den, good den
Clau. Good day to both of you
Leon. Heare you my Lords?
Prin. We haue some haste Leonato
Leo. Some haste my Lord! wel, fareyouwel my Lord,
Are you so hasty now? well, all is one
Prin. Nay, do not quarrel with vs, good old man
Brot. If he could rite himselfe with quarrelling,
Some of vs would lie low
Claud. Who wrongs him?
Leon. Marry y dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou:
Nay, neuer lay thy hand vpon thy sword,
I feare thee not
Claud. Marry beshrew my hand,
If it should giue your age such cause of feare,
Infaith my hand meant nothing to my sword
Leonato. Tush, tush, man, neuer fleere and iest at me,
I speake not like a dotard, nor a foole,
As vnder priuiledge of age to bragge,
What I haue done being yong, or what would doe,
Were I not old, know Claudio to thy head,
Thou hast so wrong'd my innocent childe and me,
That I am forc'd to lay my reuerence by,
And with grey haires and bruise of many daies,
Doe challenge thee to triall of a man,
I say thou hast belied mine innocent childe.
Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
And she lies buried with her ancestors:
O in a tombe where neuer scandall slept,
Saue this of hers, fram'd by thy villanie
Claud. My villany?
Leonato. Thine Claudio, thine I say
Prin. You say not right old man
Leon. My Lord, my Lord,
Ile proue it on his body if he dare,
Despight his nice fence, and his actiue practise,
His Maie of youth, and bloome of lustihood
Claud. Away, I will not haue to do with you
Leo. Canst thou so daffe me? thou hast kild my child,
If thou kilst me, boy, thou shalt kill a man
Bro. He shall kill two of vs, and men indeed,
But that's no matter, let him kill one first:
Win me and weare me, let him answere me,
Come follow me boy, come sir boy, come follow me
Sir boy, ile whip you from your foyning fence,
Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will
Leon. Brother
Brot. Content your self, God knows I lou'd my neece,
And she is dead, slander'd to death by villaines,
That dare as well answer a man indeede,
As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.
Boyes, apes, braggarts, Iackes, milke-sops
Leon. Brother Anthony
Brot. Hold you content, what man? I know them, yea
And what they weigh, euen to the vtmost scruple,
Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boyes,
That lye, and cog, and flout, depraue, and slander,
Goe antiquely, and show outward hidiousnesse,
And speake of halfe a dozen dang'rous words,
How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst.
And this is all
Leon. But brother Anthonie
Ant. Come, 'tis no matter,
Do not you meddle, let me deale in this
Pri. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience
My heart is sorry for your daughters death:
But on my honour she was charg'd with nothing
But what was true, and very full of proofe
Leon. My Lord, my Lord
Prin. I will not heare you.
Enter Benedicke.
Leo. No come brother, away, I will be heard.
Exeunt. ambo.
Bro. And shall, or some of vs will smart for it
Prin. See, see, here comes the man we went to seeke
Clau. Now signior, what newes?
Ben. Good day my Lord
Prin. Welcome signior, you are almost come to part
almost a fray
Clau. Wee had likt to haue had our two noses snapt
off with two old men without teeth
Prin. Leonato and his brother, what think'st thou? had
wee fought, I doubt we should haue beene too yong for
them
Ben. In a false quarrell there is no true valour, I came
to seeke you both
Clau. We haue beene vp and downe to seeke thee, for
we are high proofe melancholly, and would faine haue it
beaten away, wilt thou vse thy wit?
Ben. It is in my scabberd, shall I draw it?
Prin. Doest thou weare thy wit by thy side?
Clau. Neuer any did so, though verie many haue been
beside their wit, I will bid thee drawe, as we do the minstrels,
draw to pleasure vs
Prin. As I am an honest man he lookes pale, art thou
sicke, or angrie?
Clau. What, courage man: what though care kil'd a
cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care
Ben. Sir, I shall meete your wit in the careere, and
you charge it against me, I pray you chuse another subiect
Clau. Nay then giue him another staffe, this last was
broke crosse
Prin. By this light, he changes more and more, I thinke
he be angrie indeede
Clau. If he be, he knowes how to turne his girdle
Ben. Shall I speake a word in your eare?
Clau. God blesse me from a challenge
Ben. You are a villaine, I iest not, I will make it good
how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare:
do me right, or I will protest your cowardise: you haue
kill'd a sweete Ladie, and her death shall fall heauie on
you, let me heare from you
Clau. Well, I will meete you, so I may haue good
cheare
Prin. What, a feast, a feast?
Clau. I faith I thanke him, he hath bid me to a calues
head and a Capon, the which if I doe not carue most curiously,
say my knife's naught, shall I not finde a woodcocke
too?
Ben. Sir, your wit ambles well, it goes easily
Prin. Ile tell thee how Beatrice prais'd thy wit the other
day: I said thou hadst a fine wit: true saies she, a fine
little one: no said I, a great wit: right saies shee, a great
grosse one: nay said I, a good wit: iust said she, it hurts
no body: nay said I, the gentleman is wise: certaine said
she, a wise gentleman: nay said I, he hath the tongues:
that I beleeue said shee, for hee swore a thing to me on
munday night, which he forswore on tuesday morning:
there's a double tongue, there's two tongues: thus did
shee an howre together trans-shape thy particular vertues,
yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the
proprest man in Italie
Claud. For the which she wept heartily, and said shee
car'd not
Prin. Yea that she did, but yet for all that, and if shee
did not hate him deadlie, shee would loue him dearely,
the old mans daughter told vs all
Clau. All, all, and moreouer, God saw him when he
was hid in the garden
Prin. But when shall we set the sauage Bulls hornes
on the sensible Benedicks head?
Clau. Yea and text vnderneath, heere dwells Benedicke
the married man
Ben. Fare you well, Boy, you know my minde, I will
leaue you now to your gossep-like humor, you breake
iests as braggards do their blades, which God be thanked
hurt not: my Lord, for your manie courtesies I thank
you, I must discontinue your companie, your brother
the Bastard is fled from Messina: you haue among you,
kill'd a sweet and innocent Ladie: for my Lord Lackebeard
there, he and I shall meete, and till then peace be
with him
Prin. He is in earnest
Clau. In most profound earnest, and Ile warrant you,
for the loue of Beatrice
Prin. And hath challeng'd thee
Clau. Most sincerely
Prin. What a prettie thing man is, when he goes in his
doublet and hose, and leaues off his wit.
Enter Constable, Conrade, and Borachio.
Clau. He is then a Giant to an Ape, but then is an Ape
a Doctor to such a man
Prin. But soft you, let me be, plucke vp my heart, and
be sad, did he not say my brother was fled?
Const. Come you sir, if iustice cannot tame you, shee
shall nere weigh more reasons in her ballance, nay, and
you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be lookt to
Prin. How now, two of my brothers men bound? Borachio
one
Clau. Harken after their offence my Lord
Prin. Officers, what offence haue these men done?
Const. Marrie sir, they haue committed false report,
moreouer they haue spoken vntruths, secondarily they
are slanders, sixt and lastly, they haue belyed a Ladie,
thirdly, they haue verified vniust things, and to conclude
they are lying knaues
Prin. First I aske thee what they haue done, thirdlie
I aske thee what's their offence, sixt and lastlie why they
are committed, and to conclude, what you lay to their
charge
Clau. Rightlie reasoned, and in his owne diuision, and
by my troth there's one meaning well suted
Prin. Who haue you offended masters, that you are
thus bound to your answer? this learned Constable is too
cunning to be vnderstood, what's your offence?
Bor. Sweete Prince, let me go no farther to mine answere:
do you heare me, and let this Count kill mee: I
haue deceiued euen your verie eies: what your wisedomes
could not discouer, these shallow fooles haue
brought to light, who in the night ouerheard me confessing
to this man, how Don Iohn your brother incensed
me to slander the Ladie Hero, how you were brought
into the Orchard, and saw me court Margaret in Heroes
garments, how you disgrac'd her when you should
marrie her: my villanie they haue vpon record, which
I had rather seale with my death, then repeate ouer to
my shame: the Ladie is dead vpon mine and my masters
false accusation: and briefelie, I desire nothing but the
reward of a villaine
Prin. Runs not this speech like yron through your
bloud?
Clau. I haue drunke poison whiles he vtter'd it
Prin. But did my Brother set thee on to this?
Bor. Yea, and paid me richly for the practise of it
Prin. He is compos'd and fram'd of treacherie,
And fled he is vpon this villanie
Clau. Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appeare
In the rare semblance that I lou'd it first
Const. Come, bring away the plaintiffes, by this time
our Sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter:
and masters, do not forget to specifie when time & place
shall serue, that I am an Asse
Con.2. Here, here comes master Signior Leonato, and
the Sexton too.
Enter Leonato.
Leon. Which is the villaine? let me see his eies,
That when I note another man like him,
I may auoide him: which of these is he?
Bor. If you would know your wronger, looke on me
Leon. Art thou the slaue that with thy breath
hast kild mine innocent childe?
Bor. Yea, euen I alone
Leo. No, not so villaine, thou beliest thy selfe,
Here stand a paire of honourable men,
A third is fled that had a hand in it:
I thanke you Princes for my daughters death,
Record it with your high and worthie deedes,
'Twas brauely done, if you bethinke you of it
Clau. I know not how to pray your patience,
Yet I must speake, choose your reuenge your selfe,
Impose me to what penance your inuention
Can lay vpon my sinne, yet sinn'd I not,
But in mistaking
Prin. By my soule nor I,
And yet to satisfie this good old man,
I would bend vnder anie heauie waight,
That heele enioyne me to
Leon. I cannot bid you bid my daughter liue,
That were impossible, but I praie you both,
Possesse the people in Messina here,
How innocent she died, and if your loue
Can labour aught in sad inuention,
Hang her an epitaph vpon her toomb,
And sing it to her bones, sing it to night:
To morrow morning come you to my house,
And since you could not be my sonne in law,
Be yet my Nephew: my brother hath a daughter,
Almost the copie of my childe that's dead,
And she alone is heire to both of vs,
Giue her the right you should haue giu'n her cosin,
And so dies my reuenge
Clau. O noble sir!
Your ouerkindnesse doth wring teares from me,
I do embrace your offer, and dispose
For henceforth of poore Claudio
Leon. To morrow then I will expect your comming,
To night I take my leaue, this naughtie man
Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
Who I beleeue was packt in all this wrong,
Hired to it by your brother
Bor. No, by my soule she was not,
Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me,
But alwaies hath bin iust and vertuous,
In anie thing that I do know by her
Const. Moreouer sir, which indeede is not vnder white
and black, this plaintiffe here, the offendour did call mee
asse, I beseech you let it be remembred in his punishment,
and also the watch heard them talke of one Deformed,
they say he weares a key in his eare and a lock hanging
by it, and borrowes monie in Gods name, the which
he hath vs'd so long, and neuer paied, that now men grow
hard-harted and will lend nothing for Gods sake: praie
you examine him vpon that point
Leon. I thanke thee for thy care and honest paines
Const. Your worship speakes like a most thankefull
and reuerend youth, and I praise God for you
Leon. There's for thy paines
Const. God saue the foundation
Leon. Goe, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I
thanke thee
Const. I leaue an arrant knaue with your worship,
which I beseech your worship to correct your selfe, for
the example of others: God keepe your worship, I
wish your worship well, God restore you to health,
I humblie giue you leaue to depart, and if a merrie
meeting may be wisht, God prohibite it: come
neighbour
Leon. Vntill to morrow morning, Lords, farewell.
Exeunt.
Brot. Farewell my Lords, we looke for you to morrow
Prin. We will not faile
Clau. To night ile mourne with Hero
Leon. Bring you these fellowes on, weel talke with
Margaret, How her acquaintance grew with this lewd
fellow.
Exeunt.
Scene 2.
Enter Benedicke and Margaret.
Ben. Praie thee sweete Mistris Margaret, deserue
well at my hands, by helping mee to the speech of Beatrice
Mar. Will you then write me a Sonnet in praise of
my beautie?
Bene. In so high a stile Margaret, that no man liuing
shall come ouer it, for in most comely truth thou deseruest
it
Mar. To haue no man come ouer me, why, shall I alwaies
keepe below staires?
Bene. Thy wit is as quicke as the grey-hounds mouth,
it catches
Mar. And yours, as blunt as the Fencers foiles, which
hit, but hurt not
Bene. A most manly wit Margaret, it will not hurt a
woman: and so I pray thee call Beatrice, I giue thee the
bucklers
Mar. Giue vs the swords, wee haue bucklers of our
owne
Bene. If you vse them Margaret, you must put in the
pikes with a vice, and they are dangerous weapons for
Maides
Mar. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I thinke
hath legges.
Exit Margarite.
Ben. And therefore will come. The God of loue that
sits aboue, and knowes me, and knowes me, how pittifull
I deserue. I meane in singing, but in louing, Leander
the good swimmer, Troilous the first imploier of
pandars, and a whole booke full of these quondam carpet-mongers,
whose name yet runne smoothly in the euen
rode of a blanke verse, why they were neuer so truely
turned ouer and ouer as my poore selfe in loue: marrie
I cannot shew it rime, I haue tried, I can finde out no
rime to Ladie but babie, an innocent rime: for scorne,
horne, a hard rime: for schoole foole, a babling rime:
verie ominous endings, no, I was not borne vnder a riming
Plannet, for I cannot wooe in festiuall tearmes:
Enter Beatrice.
sweete Beatrice would'st thou come when I cal'd
thee?
Beat. Yea Signior, and depart when you bid me
Bene. O stay but till then
Beat. Then, is spoken: fare you well now, and yet ere
I goe, let me goe with that I came, which is, with knowing
what hath past betweene you and Claudio
Bene. Onely foule words, and thereupon I will kisse
thee
Beat. Foule words is but foule wind, and foule wind
is but foule breath, and foule breath is noisome, therefore
I will depart vnkist
Bene. Thou hast frighted the word out of his right
sence, so forcible is thy wit, but I must tell thee plainely,
Claudio vndergoes my challenge, and either I must shortly
heare from him, or I will subscribe him a coward, and
I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst
thou first fall in loue with me?
Beat. For them all together, which maintain'd so
politique a state of euill, that they will not admit any
good part to intermingle with them: but for which of
my good parts did you first suffer loue for me?
Bene. Suffer loue! a good epithite, I do suffer loue indeede,
for I loue thee against my will,
Beat. In spight of your heart I think, alas poore heart,
if you spight it for my sake, I will spight it for yours, for
I will neuer loue that which my friend hates
Bened. Thou and I are too wise to wooe peaceablie
Bea. It appeares not in this confession, there's not one
wise man among twentie that will praise himselfe
Bene. An old, an old instance Beatrice, that liu'd in
the time of good neighbours, if a man doe not erect in
this age his owne tombe ere he dies, hee shall liue no
longer in monuments, then the Bels ring, & the Widdow
weepes
Beat. And how long is that thinke you?
Ben. Question, why an hower in clamour and a quarter
in rhewme, therfore is it most expedient for the wise,
if Don worme (his conscience) finde no impediment to
the contrarie, to be the trumpet of his owne vertues, as
I am to my selfe so much for praising my selfe, who I my
selfe will beare witnesse is praise worthie, and now tell
me, how doth your cosin?
Beat. Verie ill
Bene. And how doe you?
Beat. Verie ill too.
Enter Vrsula.
Bene. Serue God, loue me, and mend, there will I leaue
you too, for here comes one in haste
Vrs. Madam, you must come to your Vncle, yonders
old coile at home, it is prooued my Ladie Hero
hath bin falselie accusde, the Prince and Claudio
mightilie abusde, and Don Iohn is the author of all, who
is fled and gone: will you come presentlie?
Beat. Will you go heare this newes Signior?
Bene. I will liue in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried
in thy eies: and moreouer, I will goe with thee to
thy Vncles.
Exeunt. | Falstaff and Bardolph have returned to Gloucestershire, where they are warmly welcomed by Justice Shallow. Shallow gives orders to his servant, Davy, to prepare a fine dinner for the guests; Davy continually interrupts him by asking questions about the household management and asking favors for servants and local peasants who are in trouble. Falstaff, left alone, laughs over Shallow's friendly foolishness and declares that he will get enough material out of observing Shallow to make Prince Hal laugh for a year. Back in the king's castle at Westminster, the Lord Chief Justice, Warwick, and the younger Princes--Prince John, Clarence, and Gloucester--meet. We learn that King Henry IV has finally died and that everyone in the castle is frightened of what will happen to them, and to the rule of law, now that Prince Hal is in charge. The Lord Chief Justice, especially, expects nothing but evil to befall him, since he has never shied away from scolding Hal for his violations of the law. Moreover, he is responsible for briefly imprisoning Hal , and he is the most despised enemy of Hal's lawless friends, particularly Falstaff. The young princes urge the Justice to speak flatteringly to Falstaff now, but the Justice says that he has always done what he believes is right, and he will not compromise now. Prince Hal enters, dressed in the royal robes of the king. From now on he is King Henry V. The new king Henry addresses his brothers and the courtiers: he tells them that they should not be afraid that he, as the new King, will do them any harm. Still, he notices that they are looking at him strangely--especially the Justice. King Henry V reminds the Justice of the "indignities" that he subjected him to while he was still a prince, by rebuking and punishing him when he broke the law. But the Justice says that he was only acting to maintain the laws and order of Henry IV, the new king's own father. He asks Henry V to imagine himself in a similar situation and decide whether the Justice was wrong. King Henry V, in an unexpected move, agrees with the Justice. He tells him that he has always been wise and just, and he thanks the Justice for having punished him when he was a wild young prince. Moreover, he tells the Justice that not only may he keep his job, but he will have great honor; he asks the Justice to serve as a father figure to him, teaching him how to honorably keep order and helping him keep his own sons in line whenever he might have them. |
"Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;
And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.
--WORDSWORTH: Ode to Duty.
When Dorothea had seen Mr. Farebrother in the morning, she had promised
to go and dine at the parsonage on her return from Freshitt. There was
a frequent interchange of visits between her and the Farebrother
family, which enabled her to say that she was not at all lonely at the
Manor, and to resist for the present the severe prescription of a lady
companion. When she reached home and remembered her engagement, she
was glad of it; and finding that she had still an hour before she could
dress for dinner, she walked straight to the schoolhouse and entered
into a conversation with the master and mistress about the new bell,
giving eager attention to their small details and repetitions, and
getting up a dramatic sense that her life was very busy. She paused on
her way back to talk to old Master Bunney who was putting in some
garden-seeds, and discoursed wisely with that rural sage about the
crops that would make the most return on a perch of ground, and the
result of sixty years' experience as to soils--namely, that if your
soil was pretty mellow it would do, but if there came wet, wet, wet to
make it all of a mummy, why then--
Finding that the social spirit had beguiled her into being rather late,
she dressed hastily and went over to the parsonage rather earlier than
was necessary. That house was never dull, Mr. Farebrother, like
another White of Selborne, having continually something new to tell of
his inarticulate guests and proteges, whom he was teaching the boys not
to torment; and he had just set up a pair of beautiful goats to be pets
of the village in general, and to walk at large as sacred animals. The
evening went by cheerfully till after tea, Dorothea talking more than
usual and dilating with Mr. Farebrother on the possible histories of
creatures that converse compendiously with their antennae, and for
aught we know may hold reformed parliaments; when suddenly some
inarticulate little sounds were heard which called everybody's
attention.
"Henrietta Noble," said Mrs. Farebrother, seeing her small sister
moving about the furniture-legs distressfully, "what is the matter?"
"I have lost my tortoise-shell lozenge-box. I fear the kitten has
rolled it away," said the tiny old lady, involuntarily continuing her
beaver-like notes.
"Is it a great treasure, aunt?" said Mr. Farebrother, putting up his
glasses and looking at the carpet.
"Mr. Ladislaw gave it me," said Miss Noble. "A German box--very
pretty, but if it falls it always spins away as far as it can."
"Oh, if it is Ladislaw's present," said Mr. Farebrother, in a deep tone
of comprehension, getting up and hunting. The box was found at last
under a chiffonier, and Miss Noble grasped it with delight, saying, "it
was under a fender the last time."
"That is an affair of the heart with my aunt," said Mr. Farebrother,
smiling at Dorothea, as he reseated himself.
"If Henrietta Noble forms an attachment to any one, Mrs. Casaubon,"
said his mother, emphatically,--"she is like a dog--she would take
their shoes for a pillow and sleep the better."
"Mr. Ladislaw's shoes, I would," said Henrietta Noble.
Dorothea made an attempt at smiling in return. She was surprised and
annoyed to find that her heart was palpitating violently, and that it
was quite useless to try after a recovery of her former animation.
Alarmed at herself--fearing some further betrayal of a change so marked
in its occasion, she rose and said in a low voice with undisguised
anxiety, "I must go; I have overtired myself."
Mr. Farebrother, quick in perception, rose and said, "It is true; you
must have half-exhausted yourself in talking about Lydgate. That sort
of work tells upon one after the excitement is over."
He gave her his arm back to the Manor, but Dorothea did not attempt to
speak, even when he said good-night.
The limit of resistance was reached, and she had sunk back helpless
within the clutch of inescapable anguish. Dismissing Tantripp with a
few faint words, she locked her door, and turning away from it towards
the vacant room she pressed her hands hard on the top of her head, and
moaned out--
"Oh, I did love him!"
Then came the hour in which the waves of suffering shook her too
thoroughly to leave any power of thought. She could only cry in loud
whispers, between her sobs, after her lost belief which she had planted
and kept alive from a very little seed since the days in Rome--after
her lost joy of clinging with silent love and faith to one who,
misprized by others, was worthy in her thought--after her lost woman's
pride of reigning in his memory--after her sweet dim perspective of
hope, that along some pathway they should meet with unchanged
recognition and take up the backward years as a yesterday.
In that hour she repeated what the merciful eyes of solitude have
looked on for ages in the spiritual struggles of man--she besought
hardness and coldness and aching weariness to bring her relief from the
mysterious incorporeal might of her anguish: she lay on the bare floor
and let the night grow cold around her; while her grand woman's frame
was shaken by sobs as if she had been a despairing child.
There were two images--two living forms that tore her heart in two, as
if it had been the heart of a mother who seems to see her child divided
by the sword, and presses one bleeding half to her breast while her
gaze goes forth in agony towards the half which is carried away by the
lying woman that has never known the mother's pang.
Here, with the nearness of an answering smile, here within the
vibrating bond of mutual speech, was the bright creature whom she had
trusted--who had come to her like the spirit of morning visiting the
dim vault where she sat as the bride of a worn-out life; and now, with
a full consciousness which had never awakened before, she stretched out
her arms towards him and cried with bitter cries that their nearness
was a parting vision: she discovered her passion to herself in the
unshrinking utterance of despair.
And there, aloof, yet persistently with her, moving wherever she moved,
was the Will Ladislaw who was a changed belief exhausted of hope, a
detected illusion--no, a living man towards whom there could not yet
struggle any wail of regretful pity, from the midst of scorn and
indignation and jealous offended pride. The fire of Dorothea's anger
was not easily spent, and it flamed out in fitful returns of spurning
reproach. Why had he come obtruding his life into hers, hers that
might have been whole enough without him? Why had he brought his cheap
regard and his lip-born words to her who had nothing paltry to give in
exchange? He knew that he was deluding her--wished, in the very moment
of farewell, to make her believe that he gave her the whole price of
her heart, and knew that he had spent it half before. Why had he not
stayed among the crowd of whom she asked nothing--but only prayed that
they might be less contemptible?
But she lost energy at last even for her loud-whispered cries and
moans: she subsided into helpless sobs, and on the cold floor she
sobbed herself to sleep.
In the chill hours of the morning twilight, when all was dim around
her, she awoke--not with any amazed wondering where she was or what had
happened, but with the clearest consciousness that she was looking into
the eyes of sorrow. She rose, and wrapped warm things around her, and
seated herself in a great chair where she had often watched before.
She was vigorous enough to have borne that hard night without feeling
ill in body, beyond some aching and fatigue; but she had waked to a new
condition: she felt as if her soul had been liberated from its terrible
conflict; she was no longer wrestling with her grief, but could sit
down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her
thoughts. For now the thoughts came thickly. It was not in Dorothea's
nature, for longer than the duration of a paroxysm, to sit in the
narrow cell of her calamity, in the besotted misery of a consciousness
that only sees another's lot as an accident of its own.
She began now to live through that yesterday morning deliberately
again, forcing herself to dwell on every detail and its possible
meaning. Was she alone in that scene? Was it her event only? She
forced herself to think of it as bound up with another woman's life--a
woman towards whom she had set out with a longing to carry some
clearness and comfort into her beclouded youth. In her first outleap
of jealous indignation and disgust, when quitting the hateful room, she
had flung away all the mercy with which she had undertaken that visit.
She had enveloped both Will and Rosamond in her burning scorn, and it
seemed to her as if Rosamond were burned out of her sight forever. But
that base prompting which makes a women more cruel to a rival than to a
faithless lover, could have no strength of recurrence in Dorothea when
the dominant spirit of justice within her had once overcome the tumult
and had once shown her the truer measure of things. All the active
thought with which she had before been representing to herself the
trials of Lydgate's lot, and this young marriage union which, like her
own, seemed to have its hidden as well as evident troubles--all this
vivid sympathetic experience returned to her now as a power: it
asserted itself as acquired knowledge asserts itself and will not let
us see as we saw in the day of our ignorance. She said to her own
irremediable grief, that it should make her more helpful, instead of
driving her back from effort.
And what sort of crisis might not this be in three lives whose contact
with hers laid an obligation on her as if they had been suppliants
bearing the sacred branch? The objects of her rescue were not to be
sought out by her fancy: they were chosen for her. She yearned towards
the perfect Right, that it might make a throne within her, and rule her
errant will. "What should I do--how should I act now, this very day,
if I could clutch my own pain, and compel it to silence, and think of
those three?"
It had taken long for her to come to that question, and there was light
piercing into the room. She opened her curtains, and looked out
towards the bit of road that lay in view, with fields beyond outside
the entrance-gates. On the road there was a man with a bundle on his
back and a woman carrying her baby; in the field she could see figures
moving--perhaps the shepherd with his dog. Far off in the bending sky
was the pearly light; and she felt the largeness of the world and the
manifold wakings of men to labor and endurance. She was a part of that
involuntary, palpitating life, and could neither look out on it from
her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator, nor hide her eyes in selfish
complaining.
What she would resolve to do that day did not yet seem quite clear, but
something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching
murmur which would soon gather distinctness. She took off the clothes
which seemed to have some of the weariness of a hard watching in them,
and began to make her toilet. Presently she rang for Tantripp, who
came in her dressing-gown.
"Why, madam, you've never been in bed this blessed night," burst out
Tantripp, looking first at the bed and then at Dorothea's face, which
in spite of bathing had the pale cheeks and pink eyelids of a mater
dolorosa. "You'll kill yourself, you _will_. Anybody might think now
you had a right to give yourself a little comfort."
"Don't be alarmed, Tantripp," said Dorothea, smiling. "I have slept; I
am not ill. I shall be glad of a cup of coffee as soon as possible.
And I want you to bring me my new dress; and most likely I shall want
my new bonnet to-day."
"They've lain there a month and more ready for you, madam, and most
thankful I shall be to see you with a couple o' pounds' worth less of
crape," said Tantripp, stooping to light the fire. "There's a reason
in mourning, as I've always said; and three folds at the bottom of your
skirt and a plain quilling in your bonnet--and if ever anybody looked
like an angel, it's you in a net quilling--is what's consistent for a
second year. At least, that's _my_ thinking," ended Tantripp, looking
anxiously at the fire; "and if anybody was to marry me flattering
himself I should wear those hijeous weepers two years for him, he'd be
deceived by his own vanity, that's all."
"The fire will do, my good Tan," said Dorothea, speaking as she used to
do in the old Lausanne days, only with a very low voice; "get me the
coffee."
She folded herself in the large chair, and leaned her head against it
in fatigued quiescence, while Tantripp went away wondering at this
strange contrariness in her young mistress--that just the morning when
she had more of a widow's face than ever, she should have asked for her
lighter mourning which she had waived before. Tantripp would never
have found the clew to this mystery. Dorothea wished to acknowledge
that she had not the less an active life before her because she had
buried a private joy; and the tradition that fresh garments belonged to
all initiation, haunting her mind, made her grasp after even that
slight outward help towards calm resolve. For the resolve was not easy.
Nevertheless at eleven o'clock she was walking towards Middlemarch,
having made up her mind that she would make as quietly and unnoticeably
as possible her second attempt to see and save Rosamond. | Dorothea goes over to the Farebrothers' house, which she does very often; her visits keep her from being lonely, and also keep her from criticisms that she needs a companion. But, when Will comes up, she suddenly feels that she must leave; that evening, she finally realizes that she loved Will, although she fears that this love has been lost. By the morning, she has put aside all the remorse and anger of the previous evening; she also begins to wear new clothes, symbolic of lesser mourning, since it has been a year since Casaubon died. She resolves to go and see Rosamond again, and to offer help as she meant to do the day before. |
<CHAPTER>
7--The Night of the Sixth of November
Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that
something should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event that
could really change her position was the appearance of Clym. The glory
which had encircled him as her lover was departed now; yet some good
simple quality of his would occasionally return to her memory and stir a
momentary throb of hope that he would again present himself before her.
But calmly considered it was not likely that such a severance as now
existed would ever close up--she would have to live on as a painful
object, isolated, and out of place. She had used to think of the heath
alone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it now of the whole
world.
Towards evening on the sixth her determination to go away again revived.
About four o'clock she packed up anew the few small articles she had
brought in her flight from Alderworth, and also some belonging to her
which had been left here; the whole formed a bundle not too large to be
carried in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. The scene without
grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied downwards from the sky like
vast hammocks slung across it, and with the increase of night a stormy
wind arose; but as yet there was no rain.
Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do, and she
wandered to and fro on the hill, not far from the house she was soon
to leave. In these desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of Susan
Nunsuch, a little lower down than her grandfather's. The door was
ajar, and a riband of bright firelight fell over the ground without. As
Eustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an instant as distinct
as a figure in a phantasmagoria--a creature of light surrounded by
an area of darkness; the moment passed, and she was absorbed in night
again.
A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and recognized
her in that momentary irradiation. This was Susan herself, occupied
in preparing a posset for her little boy, who, often ailing, was
now seriously unwell. Susan dropped the spoon, shook her fist at the
vanished figure, and then proceeded with her work in a musing, absent
way.
At eight o'clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised to signal
Wildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked around the premises to
learn if the coast was clear, went to the furze-rick, and pulled thence
a long-stemmed bough of that fuel. This she carried to the corner of the
bank, and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were all closed, she
struck a light, and kindled the furze. When it was thoroughly ablaze
Eustacia took it by the stem and waved it in the air above her head till
it had burned itself out.
She was gratified, if gratification were possible to such a mood, by
seeing a similar light in the vicinity of Wildeve's residence a minute
or two later. Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night, in
case she should require assistance, this promptness proved how strictly
he had held to his word. Four hours after the present time, that is, at
midnight, he was to be ready to drive her to Budmouth, as prearranged.
Eustacia returned to the house. Supper having been got over she retired
early, and sat in her bedroom waiting for the time to go by. The night
being dark and threatening, Captain Vye had not strolled out to gossip
in any cottage or to call at the inn, as was sometimes his custom on
these long autumn nights; and he sat sipping grog alone downstairs.
About ten o'clock there was a knock at the door. When the servant opened
it the rays of the candle fell upon the form of Fairway.
"I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight," he said, "and Mr.
Yeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but, faith, I put it in
the lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back and
was hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with it at
once."
He handed in a letter and went his way. The girl brought it to the
captain, who found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it over
and over, and fancied that the writing was her husband's, though he
could not be sure. However, he decided to let her have it at once if
possible, and took it upstairs for that purpose; but on reaching the
door of her room and looking in at the keyhole he found there was no
light within, the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing, had
flung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a little strength for her
coming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw that he ought
not to disturb her; and descending again to the parlour he placed the
letter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.
At eleven o'clock he went to bed himself, smoked for some time in his
bedroom, put out his light at half-past eleven, and then, as was his
invariable custom, pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that he
might see which way the wind blew on opening his eyes in the morning,
his bedroom window commanding a view of the flagstaff and vane. Just as
he had lain down he was surprised to observe the white pole of the staff
flash into existence like a streak of phosphorus drawn downwards across
the shade of night without. Only one explanation met this--a light had
been suddenly thrown upon the pole from the direction of the house. As
everybody had retired to rest the old man felt it necessary to get
out of bed, open the window softly, and look to the right and left.
Eustacia's bedroom was lighted up, and it was the shine from her window
which had lighted the pole. Wondering what had aroused her, he remained
undecided at the window, and was thinking of fetching the letter to slip
it under her door, when he heard a slight brushing of garments on the
partition dividing his room from the passage.
The captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful, had gone for a
book, and would have dismissed the matter as unimportant if he had not
also heard her distinctly weeping as she passed.
"She is thinking of that husband of hers," he said to himself. "Ah, the
silly goose! she had no business to marry him. I wonder if that letter
is really his?"
He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door, and said,
"Eustacia!" There was no answer. "Eustacia!" he repeated louder, "there
is a letter on the mantelpiece for you."
But no response was made to this statement save an imaginary one from
the wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the
stroke of a few drops of rain upon the windows.
He went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly five minutes. Still
she did not return. He went back for a light, and prepared to follow
her; but first he looked into her bedroom. There, on the outside of the
quilt, was the impression of her form, showing that the bed had not
been opened; and, what was more significant, she had not taken her
candlestick downstairs. He was now thoroughly alarmed; and hastily
putting on his clothes he descended to the front door, which he himself
had bolted and locked. It was now unfastened. There was no longer
any doubt that Eustacia had left the house at this midnight hour; and
whither could she have gone? To follow her was almost impossible. Had
the dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons setting out, one
in each direction, might have made sure of overtaking her; but it was
a hopeless task to seek for anybody on a heath in the dark, the
practicable directions for flight across it from any point being as
numerous as the meridians radiating from the pole. Perplexed what to do,
he looked into the parlour, and was vexed to find that the letter still
lay there untouched.
At half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent, Eustacia had
lighted her candle, put on some warm outer wrappings, taken her bag in
her hand, and, extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase.
When she got into the outer air she found that it had begun to rain, and
as she stood pausing at the door it increased, threatening to come on
heavily. But having committed herself to this line of action there was
no retreating for bad weather. Even the receipt of Clym's letter would
not have stopped her now. The gloom of the night was funereal; all
nature seemed clothed in crape. The spiky points of the fir trees behind
the house rose into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of an abbey.
Nothing below the horizon was visible save a light which was still
burning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch.
Eustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure by the
steps over the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of being
perceived. Skirting the pool, she followed the path towards Rainbarrow,
occasionally stumbling over twisted furze roots, tufts of rushes, or
oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay scattered about
the heath like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal animal.
The moon and stars were closed up by cloud and rain to the degree
of extinction. It was a night which led the traveller's thoughts
instinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster in the
chronicles of the world, on all that is terrible and dark in history and
legend--the last plague of Egypt, the destruction of Sennacherib's host,
the agony in Gethsemane.
Eustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there to think.
Never was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind
and the chaos of the world without. A sudden recollection had flashed
on her this moment--she had not money enough for undertaking a long
journey. Amid the fluctuating sentiments of the day her unpractical mind
had not dwelt on the necessity of being well-provided, and now that she
thoroughly realized the conditions she sighed bitterly and ceased to
stand erect, gradually crouching down under the umbrella as if she were
drawn into the Barrow by a hand from beneath. Could it be that she was
to remain a captive still? Money--she had never felt its value before.
Even to efface herself from the country means were required. To ask
Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to accompany her was
impossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in her; to fly as
his mistress--and she knew that he loved her--was of the nature of
humiliation.
Anyone who had stood by now would have pitied her, not so much on
account of her exposure to weather, and isolation from all of humanity
except the mouldered remains inside the tumulus; but for that other form
of misery which was denoted by the slightly rocking movement that her
feelings imparted to her person. Extreme unhappiness weighed visibly
upon her. Between the drippings of the rain from her umbrella to her
mantle, from her mantle to the heather, from the heather to the earth,
very similar sounds could be heard coming from her lips; and the
tearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon her face. The wings of
her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her; and
even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth,
entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have
been but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things.
She uttered words aloud. When a woman in such a situation, neither old,
deaf, crazed, nor whimsical, takes upon herself to sob and soliloquize
aloud there is something grievous the matter.
"Can I go, can I go?" she moaned. "He's not GREAT enough for me to give
myself to--he does not suffice for my desire!... If he had been a Saul or
a Bonaparte--ah! But to break my marriage vow for him--it is too poor a
luxury!... And I have no money to go alone! And if I could, what comfort
to me? I must drag on next year, as I have dragged on this year, and the
year after that as before. How I have tried and tried to be a splendid
woman, and how destiny has been against me!... I do not deserve my lot!"
she cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. "O, the cruelty of putting me
into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been
injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how
hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no
harm to Heaven at all!"
The distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in leaving
the house came, as she had divined, from the cottage window of Susan
Nunsuch. What Eustacia did not divine was the occupation of the woman
within at that moment. Susan's sight of her passing figure earlier in
the evening, not five minutes after the sick boy's exclamation, "Mother,
I do feel so bad!" persuaded the matron that an evil influence was
certainly exercised by Eustacia's propinquity.
On this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the evening's work
was over, as she would have done at ordinary times. To counteract the
malign spell which she imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the
boy's mother busied herself with a ghastly invention of superstition,
calculated to bring powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation on any
human being against whom it was directed. It was a practice well known
on Egdon at that date, and one that is not quite extinct at the present
day.
She passed with her candle into an inner room, where, among other
utensils, were two large brown pans, containing together perhaps a
hundredweight of liquid honey, the produce of the bees during the
foregoing summer. On a shelf over the pans was a smooth and solid yellow
mass of a hemispherical form, consisting of beeswax from the same take
of honey. Susan took down the lump, and cutting off several thin
slices, heaped them in an iron ladle, with which she returned to the
living-room, and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the fireplace. As
soon as the wax had softened to the plasticity of dough she kneaded the
pieces together. And now her face became more intent. She began moulding
the wax; and it was evident from her manner of manipulation that she was
endeavouring to give it some preconceived form. The form was human.
By warming and kneading, cutting and twisting, dismembering and
re-joining the incipient image she had in about a quarter of an hour
produced a shape which tolerably well resembled a woman, and was
about six inches high. She laid it on the table to get cold and hard.
Meanwhile she took the candle and went upstairs to where the little boy
was lying.
"Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this afternoon besides
the dark dress?"
"A red ribbon round her neck."
"Anything else?"
"No--except sandal-shoes."
"A red ribbon and sandal-shoes," she said to herself.
Mrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment of the
narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the neck
of the image. Then fetching ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by
the window, she blackened the feet of the image to the extent presumably
covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked cross-lines in
the shape taken by the sandalstrings of those days. Finally she tied
a bit of black thread round the upper part of the head, in faint
resemblance to a snood worn for confining the hair.
Susan held the object at arm's length and contemplated it with a
satisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with
the inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia
Yeobright.
From her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of pins,
of the old long and yellow sort, whose heads were disposed to come off
at their first usage. These she began to thrust into the image in all
directions, with apparently excruciating energy. Probably as many as
fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the wax model, some into
the shoulders, some into the trunk, some upwards through the soles of
the feet, till the figure was completely permeated with pins.
She turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap
of ashes which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the
outside, upon raking it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass
showed a glow of red heat. She took a few pieces of fresh turf from the
chimney-corner and built them together over the glow, upon which the
fire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image that she had made of
Eustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it began to waste
slowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came from between
her lips a murmur of words.
It was a strange jargon--the Lord's Prayer repeated backwards--the
incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance
against an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three times
slowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably diminished.
As the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from the spot,
and curling its tongue round the figure ate still further into its
substance. A pin occasionally dropped with the wax, and the embers
heated it red as it lay.
</CHAPTER>
<CHAPTER>
8--Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair woman
herself was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of desolation
seldom plumbed by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End.
He had fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off Fairway with the
letter to his wife, and now waited with increased impatience for some
sound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia still at Mistover the very
least he expected was that she would send him back a reply tonight by
the same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination, he had cautioned
Fairway not to ask for an answer. If one were handed to him he was
to bring it immediately; if not, he was to go straight home without
troubling to come round to Blooms-End again that night.
But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly
decline to use her pen--it was rather her way to work silently--and
surprise him by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up to
do otherwise he did not know.
To Clym's regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening advanced.
The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and filliped
the eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He walked restlessly
about the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in windows and
doors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements and crevices,
and pressing together the leadwork of the quarries where it had become
loosened from the glass. It was one of those nights when cracks in the
walls of old churches widen, when ancient stains on the ceilings of
decayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged from the size of a man's
hand to an area of many feet. The little gate in the palings before
his dwelling continually opened and clicked together again, but when he
looked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible shapes of
the dead were passing in on their way to visit him.
Between ten and eleven o'clock, finding that neither Fairway nor anybody
else came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his anxieties soon
fell asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of the
expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a knocking
which began at the door about an hour after. Clym arose and looked out
of the window. Rain was still falling heavily, the whole expanse of
heath before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour. It was too
dark to see anything at all.
"Who's there?" he cried.
Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just
distinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, "O Clym, come down
and let me in!"
He flushed hot with agitation. "Surely it is Eustacia!" he murmured. If
so, she had indeed come to him unawares.
He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his flinging
open the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman closely wrapped
up, who at once came forward.
"Thomasin!" he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of disappointment. "It
is Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is Eustacia?"
Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.
"Eustacia? I don't know, Clym; but I can think," she said with much
perturbation. "Let me come in and rest--I will explain this. There is a
great trouble brewing--my husband and Eustacia!"
"What, what?"
"I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful--I
don't know what--Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me but
you; Eustacia has not yet come home?"
"No."
She went on breathlessly: "Then they are going to run off together! He
came indoors tonight about eight o'clock and said in an off-hand way,
'Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.' 'When?' I
said. 'Tonight,' he said. 'Where?' I asked him. 'I cannot tell you at
present,' he said; 'I shall be back again tomorrow.' He then went and
busied himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at
all. I expected to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to
be ten o'clock, when he said, 'You had better go to bed.' I didn't know
what to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell asleep, for
half an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak chest we keep
money in when we have much in the house and took out a roll of something
which I believe was banknotes, though I was not aware that he had 'em
there. These he must have got from the bank when he went there the other
day. What does he want banknotes for, if he is only going off for a day?
When he had gone down I thought of Eustacia, and how he had met her the
night before--I know he did meet her, Clym, for I followed him part of
the way; but I did not like to tell you when you called, and so make you
think ill of him, as I did not think it was so serious. Then I could not
stay in bed; I got up and dressed myself, and when I heard him out in
the stable I thought I would come and tell you. So I came downstairs
without any noise and slipped out."
"Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?"
"No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go?
He takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of his
going on a journey, and will be home tomorrow, and all that; but I don't
believe it. I think you could influence him."
"I'll go," said Clym. "O, Eustacia!"
Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time
seated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the
kernel to the husks--dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough
weather. Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin
crying as she said, "I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen
to her. I suppose it will be her death, but I couldn't leave her with
Rachel!"
Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the
embers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the
bellows.
"Dry yourself," he said. "I'll go and get some more wood."
"No, no--don't stay for that. I'll make up the fire. Will you go at
once--please will you?"
Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone
another rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion that
it might be Eustacia's--the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy
and slow. Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note in
answer, descended again and opened the door.
"Captain Vye?" he said to a dripping figure.
"Is my granddaughter here?" said the captain.
"No."
"Then where is she?".
"I don't know."
"But you ought to know--you are her husband."
"Only in name apparently," said Clym with rising excitement. "I believe
she means to elope tonight with Wildeve. I am just going to look to it."
"Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. Who's
sitting there?"
"My cousin Thomasin."
The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. "I only hope it is no
worse than an elopement," he said.
"Worse? What's worse than the worst a wife can do?"
"Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of her
I called up Charley, my stable lad. I missed my pistols the other day."
"Pistols?"
"He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now owned
that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them; and
she afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her life,
but bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a thing
again. I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use one
of them; but it shows what has been lurking in her mind; and people who
think of that sort of thing once think of it again."
"Where are the pistols?"
"Safely locked up. O no, she won't touch them again. But there are
more ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did you
quarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You must
have treated her badly indeed. Well, I was always against the marriage,
and I was right."
"Are you going with me?" said Yeobright, paying no attention to the
captain's latter remark. "If so I can tell you what we quarrelled about
as we walk along."
"Where to?"
"To Wildeve's--that was her destination, depend upon it."
Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: "He said he was only going on a
sudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O, Clym,
what do you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor baby, will
soon have no father left to you!"
"I am off now," said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.
"I would fain go with 'ee," said the old man doubtfully. "But I begin to
be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a night as this.
I am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their flight
she will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the house to
receive her. But be it as 'twill I can't walk to the Quiet Woman, and
that's an end on't. I'll go straight home."
"It will perhaps be best," said Clym. "Thomasin, dry yourself, and be as
comfortable as you can."
With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company
with Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the
middle path, which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand track
towards the inn.
Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments, carried
the baby upstairs to Clym's bed, and then came down to the sitting-room
again, where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire
soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort
that was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without,
which snapped at the windowpanes and breathed into the chimney strange
low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to some tragedy.
But the least part of Thomasin was in the house, for her heart being at
ease about the little girl upstairs she was mentally following Clym on
his journey. Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for
some considerable interval, she became impressed with a sense of the
intolerable slowness of time. But she sat on. The moment then came when
she could scarcely sit longer, and it was like a satire on her patience
to remember that Clym could hardly have reached the inn as yet. At last
she went to the baby's bedside. The child was sleeping soundly; but her
imagination of possibly disastrous events at her home, the predominance
within her of the unseen over the seen, agitated her beyond endurance.
She could not refrain from going down and opening the door. The rain
still continued, the candlelight falling upon the nearest drops and
making glistening darts of them as they descended across the throng of
invisible ones behind. To plunge into that medium was to plunge into
water slightly diluted with air. But the difficulty of returning to
her house at this moment made her all the more desirous of doing
so--anything was better than suspense. "I have come here well enough,"
she said, "and why shouldn't I go back again? It is a mistake for me to
be away."
She hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked herself as
before, and shoveling the ashes over the fire, to prevent accidents,
went into the open air. Pausing first to put the door key in its
old place behind the shutter, she resolutely turned her face to the
confronting pile of firmamental darkness beyond the palings, and stepped
into its midst. But Thomasin's imagination being so actively engaged
elsewhere, the night and the weather had for her no terror beyond that
of their actual discomfort and difficulty.
She was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing the undulations
on the side of the hill. The noise of the wind over the heath was
shrill, and as if it whistled for joy at finding a night so congenial as
this. Sometimes the path led her to hollows between thickets of tall
and dripping bracken, dead, though not yet prostrate, which enclosed her
like a pool. When they were more than usually tall she lifted the baby
to the top of her head, that it might be out of the reach of their
drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and
sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent, so
that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point
at which it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was
impossible, and individual drops stuck into her like the arrows into
Saint Sebastian. She was enabled to avoid puddles by the nebulous
paleness which signified their presence, though beside anything less
dark than the heath they themselves would have appeared as blackness.
Yet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she had started.
To her there were not, as to Eustacia, demons in the air, and malice
in every bush and bough. The drops which lashed her face were not
scorpions, but prosy rain; Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever,
but impersonal open ground. Her fears of the place were rational, her
dislikes of its worst moods reasonable. At this time it was in her view
a windy, wet place, in which a person might experience much discomfort,
lose the path without care, and possibly catch cold.
If the path is well known the difficulty at such times of keeping
therein is not altogether great, from its familiar feel to the feet; but
once lost it is irrecoverable. Owing to her baby, who somewhat impeded
Thomasin's view forward and distracted her mind, she did at last lose
the track. This mishap occurred when she was descending an open slope
about two-thirds home. Instead of attempting, by wandering hither and
thither, the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread, she went
straight on, trusting for guidance to her general knowledge of the
contours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym's or by that of the
heath-croppers themselves.
At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the
rain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form
of an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon
aware of the nature of the door by its height above the ground.
"Why, it is Diggory Venn's van, surely!" she said.
A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn's
chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at
once that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question
arose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into
the path. In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would appeal
to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before his eyes at
this place and season. But when, in pursuance of this resolve, Thomasin
reached the van and looked in she found it to be untenanted; though
there was no doubt that it was the reddleman's. The fire was burning in
the stove, the lantern hung from the nail. Round the doorway the floor
was merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told her that
the door had not long been opened.
While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep
advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the
well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams
falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.
"I thought you went down the slope," he said, without noticing her face.
"How do you come back here again?"
"Diggory?" said Thomasin faintly.
"Who are you?" said Venn, still unperceiving. "And why were you crying
so just now?"
"O, Diggory! don't you know me?" said she. "But of course you don't,
wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here, and
I have not been here before."
Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her
form.
"Mrs. Wildeve!" he exclaimed, starting. "What a time for us to meet!
And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such a
night as this?"
She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he
hopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.
"What is it?" he continued when they stood within.
"I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry to
get home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of me not
to know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the path.
Show me quickly, Diggory, please."
"Yes, of course. I will go with 'ee. But you came to me before this,
Mrs. Wildeve?"
"I only came this minute."
"That's strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,
with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
woman's clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up, for I
don't sleep heavy, and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying from
the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just as
far as the light would reach I saw a woman; she turned her head when
the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I hung up the
lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her a few
steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That was where I had
been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought you were the same
one."
"Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?"
"No, it couldn't be. 'Tis too late. The noise of her gown over the he'th
was of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will make."
"It wasn't I, then. My dress is not silk, you see.... Are we anywhere in
a line between Mistover and the inn?"
"Well, yes; not far out."
"Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!"
She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked the
lantern and leaped down after her. "I'll take the baby, ma'am," he said.
"You must be tired out by the weight."
Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn's
hands. "Don't squeeze her, Diggory," she said, "or hurt her little arm;
and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may not
drop in her face."
"I will," said Venn earnestly. "As if I could hurt anything belonging to
you!"
"I only meant accidentally," said Thomasin.
"The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet," said the reddleman
when, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on the
floor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.
Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger
bushes, stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he looked
over his shoulder to gain some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above
them, which it was necessary to keep directly behind their backs to
preserve a proper course.
"You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?"
"Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma'am?"
"He!" said Thomasin reproachfully. "Anybody can see better than that in
a moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the inn?"
"A little over a quarter of a mile."
"Will you walk a little faster?"
"I was afraid you could not keep up."
"I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the window!"
"'Tis not from the window. That's a gig-lamp, to the best of my belief."
"O!" said Thomasin in despair. "I wish I had been there sooner--give me
the baby, Diggory--you can go back now."
"I must go all the way," said Venn. "There is a quag between us and
that light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take you
round."
"But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of that."
"No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards."
"Never mind," said Thomasin hurriedly. "Go towards the light, and not
towards the inn."
"Yes," answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a pause,
"I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you have
proved that I can be trusted."
"There are some things that cannot be--cannot be told to--" And then her
heart rose into her throat, and she could say no more.
</CHAPTER> | Deciding on the next evening, the sixth, to leave, Eustacia signals Wildeve as planned. When the letter for her from Clym arrives, she is in her bedroom, and Captain Vye doesn't give it to her because he assumes she is asleep. When he finally realizes she has left the house, it is too late. Though it is now raining, Eustacia determines to go ahead with her plans. She goes to the top of Rainbarrow, and thinking of what she is doing and how little it promises, she is in despair. Meanwhile, Susan Nunsuch, having seen Eustacia earlier in the evening about the time Johnny says he is feeling even more ill than he has been, makes an effigy of Eustacia in wax, sticks it with pins, and burns it in a fire. Deciding on the next evening, the sixth, to leave, Eustacia signals Wildeve as planned. When the letter for her from Clym arrives, she is in her bedroom, and Captain Vye doesn't give it to her because he assumes she is asleep. When he finally realizes she has left the house, it is too late. Though it is now raining, Eustacia determines to go ahead with her plans. She goes to the top of Rainbarrow, and thinking of what she is doing and how little it promises, she is in despair. Meanwhile, Susan Nunsuch, having seen Eustacia earlier in the evening about the time Johnny says he is feeling even more ill than he has been, makes an effigy of Eustacia in wax, sticks it with pins, and burns it in a fire. Clym hopes Eustacia will come to him even though the night is stormy, but he is disappointed when Thomasin instead calls. She tells him she is sure Eustacia and Wildeve are going to run off together. Captain Vye also calls, recounting for Clym the story of Eustacia's thoughts of suicide with his pistols. After both men leave, Thomasin waits in Clym's house as long as she can, and then she starts off for the Quiet Woman Inn with her child. Losing her way, she comes upon Venn, who goes with her to guide her to her destination. |
In rough magnificence array'd,
When ancient Chivalry display'd
The pomp of her heroic games,
And crested chiefs and tissued dames
Assembled, at the clarion's call,
In some proud castle's high arch'd hall.
--Warton
Prince John held his high festival in the Castle of Ashby. This was
not the same building of which the stately ruins still interest the
traveller, and which was erected at a later period by the Lord Hastings,
High Chamberlain of England, one of the first victims of the tyranny
of Richard the Third, and yet better known as one of Shakspeare's
characters than by his historical fame. The castle and town of Ashby, at
this time, belonged to Roger de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, who, during
the period of our history, was absent in the Holy Land. Prince John, in
the meanwhile, occupied his castle, and disposed of his domains without
scruple; and seeking at present to dazzle men's eyes by his hospitality
and magnificence, had given orders for great preparations, in order to
render the banquet as splendid as possible.
The purveyors of the Prince, who exercised on this and other occasions
the full authority of royalty, had swept the country of all that could
be collected which was esteemed fit for their master's table. Guests
also were invited in great numbers; and in the necessity in which he
then found himself of courting popularity, Prince John had extended his
invitation to a few distinguished Saxon and Danish families, as well as
to the Norman nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. However
despised and degraded on ordinary occasions, the great numbers of
the Anglo-Saxons must necessarily render them formidable in the civil
commotions which seemed approaching, and it was an obvious point of
policy to secure popularity with their leaders.
It was accordingly the Prince's intention, which he for some time
maintained, to treat these unwonted guests with a courtesy to which they
had been little accustomed. But although no man with less scruple
made his ordinary habits and feelings bend to his interest, it was
the misfortune of this Prince, that his levity and petulance were
perpetually breaking out, and undoing all that had been gained by his
previous dissimulation.
Of this fickle temper he gave a memorable example in Ireland, when sent
thither by his father, Henry the Second, with the purpose of buying
golden opinions of the inhabitants of that new and important acquisition
to the English crown. Upon this occasion the Irish chieftains contended
which should first offer to the young Prince their loyal homage and
the kiss of peace. But, instead of receiving their salutations with
courtesy, John and his petulant attendants could not resist the
temptation of pulling the long beards of the Irish chieftains; a
conduct which, as might have been expected, was highly resented by these
insulted dignitaries, and produced fatal consequences to the English
domination in Ireland. It is necessary to keep these inconsistencies
of John's character in view, that the reader may understand his conduct
during the present evening.
In execution of the resolution which he had formed during his cooler
moments, Prince John received Cedric and Athelstane with distinguished
courtesy, and expressed his disappointment, without resentment, when the
indisposition of Rowena was alleged by the former as a reason for her
not attending upon his gracious summons. Cedric and Athelstane were both
dressed in the ancient Saxon garb, which, although not unhandsome in
itself, and in the present instance composed of costly materials, was
so remote in shape and appearance from that of the other guests, that
Prince John took great credit to himself with Waldemar Fitzurse for
refraining from laughter at a sight which the fashion of the day
rendered ridiculous. Yet, in the eye of sober judgment, the short close
tunic and long mantle of the Saxons was a more graceful, as well as a
more convenient dress, than the garb of the Normans, whose under garment
was a long doublet, so loose as to resemble a shirt or waggoner's frock,
covered by a cloak of scanty dimensions, neither fit to defend the
wearer from cold or from rain, and the only purpose of which appeared
to be to display as much fur, embroidery, and jewellery work, as the
ingenuity of the tailor could contrive to lay upon it. The Emperor
Charlemagne, in whose reign they were first introduced, seems to have
been very sensible of the inconveniences arising from the fashion of
this garment. "In Heaven's name," said he, "to what purpose serve these
abridged cloaks? If we are in bed they are no cover, on horseback they
are no protection from the wind and rain, and when seated, they do not
guard our legs from the damp or the frost."
Nevertheless, spite of this imperial objurgation, the short cloaks
continued in fashion down to the time of which we treat, and
particularly among the princes of the House of Anjou. They were
therefore in universal use among Prince John's courtiers; and the
long mantle, which formed the upper garment of the Saxons, was held in
proportional derision.
The guests were seated at a table which groaned under the quantity of
good cheer. The numerous cooks who attended on the Prince's progress,
having exerted all their art in varying the forms in which the ordinary
provisions were served up, had succeeded almost as well as the modern
professors of the culinary art in rendering them perfectly unlike their
natural appearance. Besides these dishes of domestic origin, there were
various delicacies brought from foreign parts, and a quantity of rich
pastry, as well as of the simnel-bread and wastle cakes, which were only
used at the tables of the highest nobility. The banquet was crowned with
the richest wines, both foreign and domestic.
But, though luxurious, the Norman nobles were not generally speaking
an intemperate race. While indulging themselves in the pleasures of
the table, they aimed at delicacy, but avoided excess, and were apt to
attribute gluttony and drunkenness to the vanquished Saxons, as vices
peculiar to their inferior station. Prince John, indeed, and those who
courted his pleasure by imitating his foibles, were apt to indulge to
excess in the pleasures of the trencher and the goblet; and indeed it is
well known that his death was occasioned by a surfeit upon peaches and
new ale. His conduct, however, was an exception to the general manners
of his countrymen.
With sly gravity, interrupted only by private signs to each other, the
Norman knights and nobles beheld the ruder demeanour of Athelstane
and Cedric at a banquet, to the form and fashion of which they were
unaccustomed. And while their manners were thus the subject of sarcastic
observation, the untaught Saxons unwittingly transgressed several of the
arbitrary rules established for the regulation of society. Now, it is
well known, that a man may with more impunity be guilty of an actual
breach either of real good breeding or of good morals, than appear
ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable etiquette. Thus Cedric,
who dried his hands with a towel, instead of suffering the moisture to
exhale by waving them gracefully in the air, incurred more ridicule than
his companion Athelstane, when he swallowed to his own single share
the whole of a large pasty composed of the most exquisite foreign
delicacies, and termed at that time a "Karum-Pie". When, however, it
was discovered, by a serious cross-examination, that the Thane of
Coningsburgh (or Franklin, as the Normans termed him) had no idea
what he had been devouring, and that he had taken the contents of the
Karum-pie for larks and pigeons, whereas they were in fact beccaficoes
and nightingales, his ignorance brought him in for an ample share of the
ridicule which would have been more justly bestowed on his gluttony.
The long feast had at length its end; and, while the goblet circulated
freely, men talked of the feats of the preceding tournament,--of
the unknown victor in the archery games, of the Black Knight, whose
self-denial had induced him to withdraw from the honours he had
won,--and of the gallant Ivanhoe, who had so dearly bought the honours
of the day. The topics were treated with military frankness, and the
jest and laugh went round the hall. The brow of Prince John alone was
overclouded during these discussions; some overpowering care seemed
agitating his mind, and it was only when he received occasional hints
from his attendants, that he seemed to take interest in what was passing
around him. On such occasions he would start up, quaff a cup of wine
as if to raise his spirits, and then mingle in the conversation by some
observation made abruptly or at random.
"We drink this beaker," said he, "to the health of Wilfred of Ivanhoe,
champion of this Passage of Arms, and grieve that his wound renders him
absent from our board--Let all fill to the pledge, and especially Cedric
of Rotherwood, the worthy father of a son so promising."
"No, my lord," replied Cedric, standing up, and placing on the table his
untasted cup, "I yield not the name of son to the disobedient youth, who
at once despises my commands, and relinquishes the manners and customs
of his fathers."
"'Tis impossible," cried Prince John, with well-feigned astonishment,
"that so gallant a knight should be an unworthy or disobedient son!"
"Yet, my lord," answered Cedric, "so it is with this Wilfred. He left my
homely dwelling to mingle with the gay nobility of your brother's court,
where he learned to do those tricks of horsemanship which you prize so
highly. He left it contrary to my wish and command; and in the days
of Alfred that would have been termed disobedience--ay, and a crime
severely punishable."
"Alas!" replied Prince John, with a deep sigh of affected sympathy,
"since your son was a follower of my unhappy brother, it need not
be enquired where or from whom he learned the lesson of filial
disobedience."
Thus spake Prince John, wilfully forgetting, that of all the sons of
Henry the Second, though no one was free from the charge, he himself had
been most distinguished for rebellion and ingratitude to his father.
"I think," said he, after a moment's pause, "that my brother proposed to
confer upon his favourite the rich manor of Ivanhoe."
"He did endow him with it," answered Cedric; "nor is it my least quarrel
with my son, that he stooped to hold, as a feudal vassal, the very
domains which his fathers possessed in free and independent right."
"We shall then have your willing sanction, good Cedric," said Prince
John, "to confer this fief upon a person whose dignity will not
be diminished by holding land of the British crown.--Sir Reginald
Front-de-Boeuf," he said, turning towards that Baron, "I trust you will
so keep the goodly Barony of Ivanhoe, that Sir Wilfred shall not incur
his father's farther displeasure by again entering upon that fief."
"By St Anthony!" answered the black-brow'd giant, "I will consent that
your highness shall hold me a Saxon, if either Cedric or Wilfred, or the
best that ever bore English blood, shall wrench from me the gift with
which your highness has graced me."
"Whoever shall call thee Saxon, Sir Baron," replied Cedric, offended
at a mode of expression by which the Normans frequently expressed their
habitual contempt of the English, "will do thee an honour as great as it
is undeserved."
Front-de-Boeuf would have replied, but Prince John's petulance and
levity got the start.
"Assuredly," said be, "my lords, the noble Cedric speaks truth; and
his race may claim precedence over us as much in the length of their
pedigrees as in the longitude of their cloaks."
"They go before us indeed in the field--as deer before dogs," said
Malvoisin.
"And with good right may they go before us--forget not," said the Prior
Aymer, "the superior decency and decorum of their manners."
"Their singular abstemiousness and temperance," said De Bracy,
forgetting the plan which promised him a Saxon bride.
"Together with the courage and conduct," said Brian de Bois-Guilbert,
"by which they distinguished themselves at Hastings and elsewhere."
While, with smooth and smiling cheek, the courtiers, each in turn,
followed their Prince's example, and aimed a shaft of ridicule at
Cedric, the face of the Saxon became inflamed with passion, and
he glanced his eyes fiercely from one to another, as if the quick
succession of so many injuries had prevented his replying to them in
turn; or, like a baited bull, who, surrounded by his tormentors, is at
a loss to choose from among them the immediate object of his revenge.
At length he spoke, in a voice half choked with passion; and, addressing
himself to Prince John as the head and front of the offence which he had
received, "Whatever," he said, "have been the follies and vices of our
race, a Saxon would have been held 'nidering'," [21] (the most emphatic
term for abject worthlessness,) "who should in his own hall, and while
his own wine-cup passed, have treated, or suffered to be treated, an
unoffending guest as your highness has this day beheld me used; and
whatever was the misfortune of our fathers on the field of Hastings,
those may at least be silent," here he looked at Front-de-Boeuf and the
Templar, "who have within these few hours once and again lost saddle and
stirrup before the lance of a Saxon."
"By my faith, a biting jest!" said Prince John. "How like you it,
sirs?--Our Saxon subjects rise in spirit and courage; become shrewd
in wit, and bold in bearing, in these unsettled times--What say ye,
my lords?--By this good light, I hold it best to take our galleys, and
return to Normandy in time."
"For fear of the Saxons?" said De Bracy, laughing; "we should need no
weapon but our hunting spears to bring these boars to bay."
"A truce with your raillery, Sir Knights," said Fitzurse;--"and it
were well," he added, addressing the Prince, "that your highness should
assure the worthy Cedric there is no insult intended him by jests, which
must sound but harshly in the ear of a stranger."
"Insult?" answered Prince John, resuming his courtesy of demeanour; "I
trust it will not be thought that I could mean, or permit any, to be
offered in my presence. Here! I fill my cup to Cedric himself, since he
refuses to pledge his son's health."
The cup went round amid the well-dissembled applause of the courtiers,
which, however, failed to make the impression on the mind of the Saxon
that had been designed. He was not naturally acute of perception,
but those too much undervalued his understanding who deemed that this
flattering compliment would obliterate the sense of the prior insult. He
was silent, however, when the royal pledge again passed round, "To Sir
Athelstane of Coningsburgh."
The knight made his obeisance, and showed his sense of the honour by
draining a huge goblet in answer to it.
"And now, sirs," said Prince John, who began to be warmed with the wine
which he had drank, "having done justice to our Saxon guests, we
will pray of them some requital to our courtesy.--Worthy Thane," he
continued, addressing Cedric, "may we pray you to name to us some Norman
whose mention may least sully your mouth, and to wash down with a goblet
of wine all bitterness which the sound may leave behind it?"
Fitzurse arose while Prince John spoke, and gliding behind the seat of
the Saxon, whispered to him not to omit the opportunity of putting an
end to unkindness betwixt the two races, by naming Prince John. The
Saxon replied not to this politic insinuation, but, rising up, and
filling his cup to the brim, he addressed Prince John in these words:
"Your highness has required that I should name a Norman deserving to
be remembered at our banquet. This, perchance, is a hard task, since
it calls on the slave to sing the praises of the master--upon the
vanquished, while pressed by all the evils of conquest, to sing the
praises of the conqueror. Yet I will name a Norman--the first in arms
and in place--the best and the noblest of his race. And the lips that
shall refuse to pledge me to his well-earned fame, I term false and
dishonoured, and will so maintain them with my life.--I quaff this
goblet to the health of Richard the Lion-hearted!"
Prince John, who had expected that his own name would have closed
the Saxon's speech, started when that of his injured brother was so
unexpectedly introduced. He raised mechanically the wine-cup to his
lips, then instantly set it down, to view the demeanour of the company
at this unexpected proposal, which many of them felt it as unsafe
to oppose as to comply with. Some of them, ancient and experienced
courtiers, closely imitated the example of the Prince himself, raising
the goblet to their lips, and again replacing it before them. There
were many who, with a more generous feeling, exclaimed, "Long live King
Richard! and may he be speedily restored to us!" And some few, among
whom were Front-de-Boeuf and the Templar, in sullen disdain suffered
their goblets to stand untasted before them. But no man ventured
directly to gainsay a pledge filled to the health of the reigning
monarch.
Having enjoyed his triumph for about a minute, Cedric said to his
companion, "Up, noble Athelstane! we have remained here long enough,
since we have requited the hospitable courtesy of Prince John's banquet.
Those who wish to know further of our rude Saxon manners must henceforth
seek us in the homes of our fathers, since we have seen enough of royal
banquets, and enough of Norman courtesy."
So saying, he arose and left the banqueting room, followed by
Athelstane, and by several other guests, who, partaking of the Saxon
lineage, held themselves insulted by the sarcasms of Prince John and his
courtiers.
"By the bones of St Thomas," said Prince John, as they retreated, "the
Saxon churls have borne off the best of the day, and have retreated with
triumph!"
"'Conclamatum est, poculatum est'," said Prior Aymer; "we have drunk and
we have shouted,--it were time we left our wine flagons."
"The monk hath some fair penitent to shrive to-night, that he is in such
a hurry to depart," said De Bracy.
"Not so, Sir Knight," replied the Abbot; "but I must move several miles
forward this evening upon my homeward journey."
"They are breaking up," said the Prince in a whisper to Fitzurse; "their
fears anticipate the event, and this coward Prior is the first to shrink
from me."
"Fear not, my lord," said Waldemar; "I will show him such reasons as
shall induce him to join us when we hold our meeting at York.--Sir
Prior," he said, "I must speak with you in private, before you mount
your palfrey."
The other guests were now fast dispersing, with the exception of those
immediately attached to Prince John's faction, and his retinue.
"This, then, is the result of your advice," said the Prince, turning
an angry countenance upon Fitzurse; "that I should be bearded at my
own board by a drunken Saxon churl, and that, on the mere sound of my
brother's name, men should fall off from me as if I had the leprosy?"
"Have patience, sir," replied his counsellor; "I might retort your
accusation, and blame the inconsiderate levity which foiled my
design, and misled your own better judgment. But this is no time for
recrimination. De Bracy and I will instantly go among these shuffling
cowards, and convince them they have gone too far to recede."
"It will be in vain," said Prince John, pacing the apartment with
disordered steps, and expressing himself with an agitation to which the
wine he had drank partly contributed--"It will be in vain--they have
seen the handwriting on the wall--they have marked the paw of the
lion in the sand--they have heard his approaching roar shake the
wood--nothing will reanimate their courage."
"Would to God," said Fitzurse to De Bracy, "that aught could reanimate
his own! His brother's very name is an ague to him. Unhappy are the
counsellors of a Prince, who wants fortitude and perseverance alike in
good and in evil!" | That evening there is a luxurious banquet at the Castle of Ashby. Prince John greets Cedric and Athelstane with great courtesy; they say Rowena is indisposed and cannot attend. The Normans make sarcastic comments about the Saxons' manners, and the Saxons are ignorant of Norman etiquette. Prince John proposes a toast to Ivanhoe, but Cedric refuses to join in, saying that Wilfred left his home to join the court of Richard I against his father's wishes. Prince John says that since Cedric has disinherited his son, he will not object to John's conferring on Front-de-Boeuf the castle that Richard I had intended for Ivanhoe. The Saxons and Normans bait each other, but Prince John pretends that from his side it is all in jest. Prince John calls upon Cedric to make a toast to a Norman whom he deems worthy, and Cedric responds with a toast to Richard the Lion-hearted. Prince John had been expecting to hear his own name. Cedric enjoys his advantage, and then he and Athelstane leave the banquet. Prince John is discomfited because he fears his men are about to desert him in favor of King Richard |
ACT I. SCENE I.
Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace
Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO
PHILO. Nay, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front. His captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan
To cool a gipsy's lust.
Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her LADIES, the train,
with eunuchs fanning her
Look where they come!
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool. Behold and see.
CLEOPATRA. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
ANTONY. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.
CLEOPATRA. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.
ANTONY. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Enter a MESSENGER
MESSENGER. News, my good lord, from Rome.
ANTONY. Grates me the sum.
CLEOPATRA. Nay, hear them, Antony.
Fulvia perchance is angry; or who knows
If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent
His pow'rful mandate to you: 'Do this or this;
Take in that kingdom and enfranchise that;
Perform't, or else we damn thee.'
ANTONY. How, my love?
CLEOPATRA. Perchance? Nay, and most like,
You must not stay here longer; your dismission
Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.
Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? Both?
Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's Queen,
Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine
Is Caesar's homager. Else so thy cheek pays shame
When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
ANTONY. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus [emhracing], when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.
CLEOPATRA. Excellent falsehood!
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
I'll seem the fool I am not. Antony
Will be himself.
ANTONY. But stirr'd by Cleopatra.
Now for the love of Love and her soft hours,
Let's not confound the time with conference harsh;
There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now. What sport to-night?
CLEOPATRA. Hear the ambassadors.
ANTONY. Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom everything becomes- to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself in thee fair and admir'd.
No messenger but thine, and all alone
To-night we'll wander through the streets and note
The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
Last night you did desire it. Speak not to us.
Exeunt ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with the train
DEMETRIUS. Is Caesar with Antonius priz'd so slight?
PHILO. Sir, sometimes when he is not Antony,
He comes too short of that great property
Which still should go with Antony.
DEMETRIUS. I am full sorry
That he approves the common liar, who
Thus speaks of him at Rome; but I will hope
Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy! Exeunt | Two Roman soldiers, Demetrius and Philo, are at Cleopatra's palace in Alexandria, Egypt. They discuss how their dear leader and friend, Mark Antony, is totally smitten with Egypt's queen, Cleopatra. Because of this, he acts less like a ruler and more like a teenager in love. Cleopatra and Antony show up, and Cleopatra demands that Antony tells her how much he loves her. He does so with much fawning. A messenger arrives with news from Rome, and Cleopatra taunts him that the message is either from Antony's wife Fulvia, who's angry about his absence, or maybe orders from Octavius Caesar in Rome. Antony insists he won't hear the message, because everything he cares about is in front of him. Cleopatra again taunts her love: she wonders whether Antony might care as little for her as for Fulvia, his wife back home. Antony scolds her for being so hot and cold. They leave the messenger without hearing the message, and Demetrius and Philo lament that all the rumors in Rome about Antony having fallen off the manly wagon are true. |
Lord Warburton was not seen in Mrs. Osmond's drawing-room for several
days, and Isabel couldn't fail to observe that her husband said nothing
to her about having received a letter from him. She couldn't fail to
observe, either, that Osmond was in a state of expectancy and that,
though it was not agreeable to him to betray it, he thought their
distinguished friend kept him waiting quite too long. At the end of four
days he alluded to his absence.
"What has become of Warburton? What does he mean by treating one like a
tradesman with a bill?"
"I know nothing about him," Isabel said. "I saw him last Friday at the
German ball. He told me then that he meant to write to you."
"He has never written to me."
"So I supposed, from your not having told me."
"He's an odd fish," said Osmond comprehensively. And on Isabel's making
no rejoinder he went on to enquire whether it took his lordship five
days to indite a letter. "Does he form his words with such difficulty?"
"I don't know," Isabel was reduced to replying. "I've never had a letter
from him."
"Never had a letter? I had an idea that you were at one time in intimate
correspondence."
She answered that this had not been the case, and let the conversation
drop. On the morrow, however, coming into the drawing-room late in the
afternoon, her husband took it up again.
"When Lord Warburton told you of his intention of writing what did you
say to him?" he asked.
She just faltered. "I think I told him not to forget it.
"Did you believe there was a danger of that?"
"As you say, he's an odd fish."
"Apparently he has forgotten it," said Osmond. "Be so good as to remind
him."
"Should you like me to write to him?" she demanded.
"I've no objection whatever."
"You expect too much of me."
"Ah yes, I expect a great deal of you."
"I'm afraid I shall disappoint you," said Isabel.
"My expectations have survived a good deal of disappointment."
"Of course I know that. Think how I must have disappointed myself!
If you really wish hands laid on Lord Warburton you must lay them
yourself."
For a couple of minutes Osmond answered nothing; then he said: "That
won't be easy, with you working against me."
Isabel started; she felt herself beginning to tremble. He had a way of
looking at her through half-closed eyelids, as if he were thinking of
her but scarcely saw her, which seemed to her to have a wonderfully
cruel intention. It appeared to recognise her as a disagreeable
necessity of thought, but to ignore her for the time as a presence.
That effect had never been so marked as now. "I think you accuse me of
something very base," she returned.
"I accuse you of not being trustworthy. If he doesn't after all come
forward it will be because you've kept him off. I don't know that it's
base: it is the kind of thing a woman always thinks she may do. I've no
doubt you've the finest ideas about it."
"I told you I would do what I could," she went on.
"Yes, that gained you time."
It came over her, after he had said this, that she had once thought him
beautiful. "How much you must want to make sure of him!" she exclaimed
in a moment.
She had no sooner spoken than she perceived the full reach of her
words, of which she had not been conscious in uttering them. They made
a comparison between Osmond and herself, recalled the fact that she had
once held this coveted treasure in her hand and felt herself rich
enough to let it fall. A momentary exultation took possession of her--a
horrible delight in having wounded him; for his face instantly told her
that none of the force of her exclamation was lost. He expressed nothing
otherwise, however; he only said quickly: "Yes, I want it immensely."
At this moment a servant came in to usher a visitor, and he was followed
the next by Lord Warburton, who received a visible check on seeing
Osmond. He looked rapidly from the master of the house to the mistress;
a movement that seemed to denote a reluctance to interrupt or even a
perception of ominous conditions. Then he advanced, with his English
address, in which a vague shyness seemed to offer itself as an element
of good-breeding; in which the only defect was a difficulty in achieving
transitions. Osmond was embarrassed; he found nothing to say; but Isabel
remarked, promptly enough, that they had been in the act of talking
about their visitor. Upon this her husband added that they hadn't known
what was become of him--they had been afraid he had gone away. "No,"
he explained, smiling and looking at Osmond; "I'm only on the point of
going." And then he mentioned that he found himself suddenly recalled
to England: he should start on the morrow or the day after. "I'm awfully
sorry to leave poor Touchett!" he ended by exclaiming.
For a moment neither of his companions spoke; Osmond only leaned back
in his chair, listening. Isabel didn't look at him; she could only fancy
how he looked. Her eyes were on their visitor's face, where they were
the more free to rest that those of his lordship carefully avoided them.
Yet Isabel was sure that had she met his glance she would have found it
expressive. "You had better take poor Touchett with you," she heard her
husband say, lightly enough, in a moment.
"He had better wait for warmer weather," Lord Warburton answered. "I
shouldn't advise him to travel just now."
He sat there a quarter of an hour, talking as if he might not soon
see them again--unless indeed they should come to England, a course
he strongly recommended. Why shouldn't they come to England in the
autumn?--that struck him as a very happy thought. It would give him such
pleasure to do what he could for them--to have them come and spend a
month with him. Osmond, by his own admission, had been to England but
once; which was an absurd state of things for a man of his leisure and
intelligence. It was just the country for him--he would be sure to get
on well there. Then Lord Warburton asked Isabel if she remembered what
a good time she had had there and if she didn't want to try it again.
Didn't she want to see Gardencourt once more? Gardencourt was really
very good. Touchett didn't take proper care of it, but it was the sort
of place you could hardly spoil by letting it alone. Why didn't they
come and pay Touchett a visit? He surely must have asked them. Hadn't
asked them? What an ill-mannered wretch!--and Lord Warburton promised to
give the master of Gardencourt a piece of his mind. Of course it was a
mere accident; he would be delighted to have them. Spending a month with
Touchett and a month with himself, and seeing all the rest of the
people they must know there, they really wouldn't find it half bad. Lord
Warburton added that it would amuse Miss Osmond as well, who had told
him that she had never been to England and whom he had assured it was a
country she deserved to see. Of course she didn't need to go to England
to be admired--that was her fate everywhere; but she would be an immense
success there, she certainly would, if that was any inducement. He asked
if she were not at home: couldn't he say good-bye? Not that he liked
good-byes--he always funked them. When he left England the other day he
hadn't said good-bye to a two-legged creature. He had had half a mind
to leave Rome without troubling Mrs. Osmond for a final interview. What
could be more dreary than final interviews? One never said the things
one wanted--one remembered them all an hour afterwards. On the other
hand one usually said a lot of things one shouldn't, simply from a sense
that one had to say something. Such a sense was upsetting; it muddled
one's wits. He had it at present, and that was the effect it produced
on him. If Mrs. Osmond didn't think he spoke as he ought she must set
it down to agitation; it was no light thing to part with Mrs. Osmond.
He was really very sorry to be going. He had thought of writing to her
instead of calling--but he would write to her at any rate, to tell her a
lot of things that would be sure to occur to him as soon as he had left
the house. They must think seriously about coming to Lockleigh.
If there was anything awkward in the conditions of his visit or in the
announcement of his departure it failed to come to the surface. Lord
Warburton talked about his agitation; but he showed it in no other
manner, and Isabel saw that since he had determined on a retreat he was
capable of executing it gallantly. She was very glad for him; she liked
him quite well enough to wish him to appear to carry a thing off. He
would do that on any occasion--not from impudence but simply from the
habit of success; and Isabel felt it out of her husband's power to
frustrate this faculty. A complex operation, as she sat there, went on
in her mind. On one side she listened to their visitor; said what was
proper to him; read, more or less, between the lines of what he said
himself; and wondered how he would have spoken if he had found her
alone. On the other she had a perfect consciousness of Osmond's emotion.
She felt almost sorry for him; he was condemned to the sharp pain of
loss without the relief of cursing. He had had a great hope, and now, as
he saw it vanish into smoke, he was obliged to sit and smile and twirl
his thumbs. Not that he troubled himself to smile very brightly; he
treated their friend on the whole to as vacant a countenance as so
clever a man could very well wear. It was indeed a part of Osmond's
cleverness that he could look consummately uncompromised. His present
appearance, however, was not a confession of disappointment; it was
simply a part of Osmond's habitual system, which was to be inexpressive
exactly in proportion as he was really intent. He had been intent on
this prize from the first; but he had never allowed his eagerness to
irradiate his refined face. He had treated his possible son-in-law as he
treated every one--with an air of being interested in him only for his
own advantage, not for any profit to a person already so generally, so
perfectly provided as Gilbert Osmond. He would give no sign now of an
inward rage which was the result of a vanished prospect of gain--not
the faintest nor subtlest. Isabel could be sure of that, if it was any
satisfaction to her. Strangely, very strangely, it was a satisfaction;
she wished Lord Warburton to triumph before her husband, and at the same
time she wished her husband to be very superior before Lord Warburton.
Osmond, in his way, was admirable; he had, like their visitor, the
advantage of an acquired habit. It was not that of succeeding, but it
was something almost as good--that of not attempting. As he leaned back
in his place, listening but vaguely to the other's friendly offers and
suppressed explanations--as if it were only proper to assume that they
were addressed essentially to his wife--he had at least (since so little
else was left him) the comfort of thinking how well he personally had
kept out of it, and how the air of indifference, which he was now able
to wear, had the added beauty of consistency. It was something to be
able to look as if the leave-taker's movements had no relation to his
own mind. The latter did well, certainly; but Osmond's performance was
in its very nature more finished. Lord Warburton's position was after
all an easy one; there was no reason in the world why he shouldn't leave
Rome. He had had beneficent inclinations, but they had stopped short
of fruition; he had never committed himself, and his honour was safe.
Osmond appeared to take but a moderate interest in the proposal that
they should go and stay with him and in his allusion to the success
Pansy might extract from their visit. He murmured a recognition, but
left Isabel to say that it was a matter requiring grave consideration.
Isabel, even while she made this remark, could see the great vista
which had suddenly opened out in her husband's mind, with Pansy's little
figure marching up the middle of it.
Lord Warburton had asked leave to bid good-bye to Pansy, but neither
Isabel nor Osmond had made any motion to send for her. He had the air of
giving out that his visit must be short; he sat on a small chair, as if
it were only for a moment, keeping his hat in his hand. But he stayed
and stayed; Isabel wondered what he was waiting for. She believed it
was not to see Pansy; she had an impression that on the whole he would
rather not see Pansy. It was of course to see herself alone--he had
something to say to her. Isabel had no great wish to hear it, for she
was afraid it would be an explanation, and she could perfectly dispense
with explanations. Osmond, however, presently got up, like a man of good
taste to whom it had occurred that so inveterate a visitor might wish
to say just the last word of all to the ladies. "I've a letter to write
before dinner," he said; "you must excuse me. I'll see if my daughter's
disengaged, and if she is she shall know you're here. Of course when
you come to Rome you'll always look us up. Mrs. Osmond will talk to you
about the English expedition: she decides all those things."
The nod with which, instead of a hand-shake, he wound up this little
speech was perhaps rather a meagre form of salutation; but on the whole
it was all the occasion demanded. Isabel reflected that after he
left the room Lord Warburton would have no pretext for saying, "Your
husband's very angry"; which would have been extremely disagreeable to
her. Nevertheless, if he had done so, she would have said: "Oh, don't be
anxious. He doesn't hate you: it's me that he hates!"
It was only when they had been left alone together that her friend
showed a certain vague awkwardness--sitting down in another chair,
handling two or three of the objects that were near him. "I hope he'll
make Miss Osmond come," he presently remarked. "I want very much to see
her."
"I'm glad it's the last time," said Isabel.
"So am I. She doesn't care for me."
"No, she doesn't care for you."
"I don't wonder at it," he returned. Then he added with inconsequence:
"You'll come to England, won't you?"
"I think we had better not."
"Ah, you owe me a visit. Don't you remember that you were to have come
to Lockleigh once, and you never did?"
"Everything's changed since then," said Isabel.
"Not changed for the worse, surely--as far as we're concerned. To see
you under my roof"--and he hung fire but an instant--"would be a great
satisfaction."
She had feared an explanation; but that was the only one that occurred.
They talked a little of Ralph, and in another moment Pansy came in,
already dressed for dinner and with a little red spot in either cheek.
She shook hands with Lord Warburton and stood looking up into his
face with a fixed smile--a smile that Isabel knew, though his lordship
probably never suspected it, to be near akin to a burst of tears.
"I'm going away," he said. "I want to bid you good-bye."
"Good-bye, Lord Warburton." Her voice perceptibly trembled.
"And I want to tell you how much I wish you may be very happy."
"Thank you, Lord Warburton," Pansy answered.
He lingered a moment and gave a glance at Isabel. "You ought to be very
happy--you've got a guardian angel."
"I'm sure I shall be happy," said Pansy in the tone of a person whose
certainties were always cheerful.
"Such a conviction as that will take you a great way. But if it should
ever fail you, remember--remember--" And her interlocutor stammered a
little. "Think of me sometimes, you know!" he said with a vague laugh.
Then he shook hands with Isabel in silence, and presently he was gone.
When he had left the room she expected an effusion of tears from her
stepdaughter; but Pansy in fact treated her to something very different.
"I think you ARE my guardian angel!" she exclaimed very sweetly.
Isabel shook her head. "I'm not an angel of any kind. I'm at the most
your good friend."
"You're a very good friend then--to have asked papa to be gentle with
me."
"I've asked your father nothing," said Isabel, wondering.
"He told me just now to come to the drawing-room, and then he gave me a
very kind kiss."
"Ah," said Isabel, "that was quite his own idea!"
She recognised the idea perfectly; it was very characteristic, and she
was to see a great deal more of it. Even with Pansy he couldn't put
himself the least in the wrong. They were dining out that day, and after
their dinner they went to another entertainment; so that it was not till
late in the evening that Isabel saw him alone. When Pansy kissed him
before going to bed he returned her embrace with even more than his
usual munificence, and Isabel wondered if he meant it as a hint that his
daughter had been injured by the machinations of her stepmother. It was
a partial expression, at any rate, of what he continued to expect of his
wife. She was about to follow Pansy, but he remarked that he wished she
would remain; he had something to say to her. Then he walked about the
drawing-room a little, while she stood waiting in her cloak.
"I don't understand what you wish to do," he said in a moment. "I should
like to know--so that I may know how to act."
"Just now I wish to go to bed. I'm very tired."
"Sit down and rest; I shall not keep you long. Not there--take a
comfortable place." And he arranged a multitude of cushions that were
scattered in picturesque disorder upon a vast divan. This was not,
however, where she seated herself; she dropped into the nearest chair.
The fire had gone out; the lights in the great room were few. She drew
her cloak about her; she felt mortally cold. "I think you're trying to
humiliate me," Osmond went on. "It's a most absurd undertaking."
"I haven't the least idea what you mean," she returned.
"You've played a very deep game; you've managed it beautifully."
"What is it that I've managed?"
"You've not quite settled it, however; we shall see him again." And he
stopped in front of her, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at
her thoughtfully, in his usual way, which seemed meant to let her know
that she was not an object, but only a rather disagreeable incident, of
thought.
"If you mean that Lord Warburton's under an obligation to come back
you're wrong," Isabel said. "He's under none whatever."
"That's just what I complain of. But when I say he'll come back I don't
mean he'll come from a sense of duty."
"There's nothing else to make him. I think he has quite exhausted Rome."
"Ah no, that's a shallow judgement. Rome's inexhaustible." And Osmond
began to walk about again. "However, about that perhaps there's no
hurry," he added. "It's rather a good idea of his that we should go
to England. If it were not for the fear of finding your cousin there I
think I should try to persuade you."
"It may be that you'll not find my cousin," said Isabel.
"I should like to be sure of it. However, I shall be as sure as
possible. At the same time I should like to see his house, that you told
me so much about at one time: what do you call it?--Gardencourt. It must
be a charming thing. And then, you know, I've a devotion to the memory
of your uncle: you made me take a great fancy to him. I should like to
see where he lived and died. That indeed is a detail. Your friend was
right. Pansy ought to see England."
"I've no doubt she would enjoy it," said Isabel.
"But that's a long time hence; next autumn's far off," Osmond continued;
"and meantime there are things that more nearly interest us. Do you
think me so very proud?" he suddenly asked.
"I think you very strange."
"You don't understand me."
"No, not even when you insult me."
"I don't insult you; I'm incapable of it. I merely speak of certain
facts, and if the allusion's an injury to you the fault's not mine.
It's surely a fact that you have kept all this matter quite in your own
hands."
"Are you going back to Lord Warburton?" Isabel asked. "I'm very tired of
his name."
"You shall hear it again before we've done with it."
She had spoken of his insulting her, but it suddenly seemed to her that
this ceased to be a pain. He was going down--down; the vision of such a
fall made her almost giddy: that was the only pain. He was too strange,
too different; he didn't touch her. Still, the working of his morbid
passion was extraordinary, and she felt a rising curiosity to know in
what light he saw himself justified. "I might say to you that I judge
you've nothing to say to me that's worth hearing," she returned in a
moment. "But I should perhaps be wrong. There's a thing that would be
worth my hearing--to know in the plainest words of what it is you accuse
me."
"Of having prevented Pansy's marriage to Warburton. Are those words
plain enough?"
"On the contrary, I took a great interest in it. I told you so; and when
you told me that you counted on me--that I think was what you said--I
accepted the obligation. I was a fool to do so, but I did it."
"You pretended to do it, and you even pretended reluctance to make me
more willing to trust you. Then you began to use your ingenuity to get
him out of the way."
"I think I see what you mean," said Isabel.
"Where's the letter you told me he had written me?" her husband
demanded.
"I haven't the least idea; I haven't asked him."
"You stopped it on the way," said Osmond.
Isabel slowly got up; standing there in her white cloak, which covered
her to her feet, she might have represented the angel of disdain, first
cousin to that of pity. "Oh, Gilbert, for a man who was so fine--!" she
exclaimed in a long murmur.
"I was never so fine as you. You've done everything you wanted. You've
got him out of the way without appearing to do so, and you've placed
me in the position in which you wished to see me--that of a man who has
tried to marry his daughter to a lord, but has grotesquely failed."
"Pansy doesn't care for him. She's very glad he's gone," Isabel said.
"That has nothing to do with the matter."
"And he doesn't care for Pansy."
"That won't do; you told me he did. I don't know why you wanted this
particular satisfaction," Osmond continued; "you might have taken some
other. It doesn't seem to me that I've been presumptuous--that I have
taken too much for granted. I've been very modest about it, very quiet.
The idea didn't originate with me. He began to show that he liked her
before I ever thought of it. I left it all to you."
"Yes, you were very glad to leave it to me. After this you must attend
to such things yourself."
He looked at her a moment; then he turned away. "I thought you were very
fond of my daughter."
"I've never been more so than to-day."
"Your affection is attended with immense limitations. However, that
perhaps is natural."
"Is this all you wished to say to me?" Isabel asked, taking a candle
that stood on one of the tables.
"Are you satisfied? Am I sufficiently disappointed?"
"I don't think that on the whole you're disappointed. You've had another
opportunity to try to stupefy me."
"It's not that. It's proved that Pansy can aim high."
"Poor little Pansy!" said Isabel as she turned away with her candle. | Lord Warburton stays away from the Osmonds for four days. Gilbert Osmond finally asks Isabel what has happened to him. Isabel realizes that Gilbert is accusing her of being untrustworthy and he says just that. As they are talking, Lord Warburton is announced. He is clearly unhappy to find Gilbert there, but he recovers and stays to chat for a while. He says he is on his way home to England and wanted to come by to say good-bye to them and Pansy. When he keeps staying, it becomes obvious that he wants to speak to Isabel alone. Gilbert leaves the room. Warburton tells her he wants to see Pansy. They agree that it is best that it will be the last time since he doesnt care enough for Pansy and she doesnt care for him. Pansy comes in and accepts Warburtons good words with grace. Then he leaves. Pansy thanks Isabel for being her guardian angel. She says her father just came to get her and kissed her tenderly on the head. She thinks Isabel spoke to him about Pansy. Isabel assures her that she had nothing to do with Gilberts behavior. She realizes it is part of Gilberts idea of himself. Even in defeat, he can play the role of the magnanimous father. That evening they go out to dinner and then to an entertainment. When they get back, Pansy goes to bed and Gilbert asks Isabel to remain in the parlor to talk to him. He tells her he believes she is trying to humiliate him. He says it is obvious that she had played him for a fool in making him want Lord Warburton as a son in law and them pushing Lord Warburton away. Isabel is fascinated at the working of his "morbid passion." She denies his accusations, but to no effect. Isabel looks like an angel of disdain as she gets up to leave. As she leaves, she says, "Poor little Pansy!" |
Next day at 11 a.m. Higgins's laboratory in Wimpole Street. It is a
room on the first floor, looking on the street, and was meant for the
drawing-room. The double doors are in the middle of the back hall; and
persons entering find in the corner to their right two tall file
cabinets at right angles to one another against the walls. In this
corner stands a flat writing-table, on which are a phonograph, a
laryngoscope, a row of tiny organ pipes with a bellows, a set of lamp
chimneys for singing flames with burners attached to a gas plug in the
wall by an indiarubber tube, several tuning-forks of different sizes, a
life-size image of half a human head, showing in section the vocal
organs, and a box containing a supply of wax cylinders for the
phonograph.
Further down the room, on the same side, is a fireplace, with a
comfortable leather-covered easy-chair at the side of the hearth
nearest the door, and a coal-scuttle. There is a clock on the
mantelpiece. Between the fireplace and the phonograph table is a stand
for newspapers.
On the other side of the central door, to the left of the visitor, is a
cabinet of shallow drawers. On it is a telephone and the telephone
directory. The corner beyond, and most of the side wall, is occupied by
a grand piano, with the keyboard at the end furthest from the door, and
a bench for the player extending the full length of the keyboard. On
the piano is a dessert dish heaped with fruit and sweets, mostly
chocolates.
The middle of the room is clear. Besides the easy chair, the piano
bench, and two chairs at the phonograph table, there is one stray
chair. It stands near the fireplace. On the walls, engravings; mostly
Piranesis and mezzotint portraits. No paintings.
Pickering is seated at the table, putting down some cards and a
tuning-fork which he has been using. Higgins is standing up near him,
closing two or three file drawers which are hanging out. He appears in
the morning light as a robust, vital, appetizing sort of man of forty
or thereabouts, dressed in a professional-looking black frock-coat with
a white linen collar and black silk tie. He is of the energetic,
scientific type, heartily, even violently interested in everything that
can be studied as a scientific subject, and careless about himself and
other people, including their feelings. He is, in fact, but for his
years and size, rather like a very impetuous baby "taking notice"
eagerly and loudly, and requiring almost as much watching to keep him
out of unintended mischief. His manner varies from genial bullying when
he is in a good humor to stormy petulance when anything goes wrong; but
he is so entirely frank and void of malice that he remains likeable
even in his least reasonable moments.
HIGGINS [as he shuts the last drawer] Well, I think that's the whole
show.
PICKERING. It's really amazing. I haven't taken half of it in, you know.
HIGGINS. Would you like to go over any of it again?
PICKERING [rising and coming to the fireplace, where he plants himself
with his back to the fire] No, thank you; not now. I'm quite done up
for this morning.
HIGGINS [following him, and standing beside him on his left] Tired of
listening to sounds?
PICKERING. Yes. It's a fearful strain. I rather fancied myself because
I can pronounce twenty-four distinct vowel sounds; but your hundred and
thirty beat me. I can't hear a bit of difference between most of them.
HIGGINS [chuckling, and going over to the piano to eat sweets] Oh, that
comes with practice. You hear no difference at first; but you keep on
listening, and presently you find they're all as different as A from B.
[Mrs. Pearce looks in: she is Higgins's housekeeper] What's the matter?
MRS. PEARCE [hesitating, evidently perplexed] A young woman wants to
see you, sir.
HIGGINS. A young woman! What does she want?
MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, she says you'll be glad to see her when you
know what she's come about. She's quite a common girl, sir. Very common
indeed. I should have sent her away, only I thought perhaps you wanted
her to talk into your machines. I hope I've not done wrong; but really
you see such queer people sometimes--you'll excuse me, I'm sure, sir--
HIGGINS. Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Pearce. Has she an interesting
accent?
MRS. PEARCE. Oh, something dreadful, sir, really. I don't know how you
can take an interest in it.
HIGGINS [to Pickering] Let's have her up. Show her up, Mrs. Pearce [he
rushes across to his working table and picks out a cylinder to use on
the phonograph].
MRS. PEARCE [only half resigned to it] Very well, sir. It's for you to
say. [She goes downstairs].
HIGGINS. This is rather a bit of luck. I'll show you how I make
records. We'll set her talking; and I'll take it down first in Bell's
visible Speech; then in broad Romic; and then we'll get her on the
phonograph so that you can turn her on as often as you like with the
written transcript before you.
MRS. PEARCE [returning] This is the young woman, sir.
The flower girl enters in state. She has a hat with three ostrich
feathers, orange, sky-blue, and red. She has a nearly clean apron, and
the shoddy coat has been tidied a little. The pathos of this deplorable
figure, with its innocent vanity and consequential air, touches
Pickering, who has already straightened himself in the presence of Mrs.
Pearce. But as to Higgins, the only distinction he makes between men
and women is that when he is neither bullying nor exclaiming to the
heavens against some featherweight cross, he coaxes women as a child
coaxes its nurse when it wants to get anything out of her.
HIGGINS [brusquely, recognizing her with unconcealed disappointment,
and at once, baby-like, making an intolerable grievance of it] Why,
this is the girl I jotted down last night. She's no use: I've got all
the records I want of the Lisson Grove lingo; and I'm not going to
waste another cylinder on it. [To the girl] Be off with you: I don't
want you.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Don't you be so saucy. You ain't heard what I come for
yet. [To Mrs. Pearce, who is waiting at the door for further
instruction] Did you tell him I come in a taxi?
MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, girl! what do you think a gentleman like Mr.
Higgins cares what you came in?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, we are proud! He ain't above giving lessons, not
him: I heard him say so. Well, I ain't come here to ask for any
compliment; and if my money's not good enough I can go elsewhere.
HIGGINS. Good enough for what?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Good enough for ye--oo. Now you know, don't you? I'm
come to have lessons, I am. And to pay for em too: make no mistake.
HIGGINS [stupent] WELL!!! [Recovering his breath with a gasp] What do
you expect me to say to you?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit
down, I think. Don't I tell you I'm bringing you business?
HIGGINS. Pickering: shall we ask this baggage to sit down or shall we
throw her out of the window?
THE FLOWER GIRL [running away in terror to the piano, where she turns
at bay] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--ow--oo! [Wounded and whimpering] I won't be
called a baggage when I've offered to pay like any lady.
Motionless, the two men stare at her from the other side of the room,
amazed.
PICKERING [gently] What is it you want, my girl?
THE FLOWER GIRL. I want to be a lady in a flower shop stead of selling
at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they won't take me unless I
can talk more genteel. He said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready
to pay him--not asking any favor--and he treats me as if I was dirt.
MRS. PEARCE. How can you be such a foolish ignorant girl as to think
you could afford to pay Mr. Higgins?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Why shouldn't I? I know what lessons cost as well as
you do; and I'm ready to pay.
HIGGINS. How much?
THE FLOWER GIRL [coming back to him, triumphant] Now you're talking! I
thought you'd come off it when you saw a chance of getting back a bit
of what you chucked at me last night. [Confidentially] You'd had a drop
in, hadn't you?
HIGGINS [peremptorily] Sit down.
THE FLOWER GIRL. Oh, if you're going to make a compliment of it--
HIGGINS [thundering at her] Sit down.
MRS. PEARCE [severely] Sit down, girl. Do as you're told. [She places
the stray chair near the hearthrug between Higgins and Pickering, and
stands behind it waiting for the girl to sit down].
THE FLOWER GIRL. Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo! [She stands, half rebellious,
half bewildered].
PICKERING [very courteous] Won't you sit down?
LIZA [coyly] Don't mind if I do. [She sits down. Pickering returns to
the hearthrug].
HIGGINS. What's your name?
THE FLOWER GIRL. Liza Doolittle.
HIGGINS [declaiming gravely]
Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess,
They went to the woods to get a bird's nes':
PICKERING. They found a nest with four eggs in it:
HIGGINS. They took one apiece, and left three in it.
They laugh heartily at their own wit.
LIZA. Oh, don't be silly.
MRS. PEARCE. You mustn't speak to the gentleman like that.
LIZA. Well, why won't he speak sensible to me?
HIGGINS. Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me for
the lessons?
LIZA. Oh, I know what's right. A lady friend of mine gets French
lessons for eighteenpence an hour from a real French gentleman. Well,
you wouldn't have the face to ask me the same for teaching me my own
language as you would for French; so I won't give more than a shilling.
Take it or leave it.
HIGGINS [walking up and down the room, rattling his keys and his cash
in his pockets] You know, Pickering, if you consider a shilling, not as
a simple shilling, but as a percentage of this girl's income, it works
out as fully equivalent to sixty or seventy guineas from a millionaire.
PICKERING. How so?
HIGGINS. Figure it out. A millionaire has about 150 pounds a day. She
earns about half-a-crown.
LIZA [haughtily] Who told you I only--
HIGGINS [continuing] She offers me two-fifths of her day's income for a
lesson. Two-fifths of a millionaire's income for a day would be
somewhere about 60 pounds. It's handsome. By George, it's enormous!
it's the biggest offer I ever had.
LIZA [rising, terrified] Sixty pounds! What are you talking about? I
never offered you sixty pounds. Where would I get--
HIGGINS. Hold your tongue.
LIZA [weeping] But I ain't got sixty pounds. Oh--
MRS. PEARCE. Don't cry, you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody is going to
touch your money.
HIGGINS. Somebody is going to touch you, with a broomstick, if you
don't stop snivelling. Sit down.
LIZA [obeying slowly] Ah--ah--ah--ow--oo--o! One would think you was my
father.
HIGGINS. If I decide to teach you, I'll be worse than two fathers to
you. Here [he offers her his silk handkerchief]!
LIZA. What's this for?
HIGGINS. To wipe your eyes. To wipe any part of your face that feels
moist. Remember: that's your handkerchief; and that's your sleeve.
Don't mistake the one for the other if you wish to become a lady in a
shop.
Liza, utterly bewildered, stares helplessly at him.
MRS. PEARCE. It's no use talking to her like that, Mr. Higgins: she
doesn't understand you. Besides, you're quite wrong: she doesn't do it
that way at all [she takes the handkerchief].
LIZA [snatching it] Here! You give me that handkerchief. He give it to
me, not to you.
PICKERING [laughing] He did. I think it must be regarded as her
property, Mrs. Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE [resigning herself] Serve you right, Mr. Higgins.
PICKERING. Higgins: I'm interested. What about the ambassador's garden
party? I'll say you're the greatest teacher alive if you make that
good. I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment you can't do it.
And I'll pay for the lessons.
LIZA. Oh, you are real good. Thank you, Captain.
HIGGINS [tempted, looking at her] It's almost irresistible. She's so
deliciously low--so horribly dirty--
LIZA [protesting extremely] Ah--ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oooo!!! I ain't
dirty: I washed my face and hands afore I come, I did.
PICKERING. You're certainly not going to turn her head with flattery,
Higgins.
MRS. PEARCE [uneasy] Oh, don't say that, sir: there's more ways than
one of turning a girl's head; and nobody can do it better than Mr.
Higgins, though he may not always mean it. I do hope, sir, you won't
encourage him to do anything foolish.
HIGGINS [becoming excited as the idea grows on him] What is life but a
series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never
lose a chance: it doesn't come every day. I shall make a duchess of
this draggletailed guttersnipe.
LIZA [strongly deprecating this view of her] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!
HIGGINS [carried away] Yes: in six months--in three if she has a good
ear and a quick tongue--I'll take her anywhere and pass her off as
anything. We'll start today: now! this moment! Take her away and clean
her, Mrs. Pearce. Monkey Brand, if it won't come off any other way. Is
there a good fire in the kitchen?
MRS. PEARCE [protesting]. Yes; but--
HIGGINS [storming on] Take all her clothes off and burn them. Ring up
Whiteley or somebody for new ones. Wrap her up in brown paper till they
come.
LIZA. You're no gentleman, you're not, to talk of such things. I'm a
good girl, I am; and I know what the like of you are, I do.
HIGGINS. We want none of your Lisson Grove prudery here, young woman.
You've got to learn to behave like a duchess. Take her away, Mrs.
Pearce. If she gives you any trouble wallop her.
LIZA [springing up and running between Pickering and Mrs. Pearce for
protection] No! I'll call the police, I will.
MRS. PEARCE. But I've no place to put her.
HIGGINS. Put her in the dustbin.
LIZA. Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!
PICKERING. Oh come, Higgins! be reasonable.
MRS. PEARCE [resolutely] You must be reasonable, Mr. Higgins: really
you must. You can't walk over everybody like this.
Higgins, thus scolded, subsides. The hurricane is succeeded by a zephyr
of amiable surprise.
HIGGINS [with professional exquisiteness of modulation] I walk over
everybody! My dear Mrs. Pearce, my dear Pickering, I never had the
slightest intention of walking over anyone. All I propose is that we
should be kind to this poor girl. We must help her to prepare and fit
herself for her new station in life. If I did not express myself
clearly it was because I did not wish to hurt her delicacy, or yours.
Liza, reassured, steals back to her chair.
MRS. PEARCE [to Pickering] Well, did you ever hear anything like that,
sir?
PICKERING [laughing heartily] Never, Mrs. Pearce: never.
HIGGINS [patiently] What's the matter?
MRS. PEARCE. Well, the matter is, sir, that you can't take a girl up
like that as if you were picking up a pebble on the beach.
HIGGINS. Why not?
MRS. PEARCE. Why not! But you don't know anything about her. What about
her parents? She may be married.
LIZA. Garn!
HIGGINS. There! As the girl very properly says, Garn! Married indeed!
Don't you know that a woman of that class looks a worn out drudge of
fifty a year after she's married.
LIZA. Who'd marry me?
HIGGINS [suddenly resorting to the most thrillingly beautiful low tones
in his best elocutionary style] By George, Eliza, the streets will be
strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before
I've done with you.
MRS. PEARCE. Nonsense, sir. You mustn't talk like that to her.
LIZA [rising and squaring herself determinedly] I'm going away. He's
off his chump, he is. I don't want no balmies teaching me.
HIGGINS [wounded in his tenderest point by her insensibility to his
elocution] Oh, indeed! I'm mad, am I? Very well, Mrs. Pearce: you
needn't order the new clothes for her. Throw her out.
LIZA [whimpering] Nah--ow. You got no right to touch me.
MRS. PEARCE. You see now what comes of being saucy. [Indicating the
door] This way, please.
LIZA [almost in tears] I didn't want no clothes. I wouldn't have taken
them [she throws away the handkerchief]. I can buy my own clothes.
HIGGINS [deftly retrieving the handkerchief and intercepting her on her
reluctant way to the door] You're an ungrateful wicked girl. This is my
return for offering to take you out of the gutter and dress you
beautifully and make a lady of you.
MRS. PEARCE. Stop, Mr. Higgins. I won't allow it. It's you that are
wicked. Go home to your parents, girl; and tell them to take better
care of you.
LIZA. I ain't got no parents. They told me I was big enough to earn my
own living and turned me out.
MRS. PEARCE. Where's your mother?
LIZA. I ain't got no mother. Her that turned me out was my sixth
stepmother. But I done without them. And I'm a good girl, I am.
HIGGINS. Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about? The
girl doesn't belong to anybody--is no use to anybody but me. [He goes
to Mrs. Pearce and begins coaxing]. You can adopt her, Mrs. Pearce: I'm
sure a daughter would be a great amusement to you. Now don't make any
more fuss. Take her downstairs; and--
MRS. PEARCE. But what's to become of her? Is she to be paid anything?
Do be sensible, sir.
HIGGINS. Oh, pay her whatever is necessary: put it down in the
housekeeping book. [Impatiently] What on earth will she want with
money? She'll have her food and her clothes. She'll only drink if you
give her money.
LIZA [turning on him] Oh you are a brute. It's a lie: nobody ever saw
the sign of liquor on me. [She goes back to her chair and plants
herself there defiantly].
PICKERING [in good-humored remonstrance] Does it occur to you, Higgins,
that the girl has some feelings?
HIGGINS [looking critically at her] Oh no, I don't think so. Not any
feelings that we need bother about. [Cheerily] Have you, Eliza?
LIZA. I got my feelings same as anyone else.
HIGGINS [to Pickering, reflectively] You see the difficulty?
PICKERING. Eh? What difficulty?
HIGGINS. To get her to talk grammar. The mere pronunciation is easy
enough.
LIZA. I don't want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.
MRS. PEARCE. Will you please keep to the point, Mr. Higgins. I want to
know on what terms the girl is to be here. Is she to have any wages?
And what is to become of her when you've finished your teaching? You
must look ahead a little.
HIGGINS [impatiently] What's to become of her if I leave her in the
gutter? Tell me that, Mrs. Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE. That's her own business, not yours, Mr. Higgins.
HIGGINS. Well, when I've done with her, we can throw her back into the
gutter; and then it will be her own business again; so that's all right.
LIZA. Oh, you've no feeling heart in you: you don't care for nothing
but yourself [she rises and takes the floor resolutely]. Here! I've had
enough of this. I'm going [making for the door]. You ought to be
ashamed of yourself, you ought.
HIGGINS [snatching a chocolate cream from the piano, his eyes suddenly
beginning to twinkle with mischief] Have some chocolates, Eliza.
LIZA [halting, tempted] How do I know what might be in them? I've heard
of girls being drugged by the like of you.
Higgins whips out his penknife; cuts a chocolate in two; puts one half
into his mouth and bolts it; and offers her the other half.
HIGGINS. Pledge of good faith, Eliza. I eat one half you eat the other.
[Liza opens her mouth to retort: he pops the half chocolate into it].
You shall have boxes of them, barrels of them, every day. You shall
live on them. Eh?
LIZA [who has disposed of the chocolate after being nearly choked by
it] I wouldn't have ate it, only I'm too ladylike to take it out of my
mouth.
HIGGINS. Listen, Eliza. I think you said you came in a taxi.
LIZA. Well, what if I did? I've as good a right to take a taxi as
anyone else.
HIGGINS. You have, Eliza; and in future you shall have as many taxis as
you want. You shall go up and down and round the town in a taxi every
day. Think of that, Eliza.
MRS. PEARCE. Mr. Higgins: you're tempting the girl. It's not right. She
should think of the future.
HIGGINS. At her age! Nonsense! Time enough to think of the future when
you haven't any future to think of. No, Eliza: do as this lady does:
think of other people's futures; but never think of your own. Think of
chocolates, and taxis, and gold, and diamonds.
LIZA. No: I don't want no gold and no diamonds. I'm a good girl, I am.
[She sits down again, with an attempt at dignity].
HIGGINS. You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs. Pearce. And
you shall marry an officer in the Guards, with a beautiful moustache:
the son of a marquis, who will disinherit him for marrying you, but
will relent when he sees your beauty and goodness--
PICKERING. Excuse me, Higgins; but I really must interfere. Mrs. Pearce
is quite right. If this girl is to put herself in your hands for six
months for an experiment in teaching, she must understand thoroughly
what she's doing.
HIGGINS. How can she? She's incapable of understanding anything.
Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we
ever do it?
PICKERING. Very clever, Higgins; but not sound sense. [To Eliza] Miss
Doolittle--
LIZA [overwhelmed] Ah--ah--ow--oo!
HIGGINS. There! That's all you get out of Eliza. Ah--ah--ow--oo! No use
explaining. As a military man you ought to know that. Give her her
orders: that's what she wants. Eliza: you are to live here for the next
six months, learning how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a
florist's shop. If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall
sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy
chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you're naughty and idle you will
sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped by
Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you shall go to
Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds
out you're not a lady, you will be taken by the police to the Tower of
London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other
presumptuous flower girls. If you are not found out, you shall have a
present of seven-and-sixpence to start life with as a lady in a shop.
If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful and wicked girl;
and the angels will weep for you. [To Pickering] Now are you satisfied,
Pickering? [To Mrs. Pearce] Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs.
Pearce?
MRS. PEARCE [patiently] I think you'd better let me speak to the girl
properly in private. I don't know that I can take charge of her or
consent to the arrangement at all. Of course I know you don't mean her
any harm; but when you get what you call interested in people's
accents, you never think or care what may happen to them or you. Come
with me, Eliza.
HIGGINS. That's all right. Thank you, Mrs. Pearce. Bundle her off to
the bath-room.
LIZA [rising reluctantly and suspiciously] You're a great bully, you
are. I won't stay here if I don't like. I won't let nobody wallop me. I
never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didn't. I was never in trouble
with the police, not me. I'm a good girl--
MRS. PEARCE. Don't answer back, girl. You don't understand the
gentleman. Come with me. [She leads the way to the door, and holds it
open for Eliza].
LIZA [as she goes out] Well, what I say is right. I won't go near the
king, not if I'm going to have my head cut off. If I'd known what I was
letting myself in for, I wouldn't have come here. I always been a good
girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I don't owe him
nothing; and I don't care; and I won't be put upon; and I have my
feelings the same as anyone else--
Mrs. Pearce shuts the door; and Eliza's plaints are no longer audible.
Pickering comes from the hearth to the chair and sits astride it with
his arms on the back.
PICKERING. Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man of good
character where women are concerned?
HIGGINS [moodily] Have you ever met a man of good character where women
are concerned?
PICKERING. Yes: very frequently.
HIGGINS [dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level of the
piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I haven't. I find that
the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous,
exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I
let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical.
Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that
the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.
PICKERING. At what, for example?
HIGGINS [coming off the piano restlessly] Oh, Lord knows! I suppose the
woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants to live his; and
each tries to drag the other on to the wrong track. One wants to go
north and the other south; and the result is that both have to go east,
though they both hate the east wind. [He sits down on the bench at the
keyboard]. So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain
so.
PICKERING [rising and standing over him gravely] Come, Higgins! You
know what I mean. If I'm to be in this business I shall feel
responsible for that girl. I hope it's understood that no advantage is
to be taken of her position.
HIGGINS. What! That thing! Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to explain]
You see, she'll be a pupil; and teaching would be impossible unless
pupils were sacred. I've taught scores of American millionairesses how
to speak English: the best looking women in the world. I'm seasoned.
They might as well be blocks of wood. I might as well be a block of
wood. It's--
Mrs. Pearce opens the door. She has Eliza's hat in her hand. Pickering
retires to the easy-chair at the hearth and sits down.
HIGGINS [eagerly] Well, Mrs. Pearce: is it all right?
MRS. PEARCE [at the door] I just wish to trouble you with a word, if I
may, Mr. Higgins.
HIGGINS. Yes, certainly. Come in. [She comes forward]. Don't burn that,
Mrs. Pearce. I'll keep it as a curiosity. [He takes the hat].
MRS. PEARCE. Handle it carefully, sir, please. I had to promise her not
to burn it; but I had better put it in the oven for a while.
HIGGINS [putting it down hastily on the piano] Oh! thank you. Well,
what have you to say to me?
PICKERING. Am I in the way?
MRS. PEARCE. Not at all, sir. Mr. Higgins: will you please be very
particular what you say before the girl?
HIGGINS [sternly] Of course. I'm always particular about what I say.
Why do you say this to me?
MRS. PEARCE [unmoved] No, sir: you're not at all particular when you've
mislaid anything or when you get a little impatient. Now it doesn't
matter before me: I'm used to it. But you really must not swear before
the girl.
HIGGINS [indignantly] I swear! [Most emphatically] I never swear. I
detest the habit. What the devil do you mean?
MRS. PEARCE [stolidly] That's what I mean, sir. You swear a great deal
too much. I don't mind your damning and blasting, and what the devil
and where the devil and who the devil--
HIGGINS. Really! Mrs. Pearce: this language from your lips!
MRS. PEARCE [not to be put off]--but there is a certain word I must ask
you not to use. The girl has just used it herself because the bath was
too hot. It begins with the same letter as bath. She knows no better:
she learnt it at her mother's knee. But she must not hear it from your
lips.
HIGGINS [loftily] I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered it,
Mrs. Pearce. [She looks at him steadfastly. He adds, hiding an uneasy
conscience with a judicial air] Except perhaps in a moment of extreme
and justifiable excitement.
MRS. PEARCE. Only this morning, sir, you applied it to your boots, to
the butter, and to the brown bread.
HIGGINS. Oh, that! Mere alliteration, Mrs. Pearce, natural to a poet.
MRS. PEARCE. Well, sir, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you not
to let the girl hear you repeat it.
HIGGINS. Oh, very well, very well. Is that all?
MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. We shall have to be very particular with this
girl as to personal cleanliness.
HIGGINS. Certainly. Quite right. Most important.
MRS. PEARCE. I mean not to be slovenly about her dress or untidy in
leaving things about.
HIGGINS [going to her solemnly] Just so. I intended to call your
attention to that [He passes on to Pickering, who is enjoying the
conversation immensely]. It is these little things that matter,
Pickering. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of
themselves is as true of personal habits as of money. [He comes to
anchor on the hearthrug, with the air of a man in an unassailable
position].
MRS. PEARCE. Yes, sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to
breakfast in your dressing-gown, or at any rate not to use it as a
napkin to the extent you do, sir. And if you would be so good as not to
eat everything off the same plate, and to remember not to put the
porridge saucepan out of your hand on the clean tablecloth, it would be
a better example to the girl. You know you nearly choked yourself with
a fishbone in the jam only last week.
HIGGINS [routed from the hearthrug and drifting back to the piano] I
may do these things sometimes in absence of mind; but surely I don't do
them habitually. [Angrily] By the way: my dressing-gown smells most
damnably of benzine.
MRS. PEARCE. No doubt it does, Mr. Higgins. But if you will wipe your
fingers--
HIGGINS [yelling] Oh very well, very well: I'll wipe them in my hair in
future.
MRS. PEARCE. I hope you're not offended, Mr. Higgins.
HIGGINS [shocked at finding himself thought capable of an unamiable
sentiment] Not at all, not at all. You're quite right, Mrs. Pearce: I
shall be particularly careful before the girl. Is that all?
MRS. PEARCE. No, sir. Might she use some of those Japanese dresses you
brought from abroad? I really can't put her back into her old things.
HIGGINS. Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all?
MRS. PEARCE. Thank you, sir. That's all. [She goes out].
HIGGINS. You know, Pickering, that woman has the most extraordinary
ideas about me. Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of man. I've never
been able to feel really grown-up and tremendous, like other chaps. And
yet she's firmly persuaded that I'm an arbitrary overbearing bossing
kind of person. I can't account for it.
Mrs. Pearce returns.
MRS. PEARCE. If you please, sir, the trouble's beginning already.
There's a dustman downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, wants to see you. He
says you have his daughter here.
PICKERING [rising] Phew! I say! [He retreats to the hearthrug].
HIGGINS [promptly] Send the blackguard up.
MRS. PEARCE. Oh, very well, sir. [She goes out].
PICKERING. He may not be a blackguard, Higgins.
HIGGINS. Nonsense. Of course he's a blackguard.
PICKERING. Whether he is or not, I'm afraid we shall have some trouble
with him.
HIGGINS [confidently] Oh no: I think not. If there's any trouble he
shall have it with me, not I with him. And we are sure to get something
interesting out of him.
PICKERING. About the girl?
HIGGINS. No. I mean his dialect.
PICKERING. Oh!
MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Doolittle, sir. [She admits Doolittle and
retires].
Alfred Doolittle is an elderly but vigorous dustman, clad in the
costume of his profession, including a hat with a back brim covering
his neck and shoulders. He has well marked and rather interesting
features, and seems equally free from fear and conscience. He has a
remarkably expressive voice, the result of a habit of giving vent to
his feelings without reserve. His present pose is that of wounded honor
and stern resolution.
DOOLITTLE [at the door, uncertain which of the two gentlemen is his
man] Professor Higgins?
HIGGINS. Here. Good morning. Sit down.
DOOLITTLE. Morning, Governor. [He sits down magisterially] I come about
a very serious matter, Governor.
HIGGINS [to Pickering] Brought up in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should
think. [Doolittle opens his mouth, amazed. Higgins continues] What do
you want, Doolittle?
DOOLITTLE [menacingly] I want my daughter: that's what I want. See?
HIGGINS. Of course you do. You're her father, aren't you? You don't
suppose anyone else wants her, do you? I'm glad to see you have some
spark of family feeling left. She's upstairs. Take her away at once.
DOOLITTLE [rising, fearfully taken aback] What!
HIGGINS. Take her away. Do you suppose I'm going to keep your daughter
for you?
DOOLITTLE [remonstrating] Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this
reasonable? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like this? The girl
belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in? [He sits down again].
HIGGINS. Your daughter had the audacity to come to my house and ask me
to teach her how to speak properly so that she could get a place in a
flower-shop. This gentleman and my housekeeper have been here all the
time. [Bullying him] How dare you come here and attempt to blackmail
me? You sent her here on purpose.
DOOLITTLE [protesting] No, Governor.
HIGGINS. You must have. How else could you possibly know that she is
here?
DOOLITTLE. Don't take a man up like that, Governor.
HIGGINS. The police shall take you up. This is a plant--a plot to
extort money by threats. I shall telephone for the police [he goes
resolutely to the telephone and opens the directory].
DOOLITTLE. Have I asked you for a brass farthing? I leave it to the
gentleman here: have I said a word about money?
HIGGINS [throwing the book aside and marching down on Doolittle with a
poser] What else did you come for?
DOOLITTLE [sweetly] Well, what would a man come for? Be human, governor.
HIGGINS [disarmed] Alfred: did you put her up to it?
DOOLITTLE. So help me, Governor, I never did. I take my Bible oath I
ain't seen the girl these two months past.
HIGGINS. Then how did you know she was here?
DOOLITTLE ["most musical, most melancholy"] I'll tell you, Governor, if
you'll only let me get a word in. I'm willing to tell you. I'm wanting
to tell you. I'm waiting to tell you.
HIGGINS. Pickering: this chap has a certain natural gift of rhetoric.
Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes wild. "I'm willing to tell
you: I'm wanting to tell you: I'm waiting to tell you." Sentimental
rhetoric! That's the Welsh strain in him. It also accounts for his
mendacity and dishonesty.
PICKERING. Oh, PLEASE, Higgins: I'm west country myself. [To Doolittle]
How did you know the girl was here if you didn't send her?
DOOLITTLE. It was like this, Governor. The girl took a boy in the taxi
to give him a jaunt. Son of her landlady, he is. He hung about on the
chance of her giving him another ride home. Well, she sent him back for
her luggage when she heard you was willing for her to stop here. I met
the boy at the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street.
HIGGINS. Public house. Yes?
DOOLITTLE. The poor man's club, Governor: why shouldn't I?
PICKERING. Do let him tell his story, Higgins.
DOOLITTLE. He told me what was up. And I ask you, what was my feelings
and my duty as a father? I says to the boy, "You bring me the luggage,"
I says--
PICKERING. Why didn't you go for it yourself?
DOOLITTLE. Landlady wouldn't have trusted me with it, Governor. She's
that kind of woman: you know. I had to give the boy a penny afore he
trusted me with it, the little swine. I brought it to her just to
oblige you like, and make myself agreeable. That's all.
HIGGINS. How much luggage?
DOOLITTLE. Musical instrument, Governor. A few pictures, a trifle of
jewelry, and a bird-cage. She said she didn't want no clothes. What was
I to think from that, Governor? I ask you as a parent what was I to
think?
HIGGINS. So you came to rescue her from worse than death, eh?
DOOLITTLE [appreciatively: relieved at being understood] Just so,
Governor. That's right.
PICKERING. But why did you bring her luggage if you intended to take
her away?
DOOLITTLE. Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now?
HIGGINS [determinedly] You're going to take her away, double quick. [He
crosses to the hearth and rings the bell].
DOOLITTLE [rising] No, Governor. Don't say that. I'm not the man to
stand in my girl's light. Here's a career opening for her, as you might
say; and--
Mrs. Pearce opens the door and awaits orders.
HIGGINS. Mrs. Pearce: this is Eliza's father. He has come to take her
away. Give her to him. [He goes back to the piano, with an air of
washing his hands of the whole affair].
DOOLITTLE. No. This is a misunderstanding. Listen here--
MRS. PEARCE. He can't take her away, Mr. Higgins: how can he? You told
me to burn her clothes.
DOOLITTLE. That's right. I can't carry the girl through the streets
like a blooming monkey, can I? I put it to you.
HIGGINS. You have put it to me that you want your daughter. Take your
daughter. If she has no clothes go out and buy her some.
DOOLITTLE [desperate] Where's the clothes she come in? Did I burn them
or did your missus here?
MRS. PEARCE. I am the housekeeper, if you please. I have sent for some
clothes for your girl. When they come you can take her away. You can
wait in the kitchen. This way, please.
Doolittle, much troubled, accompanies her to the door; then hesitates;
finally turns confidentially to Higgins.
DOOLITTLE. Listen here, Governor. You and me is men of the world, ain't
we?
HIGGINS. Oh! Men of the world, are we? You'd better go, Mrs. Pearce.
MRS. PEARCE. I think so, indeed, sir. [She goes, with dignity].
PICKERING. The floor is yours, Mr. Doolittle.
DOOLITTLE [to Pickering] I thank you, Governor. [To Higgins, who takes
refuge on the piano bench, a little overwhelmed by the proximity of his
visitor; for Doolittle has a professional flavor of dust about him].
Well, the truth is, I've taken a sort of fancy to you, Governor; and if
you want the girl, I'm not so set on having her back home again but
what I might be open to an arrangement. Regarded in the light of a
young woman, she's a fine handsome girl. As a daughter she's not worth
her keep; and so I tell you straight. All I ask is my rights as a
father; and you're the last man alive to expect me to let her go for
nothing; for I can see you're one of the straight sort, Governor. Well,
what's a five pound note to you? And what's Eliza to me? [He returns to
his chair and sits down judicially].
PICKERING. I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr. Higgins's
intentions are entirely honorable.
DOOLITTLE. Course they are, Governor. If I thought they wasn't, I'd ask
fifty.
HIGGINS [revolted] Do you mean to say, you callous rascal, that you
would sell your daughter for 50 pounds?
DOOLITTLE. Not in a general way I wouldn't; but to oblige a gentleman
like you I'd do a good deal, I do assure you.
PICKERING. Have you no morals, man?
DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Can't afford them, Governor. Neither could you if
you was as poor as me. Not that I mean any harm, you know. But if Liza
is going to have a bit out of this, why not me too?
HIGGINS [troubled] I don't know what to do, Pickering. There can be no
question that as a matter of morals it's a positive crime to give this
chap a farthing. And yet I feel a sort of rough justice in his claim.
DOOLITTLE. That's it, Governor. That's all I say. A father's heart, as
it were.
PICKERING. Well, I know the feeling; but really it seems hardly right--
DOOLITTLE. Don't say that, Governor. Don't look at it that way. What am
I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the undeserving
poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means
that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's
anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same
story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." But my needs is as
great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six
different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I
don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less
hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement,
cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band
when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as
they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an
excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two
gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you.
I ain't pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go
on being undeserving. I like it; and that's the truth. Will you take
advantage of a man's nature to do him out of the price of his own
daughter what he's brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his
brow until she's growed big enough to be interesting to you two
gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it
to you.
HIGGINS [rising, and going over to Pickering] Pickering: if we were to
take this man in hand for three months, he could choose between a seat
in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.
PICKERING. What do you say to that, Doolittle?
DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, thank you kindly. I've heard all the
preachers and all the prime ministers--for I'm a thinking man and game
for politics or religion or social reform same as all the other
amusements--and I tell you it's a dog's life anyway you look at it.
Undeserving poverty is my line. Taking one station in society with
another, it's--it's--well, it's the only one that has any ginger in it,
to my taste.
HIGGINS. I suppose we must give him a fiver.
PICKERING. He'll make a bad use of it, I'm afraid.
DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, so help me I won't. Don't you be afraid
that I'll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There won't be a
penny of it left by Monday: I'll have to go to work same as if I'd
never had it. It won't pauperize me, you bet. Just one good spree for
myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to
others, and satisfaction to you to think it's not been throwed away.
You couldn't spend it better.
HIGGINS [taking out his pocket book and coming between Doolittle and
the piano] This is irresistible. Let's give him ten. [He offers two
notes to the dustman].
DOOLITTLE. No, Governor. She wouldn't have the heart to spend ten; and
perhaps I shouldn't neither. Ten pounds is a lot of money: it makes a
man feel prudent like; and then goodbye to happiness. You give me what
I ask you, Governor: not a penny more, and not a penny less.
PICKERING. Why don't you marry that missus of yours? I rather draw the
line at encouraging that sort of immorality.
DOOLITTLE. Tell her so, Governor: tell her so. I'm willing. It's me
that suffers by it. I've no hold on her. I got to be agreeable to her.
I got to give her presents. I got to buy her clothes something sinful.
I'm a slave to that woman, Governor, just because I'm not her lawful
husband. And she knows it too. Catch her marrying me! Take my advice,
Governor: marry Eliza while she's young and don't know no better. If
you don't you'll be sorry for it after. If you do, she'll be sorry for
it after; but better you than her, because you're a man, and she's only
a woman and don't know how to be happy anyhow.
HIGGINS. Pickering: if we listen to this man another minute, we shall
have no convictions left. [To Doolittle] Five pounds I think you said.
DOOLITTLE. Thank you kindly, Governor.
HIGGINS. You're sure you won't take ten?
DOOLITTLE. Not now. Another time, Governor.
HIGGINS [handing him a five-pound note] Here you are.
DOOLITTLE. Thank you, Governor. Good morning.
[He hurries to the door, anxious to get away with his booty. When he
opens it he is confronted with a dainty and exquisitely clean young
Japanese lady in a simple blue cotton kimono printed cunningly with
small white jasmine blossoms. Mrs. Pearce is with her. He gets out of
her way deferentially and apologizes]. Beg pardon, miss.
THE JAPANESE LADY. Garn! Don't you know your own daughter?
DOOLITTLE {exclaiming Bly me! it's Eliza!
HIGGINS {simul- What's that! This!
PICKERING {taneously By Jove!
LIZA. Don't I look silly?
HIGGINS. Silly?
MRS. PEARCE [at the door] Now, Mr. Higgins, please don't say anything
to make the girl conceited about herself.
HIGGINS [conscientiously] Oh! Quite right, Mrs. Pearce. [To Eliza] Yes:
damned silly.
MRS. PEARCE. Please, sir.
HIGGINS [correcting himself] I mean extremely silly.
LIZA. I should look all right with my hat on. [She takes up her hat;
puts it on; and walks across the room to the fireplace with a
fashionable air].
HIGGINS. A new fashion, by George! And it ought to look horrible!
DOOLITTLE [with fatherly pride] Well, I never thought she'd clean up as
good looking as that, Governor. She's a credit to me, ain't she?
LIZA. I tell you, it's easy to clean up here. Hot and cold water on
tap, just as much as you like, there is. Woolly towels, there is; and a
towel horse so hot, it burns your fingers. Soft brushes to scrub
yourself, and a wooden bowl of soap smelling like primroses. Now I know
why ladies is so clean. Washing's a treat for them. Wish they saw what
it is for the like of me!
HIGGINS. I'm glad the bath-room met with your approval.
LIZA. It didn't: not all of it; and I don't care who hears me say it.
Mrs. Pearce knows.
HIGGINS. What was wrong, Mrs. Pearce?
MRS. PEARCE [blandly] Oh, nothing, sir. It doesn't matter.
LIZA. I had a good mind to break it. I didn't know which way to look.
But I hung a towel over it, I did.
HIGGINS. Over what?
MRS. PEARCE. Over the looking-glass, sir.
HIGGINS. Doolittle: you have brought your daughter up too strictly.
DOOLITTLE. Me! I never brought her up at all, except to give her a lick
of a strap now and again. Don't put it on me, Governor. She ain't
accustomed to it, you see: that's all. But she'll soon pick up your
free-and-easy ways.
LIZA. I'm a good girl, I am; and I won't pick up no free and easy ways.
HIGGINS. Eliza: if you say again that you're a good girl, your father
shall take you home.
LIZA. Not him. You don't know my father. All he come here for was to
touch you for some money to get drunk on.
DOOLITTLE. Well, what else would I want money for? To put into the
plate in church, I suppose. [She puts out her tongue at him. He is so
incensed by this that Pickering presently finds it necessary to step
between them]. Don't you give me none of your lip; and don't let me
hear you giving this gentleman any of it neither, or you'll hear from
me about it. See?
HIGGINS. Have you any further advice to give her before you go,
Doolittle? Your blessing, for instance.
DOOLITTLE. No, Governor: I ain't such a mug as to put up my children to
all I know myself. Hard enough to hold them in without that. If you
want Eliza's mind improved, Governor, you do it yourself with a strap.
So long, gentlemen. [He turns to go].
HIGGINS [impressively] Stop. You'll come regularly to see your
daughter. It's your duty, you know. My brother is a clergyman; and he
could help you in your talks with her.
DOOLITTLE [evasively] Certainly. I'll come, Governor. Not just this
week, because I have a job at a distance. But later on you may depend
on me. Afternoon, gentlemen. Afternoon, ma'am. [He takes off his hat to
Mrs. Pearce, who disdains the salutation and goes out. He winks at
Higgins, thinking him probably a fellow sufferer from Mrs. Pearce's
difficult disposition, and follows her].
LIZA. Don't you believe the old liar. He'd as soon you set a bull-dog
on him as a clergyman. You won't see him again in a hurry.
HIGGINS. I don't want to, Eliza. Do you?
LIZA. Not me. I don't want never to see him again, I don't. He's a
disgrace to me, he is, collecting dust, instead of working at his trade.
PICKERING. What is his trade, Eliza?
LIZA. Talking money out of other people's pockets into his own. His
proper trade's a navvy; and he works at it sometimes too--for
exercise--and earns good money at it. Ain't you going to call me Miss
Doolittle any more?
PICKERING. I beg your pardon, Miss Doolittle. It was a slip of the
tongue.
LIZA. Oh, I don't mind; only it sounded so genteel. I should just like
to take a taxi to the corner of Tottenham Court Road and get out there
and tell it to wait for me, just to put the girls in their place a bit.
I wouldn't speak to them, you know.
PICKERING. Better wait til we get you something really fashionable.
HIGGINS. Besides, you shouldn't cut your old friends now that you have
risen in the world. That's what we call snobbery.
LIZA. You don't call the like of them my friends now, I should hope.
They've took it out of me often enough with their ridicule when they
had the chance; and now I mean to get a bit of my own back. But if I'm
to have fashionable clothes, I'll wait. I should like to have some.
Mrs. Pearce says you're going to give me some to wear in bed at night
different to what I wear in the daytime; but it do seem a waste of
money when you could get something to show. Besides, I never could
fancy changing into cold things on a winter night.
MRS. PEARCE [coming back] Now, Eliza. The new things have come for you
to try on.
LIZA. Ah--ow--oo--ooh! [She rushes out].
MRS. PEARCE [following her] Oh, don't rush about like that, girl [She
shuts the door behind her].
HIGGINS. Pickering: we have taken on a stiff job.
PICKERING [with conviction] Higgins: we have. | The next day, Higgins and Pickering are just resting from a full morning of discussion when Eliza Doolittle shows up at the door, to the tremendous doubt of the discerning housekeeper Mrs. Pearce, and the surprise of the two gentlemen. Prompted by his careless brag about making her into a duchess the night before, she has come to take lessons from Higgins, so that she may sound genteel enough to work in a flower shop rather than sell at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. As the conversation progresses, Higgins alternates between making fun of the poor girl and threatening her with a broomstick beating, which only causes her to howl and holler, upsetting Higgins' civilized company to a considerable degree. Pickering is much kinder and considerate of her feelings, even going so far as to call her "Miss Doolittle" and to offer her a seat. Pickering is piqued by the prospect of helping Eliza, and bets Higgins that if Higgins is able to pass Eliza off as a duchess at the Ambassador's garden party, then he, Pickering, will cover the expenses of the experiment. This act is made up mostly of a long and animated three-way argument over the character and the potential of the indignant Eliza. At one point, incensed by Higgins' heartless insults, she threatens to leave, but the clever professor lures her back by stuffing her mouth with a chocolate, half of which he eats too to prove to her that it is not poisoned. It is agreed upon that Eliza will live with Higgins for six months, and be schooled in the speech and manners of a lady of high class. Things get started when Mrs. Pearce takes her upstairs for a bath. While Mrs. Pearce and Eliza are away, Pickering wants to be sure that Higgins' intentions towards the girl are honorable, to which Higgins replies that, to him, women "might as well be blocks of wood." Mrs. Pearce enters to warn Higgins that he should be more careful with his swearing and his forgetful table manners now that they have an impressionable young lady with them, revealing that Higgins's own gentlemanly ways are somewhat precarious. At this point, Alfred Doolittle, who has learned from a neighbor of Eliza's that she has come to the professor's place, comes a-knocking under the pretence of saving his daughter's honor. When Higgins readily agrees that he should take his daughter away with him, Doolittle reveals that he is really there to ask for five pounds, proudly claiming that he will spend that money on immediate gratification and put none of it to useless savings. Amused by his blustering rhetoric, Higgins gives him the money. Eliza enters, clean and pretty in a blue kimono, and everyone is amazed by the difference. Even her father has failed to recognize her. Eliza is taken with her transformation and wants to go back to her old neighborhood and show off, but she is warned against snobbery by Higgins. The act ends with the two of them agreeing that they have taken on a difficult task. |
When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm
continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding
falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I
had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from
blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on
the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle,
took down "Marmion," and beginning--
"Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The massive towers, the donjon keep,
The flanking walls that round them sweep,
In yellow lustre shone"--
I soon forgot storm in music.
I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St.
John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen
hurricane--the howling darkness--and stood before me: the cloak that
covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in
consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up
vale that night.
"Any ill news?" I demanded. "Has anything happened?"
"No. How very easily alarmed you are!" he answered, removing his cloak
and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again coolly pushed
the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his
boots.
"I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he, "but you must excuse
me for once." Then he approached the fire. "I have had hard work to get
here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame.
"One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite soft yet."
"But why are you come?" I could not forbear saying.
"Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask
it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my
mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced
the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who is
impatient to hear the sequel."
He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I
began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his was
a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that
handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did
just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the
firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved
me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved.
I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend;
but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking.
It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps
uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart: I was moved to say--
"I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that
you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own
health."
"Not at all," said he: "I care for myself when necessary. I am well now.
What do you see amiss in me?"
This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that
my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was
silenced.
He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye
dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say something,
I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which
was behind him.
"No, no!" he responded shortly and somewhat testily.
"Well," I reflected, "if you won't talk, you may be still; I'll let you
alone now, and return to my book."
So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of "Marmion." He soon
stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out a
morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he read in silence,
folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain to try to
read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, in
impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk
I would.
"Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?"
"Not since the letter I showed you a week ago."
"There has not been any change made about your own arrangements? You
will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?"
"I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me." Baffled so
far, I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about the school
and my scholars.
"Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this
morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry
Close--they would have come to-day but for the snow."
"Indeed!"
"Mr. Oliver pays for two."
"Does he?"
"He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas."
"I know."
"Was it your suggestion?"
"No."
"Whose, then?"
"His daughter's, I think."
"It is like her: she is so good-natured."
"Yes."
Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It
aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.
"Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire," he said.
Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied.
"Half-an-hour ago," he pursued, "I spoke of my impatience to hear the
sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be better managed
by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting you into a listener.
Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound
somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often regain a degree
of freshness when they pass through new lips. For the rest, whether
trite or novel, it is short.
"Twenty years ago, a poor curate--never mind his name at this moment--fell
in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with him, and
married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently
disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two years passed, the
rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab.
(I have seen their grave; it formed part of the pavement of a huge
churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown
manufacturing town in ---shire.) They left a daughter, which, at its
very birth, Charity received in her lap--cold as that of the snow-drift I
almost stuck fast in to-night. Charity carried the friendless thing to
the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-
law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You start--did
you hear a noise? I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the
rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn before I had it
repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted by rats.--To
proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether it was happy or
not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at the end of
that time she transferred it to a place you know--being no other than
Lowood School, where you so long resided yourself. It seems her career
there was very honourable: from a pupil, she became a teacher, like
yourself--really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history
and yours--she left it to be a governess: there, again, your fates were
analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr.
Rochester."
"Mr. Rivers!" I interrupted.
"I can guess your feelings," he said, "but restrain them for a while: I
have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester's character I
know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable
marriage to this young girl, and that at the very altar she discovered he
had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic. What his subsequent conduct and
proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event
transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was
discovered she was gone--no one could tell when, where, or how. She had
left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had
been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of
information could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be
found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put
in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. Briggs, a
solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is it not an
odd tale?"
"Just tell me this," said I, "and since you know so much, you surely can
tell it me--what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he
doing? Is he well?"
"I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never mentions
him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to.
You should rather ask the name of the governess--the nature of the event
which requires her appearance."
"Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr. Rochester?"
"I suppose not."
"But they wrote to him?"
"Of course."
"And what did he say? Who has his letters?"
"Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr.
Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed 'Alice Fairfax.'"
I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he had
in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to
some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate for his severe
sufferings--what object for his strong passions--had he sought there? I
dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master--once almost my
husband--whom I had often called "my dear Edward!"
"He must have been a bad man," observed Mr. Rivers.
"You don't know him--don't pronounce an opinion upon him," I said, with
warmth.
"Very well," he answered quietly: "and indeed my head is otherwise
occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish. Since you won't ask
the governess's name, I must tell it of my own accord. Stay! I have it
here--it is always more satisfactory to see important points written
down, fairly committed to black and white."
And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought
through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of
paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of
ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the
portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced
in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words "JANE EYRE"--the work
doubtless of some moment of abstraction.
"Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:" he said, "the advertisements
demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.--I confess I had my
suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once
resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the _alias_?"
"Yes--yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr.
Rochester than you do."
"Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all about
Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime,
you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why
Mr. Briggs sought after you--what he wanted with you."
"Well, what did he want?"
"Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that
he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich--merely
that--nothing more."
"I!--rich?"
"Yes, you, rich--quite an heiress."
Silence succeeded.
"You must prove your identity of course," resumed St. John presently: "a
step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate
possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the
will and the necessary documents."
Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted
in a moment from indigence to wealth--a very fine thing; but not a matter
one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then there
are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: _this_
is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: all its
associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same.
One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a
fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business;
on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain
ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.
Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words,
Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead--my only relative; ever
since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one
day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only to
me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It was a
grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious--yes, I felt
that--that thought swelled my heart.
"You unbend your forehead at last," said Mr. Rivers. "I thought Medusa
had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone. Perhaps now you
will ask how much you are worth?"
"How much am I worth?"
"Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of--twenty thousand pounds, I
think they say--but what is that?"
"Twenty thousand pounds?"
Here was a new stunner--I had been calculating on four or five thousand.
This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St. John, whom I had
never heard laugh before, laughed now.
"Well," said he, "if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your
crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast."
"It is a large sum--don't you think there is a mistake?"
"No mistake at all."
"Perhaps you have read the figures wrong--it may be two thousand!"
"It is written in letters, not figures,--twenty thousand."
I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical
powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for
a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.
"If it were not such a very wild night," he said, "I would send Hannah
down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left
alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I:
her legs are not quite so long: so I must e'en leave you to your sorrows.
Good-night."
He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. "Stop one
minute!" I cried.
"Well?"
"It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he
knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way
place, had the power to aid in my discovery."
"Oh! I am a clergyman," he said; "and the clergy are often appealed to
about odd matters." Again the latch rattled.
"No; that does not satisfy me!" I exclaimed: and indeed there was
something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of
allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever.
"It is a very strange piece of business," I added; "I must know more
about it."
"Another time."
"No; to-night!--to-night!" and as he turned from the door, I placed
myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed.
"You certainly shall not go till you have told me all," I said.
"I would rather not just now."
"You shall!--you must!"
"I would rather Diana or Mary informed you."
Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it
must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.
"But I apprised you that I was a hard man," said he, "difficult to
persuade."
"And I am a hard woman,--impossible to put off."
{And I am a hard woman,--impossible to put off: p369.jpg}
"And then," he pursued, "I am cold: no fervour infects me."
"Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed
all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my
floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be
forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a
sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know."
"Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your
perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must
know some day,--as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre?"
"Of course: that was all settled before."
"You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?--that I was
christened St. John Eyre Rivers?"
"No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your
initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I
never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely--"
I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express,
the thought that rushed upon me--that embodied itself,--that, in a
second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit
themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been
lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,--every
ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by instinct, how the
matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect
the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his
explanation.
"My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who
married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq.,
merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's
solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle's death, and
to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman's
orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never
forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks since,
to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything of
her. A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find
her out. You know the rest." Again he was going, but I set my back
against the door.
"Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath and
reflect." I paused--he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed
enough. I resumed--
"Your mother was my father's sister?"
"Yes."
"My aunt, consequently?"
He bowed.
"My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his
sister's children, as I am his brother's child?"
"Undeniably."
"You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from
the same source?"
"We are cousins; yes."
I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud
of,--one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that,
when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine
affection and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down on the
wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House
kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair,
were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman who had found
me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious
discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!--wealth to the
heart!--a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright,
vivid, and exhilarating;--not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and
welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped
my hands in sudden joy--my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled.
"Oh, I am glad!--I am glad!" I exclaimed.
St. John smiled. "Did I not say you neglected essential points to pursue
trifles?" he asked. "You were serious when I told you you had got a
fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited."
"What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and
don't care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three relations,--or
two, if you don't choose to be counted,--are born into my world
full-grown. I say again, I am glad!"
I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the
thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle
them:--thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere
long. I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending
stars,--every one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my
life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit.
They were under a yoke,--I could free them: they were scattered,--I could
reunite them: the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be
theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally
would be five thousand each, justice--enough and to spare: justice would
be done,--mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me:
now it was not a mere bequest of coin,--it was a legacy of life, hope,
enjoyment.
How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot
tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind me,
and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also advised me
to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and
distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again.
"Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow," I said, "and tell them to come home
directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with a
thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well."
"Tell me where I can get you a glass of water," said St. John; "you must
really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings."
"Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? Will
it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle down
like an ordinary mortal?"
"You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in
communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength."
"Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it
is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand."
"Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should
comprehend better."
"Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty
thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the nephew
and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? What I
want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of the
fortune that has accrued to them."
"To you, you mean."
"I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any
other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly
ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. I
like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary,
and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would please and
benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment and oppress me
to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be mine in justice,
though it might in law. I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely
superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about
it; let us agree amongst each other, and decide the point at once."
"This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such a
matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid."
"Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice of
the case?"
"I _do_ see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom. Besides,
the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his own efforts;
he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to you. After all,
justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear conscience,
consider it absolutely your own."
"With me," said I, "it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of
conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an
opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a
year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a
glimpse--that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning to
myself lifelong friends."
"You think so now," rejoined St. John, "because you do not know what it
is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you cannot form a notion
of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the place it
would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to
you: you cannot--"
"And you," I interrupted, "cannot at all imagine the craving I have for
fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or
sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me
and own me, are you?"
"Jane, I will be your brother--my sisters will be your sisters--without
stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights."
"Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes;
slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy--gorged with gold I never earned
and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation!
Close union! Intimate attachment!"
"But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may
be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate: you may marry."
"Nonsense, again! Marry! I don't want to marry, and never shall marry."
"That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof of the
excitement under which you labour."
"It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse are my
inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for
love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money
speculation. And I do not want a stranger--unsympathising, alien,
different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow-
feeling. Say again you will be my brother: when you uttered the words I
was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you can, repeat them sincerely."
"I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know on
what my affection for them is grounded,--respect for their worth and
admiration of their talents. You too have principle and mind: your
tastes and habits resemble Diana's and Mary's; your presence is always
agreeable to me; in your conversation I have already for some time found
a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally make room in my
heart for you, as my third and youngest sister."
"Thank you: that contents me for to-night. Now you had better go; for if
you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some mistrustful
scruple."
"And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?"
"No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute."
He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave.
I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments I
used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished. My task
was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved--as my cousins saw
at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just
division of the property--as they must in their own hearts have felt the
equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been innately conscious
that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do--they
yielded at length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration.
The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both coincided in
my opinion: I carried my point. The instruments of transfer were drawn
out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, each became possessed of a competency. | One snowy night, Jane sits reading Marmion when St. John appears at the door. Appearing troubled, he tells Jane the story of an orphan girl who became the governess at Thornfield Hall, then disappeared after nearly marrying Edward Rochester: this runaway governess's name is Jane Eyre. Until this point, Jane has been cautious not to reveal her past and has given the Rivers a false name. Thus although it is clear that St. John suspects her of being the woman about whom he speaks, she does not immediately identify herself to him. He says that he has received a letter from a solicitor named Mr. Briggs intimating that it is extremely important that this Jane Eyre be found. Jane is only interested in whether Mr. Briggs has sent news of Rochester, but St. John says that Rochester's well-being is not at issue: Jane Eyre must be found because her uncle, John Eyre, has died, leaving her the vast fortune of 20,000 pounds. Jane reveals herself to be Jane Eyre, knowing that St. John has guessed already. She asks him how he knew. He shows her the scrap of paper he tore from her drawing the previous day: it is her signature. She then asks why Mr. Briggs would have sent him a letter about her at all. St. John explains that though he did not realize it before, he is her cousin: her Uncle John was his Uncle John, and his name is St. John Eyre Rivers. Jane is overjoyed to have found a family at long last, and she decides to divide her inheritance between her cousins and herself evenly, so that they each will inherit 5,000 pounds |
|MARILLA said nothing to Matthew about the affair that evening; but when
Anne proved still refractory the next morning an explanation had to be
made to account for her absence from the breakfast table. Marilla told
Matthew the whole story, taking pains to impress him with a due sense of
the enormity of Anne's behavior.
"It's a good thing Rachel Lynde got a calling down; she's a meddlesome
old gossip," was Matthew's consolatory rejoinder.
"Matthew Cuthbert, I'm astonished at you. You know that Anne's behavior
was dreadful, and yet you take her part! I suppose you'll be saying next
thing that she oughtn't to be punished at all!"
"Well now--no--not exactly," said Matthew uneasily. "I reckon she
ought to be punished a little. But don't be too hard on her, Marilla.
Recollect she hasn't ever had anyone to teach her right. You're--you're
going to give her something to eat, aren't you?"
"When did you ever hear of me starving people into good behavior?"
demanded Marilla indignantly. "She'll have her meals regular, and
I'll carry them up to her myself. But she'll stay up there until she's
willing to apologize to Mrs. Lynde, and that's final, Matthew."
Breakfast, dinner, and supper were very silent meals--for Anne still
remained obdurate. After each meal Marilla carried a well-filled tray
to the east gable and brought it down later on not noticeably depleted.
Matthew eyed its last descent with a troubled eye. Had Anne eaten
anything at all?
When Marilla went out that evening to bring the cows from the back
pasture, Matthew, who had been hanging about the barns and watching,
slipped into the house with the air of a burglar and crept upstairs. As
a general thing Matthew gravitated between the kitchen and the little
bedroom off the hall where he slept; once in a while he ventured
uncomfortably into the parlor or sitting room when the minister came to
tea. But he had never been upstairs in his own house since the spring he
helped Marilla paper the spare bedroom, and that was four years ago.
He tiptoed along the hall and stood for several minutes outside the
door of the east gable before he summoned courage to tap on it with his
fingers and then open the door to peep in.
Anne was sitting on the yellow chair by the window gazing mournfully out
into the garden. Very small and unhappy she looked, and Matthew's heart
smote him. He softly closed the door and tiptoed over to her.
"Anne," he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard, "how are you
making it, Anne?"
Anne smiled wanly.
"Pretty well. I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the time. Of
course, it's rather lonesome. But then, I may as well get used to that."
Anne smiled again, bravely facing the long years of solitary
imprisonment before her.
Matthew recollected that he must say what he had come to say without
loss of time, lest Marilla return prematurely. "Well now, Anne, don't
you think you'd better do it and have it over with?" he whispered.
"It'll have to be done sooner or later, you know, for Marilla's a
dreadful deter-mined woman--dreadful determined, Anne. Do it right off,
I say, and have it over."
"Do you mean apologize to Mrs. Lynde?"
"Yes--apologize--that's the very word," said Matthew eagerly. "Just
smooth it over so to speak. That's what I was trying to get at."
"I suppose I could do it to oblige you," said Anne thoughtfully. "It
would be true enough to say I am sorry, because I _am_ sorry now. I wasn't
a bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed mad all
night. I know I did because I woke up three times and I was just
furious every time. But this morning it was over. I wasn't in a temper
anymore--and it left a dreadful sort of goneness, too. I felt so ashamed
of myself. But I just couldn't think of going and telling Mrs. Lynde
so. It would be so humiliating. I made up my mind I'd stay shut up here
forever rather than do that. But still--I'd do anything for you--if you
really want me to--"
"Well now, of course I do. It's terrible lonesome downstairs without
you. Just go and smooth things over--that's a good girl."
"Very well," said Anne resignedly. "I'll tell Marilla as soon as she
comes in I've repented."
"That's right--that's right, Anne. But don't tell Marilla I said
anything about it. She might think I was putting my oar in and I
promised not to do that."
"Wild horses won't drag the secret from me," promised Anne solemnly.
"How would wild horses drag a secret from a person anyhow?"
But Matthew was gone, scared at his own success. He fled hastily to the
remotest corner of the horse pasture lest Marilla should suspect what
he had been up to. Marilla herself, upon her return to the house, was
agreeably surprised to hear a plaintive voice calling, "Marilla" over
the banisters.
"Well?" she said, going into the hall.
"I'm sorry I lost my temper and said rude things, and I'm willing to go
and tell Mrs. Lynde so."
"Very well." Marilla's crispness gave no sign of her relief. She had
been wondering what under the canopy she should do if Anne did not give
in. "I'll take you down after milking."
Accordingly, after milking, behold Marilla and Anne walking down the
lane, the former erect and triumphant, the latter drooping and dejected.
But halfway down Anne's dejection vanished as if by enchantment. She
lifted her head and stepped lightly along, her eyes fixed on the sunset
sky and an air of subdued exhilaration about her. Marilla beheld the
change disapprovingly. This was no meek penitent such as it behooved her
to take into the presence of the offended Mrs. Lynde.
"What are you thinking of, Anne?" she asked sharply.
"I'm imagining out what I must say to Mrs. Lynde," answered Anne
dreamily.
This was satisfactory--or should have been so. But Marilla could not
rid herself of the notion that something in her scheme of punishment was
going askew. Anne had no business to look so rapt and radiant.
Rapt and radiant Anne continued until they were in the very presence
of Mrs. Lynde, who was sitting knitting by her kitchen window. Then the
radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared on every feature. Before
a word was spoken Anne suddenly went down on her knees before the
astonished Mrs. Rachel and held out her hands beseechingly.
"Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry," she said with a quiver in
her voice. "I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up
a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly to
you--and I've disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have
let me stay at Green Gables although I'm not a boy. I'm a dreadfully
wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast out
by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a
temper because you told me the truth. It _was_ the truth; every word you
said was true. My hair is red and I'm freckled and skinny and ugly.
What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn't have said it. Oh, Mrs.
Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong
sorrow on a poor little orphan girl, would you, even if she had a
dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn't. Please say you forgive me,
Mrs. Lynde."
Anne clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the word
of judgment.
There was no mistaking her sincerity--it breathed in every tone of her
voice. Both Marilla and Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring.
But the former under-stood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying
her valley of humiliation--was reveling in the thoroughness of her
abasement. Where was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Marilla,
had plumed herself? Anne had turned it into a species of positive
pleasure.
Good Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with perception, did not see
this. She only perceived that Anne had made a very thorough apology and
all resentment vanished from her kindly, if somewhat officious, heart.
"There, there, get up, child," she said heartily. "Of course I forgive
you. I guess I was a little too hard on you, anyway. But I'm such an
outspoken person. You just mustn't mind me, that's what. It can't be
denied your hair is terrible red; but I knew a girl once--went to school
with her, in fact--whose hair was every mite as red as yours when she
was young, but when she grew up it darkened to a real handsome auburn. I
wouldn't be a mite surprised if yours did, too--not a mite."
"Oh, Mrs. Lynde!" Anne drew a long breath as she rose to her feet. "You
have given me a hope. I shall always feel that you are a benefactor. Oh,
I could endure anything if I only thought my hair would be a handsome
auburn when I grew up. It would be so much easier to be good if one's
hair was a handsome auburn, don't you think? And now may I go out into
your garden and sit on that bench under the apple-trees while you and
Marilla are talking? There is so much more scope for imagination out
there."
"Laws, yes, run along, child. And you can pick a bouquet of them white
June lilies over in the corner if you like."
As the door closed behind Anne Mrs. Lynde got briskly up to light a
lamp.
"She's a real odd little thing. Take this chair, Marilla; it's easier
than the one you've got; I just keep that for the hired boy to sit
on. Yes, she certainly is an odd child, but there is something kind of
taking about her after all. I don't feel so surprised at you and Matthew
keeping her as I did--nor so sorry for you, either. She may turn out all
right. Of course, she has a queer way of expressing herself--a little
too--well, too kind of forcible, you know; but she'll likely get over
that now that she's come to live among civilized folks. And then, her
temper's pretty quick, I guess; but there's one comfort, a child that
has a quick temper, just blaze up and cool down, ain't never likely to
be sly or deceitful. Preserve me from a sly child, that's what. On the
whole, Marilla, I kind of like her."
When Marilla went home Anne came out of the fragrant twilight of the
orchard with a sheaf of white narcissi in her hands.
"I apologized pretty well, didn't I?" she said proudly as they went
down the lane. "I thought since I had to do it I might as well do it
thoroughly."
"You did it thoroughly, all right enough," was Marilla's comment.
Marilla was dismayed at finding herself inclined to laugh over the
recollection. She had also an uneasy feeling that she ought to scold
Anne for apologizing so well; but then, that was ridiculous! She
compromised with her conscience by saying severely:
"I hope you won't have occasion to make many more such apologies. I hope
you'll try to control your temper now, Anne."
"That wouldn't be so hard if people wouldn't twit me about my looks,"
said Anne with a sigh. "I don't get cross about other things; but I'm
_so_ tired of being twitted about my hair and it just makes me boil right
over. Do you suppose my hair will really be a handsome auburn when I
grow up?"
"You shouldn't think so much about your looks, Anne. I'm afraid you are
a very vain little girl."
"How can I be vain when I know I'm homely?" protested Anne. "I love
pretty things; and I hate to look in the glass and see something that
isn't pretty. It makes me feel so sorrowful--just as I feel when I look
at any ugly thing. I pity it because it isn't beautiful."
"Handsome is as handsome does," quoted Marilla. "I've had that said
to me before, but I have my doubts about it," remarked skeptical Anne,
sniffing at her narcissi. "Oh, aren't these flowers sweet! It was lovely
of Mrs. Lynde to give them to me. I have no hard feelings against Mrs.
Lynde now. It gives you a lovely, comfortable feeling to apologize and
be forgiven, doesn't it? Aren't the stars bright tonight? If you could
live in a star, which one would you pick? I'd like that lovely clear big
one away over there above that dark hill."
"Anne, do hold your tongue," said Marilla, thoroughly worn out trying to
follow the gyrations of Anne's thoughts.
Anne said no more until they turned into their own lane. A little gypsy
wind came down it to meet them, laden with the spicy perfume of young
dew-wet ferns. Far up in the shadows a cheerful light gleamed out
through the trees from the kitchen at Green Gables. Anne suddenly came
close to Marilla and slipped her hand into the older woman's hard palm.
"It's lovely to be going home and know it's home," she said. "I love
Green Gables already, and I never loved any place before. No place ever
seemed like home. Oh, Marilla, I'm so happy. I could pray right now and
not find it a bit hard."
Something warm and pleasant welled up in Marilla's heart at touch of
that thin little hand in her own--a throb of the maternity she had
missed, perhaps. Its very unaccustomedness and sweetness disturbed
her. She hastened to restore her sensations to their normal calm by
inculcating a moral.
"If you'll be a good girl you'll always be happy, Anne. And you should
never find it hard to say your prayers."
"Saying one's prayers isn't exactly the same thing as praying," said
Anne meditatively. "But I'm going to imagine that I'm the wind that is
blowing up there in those tree tops. When I get tired of the trees I'll
imagine I'm gently waving down here in the ferns--and then I'll fly over
to Mrs. Lynde's garden and set the flowers dancing--and then I'll go
with one great swoop over the clover field--and then I'll blow over the
Lake of Shining Waters and ripple it all up into little sparkling waves.
Oh, there's so much scope for imagination in a wind! So I'll not talk
any more just now, Marilla."
"Thanks be to goodness for that," breathed Marilla in devout relief. | Anne's Apology Anne remains in her room the entire next day, sulking and barely touching the food Marilla brings her. Matthew, concerned about Anne, waits for Marilla to leave the house and then creeps up to Anne's room. He has not been upstairs for four years. He sneaks in and whispers to Anne that she should apologize to Mrs. Rachel, since Marilla is not likely to change her mind about the punishment. Anne admits that she is not as furious as she was, but says apologizing would be too humiliating. However, to oblige Matthew, she promises to go to Mrs. Rachel's. Stunned by his success with Anne, Matthew hurries away so Marilla won't find him interfering with Anne's punishment. Anne tells Marilla she is willing to apologize, and they walk to Mrs. Rachel's house. During the first half of the walk, Anne's gait and countenance suggest her shame, but midway through the walk, her step quickens and her eyes become dreamy. Upon arriving at Mrs. Rachel's, Anne resumes slumping and throws herself on her knees before the older woman, clasping her hands and begging for forgiveness, saying, I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up a whole dictionary. I'm a dreadfully wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast out by respectable people for ever. Mrs. Rachel accepts the apology readily. In her way, Mrs. Rachel atones for her own thoughtlessness by telling Anne that her red hair might darken into auburn as she grows up. She tells Marilla that despite Anne's odd ways, she likes her. Marilla feels uneasy about Anne's apology. She recognizes that Anne enjoyed her punishment, making her apology theatrical and flowery. Although Marilla feels the punishment has backfired, she would feel odd chastising Anne for apologizing too well. As they walk home, Anne slips her hand into Marilla's, saying how happy she is to be going to a place that feels like home. At the touch of the little girl's hand, Marilla feels a rush of motherly warmth that is both pleasurable and disarming. She tries to restore her usual emotional control and fends off this unfamiliar feeling of affection by moralizing to Anne about good behavior |
"Oh, dear, how hard it does seem to take up our packs and go on,"
sighed Meg the morning after the party, for now the holidays were over,
the week of merrymaking did not fit her for going on easily with the
task she never liked.
"I wish it was Christmas or New Year's all the time. Wouldn't it be
fun?" answered Jo, yawning dismally.
"We shouldn't enjoy ourselves half so much as we do now. But it does
seem so nice to have little suppers and bouquets, and go to parties,
and drive home, and read and rest, and not work. It's like other
people, you know, and I always envy girls who do such things, I'm so
fond of luxury," said Meg, trying to decide which of two shabby gowns
was the least shabby.
"Well, we can't have it, so don't let us grumble but shoulder our
bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I'm sure Aunt
March is a regular Old Man of the Sea to me, but I suppose when I've
learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get
so light that I shan't mind her."
This idea tickled Jo's fancy and put her in good spirits, but Meg
didn't brighten, for her burden, consisting of four spoiled children,
seemed heavier than ever. She had not heart enough even to make herself
pretty as usual by putting on a blue neck ribbon and dressing her hair
in the most becoming way.
"Where's the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross
midgets, and no one cares whether I'm pretty or not?" she muttered,
shutting her drawer with a jerk. "I shall have to toil and moil all my
days, with only little bits of fun now and then, and get old and ugly
and sour, because I'm poor and can't enjoy my life as other girls do.
It's a shame!"
So Meg went down, wearing an injured look, and wasn't at all agreeable
at breakfast time. Everyone seemed rather out of sorts and inclined to
croak.
Beth had a headache and lay on the sofa, trying to comfort herself with
the cat and three kittens. Amy was fretting because her lessons were
not learned, and she couldn't find her rubbers. Jo would whistle and
make a great racket getting ready.
Mrs. March was very busy trying to finish a letter, which must go at
once, and Hannah had the grumps, for being up late didn't suit her.
"There never was such a cross family!" cried Jo, losing her temper when
she had upset an inkstand, broken both boot lacings, and sat down upon
her hat.
"You're the crossest person in it!" returned Amy, washing out the sum
that was all wrong with the tears that had fallen on her slate.
"Beth, if you don't keep these horrid cats down cellar I'll have them
drowned," exclaimed Meg angrily as she tried to get rid of the kitten
which had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach.
Jo laughed, Meg scolded, Beth implored, and Amy wailed because she
couldn't remember how much nine times twelve was.
"Girls, girls, do be quiet one minute! I must get this off by the
early mail, and you drive me distracted with your worry," cried Mrs.
March, crossing out the third spoiled sentence in her letter.
There was a momentary lull, broken by Hannah, who stalked in, laid two
hot turnovers on the table, and stalked out again. These turnovers were
an institution, and the girls called them 'muffs', for they had no
others and found the hot pies very comforting to their hands on cold
mornings.
Hannah never forgot to make them, no matter how busy or grumpy she
might be, for the walk was long and bleak. The poor things got no other
lunch and were seldom home before two.
"Cuddle your cats and get over your headache, Bethy. Goodbye, Marmee.
We are a set of rascals this morning, but we'll come home regular
angels. Now then, Meg!" And Jo tramped away, feeling that the
pilgrims were not setting out as they ought to do.
They always looked back before turning the corner, for their mother was
always at the window to nod and smile, and wave her hand to them.
Somehow it seemed as if they couldn't have got through the day without
that, for whatever their mood might be, the last glimpse of that
motherly face was sure to affect them like sunshine.
"If Marmee shook her fist instead of kissing her hand to us, it would
serve us right, for more ungrateful wretches than we are were never
seen," cried Jo, taking a remorseful satisfaction in the snowy walk and
bitter wind.
"Don't use such dreadful expressions," replied Meg from the depths of
the veil in which she had shrouded herself like a nun sick of the world.
"I like good strong words that mean something," replied Jo, catching
her hat as it took a leap off her head preparatory to flying away
altogether.
"Call yourself any names you like, but I am neither a rascal nor a
wretch and I don't choose to be called so."
"You're a blighted being, and decidedly cross today because you can't
sit in the lap of luxury all the time. Poor dear, just wait till I
make my fortune, and you shall revel in carriages and ice cream and
high-heeled slippers, and posies, and red-headed boys to dance with."
"How ridiculous you are, Jo!" But Meg laughed at the nonsense and felt
better in spite of herself.
"Lucky for you I am, for if I put on crushed airs and tried to be
dismal, as you do, we should be in a nice state. Thank goodness, I can
always find something funny to keep me up. Don't croak any more, but
come home jolly, there's a dear."
Jo gave her sister an encouraging pat on the shoulder as they parted
for the day, each going a different way, each hugging her little warm
turnover, and each trying to be cheerful in spite of wintry weather,
hard work, and the unsatisfied desires of pleasure-loving youth.
When Mr. March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate
friend, the two oldest girls begged to be allowed to do something
toward their own support, at least. Believing that they could not
begin too early to cultivate energy, industry, and independence, their
parents consented, and both fell to work with the hearty good will
which in spite of all obstacles is sure to succeed at last.
Margaret found a place as nursery governess and felt rich with her
small salary. As she said, she was 'fond of luxury', and her chief
trouble was poverty. She found it harder to bear than the others
because she could remember a time when home was beautiful, life full of
ease and pleasure, and want of any kind unknown. She tried not to be
envious or discontented, but it was very natural that the young girl
should long for pretty things, gay friends, accomplishments, and a
happy life. At the Kings' she daily saw all she wanted, for the
children's older sisters were just out, and Meg caught frequent
glimpses of dainty ball dresses and bouquets, heard lively gossip about
theaters, concerts, sleighing parties, and merrymakings of all kinds,
and saw money lavished on trifles which would have been so precious to
her. Poor Meg seldom complained, but a sense of injustice made her
feel bitter toward everyone sometimes, for she had not yet learned to
know how rich she was in the blessings which alone can make life happy.
Jo happened to suit Aunt March, who was lame and needed an active
person to wait upon her. The childless old lady had offered to adopt
one of the girls when the troubles came, and was much offended because
her offer was declined. Other friends told the Marches that they had
lost all chance of being remembered in the rich old lady's will, but
the unworldly Marches only said...
"We can't give up our girls for a dozen fortunes. Rich or poor, we
will keep together and be happy in one another."
The old lady wouldn't speak to them for a time, but happening to meet
Jo at a friend's, something in her comical face and blunt manners
struck the old lady's fancy, and she proposed to take her for a
companion. This did not suit Jo at all, but she accepted the place
since nothing better appeared and, to every one's surprise, got on
remarkably well with her irascible relative. There was an occasional
tempest, and once Jo marched home, declaring she couldn't bear it
longer, but Aunt March always cleared up quickly, and sent for her to
come back again with such urgency that she could not refuse, for in her
heart she rather liked the peppery old lady.
I suspect that the real attraction was a large library of fine books,
which was left to dust and spiders since Uncle March died. Jo
remembered the kind old gentleman, who used to let her build railroads
and bridges with his big dictionaries, tell her stories about queer
pictures in his Latin books, and buy her cards of gingerbread whenever
he met her in the street. The dim, dusty room, with the busts staring
down from the tall bookcases, the cozy chairs, the globes, and best of
all, the wilderness of books in which she could wander where she liked,
made the library a region of bliss to her.
The moment Aunt March took her nap, or was busy with company, Jo
hurried to this quiet place, and curling herself up in the easy chair,
devoured poetry, romance, history, travels, and pictures like a regular
bookworm. But, like all happiness, it did not last long, for as sure
as she had just reached the heart of the story, the sweetest verse of a
song, or the most perilous adventure of her traveler, a shrill voice
called, "Josy-phine! Josy-phine!" and she had to leave her paradise to
wind yarn, wash the poodle, or read Belsham's Essays by the hour
together.
Jo's ambition was to do something very splendid. What it was, she had
no idea as yet, but left it for time to tell her, and meanwhile, found
her greatest affliction in the fact that she couldn't read, run, and
ride as much as she liked. A quick temper, sharp tongue, and restless
spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series
of ups and downs, which were both comic and pathetic. But the training
she received at Aunt March's was just what she needed, and the thought
that she was doing something to support herself made her happy in spite
of the perpetual "Josy-phine!"
Beth was too bashful to go to school. It had been tried, but she
suffered so much that it was given up, and she did her lessons at home
with her father. Even when he went away, and her mother was called to
devote her skill and energy to Soldiers' Aid Societies, Beth went
faithfully on by herself and did the best she could. She was a
housewifely little creature, and helped Hannah keep home neat and
comfortable for the workers, never thinking of any reward but to be
loved. Long, quiet days she spent, not lonely nor idle, for her little
world was peopled with imaginary friends, and she was by nature a busy
bee. There were six dolls to be taken up and dressed every morning,
for Beth was a child still and loved her pets as well as ever. Not one
whole or handsome one among them, all were outcasts till Beth took them
in, for when her sisters outgrew these idols, they passed to her
because Amy would have nothing old or ugly. Beth cherished them all the
more tenderly for that very reason, and set up a hospital for infirm
dolls. No pins were ever stuck into their cotton vitals, no harsh
words or blows were ever given them, no neglect ever saddened the heart
of the most repulsive, but all were fed and clothed, nursed and
caressed with an affection which never failed. One forlorn fragment of
dollanity had belonged to Jo and, having led a tempestuous life, was
left a wreck in the rag bag, from which dreary poorhouse it was rescued
by Beth and taken to her refuge. Having no top to its head, she tied
on a neat little cap, and as both arms and legs were gone, she hid
these deficiencies by folding it in a blanket and devoting her best bed
to this chronic invalid. If anyone had known the care lavished on that
dolly, I think it would have touched their hearts, even while they
laughed. She brought it bits of bouquets, she read to it, took it out
to breathe fresh air, hidden under her coat, she sang it lullabies and
never went to bed without kissing its dirty face and whispering
tenderly, "I hope you'll have a good night, my poor dear."
Beth had her troubles as well as the others, and not being an angel but
a very human little girl, she often 'wept a little weep' as Jo said,
because she couldn't take music lessons and have a fine piano. She
loved music so dearly, tried so hard to learn, and practiced away so
patiently at the jingling old instrument, that it did seem as if
someone (not to hint Aunt March) ought to help her. Nobody did,
however, and nobody saw Beth wipe the tears off the yellow keys, that
wouldn't keep in tune, when she was all alone. She sang like a little
lark about her work, never was too tired for Marmee and the girls, and
day after day said hopefully to herself, "I know I'll get my music some
time, if I'm good."
There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners
till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the
sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and
the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow
behind.
If anybody had asked Amy what the greatest trial of her life was, she
would have answered at once, "My nose." When she was a baby, Jo had
accidently dropped her into the coal hod, and Amy insisted that the
fall had ruined her nose forever. It was not big nor red, like poor
'Petrea's', it was only rather flat, and all the pinching in the world
could not give it an aristocratic point. No one minded it but herself,
and it was doing its best to grow, but Amy felt deeply the want of a
Grecian nose, and drew whole sheets of handsome ones to console herself.
"Little Raphael," as her sisters called her, had a decided talent for
drawing, and was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing
fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art. Her
teachers complained that instead of doing her sums she covered her
slate with animals, the blank pages of her atlas were used to copy maps
on, and caricatures of the most ludicrous description came fluttering
out of all her books at unlucky moments. She got through her lessons
as well as she could, and managed to escape reprimands by being a model
of deportment. She was a great favorite with her mates, being
good-tempered and possessing the happy art of pleasing without effort.
Her little airs and graces were much admired, so were her
accomplishments, for besides her drawing, she could play twelve tunes,
crochet, and read French without mispronouncing more than two-thirds of
the words. She had a plaintive way of saying, "When Papa was rich we
did so-and-so," which was very touching, and her long words were
considered 'perfectly elegant' by the girls.
Amy was in a fair way to be spoiled, for everyone petted her, and her
small vanities and selfishnesses were growing nicely. One thing,
however, rather quenched the vanities. She had to wear her cousin's
clothes. Now Florence's mama hadn't a particle of taste, and Amy
suffered deeply at having to wear a red instead of a blue bonnet,
unbecoming gowns, and fussy aprons that did not fit. Everything was
good, well made, and little worn, but Amy's artistic eyes were much
afflicted, especially this winter, when her school dress was a dull
purple with yellow dots and no trimming.
"My only comfort," she said to Meg, with tears in her eyes, "is that
Mother doesn't take tucks in my dresses whenever I'm naughty, as Maria
Parks's mother does. My dear, it's really dreadful, for sometimes she
is so bad her frock is up to her knees, and she can't come to school.
When I think of this _deggerredation_, I feel that I can bear even my
flat nose and purple gown with yellow sky-rockets on it."
Meg was Amy's confidant and monitor, and by some strange attraction of
opposites Jo was gentle Beth's. To Jo alone did the shy child tell her
thoughts, and over her big harum-scarum sister Beth unconsciously
exercised more influence than anyone in the family. The two older
girls were a great deal to one another, but each took one of the
younger sisters into her keeping and watched over her in her own way,
'playing mother' they called it, and put their sisters in the places of
discarded dolls with the maternal instinct of little women.
"Has anybody got anything to tell? It's been such a dismal day I'm
really dying for some amusement," said Meg, as they sat sewing together
that evening.
"I had a queer time with Aunt today, and, as I got the best of it, I'll
tell you about it," began Jo, who dearly loved to tell stories. "I was
reading that everlasting Belsham, and droning away as I always do, for
Aunt soon drops off, and then I take out some nice book, and read like
fury till she wakes up. I actually made myself sleepy, and before she
began to nod, I gave such a gape that she asked me what I meant by
opening my mouth wide enough to take the whole book in at once."
"I wish I could, and be done with it," said I, trying not to be saucy.
"Then she gave me a long lecture on my sins, and told me to sit and
think them over while she just 'lost' herself for a moment. She never
finds herself very soon, so the minute her cap began to bob like a
top-heavy dahlia, I whipped the _Vicar of Wakefield_ out of my pocket,
and read away, with one eye on him and one on Aunt. I'd just got to
where they all tumbled into the water when I forgot and laughed out
loud. Aunt woke up and, being more good-natured after her nap, told me
to read a bit and show what frivolous work I preferred to the worthy
and instructive Belsham. I did my very best, and she liked it, though
she only said...
"'I don't understand what it's all about. Go back and begin it,
child.'"
"Back I went, and made the Primroses as interesting as ever I could.
Once I was wicked enough to stop in a thrilling place, and say meekly,
'I'm afraid it tires you, ma'am. Shan't I stop now?'"
"She caught up her knitting, which had dropped out of her hands, gave
me a sharp look through her specs, and said, in her short way, 'Finish
the chapter, and don't be impertinent, miss'."
"Did she own she liked it?" asked Meg.
"Oh, bless you, no! But she let old Belsham rest, and when I ran back
after my gloves this afternoon, there she was, so hard at the Vicar
that she didn't hear me laugh as I danced a jig in the hall because of
the good time coming. What a pleasant life she might have if only she
chose! I don't envy her much, in spite of her money, for after all
rich people have about as many worries as poor ones, I think," added Jo.
"That reminds me," said Meg, "that I've got something to tell. It isn't
funny, like Jo's story, but I thought about it a good deal as I came
home. At the Kings' today I found everybody in a flurry, and one of
the children said that her oldest brother had done something dreadful,
and Papa had sent him away. I heard Mrs. King crying and Mr. King
talking very loud, and Grace and Ellen turned away their faces when
they passed me, so I shouldn't see how red and swollen their eyes were.
I didn't ask any questions, of course, but I felt so sorry for them and
was rather glad I hadn't any wild brothers to do wicked things and
disgrace the family."
"I think being disgraced in school is a great deal try_inger_ than
anything bad boys can do," said Amy, shaking her head, as if her
experience of life had been a deep one. "Susie Perkins came to school
today with a lovely red carnelian ring. I wanted it dreadfully, and
wished I was her with all my might. Well, she drew a picture of Mr.
Davis, with a monstrous nose and a hump, and the words, 'Young ladies,
my eye is upon you!' coming out of his mouth in a balloon thing. We
were laughing over it when all of a sudden his eye _was_ on us, and he
ordered Susie to bring up her slate. She was _parry_lized with fright,
but she went, and oh, what _do_ you think he did? He took her by the
ear--the ear! Just fancy how horrid!--and led her to the recitation
platform, and made her stand there half an hour, holding the slate so
everyone could see."
"Didn't the girls laugh at the picture?" asked Jo, who relished the
scrape.
"Laugh? Not one! They sat still as mice, and Susie cried quarts, I know
she did. I didn't envy her then, for I felt that millions of carnelian
rings wouldn't have made me happy after that. I never, never should
have got over such a agonizing mortification." And Amy went on with her
work, in the proud consciousness of virtue and the successful utterance
of two long words in a breath.
"I saw something I liked this morning, and I meant to tell it at
dinner, but I forgot," said Beth, putting Jo's topsy-turvy basket in
order as she talked. "When I went to get some oysters for Hannah, Mr.
Laurence was in the fish shop, but he didn't see me, for I kept behind
the fish barrel, and he was busy with Mr. Cutter the fish-man. A poor
woman came in with a pail and a mop, and asked Mr. Cutter if he would
let her do some scrubbing for a bit of fish, because she hadn't any
dinner for her children, and had been disappointed of a day's work.
Mr. Cutter was in a hurry and said 'No', rather crossly, so she was
going away, looking hungry and sorry, when Mr. Laurence hooked up a big
fish with the crooked end of his cane and held it out to her. She was
so glad and surprised she took it right into her arms, and thanked him
over and over. He told her to 'go along and cook it', and she hurried
off, so happy! Wasn't it good of him? Oh, she did look so funny,
hugging the big, slippery fish, and hoping Mr. Laurence's bed in heaven
would be 'aisy'."
When they had laughed at Beth's story, they asked their mother for one,
and after a moments thought, she said soberly, "As I sat cutting out
blue flannel jackets today at the rooms, I felt very anxious about
Father, and thought how lonely and helpless we should be, if anything
happened to him. It was not a wise thing to do, but I kept on worrying
till an old man came in with an order for some clothes. He sat down
near me, and I began to talk to him, for he looked poor and tired and
anxious.
"'Have you sons in the army?' I asked, for the note he brought was not
to me."
"Yes, ma'am. I had four, but two were killed, one is a prisoner, and
I'm going to the other, who is very sick in a Washington hospital.' he
answered quietly."
"'You have done a great deal for your country, sir,' I said, feeling
respect now, instead of pity."
"'Not a mite more than I ought, ma'am. I'd go myself, if I was any
use. As I ain't, I give my boys, and give 'em free.'"
"He spoke so cheerfully, looked so sincere, and seemed so glad to give
his all, that I was ashamed of myself. I'd given one man and thought
it too much, while he gave four without grudging them. I had all my
girls to comfort me at home, and his last son was waiting, miles away,
to say good-by to him, perhaps! I felt so rich, so happy thinking of
my blessings, that I made him a nice bundle, gave him some money, and
thanked him heartily for the lesson he had taught me."
"Tell another story, Mother, one with a moral to it, like this. I like
to think about them afterward, if they are real and not too preachy,"
said Jo, after a minute's silence.
Mrs. March smiled and began at once, for she had told stories to this
little audience for many years, and knew how to please them.
"Once upon a time, there were four girls, who had enough to eat and
drink and wear, a good many comforts and pleasures, kind friends and
parents who loved them dearly, and yet they were not contented." (Here
the listeners stole sly looks at one another, and began to sew
diligently.) "These girls were anxious to be good and made many
excellent resolutions, but they did not keep them very well, and were
constantly saying, 'If only we had this,' or 'If we could only do
that,' quite forgetting how much they already had, and how many things
they actually could do. So they asked an old woman what spell they
could use to make them happy, and she said, 'When you feel
discontented, think over your blessings, and be grateful.'" (Here Jo
looked up quickly, as if about to speak, but changed her mind, seeing
that the story was not done yet.)
"Being sensible girls, they decided to try her advice, and soon were
surprised to see how well off they were. One discovered that money
couldn't keep shame and sorrow out of rich people's houses, another
that, though she was poor, she was a great deal happier, with her
youth, health, and good spirits, than a certain fretful, feeble old
lady who couldn't enjoy her comforts, a third that, disagreeable as it
was to help get dinner, it was harder still to go begging for it and
the fourth, that even carnelian rings were not so valuable as good
behavior. So they agreed to stop complaining, to enjoy the blessings
already possessed, and try to deserve them, lest they should be taken
away entirely, instead of increased, and I believe they were never
disappointed or sorry that they took the old woman's advice."
"Now, Marmee, that is very cunning of you to turn our own stories
against us, and give us a sermon instead of a romance!" cried Meg.
"I like that kind of sermon. It's the sort Father used to tell us,"
said Beth thoughtfully, putting the needles straight on Jo's cushion.
"I don't complain near as much as the others do, and I shall be more
careful than ever now, for I've had warning from Susie's downfall,"
said Amy morally.
"We needed that lesson, and we won't forget it. If we do so, you just
say to us, as old Chloe did in _Uncle Tom_, 'Tink ob yer marcies,
chillen!' 'Tink ob yer marcies!'" added Jo, who could not, for the life
of her, help getting a morsel of fun out of the little sermon, though
she took it to heart as much as any of them. | Burdens After the holiday festivities, the girls find going back to their jobs difficult. Meg does not want to look after the King children, whom she baby-sits, and Jo is reluctant to tend to Aunt March, for Aunt March makes Jo read boring books aloud. Though Aunt March is strict with Jo, Jo does like her; both women are stubborn and determined. Jo loves the book collection Uncle March left behind--she feels that it compensates for having to read to Aunt March. The shyest March sister, Beth, stays home, does housework dutifully, and takes care of her doll collection, most of which is damaged in some way. Little Amy goes to school and grieves over her flat nose. The girls are all friends, but Amy is special to Meg, and Beth is special to Jo. When the sisters are finished with work, they tell stories from the day to entertain each other. Marmee gives a lecture on being grateful for one's blessings. Jo playfully quotes Aunt Chloe, a character from Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, who urges her listeners to be grateful for their blessings |
I
MISS McGOUN came into his private office at three in the afternoon with
"Lissen, Mr. Babbitt; there's a Mrs. Judique on the 'phone--wants to see
about some repairs, and the salesmen are all out. Want to talk to her?"
"All right."
The voice of Tanis Judique was clear and pleasant. The black cylinder
of the telephone-receiver seemed to hold a tiny animated image of her:
lustrous eyes, delicate nose, gentle chin.
"This is Mrs. Judique. Do you remember me? You drove me up here to the
Cavendish Apartments and helped me find such a nice flat."
"Sure! Bet I remember! What can I do for you?"
"Why, it's just a little--I don't know that I ought to bother you, but
the janitor doesn't seem to be able to fix it. You know my flat is on
the top floor, and with these autumn rains the roof is beginning to
leak, and I'd be awfully glad if--"
"Sure! I'll come up and take a look at it." Nervously, "When do you
expect to be in?"
"Why, I'm in every morning."
"Be in this afternoon, in an hour or so?"
"Ye-es. Perhaps I could give you a cup of tea. I think I ought to, after
all your trouble."
"Fine! I'll run up there soon as I can get away."
He meditated, "Now there's a woman that's got refinement, savvy, CLASS!
'After all your trouble--give you a cup of tea.' She'd appreciate a
fellow. I'm a fool, but I'm not such a bad cuss, get to know me. And not
so much a fool as they think!"
The great strike was over, the strikers beaten. Except that Vergil
Gunch seemed less cordial, there were no visible effects of Babbitt's
treachery to the clan. The oppressive fear of criticism was gone, but a
diffident loneliness remained. Now he was so exhilarated that, to prove
he wasn't, he droned about the office for fifteen minutes, looking at
blue-prints, explaining to Miss McGoun that this Mrs. Scott wanted more
money for her house--had raised the asking-price--raised it from seven
thousand to eighty-five hundred--would Miss McGoun be sure and put
it down on the card--Mrs. Scott's house--raise. When he had thus
established himself as a person unemotional and interested only in
business, he sauntered out. He took a particularly long time to start
his car; he kicked the tires, dusted the glass of the speedometer, and
tightened the screws holding the wind-shield spot-light.
He drove happily off toward the Bellevue district, conscious of the
presence of Mrs. Judique as of a brilliant light on the horizon. The
maple leaves had fallen and they lined the gutters of the asphalted
streets. It was a day of pale gold and faded green, tranquil and
lingering. Babbitt was aware of the meditative day, and of the
barrenness of Bellevue--blocks of wooden houses, garages, little shops,
weedy lots. "Needs pepping up; needs the touch that people like Mrs.
Judique could give a place," he ruminated, as he rattled through the
long, crude, airy streets. The wind rose, enlivening, keen, and in a
blaze of well-being he came to the flat of Tanis Judique.
She was wearing, when she flutteringly admitted him, a frock of black
chiffon cut modestly round at the base of her pretty throat. She seemed
to him immensely sophisticated. He glanced at the cretonnes and colored
prints in her living-room, and gurgled, "Gosh, you've fixed the place
nice! Takes a clever woman to know how to make a home, all right!"
"You really like it? I'm so glad! But you've neglected me, scandalously.
You promised to come some time and learn to dance."
Rather unsteadily, "Oh, but you didn't mean it seriously!"
"Perhaps not. But you might have tried!"
"Well, here I've come for my lesson, and you might just as well prepare
to have me stay for supper!"
They both laughed in a manner which indicated that of course he didn't
mean it.
"But first I guess I better look at that leak."
She climbed with him to the flat roof of the apartment-house a detached
world of slatted wooden walks, clotheslines, water-tank in a penthouse.
He poked at things with his toe, and sought to impress her by being
learned about copper gutters, the desirability of passing plumbing pipes
through a lead collar and sleeve and flashing them with copper, and the
advantages of cedar over boiler-iron for roof-tanks.
"You have to know so much, in real estate!" she admired.
He promised that the roof should be repaired within two days. "Do you
mind my 'phoning from your apartment?" he asked.
"Heavens, no!"
He stood a moment at the coping, looking over a land of hard little
bungalows with abnormally large porches, and new apartment-houses,
small, but brave with variegated brick walls and terra-cotta trimmings.
Beyond them was a hill with a gouge of yellow clay like a vast wound.
Behind every apartment-house, beside each dwelling, were small garages.
It was a world of good little people, comfortable, industrious,
credulous.
In the autumnal light the flat newness was mellowed, and the air was a
sun-tinted pool.
"Golly, it's one fine afternoon. You get a great view here, right up
Tanner's Hill," said Babbitt.
"Yes, isn't it nice and open."
"So darn few people appreciate a View."
"Don't you go raising my rent on that account! Oh, that was naughty
of me! I was just teasing. Seriously though, there are so few who
respond--who react to Views. I mean--they haven't any feeling of poetry
and beauty."
"That's a fact, they haven't," he breathed, admiring her slenderness and
the absorbed, airy way in which she looked toward the hill, chin lifted,
lips smiling. "Well, guess I'd better telephone the plumbers, so they'll
get on the job first thing in the morning."
When he had telephoned, making it conspicuously authoritative and gruff
and masculine, he looked doubtful, and sighed, "S'pose I'd better be--"
"Oh, you must have that cup of tea first!"
"Well, it would go pretty good, at that."
It was luxurious to loll in a deep green rep chair, his legs thrust
out before him, to glance at the black Chinese telephone stand and the
colored photograph of Mount Vernon which he had always liked so much,
while in the tiny kitchen--so near--Mrs. Judique sang "My Creole Queen."
In an intolerable sweetness, a contentment so deep that he was wistfully
discontented, he saw magnolias by moonlight and heard plantation darkies
crooning to the banjo. He wanted to be near her, on pretense of helping
her, yet he wanted to remain in this still ecstasy. Languidly he
remained.
When she bustled in with the tea he smiled up at her. "This is awfully
nice!" For the first time, he was not fencing; he was quietly and
securely friendly; and friendly and quiet was her answer: "It's nice to
have you here. You were so kind, helping me to find this little home."
They agreed that the weather would soon turn cold. They agreed that
prohibition was prohibitive. They agreed that art in the home was
cultural. They agreed about everything. They even became bold. They
hinted that these modern young girls, well, honestly, their short skirts
were short. They were proud to find that they were not shocked by such
frank speaking. Tanis ventured, "I know you'll understand--I mean--I
don't quite know how to say it, but I do think that girls who pretend
they're bad by the way they dress really never go any farther. They give
away the fact that they haven't the instincts of a womanly woman."
Remembering Ida Putiak, the manicure girl, and how ill she had used him,
Babbitt agreed with enthusiasm; remembering how ill all the world had
used him, he told of Paul Riesling, of Zilla, of Seneca Doane, of the
strike:
"See how it was? Course I was as anxious to have those beggars licked to
a standstill as anybody else, but gosh, no reason for not seeing their
side. For a fellow's own sake, he's got to be broad-minded and liberal,
don't you think so?"
"Oh, I do!" Sitting on the hard little couch, she clasped her hands
beside her, leaned toward him, absorbed him; and in a glorious state of
being appreciated he proclaimed:
"So I up and said to the fellows at the club, 'Look here,' I--"
"Do you belong to the Union Club? I think it's--"
"No; the Athletic. Tell you: Course they're always asking me to join
the Union, but I always say, 'No, sir! Nothing doing!' I don't mind the
expense but I can't stand all the old fogies."
"Oh, yes, that's so. But tell me: what did you say to them?"
"Oh, you don't want to hear it. I'm probably boring you to death with my
troubles! You wouldn't hardly think I was an old duffer; I sound like a
kid!"
"Oh, you're a boy yet. I mean--you can't be a day over forty-five."
"Well, I'm not--much. But by golly I begin to feel middle-aged
sometimes; all these responsibilities and all."
"Oh, I know!" Her voice caressed him; it cloaked him like warm silk.
"And I feel lonely, so lonely, some days, Mr. Babbitt."
"We're a sad pair of birds! But I think we're pretty darn nice!"
"Yes, I think we're lots nicer than most people I know!" They smiled.
"But please tell me what you said at the Club."
"Well, it was like this: Course Seneca Doane is a friend of mine--they
can say what they want to, they can call him anything they please, but
what most folks here don't know is that Senny is the bosom pal of some
of the biggest statesmen in the world--Lord Wycombe, frinstance--you
know, this big British nobleman. My friend Sir Gerald Doak told me
that Lord Wycombe is one of the biggest guns in England--well, Doak or
somebody told me."
"Oh! Do you know Sir Gerald? The one that was here, at the McKelveys'?"
"Know him? Well, say, I know him just well enough so we call each other
George and Jerry, and we got so pickled together in Chicago--"
"That must have been fun. But--" She shook a finger at him. "--I can't
have you getting pickled! I'll have to take you in hand!"
"Wish you would! . . . Well, zize saying: You see I happen to know what
a big noise Senny Doane is outside of Zenith, but of course a prophet
hasn't got any honor in his own country, and Senny, darn his old hide,
he's so blame modest that he never lets folks know the kind of an outfit
he travels with when he goes abroad. Well, during the strike Clarence
Drum comes pee-rading up to our table, all dolled up fit to kill in his
nice lil cap'n's uniform, and somebody says to him, 'Busting the strike,
Clarence?'
"Well, he swells up like a pouter-pigeon and he hollers, so 's you
could hear him way up in the reading-room, 'Yes, sure; I told the
strike-leaders where they got off, and so they went home.'
"'Well,' I says to him, 'glad there wasn't any violence.'
"'Yes,' he says, 'but if I hadn't kept my eye skinned there would 've
been. All those fellows had bombs in their pockets. They're reg'lar
anarchists.'
"'Oh, rats, Clarence,' I says, 'I looked 'em all over carefully, and
they didn't have any more bombs 'n a rabbit,' I says. 'Course,' I says,
'they're foolish, but they're a good deal like you and me, after all.'
"And then Vergil Gunch or somebody--no, it was Chum Frink--you know,
this famous poet--great pal of mine--he says to me, 'Look here,' he
says, 'do you mean to say you advocate these strikes?' Well, I was so
disgusted with a fellow whose mind worked that way that I swear, I had a
good mind to not explain at all--just ignore him--"
"Oh, that's so wise!" said Mrs. Judique.
"--but finally I explains to him: 'If you'd done as much as I have on
Chamber of Commerce committees and all,' I says, 'then you'd have the
right to talk! But same time,' I says, 'I believe in treating your
opponent like a gentleman!' Well, sir, that held 'em! Frink--Chum I
always call him--he didn't have another word to say. But at that, I
guess some of 'em kind o' thought I was too liberal. What do you think?"
"Oh, you were so wise. And courageous! I love a man to have the courage
of his convictions!"
"But do you think it was a good stunt? After all, some of these fellows
are so darn cautious and narrow-minded that they're prejudiced against a
fellow that talks right out in meeting."
"What do you care? In the long run they're bound to respect a man who
makes them think, and with your reputation for oratory you--"
"What do you know about my reputation for oratory?"
"Oh, I'm not going to tell you everything I know! But seriously, you
don't realize what a famous man you are."
"Well--Though I haven't done much orating this fall. Too kind of
bothered by this Paul Riesling business, I guess. But--Do you know,
you're the first person that's really understood what I was getting at,
Tanis--Listen to me, will you! Fat nerve I've got, calling you Tanis!"
"Oh, do! And shall I call you George? Don't you think it's awfully nice
when two people have so much--what shall I call it?--so much analysis
that they can discard all these stupid conventions and understand each
other and become acquainted right away, like ships that pass in the
night?"
"I certainly do! I certainly do!"
He was no longer quiescent in his chair; he wandered about the room, he
dropped on the couch beside her. But as he awkwardly stretched his hand
toward her fragile, immaculate fingers, she said brightly, "Do give me
a cigarette. Would you think poor Tanis was dreadfully naughty if she
smoked?"
"Lord, no! I like it!"
He had often and weightily pondered flappers smoking in Zenith
restaurants, but he knew only one woman who smoked--Mrs. Sam Doppelbrau,
his flighty neighbor. He ceremoniously lighted Tanis's cigarette, looked
for a place to deposit the burnt match, and dropped it into his pocket.
"I'm sure you want a cigar, you poor man!" she crooned.
"Do you mind one?"
"Oh, no! I love the smell of a good cigar; so nice and--so nice and like
a man. You'll find an ash-tray in my bedroom, on the table beside the
bed, if you don't mind getting it."
He was embarrassed by her bedroom: the broad couch with a cover of
violet silk, mauve curtains striped with gold. Chinese Chippendale
bureau, and an amazing row of slippers, with ribbon-wound shoe-trees,
and primrose stockings lying across them. His manner of bringing the
ash-tray had just the right note of easy friendliness, he felt. "A boob
like Verg Gunch would try to get funny about seeing her bedroom, but
I take it casually." He was not casual afterward. The contentment of
companionship was gone, and he was restless with desire to touch her
hand. But whenever he turned toward her, the cigarette was in his way.
It was a shield between them. He waited till she should have finished,
but as he rejoiced at her quick crushing of its light on the ashtray she
said, "Don't you want to give me another cigarette?" and hopelessly he
saw the screen of pale smoke and her graceful tilted hand again between
them. He was not merely curious now to find out whether she would
let him hold her hand (all in the purest friendship, naturally), but
agonized with need of it.
On the surface appeared none of all this fretful drama. They were
talking cheerfully of motors, of trips to California, of Chum Frink.
Once he said delicately, "I do hate these guys--I hate these people that
invite themselves to meals, but I seem to have a feeling I'm going to
have supper with the lovely Mrs. Tanis Judique to-night. But I suppose
you probably have seven dates already."
"Well, I was thinking some of going to the movies. Yes, I really think I
ought to get out and get some fresh air."
She did not encourage him to stay, but never did she discourage him.
He considered, "I better take a sneak! She WILL let me stay--there IS
something doing--and I mustn't get mixed up with--I mustn't--I've got to
beat it." Then, "No. it's too late now."
Suddenly, at seven, brushing her cigarette away, brusquely taking her
hand:
"Tanis! Stop teasing me! You know we--Here we are, a couple of lonely
birds, and we're awful happy together. Anyway I am! Never been so
happy! Do let me stay! I'll gallop down to the delicatessen and buy some
stuff--cold chicken maybe--or cold turkey--and we can have a nice little
supper, and afterwards, if you want to chase me out, I'll be good and go
like a lamb."
"Well--yes--it would be nice," she said.
Nor did she withdraw her hand. He squeezed it, trembling, and blundered
toward his coat. At the delicatessen he bought preposterous stores of
food, chosen on the principle of expensiveness. From the drug store
across the street he telephoned to his wife, "Got to get a fellow to
sign a lease before he leaves town on the midnight. Won't be home till
late. Don't wait up for me. Kiss Tinka good-night." He expectantly
lumbered back to the flat.
"Oh, you bad thing, to buy so much food!" was her greeting, and her
voice was gay, her smile acceptant.
He helped her in the tiny white kitchen; he washed the lettuce, he
opened the olive bottle. She ordered him to set the table, and as he
trotted into the living-room, as he hunted through the buffet for knives
and forks, he felt utterly at home.
"Now the only other thing," he announced, "is what you're going to wear.
I can't decide whether you're to put on your swellest evening gown, or
let your hair down and put on short skirts and make-believe you're a
little girl."
"I'm going to dine just as I am, in this old chiffon rag, and if you
can't stand poor Tanis that way, you can go to the club for dinner!"
"Stand you!" He patted her shoulder. "Child, you're the brainiest and
the loveliest and finest woman I've ever met! Come now, Lady Wycombe,
if you'll take the Duke of Zenith's arm, we will proambulate in to the
magnolious feed!"
"Oh, you do say the funniest, nicest things!"
When they had finished the picnic supper he thrust his head out of the
window and reported, "It's turned awful chilly, and I think it's going
to rain. You don't want to go to the movies."
"Well--"
"I wish we had a fireplace! I wish it was raining like all get-out
to-night, and we were in a funny little old-fashioned cottage, and
the trees thrashing like everything outside, and a great big log fire
and--I'll tell you! Let's draw this couch up to the radiator, and
stretch our feet out, and pretend it's a wood-fire."
"Oh, I think that's pathetic! You big child!"
But they did draw up to the radiator, and propped their feet against
it--his clumsy black shoes, her patent-leather slippers. In the dimness
they talked of themselves; of how lonely she was, how bewildered he, and
how wonderful that they had found each other. As they fell silent the
room was stiller than a country lane. There was no sound from the street
save the whir of motor-tires, the rumble of a distant freight-train.
Self-contained was the room, warm, secure, insulated from the harassing
world.
He was absorbed by a rapture in which all fear and doubting were
smoothed away; and when he reached home, at dawn, the rapture had
mellowed to contentment serene and full of memories. | Tanis Judique calls George at the office about a leak in her apartment, and George goes to look things over. To him, Tanis represents the height of feminine class and grace, and he is enchanted by her. He stays for a cup of tea, and they talk for a great while, agreeing about most things as George basks in the "glorious state of being appreciated". He confides in her about his friendship with Seneca Doane and about the tension that developed with Vergil Gunch at the Athletic Club. They rejoice in mutual understanding and comfort, and Tanis reveals herself to be somewhat of a rebel as she smokes a cigarette. They decide to have dinner together, and George calls Myra from the deli with a lie about being out on business. They talk through the night, feeling utterly content in each other's company, and George returns home at dawn |
For a day that was begun so ill, the day passed fairly well. We had the
porridge cold again at noon, and hot porridge at night; porridge and
small beer was my uncle's diet. He spoke but little, and that in the
same way as before, shooting a question at me after a long silence; and
when I sought to lead him to talk about my future, slipped out of it
again. In a room next door to the kitchen, where he suffered me to go,
I found a great number of books, both Latin and English, in which I took
great pleasure all the afternoon. Indeed, the time passed so lightly in
this good company, that I began to be almost reconciled to my residence
at Shaws; and nothing but the sight of my uncle, and his eyes playing
hide and seek with mine, revived the force of my distrust.
One thing I discovered, which put me in some doubt. This was an entry on
the fly-leaf of a chap-book (one of Patrick Walker's) plainly written
by my father's hand and thus conceived: "To my brother Ebenezer on his
fifth birthday." Now, what puzzled me was this: That, as my father was of
course the younger brother, he must either have made some strange error,
or he must have written, before he was yet five, an excellent, clear
manly hand of writing.
I tried to get this out of my head; but though I took down many
interesting authors, old and new, history, poetry, and story-book, this
notion of my father's hand of writing stuck to me; and when at length I
went back into the kitchen, and sat down once more to porridge and small
beer, the first thing I said to Uncle Ebenezer was to ask him if my
father had not been very quick at his book.
"Alexander? No him!" was the reply. "I was far quicker mysel'; I was a
clever chappie when I was young. Why, I could read as soon as he could."
This puzzled me yet more; and a thought coming into my head, I asked if
he and my father had been twins.
He jumped upon his stool, and the horn spoon fell out of his hand upon
the floor. "What gars ye ask that?" he said, and he caught me by the
breast of the jacket, and looked this time straight into my eyes:
his own were little and light, and bright like a bird's, blinking and
winking strangely.
"What do you mean?" I asked, very calmly, for I was far stronger than
he, and not easily frightened. "Take your hand from my jacket. This is
no way to behave."
My uncle seemed to make a great effort upon himself. "Dod man, David,"
he said, "ye should-nae speak to me about your father. That's where the
mistake is." He sat awhile and shook, blinking in his plate: "He was all
the brother that ever I had," he added, but with no heart in his voice;
and then he caught up his spoon and fell to supper again, but still
shaking.
Now this last passage, this laying of hands upon my person and
sudden profession of love for my dead father, went so clean beyond my
comprehension that it put me into both fear and hope. On the one hand,
I began to think my uncle was perhaps insane and might be dangerous;
on the other, there came up into my mind (quite unbidden by me and even
discouraged) a story like some ballad I had heard folk singing, of a
poor lad that was a rightful heir and a wicked kinsman that tried
to keep him from his own. For why should my uncle play a part with a
relative that came, almost a beggar, to his door, unless in his heart he
had some cause to fear him?
With this notion, all unacknowledged, but nevertheless getting firmly
settled in my head, I now began to imitate his covert looks; so that
we sat at table like a cat and a mouse, each stealthily observing the
other. Not another word had he to say to me, black or white, but was
busy turning something secretly over in his mind; and the longer we
sat and the more I looked at him, the more certain I became that the
something was unfriendly to myself.
When he had cleared the platter, he got out a single pipeful of tobacco,
just as in the morning, turned round a stool into the chimney corner,
and sat awhile smoking, with his back to me.
"Davie," he said, at length, "I've been thinking;" then he paused, and
said it again. "There's a wee bit siller that I half promised ye before
ye were born," he continued; "promised it to your father. O, naething
legal, ye understand; just gentlemen daffing at their wine. Well, I
keepit that bit money separate--it was a great expense, but a promise
is a promise--and it has grown by now to be a matter of just
precisely--just exactly"--and here he paused and stumbled--"of just
exactly forty pounds!" This last he rapped out with a sidelong glance
over his shoulder; and the next moment added, almost with a scream,
"Scots!"
The pound Scots being the same thing as an English shilling, the
difference made by this second thought was considerable; I could see,
besides, that the whole story was a lie, invented with some end which
it puzzled me to guess; and I made no attempt to conceal the tone of
raillery in which I answered--
"O, think again, sir! Pounds sterling, I believe!"
"That's what I said," returned my uncle: "pounds sterling! And if you'll
step out-by to the door a minute, just to see what kind of a night it
is, I'll get it out to ye and call ye in again."
I did his will, smiling to myself in my contempt that he should think I
was so easily to be deceived. It was a dark night, with a few stars low
down; and as I stood just outside the door, I heard a hollow moaning
of wind far off among the hills. I said to myself there was something
thundery and changeful in the weather, and little knew of what a vast
importance that should prove to me before the evening passed.
When I was called in again, my uncle counted out into my hand seven and
thirty golden guinea pieces; the rest was in his hand, in small gold and
silver; but his heart failed him there, and he crammed the change into
his pocket.
"There," said he, "that'll show you! I'm a queer man, and strange wi'
strangers; but my word is my bond, and there's the proof of it."
Now, my uncle seemed so miserly that I was struck dumb by this sudden
generosity, and could find no words in which to thank him.
"No a word!" said he. "Nae thanks; I want nae thanks. I do my duty. I'm
no saying that everybody would have done it; but for my part (though
I'm a careful body, too) it's a pleasure to me to do the right by my
brother's son; and it's a pleasure to me to think that now we'll agree
as such near friends should."
I spoke him in return as handsomely as I was able; but all the while
I was wondering what would come next, and why he had parted with his
precious guineas; for as to the reason he had given, a baby would have
refused it.
Presently he looked towards me sideways.
"And see here," says he, "tit for tat."
I told him I was ready to prove my gratitude in any reasonable degree,
and then waited, looking for some monstrous demand. And yet, when
at last he plucked up courage to speak, it was only to tell me (very
properly, as I thought) that he was growing old and a little broken, and
that he would expect me to help him with the house and the bit garden.
I answered, and expressed my readiness to serve.
"Well," he said, "let's begin." He pulled out of his pocket a rusty key.
"There," says he, "there's the key of the stair-tower at the far end of
the house. Ye can only win into it from the outside, for that part of
the house is no finished. Gang ye in there, and up the stairs, and bring
me down the chest that's at the top. There's papers in't," he added.
"Can I have a light, sir?" said I.
"Na," said he, very cunningly. "Nae lights in my house."
"Very well, sir," said I. "Are the stairs good?"
"They're grand," said he; and then, as I was going, "Keep to the wall,"
he added; "there's nae bannisters. But the stairs are grand underfoot."
Out I went into the night. The wind was still moaning in the distance,
though never a breath of it came near the house of Shaws. It had fallen
blacker than ever; and I was glad to feel along the wall, till I came
the length of the stairtower door at the far end of the unfinished wing.
I had got the key into the keyhole and had just turned it, when all upon
a sudden, without sound of wind or thunder, the whole sky lighted up
with wild fire and went black again. I had to put my hand over my eyes
to get back to the colour of the darkness; and indeed I was already half
blinded when I stepped into the tower.
It was so dark inside, it seemed a body could scarce breathe; but I
pushed out with foot and hand, and presently struck the wall with the
one, and the lowermost round of the stair with the other. The wall, by
the touch, was of fine hewn stone; the steps too, though somewhat steep
and narrow, were of polished masonwork, and regular and solid underfoot.
Minding my uncle's word about the bannisters, I kept close to the tower
side, and felt my way in the pitch darkness with a beating heart.
The house of Shaws stood some five full storeys high, not counting
lofts. Well, as I advanced, it seemed to me the stair grew airier and a
thought more lightsome; and I was wondering what might be the cause of
this change, when a second blink of the summer lightning came and went.
If I did not cry out, it was because fear had me by the throat; and if I
did not fall, it was more by Heaven's mercy than my own strength. It was
not only that the flash shone in on every side through breaches in the
wall, so that I seemed to be clambering aloft upon an open scaffold, but
the same passing brightness showed me the steps were of unequal length,
and that one of my feet rested that moment within two inches of the
well.
This was the grand stair! I thought; and with the thought, a gust of
a kind of angry courage came into my heart. My uncle had sent me here,
certainly to run great risks, perhaps to die. I swore I would settle
that "perhaps," if I should break my neck for it; got me down upon my
hands and knees; and as slowly as a snail, feeling before me every
inch, and testing the solidity of every stone, I continued to ascend
the stair. The darkness, by contrast with the flash, appeared to have
redoubled; nor was that all, for my ears were now troubled and my mind
confounded by a great stir of bats in the top part of the tower, and the
foul beasts, flying downwards, sometimes beat about my face and body.
The tower, I should have said, was square; and in every corner the step
was made of a great stone of a different shape to join the flights.
Well, I had come close to one of these turns, when, feeling forward
as usual, my hand slipped upon an edge and found nothing but emptiness
beyond it. The stair had been carried no higher; to set a stranger
mounting it in the darkness was to send him straight to his death; and
(although, thanks to the lightning and my own precautions, I was safe
enough) the mere thought of the peril in which I might have stood, and
the dreadful height I might have fallen from, brought out the sweat upon
my body and relaxed my joints.
But I knew what I wanted now, and turned and groped my way down again,
with a wonderful anger in my heart. About half-way down, the wind sprang
up in a clap and shook the tower, and died again; the rain followed; and
before I had reached the ground level it fell in buckets. I put out my
head into the storm, and looked along towards the kitchen. The door,
which I had shut behind me when I left, now stood open, and shed a
little glimmer of light; and I thought I could see a figure standing
in the rain, quite still, like a man hearkening. And then there came
a blinding flash, which showed me my uncle plainly, just where I had
fancied him to stand; and hard upon the heels of it, a great tow-row of
thunder.
Now, whether my uncle thought the crash to be the sound of my fall, or
whether he heard in it God's voice denouncing murder, I will leave you
to guess. Certain it is, at least, that he was seized on by a kind of
panic fear, and that he ran into the house and left the door open behind
him. I followed as softly as I could, and, coming unheard into the
kitchen, stood and watched him.
He had found time to open the corner cupboard and bring out a great case
bottle of aqua vitae, and now sat with his back towards me at the table.
Ever and again he would be seized with a fit of deadly shuddering and
groan aloud, and carrying the bottle to his lips, drink down the raw
spirits by the mouthful.
I stepped forward, came close behind him where he sat, and suddenly
clapping my two hands down upon his shoulders--"Ah!" cried I.
My uncle gave a kind of broken cry like a sheep's bleat, flung up his
arms, and tumbled to the floor like a dead man. I was somewhat shocked
at this; but I had myself to look to first of all, and did not hesitate
to let him lie as he had fallen. The keys were hanging in the cupboard;
and it was my design to furnish myself with arms before my uncle should
come again to his senses and the power of devising evil. In the cupboard
were a few bottles, some apparently of medicine; a great many bills and
other papers, which I should willingly enough have rummaged, had I had
the time; and a few necessaries that were nothing to my purpose. Thence
I turned to the chests. The first was full of meal; the second of
moneybags and papers tied into sheaves; in the third, with many
other things (and these for the most part clothes) I found a rusty,
ugly-looking Highland dirk without the scabbard. This, then, I concealed
inside my waistcoat, and turned to my uncle.
He lay as he had fallen, all huddled, with one knee up and one arm
sprawling abroad; his face had a strange colour of blue, and he seemed
to have ceased breathing. Fear came on me that he was dead; then I
got water and dashed it in his face; and with that he seemed to come a
little to himself, working his mouth and fluttering his eyelids. At last
he looked up and saw me, and there came into his eyes a terror that was
not of this world.
"Come, come," said I; "sit up."
"Are ye alive?" he sobbed. "O man, are ye alive?"
"That am I," said I. "Small thanks to you!"
He had begun to seek for his breath with deep sighs. "The blue phial,"
said he--"in the aumry--the blue phial." His breath came slower still.
I ran to the cupboard, and, sure enough, found there a blue phial
of medicine, with the dose written on it on a paper, and this I
administered to him with what speed I might.
"It's the trouble," said he, reviving a little; "I have a trouble,
Davie. It's the heart."
I set him on a chair and looked at him. It is true I felt some pity for
a man that looked so sick, but I was full besides of righteous anger;
and I numbered over before him the points on which I wanted explanation:
why he lied to me at every word; why he feared that I should leave him;
why he disliked it to be hinted that he and my father were twins--"Is
that because it is true?" I asked; why he had given me money to which I
was convinced I had no claim; and, last of all, why he had tried to kill
me. He heard me all through in silence; and then, in a broken voice,
begged me to let him go to bed.
"I'll tell ye the morn," he said; "as sure as death I will."
And so weak was he that I could do nothing but consent. I locked him
into his room, however, and pocketed the key, and then returning to
the kitchen, made up such a blaze as had not shone there for many a long
year, and wrapping myself in my plaid, lay down upon the chests and fell
asleep. | After this direct confrontation, Davie is pretty surprised that the rest of the day isn't so bad. After breakfast, he finds Ebenezer's library, which he spends the rest of the afternoon perusing. Davie finds something a little odd, though. On the front page of a pamphlet ), there is an inscription in his dad's handwriting to his brother Ebenezer on his fifth birthday. But Davie is sure that Alexander was the younger brother. So either his dad learned to write really well when he was around four years old, or else he must have gotten Ebenezer's age wrong. Davie later asks Ebenezer if his father was an exceptionally quick student, and Ebenezer says no. Davie asks Ebenezer if he and Alexander were twins, and Ebenezer jumps up and grabs Davie by his jacket. Davie tells Ebenezer to let him go and asks what this is all about. Ebenezer pulls himself together and asks Davie not to speak of Alexander any more: it's too painful for him. Davie begins to wonder if his uncle is either crazy or trying to keep him from something that is rightfully his. Ebenezer tells Davie that he's set aside some money for him, from before his birth. It's 40 pounds - and there's a weird little negotiation here. At first, Ebenezer says that he's promised Davie 40 Scottish pounds, which would have been worth about 2 English pounds. But Davie says, "Pounds sterling, I believe!" , and his uncle agrees, even though 40 English pounds would be about 20 times the value of Ebenezer's original offer. Ebenezer sends Davie out the door while he counts out this money. Davie is sure that Ebenezer is lying to him about this whole setting-aside-money story, but he's okay with going along with it for now. So he steps outside and notices that a storm is coming in. Ebenezer calls Davie back in and gives him 37 guinea pieces . Davie is amazed by Ebenezer's sudden generosity when he is so obviously a terrible miser. Ebenezer says that, now, Davie owes him. Davie promises to do whatever Ebenezer wants . Ebenezer asks for help with the house and garden, as he's getting old. Davie accepts. Ebenezer suggests they start now and sends Davie - still in the dark, because Ebenezer hates lights in the house - to a tower at the end of the house for some papers. Davie dutifully heads outside to the stairs to the tower. It's pitch black outside and he has to feel his way along the wall to find the staircase, which is uneven and dangerous underfoot. What makes the staircase even more dangerous is that it is unfinished! It only rises to a certain point. Fortunately, a flash of lighting lights up the scene, preventing Davie from falling five stories straight down. Davie comes back down the stairs and another flash of lightning exposes his uncle standing there in the courtyard watching him. Ebenezer panics at the sound of a crash of thunder and runs back into the house, leaving the door open behind him. Davie sneaks in quietly and, when Ebenezer's back is turned, claps his hand on Ebenezer's shoulders. Ebenezer is startled and faints. Davie takes this opportunity to rummage around in closets looking for weapons. He finds a "Highland dirk" - a kind of long knife which he grabs. Ebenezer, meanwhile, slowly regains consciousness. He's obviously terrified and asks for a blue bottle of medicine for his heart, which Davie gives him. Davie is really angry, what with the whole attempted murder thing, and sits staring at his uncle for a while. The old man begs to be allowed to explain everything in the morning. Davie lets Ebenezer go to bed, locks Ebenezer in his room, and sleeps in front of the fire in the kitchen. |
Moving On
It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good
ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed,
iron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing
clippers are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of
ghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their
papers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where. The
courts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep.
Westminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might
sing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there,
walk.
The Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even
unto the Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded
proceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided
stools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of
Term sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation.
Outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and
parcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of
grass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside
Lincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket-porters, who have nothing to
do beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over
their heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it
thoughtfully.
There is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to
sit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on his
circuit could see him now! No full-bottomed wig, no red petticoats,
no fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. Merely a close-shaved
gentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea-bronze on the
judicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays
from the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell-fish shop as he
comes along and drinks iced ginger-beer!
The bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How
England can get on through four long summer months without its
bar--which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only
legitimate triumph in prosperity--is beside the question; assuredly
that shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. The
learned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the
unprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the
opposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing
infinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. The learned
gentleman who does the withering business and who blights all
opponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a French
watering-place. The learned gentleman who weeps by the pint on the
smallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. The very
learned gentleman who has cooled the natural heat of his gingery
complexion in pools and fountains of law until he has become great in
knotty arguments for term-time, when he poses the drowsy bench with
legal "chaff," inexplicable to the uninitiated and to most of the
initiated too, is roaming, with a characteristic delight in aridity
and dust, about Constantinople. Other dispersed fragments of the same
great palladium are to be found on the canals of Venice, at the
second cataract of the Nile, in the baths of Germany, and sprinkled
on the sea-sand all over the English coast. Scarcely one is to be
encountered in the deserted region of Chancery Lane. If such a lonely
member of the bar do flit across the waste and come upon a prowling
suitor who is unable to leave off haunting the scenes of his anxiety,
they frighten one another and retreat into opposite shades.
It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young
clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees,
pine for bliss with the beloved object, at Margate, Ramsgate, or
Gravesend. All the middle-aged clerks think their families too large.
All the unowned dogs who stray into the Inns of Court and pant about
staircases and other dry places seeking water give short howls of
aggravation. All the blind men's dogs in the streets draw their
masters against pumps or trip them over buckets. A shop with a
sun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a bowl of gold and silver fish
in the window, is a sanctuary. Temple Bar gets so hot that it is, to
the adjacent Strand and Fleet Street, what a heater is in an urn, and
keeps them simmering all night.
There are offices about the Inns of Court in which a man might be
cool, if any coolness were worth purchasing at such a price in
dullness; but the little thoroughfares immediately outside those
retirements seem to blaze. In Mr. Krook's court, it is so hot that
the people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the
pavement--Mr. Krook included, who there pursues his studies, with his
cat (who never is too hot) by his side. The Sol's Arms has
discontinued the Harmonic Meetings for the season, and Little Swills
is engaged at the Pastoral Gardens down the river, where he comes out
in quite an innocent manner and sings comic ditties of a juvenile
complexion calculated (as the bill says) not to wound the feelings of
the most fastidious mind.
Over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil of
rust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long
vacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer of Cook's Court, Cursitor
Street, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind as a
sympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as a
law-stationer aforesaid. He has more leisure for musing in Staple Inn
and in the Rolls Yard during the long vacation than at other seasons,
and he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it is in such hot
weather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-rolling
and a-bowling right round you.
Guster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon
in the long vacation, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby have it in
contemplation to receive company. The expected guests are rather
select than numerous, being Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and no more. From
Mr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself, both verbally
and in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers
for a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, as he expresses
it, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular
denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so
very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his
volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience;
but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number. Mrs.
Snagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel,
Chadband; and her attention was attracted to that Bark A 1, when she
was something flushed by the hot weather.
"My little woman," says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn,
"likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!"
So Guster, much impressed by regarding herself for the time as the
handmaid of Chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of
holding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little
drawing-room for tea. All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the
portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth,
the best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision
made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin
slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows
of anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be
brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. For Chadband is
rather a consuming vessel--the persecutors say a gorging vessel--and
can wield such weapons of the flesh as a knife and fork remarkably
well.
Mr. Snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations when
they are completed and coughing his cough of deference behind his
hand, says to Mrs. Snagsby, "At what time did you expect Mr. and Mrs.
Chadband, my love?"
"At six," says Mrs. Snagsby.
Mr. Snagsby observes in a mild and casual way that "it's gone that."
"Perhaps you'd like to begin without them," is Mrs. Snagsby's
reproachful remark.
Mr. Snagsby does look as if he would like it very much, but he says,
with his cough of mildness, "No, my dear, no. I merely named the
time."
"What's time," says Mrs. Snagsby, "to eternity?"
"Very true, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. "Only when a person lays in
victuals for tea, a person does it with a view--perhaps--more to
time. And when a time is named for having tea, it's better to come up
to it."
"To come up to it!" Mrs. Snagsby repeats with severity. "Up to it! As
if Mr. Chadband was a fighter!"
"Not at all, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby.
Here, Guster, who had been looking out of the bedroom window, comes
rustling and scratching down the little staircase like a popular
ghost, and falling flushed into the drawing-room, announces that Mr.
and Mrs. Chadband have appeared in the court. The bell at the inner
door in the passage immediately thereafter tinkling, she is
admonished by Mrs. Snagsby, on pain of instant reconsignment to her
patron saint, not to omit the ceremony of announcement. Much
discomposed in her nerves (which were previously in the best order)
by this threat, she so fearfully mutilates that point of state as to
announce "Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay,
whatsername!" and retires conscience-stricken from the presence.
Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general
appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs.
Chadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves
softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk
upright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were
inconvenient to him and he wanted to grovel, is very much in a
perspiration about the head, and never speaks without first putting
up his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers that he is
going to edify them.
"My friends," says Mr. Chadband, "peace be on this house! On the
master thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and on
the young men! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is peace? Is
it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and
beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore,
my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours."
In consequence of Mrs. Snagsby looking deeply edified, Mr. Snagsby
thinks it expedient on the whole to say amen, which is well received.
"Now, my friends," proceeds Mr. Chadband, "since I am upon this
theme--"
Guster presents herself. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice and
without removing her eyes from Chadband, says with dreadful
distinctness, "Go away!"
"Now, my friends," says Chadband, "since I am upon this theme, and in
my lowly path improving it--"
Guster is heard unaccountably to murmur "one thousing seven hundred
and eighty-two." The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, "Go away!"
"Now, my friends," says Mr. Chadband, "we will inquire in a spirit of
love--"
Still Guster reiterates "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two."
Mr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be
persecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile,
says, "Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!"
"One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which
he wish to know what the shilling ware for," says Guster, breathless.
"For?" returns Mrs. Chadband. "For his fare!"
Guster replied that "he insistes on one and eightpence or on
summonsizzing the party." Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are
proceeding to grow shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets the
tumult by lifting up his hand.
"My friends," says he, "I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It
is right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought not to
murmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!"
While Mrs. Snagsby, drawing her breath, looks hard at Mr. Snagsby, as
who should say, "You hear this apostle!" and while Mr. Chadband glows
with humility and train oil, Mrs. Chadband pays the money. It is Mr.
Chadband's habit--it is the head and front of his pretensions
indeed--to keep this sort of debtor and creditor account in the
smallest items and to post it publicly on the most trivial occasions.
"My friends," says Chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might justly
have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown.
O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!"
With which remark, which appears from its sound to be an extract in
verse, Mr. Chadband stalks to the table, and before taking a chair,
lifts up his admonitory hand.
"My friends," says he, "what is this which we now behold as being
spread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my
friends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? Because
we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of
the earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We
cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?"
Mr. Snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures to
observe in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, "No wings." But is
immediately frowned down by Mrs. Snagsby.
"I say, my friends," pursues Mr. Chadband, utterly rejecting and
obliterating Mr. Snagsby's suggestion, "why can we not fly? Is it
because we are calculated to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends,
without strength? We could not. What should we do without strength,
my friends? Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double
up, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground.
Then from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive
the strength that is necessary to our limbs? Is it," says Chadband,
glancing over the table, "from bread in various forms, from butter
which is churned from the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow,
from the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from
sausage, and from such like? It is. Then let us partake of the good
things which are set before us!"
The persecutors denied that there was any particular gift in Mr.
Chadband's piling verbose flights of stairs, one upon another, after
this fashion. But this can only be received as a proof of their
determination to persecute, since it must be within everybody's
experience that the Chadband style of oratory is widely received and
much admired.
Mr. Chadband, however, having concluded for the present, sits down at
Mr. Snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. The conversion
of nutriment of any sort into oil of the quality already mentioned
appears to be a process so inseparable from the constitution of this
exemplary vessel that in beginning to eat and drink, he may be
described as always becoming a kind of considerable oil mills or
other large factory for the production of that article on a wholesale
scale. On the present evening of the long vacation, in Cook's Court,
Cursitor Street, he does such a powerful stroke of business that the
warehouse appears to be quite full when the works cease.
At this period of the entertainment, Guster, who has never recovered
her first failure, but has neglected no possible or impossible means
of bringing the establishment and herself into contempt--among which
may be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly performing clashing
military music on Mr. Chadband's head with plates, and afterwards
crowning that gentleman with muffins--at which period of the
entertainment, Guster whispers Mr. Snagsby that he is wanted.
"And being wanted in the--not to put too fine a point upon it--in the
shop," says Mr. Snagsby, rising, "perhaps this good company will
excuse me for half a minute."
Mr. Snagsby descends and finds the two 'prentices intently
contemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm.
"Why, bless my heart," says Mr. Snagsby, "what's the matter!"
"This boy," says the constable, "although he's repeatedly told to,
won't move on--"
"I'm always a-moving on, sar," cries the boy, wiping away his grimy
tears with his arm. "I've always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever
since I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor I do
move!"
"He won't move on," says the constable calmly, with a slight
professional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in his
stiff stock, "although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and
therefore I am obliged to take him into custody. He's as obstinate a
young gonoph as I know. He WON'T move on."
"Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!" cries the boy, clutching quite
desperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of
Mr. Snagsby's passage.
"Don't you come none of that or I shall make blessed short work of
you!" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "My
instructions are that you are to move on. I have told you so five
hundred times."
"But where?" cries the boy.
"Well! Really, constable, you know," says Mr. Snagsby wistfully, and
coughing behind his hand his cough of great perplexity and doubt,
"really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?"
"My instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "My
instructions are that this boy is to move on."
Do you hear, Jo? It is nothing to you or to any one else that the
great lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few years
in this business to set you the example of moving on. The one grand
recipe remains for you--the profound philosophical prescription--the
be-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. Move on!
You are by no means to move off, Jo, for the great lights can't at
all agree about that. Move on!
Mr. Snagsby says nothing to this effect, says nothing at all indeed,
but coughs his forlornest cough, expressive of no thoroughfare in any
direction. By this time Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and Mrs. Snagsby,
hearing the altercation, have appeared upon the stairs. Guster having
never left the end of the passage, the whole household are assembled.
"The simple question is, sir," says the constable, "whether you know
this boy. He says you do."
Mrs. Snagsby, from her elevation, instantly cries out, "No he don't!"
"My lit-tle woman!" says Mr. Snagsby, looking up the staircase. "My
love, permit me! Pray have a moment's patience, my dear. I do know
something of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can't say that
there's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable." To whom the
law-stationer relates his Joful and woeful experience, suppressing
the half-crown fact.
"Well!" says the constable, "so far, it seems, he had grounds for
what he said. When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said you
knew him. Upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he was
acquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, and if
I'd call and make the inquiry, he'd appear. The young man don't seem
inclined to keep his word, but--Oh! Here IS the young man!"
Enter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat with the
chivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs.
"I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this row
going on," says Mr. Guppy to the law-stationer, "and as your name was
mentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be looked into."
"It was very good-natured of you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I am
obliged to you." And Mr. Snagsby again relates his experience, again
suppressing the half-crown fact.
"Now, I know where you live," says the constable, then, to Jo. "You
live down in Tom-all-Alone's. That's a nice innocent place to live
in, ain't it?"
"I can't go and live in no nicer place, sir," replies Jo. "They
wouldn't have nothink to say to me if I wos to go to a nice innocent
place fur to live. Who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such
a reg'lar one as me!"
"You are very poor, ain't you?" says the constable.
"Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral," replies Jo. "I leave
you to judge now! I shook these two half-crowns out of him," says the
constable, producing them to the company, "in only putting my hand
upon him!"
"They're wot's left, Mr. Snagsby," says Jo, "out of a sov-ring as wos
give me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as come to
my crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the
ouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the berrin-ground
wot he's berrid in. She ses to me she ses 'are you the boy at the
inkwhich?' she ses. I ses 'yes' I ses. She ses to me she ses 'can you
show me all them places?' I ses 'yes I can' I ses. And she ses to me
'do it' and I dun it and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it. And I
an't had much of the sov'ring neither," says Jo, with dirty tears,
"fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd
square it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved
another five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence
and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more on it."
"You don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the
sovereign, do you?" says the constable, eyeing him aside with
ineffable disdain.
"I don't know as I do, sir," replies Jo. "I don't expect nothink at
all, sir, much, but that's the true hist'ry on it."
"You see what he is!" the constable observes to the audience. "Well,
Mr. Snagsby, if I don't lock him up this time, will you engage for
his moving on?"
"No!" cries Mrs. Snagsby from the stairs.
"My little woman!" pleads her husband. "Constable, I have no doubt
he'll move on. You know you really must do it," says Mr. Snagsby.
"I'm everyways agreeable, sir," says the hapless Jo.
"Do it, then," observes the constable. "You know what you have got to
do. Do it! And recollect you won't get off so easy next time. Catch
hold of your money. Now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better
for all parties."
With this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun as
a likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors good
afternoon and makes the echoes of Cook's Court perform slow music for
him as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his iron-bound hat
in his hand for a little ventilation.
Now, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has
awakened more or less the curiosity of all the company. Mr. Guppy,
who has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has
been suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation,
takes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular
cross-examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by
the ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs
and drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of
the tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. Mr. Guppy
yielding his assent to this proposal, Jo is requested to follow into
the drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as a
witness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other shape
like a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying him
according to the best models. Nor is the examination unlike many such
model displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing and of its
being lengthy, for Mr. Guppy is sensible of his talent, and Mrs.
Snagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive disposition,
but that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law.
During the progress of this keen encounter, the vessel Chadband,
being merely engaged in the oil trade, gets aground and waits to be
floated off.
"Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "Either this boy sticks to it like
cobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats
anything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's."
Mrs. Chadband whispers Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims, "You don't say
so!"
"For years!" replied Mrs. Chadband.
"Has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years," Mrs. Snagsby
triumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy. "Mrs. Chadband--this gentleman's
wife--Reverend Mr. Chadband."
"Oh, indeed!" says Mr. Guppy.
"Before I married my present husband," says Mrs. Chadband.
"Was you a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, transferring
his cross-examination.
"No."
"NOT a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy.
Mrs. Chadband shakes her head.
"Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in
something, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, who likes nothing better than to
model his conversation on forensic principles.
"Not exactly that, either," replies Mrs. Chadband, humouring the joke
with a hard-favoured smile.
"Not exactly that, either!" repeats Mr. Guppy. "Very good. Pray,
ma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions
(we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and
Carboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? Take
time, ma'am. We shall come to it presently. Man or woman, ma'am?"
"Neither," says Mrs. Chadband as before.
"Oh! A child!" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. Snagsby
the regular acute professional eye which is thrown on British
jurymen. "Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us
WHAT child."
"You have got it at last, sir," says Mrs. Chadband with another
hard-favoured smile. "Well, sir, it was before your time, most
likely, judging from your appearance. I was left in charge of a child
named Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and
Carboy."
"Miss Summerson, ma'am!" cries Mr. Guppy, excited.
"I call her Esther Summerson," says Mrs. Chadband with austerity.
"There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther.
'Esther, do this! Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it."
"My dear ma'am," returns Mr. Guppy, moving across the small
apartment, "the humble individual who now addresses you received that
young lady in London when she first came here from the establishment
to which you have alluded. Allow me to have the pleasure of taking
you by the hand."
Mr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed
signal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his
pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Snagsby whispers "Hush!"
"My friends," says Chadband, "we have partaken in moderation" (which
was certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) "of the
comforts which have been provided for us. May this house live upon
the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may
it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it
proceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, have we partaken of
anything else? We have. My friends, of what else have we partaken? Of
spiritual profit? Yes. From whence have we derived that spiritual
profit? My young friend, stand forth!"
Jo, thus apostrophized, gives a slouch backward, and another slouch
forward, and another slouch to each side, and confronts the eloquent
Chadband with evident doubts of his intentions.
"My young friend," says Chadband, "you are to us a pearl, you are to
us a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And why, my
young friend?"
"I don't know," replies Jo. "I don't know nothink."
"My young friend," says Chadband, "it is because you know nothing
that you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young
friend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A
fish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my young friend. A
human boy. O glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young
friend? Because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom,
because you are capable of profiting by this discourse which I now
deliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a
stock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar.
O running stream of sparkling joy
To be a soaring human boy!
And do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? No.
Why do you not cool yourself in that stream now? Because you are in a
state of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, because
you are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a state of
bondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a spirit of
love, inquire."
At this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo, who seems to have
been gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his
face and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses
her belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend.
"My friends," says Mr. Chadband with his persecuted chin folding
itself into its fat smile again as he looks round, "it is right that
I should be humbled, it is right that I should be tried, it is right
that I should be mortified, it is right that I should be corrected. I
stumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride of my three
hours' improving. The account is now favourably balanced: my creditor
has accepted a composition. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be
joyful!"
Great sensation on the part of Mrs. Snagsby.
"My friends," says Chadband, looking round him in conclusion, "I will
not proceed with my young friend now. Will you come to-morrow, my
young friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am to be found to
deliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty
swallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, and upon the
day after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?"
(This with a cow-like lightness.)
Jo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms,
gives a shuffling nod. Mr. Guppy then throws him a penny, and Mrs.
Snagsby calls to Guster to see him safely out of the house. But
before he goes downstairs, Mr. Snagsby loads him with some broken
meats from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms.
So, Mr. Chadband--of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he
should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable
nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave
off, having once the audacity to begin--retires into private life
until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. Jo
moves on, through the long vacation, down to Blackfriars Bridge,
where he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle to his repast.
And there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great
cross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above a
red-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy's face one might
suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion
of the great, confused city--so golden, so high up, so far out of his
reach. There he sits, the sun going down, the river running fast, the
crowd flowing by him in two streams--everything moving on to some
purpose and to one end--until he is stirred up and told to "move on"
too. | Moving On In the long summer vacation of four months, the Courts of Law and Equity are shut up and everyone on vacation. At Mr. Snagsby's house, they are getting ready for company, with Guster the maid dropping things and causing a clatter. Mr. Chadband, the minister, and his wife, have come to tea. Chadband speaks in a booming prophetic voice, an Apostle, full of cliches. They are interrupted by a constable who holds the street boy, Jo, claiming he has money on him, and they suspect him of stealing. Jo has given Snagsby as a reference. The constable tells him he has to "move on." Mr. Guppy comes in and hears Jo's testimony that he was given the coin by a mysterious lady. Snagsby says the boy is innocent. Snagsby invites Guppy to tea where he hears Mrs. Chadband , tell about her former life as a housekeeper for Miss Barbary and the child Esther Summerson. Guppy perks up at the name of his beloved. Chadband uses the boy Jo as a subject to sermonize upon for his dark ignorance, and Jo wants nothing more than to "move on." |
It was not till the evening, after family prayers, that Angel found
opportunity of broaching to his father one or two subjects near his
heart. He had strung himself up to the purpose while kneeling behind
his brothers on the carpet, studying the little nails in the heels of
their walking boots. When the service was over they went out of the
room with their mother, and Mr Clare and himself were left alone.
The young man first discussed with the elder his plans for the
attainment of his position as a farmer on an extensive scale--either
in England or in the Colonies. His father then told him that, as he
had not been put to the expense of sending Angel up to Cambridge, he
had felt it his duty to set by a sum of money every year towards the
purchase or lease of land for him some day, that he might not feel
himself unduly slighted.
"As far as worldly wealth goes," continued his father, "you will no
doubt stand far superior to your brothers in a few years."
This considerateness on old Mr Clare's part led Angel onward to the
other and dearer subject. He observed to his father that he was
then six-and-twenty, and that when he should start in the farming
business he would require eyes in the back of his head to see to all
matters--some one would be necessary to superintend the domestic
labours of his establishment whilst he was afield. Would it not be
well, therefore, for him to marry?
His father seemed to think this idea not unreasonable; and then Angel
put the question--
"What kind of wife do you think would be best for me as a thrifty
hard-working farmer?"
"A truly Christian woman, who will be a help and a comfort to you in
your goings-out and your comings-in. Beyond that, it really matters
little. Such an one can be found; indeed, my earnest-minded friend
and neighbour, Dr Chant--"
"But ought she not primarily to be able to milk cows, churn good
butter, make immense cheeses; know how to sit hens and turkeys and
rear chickens, to direct a field of labourers in an emergency, and
estimate the value of sheep and calves?"
"Yes; a farmer's wife; yes, certainly. It would be desirable." Mr
Clare, the elder, had plainly never thought of these points before.
"I was going to add," he said, "that for a pure and saintly woman you
will not find one more to your true advantage, and certainly not more
to your mother's mind and my own, than your friend Mercy, whom you
used to show a certain interest in. It is true that my neighbour
Chant's daughter had lately caught up the fashion of the younger
clergy round about us for decorating the Communion-table--altar, as I
was shocked to hear her call it one day--with flowers and other stuff
on festival occasions. But her father, who is quite as opposed to
such flummery as I, says that can be cured. It is a mere girlish
outbreak which, I am sure, will not be permanent."
"Yes, yes; Mercy is good and devout, I know. But, father, don't you
think that a young woman equally pure and virtuous as Miss Chant,
but one who, in place of that lady's ecclesiastical accomplishments,
understands the duties of farm life as well as a farmer himself,
would suit me infinitely better?"
His father persisted in his conviction that a knowledge of a farmer's
wife's duties came second to a Pauline view of humanity; and the
impulsive Angel, wishing to honour his father's feelings and to
advance the cause of his heart at the same time, grew specious.
He said that fate or Providence had thrown in his way a woman who
possessed every qualification to be the helpmate of an agriculturist,
and was decidedly of a serious turn of mind. He would not say
whether or not she had attached herself to the sound Low Church
School of his father; but she would probably be open to conviction
on that point; she was a regular church-goer of simple faith;
honest-hearted, receptive, intelligent, graceful to a degree, chaste
as a vestal, and, in personal appearance, exceptionally beautiful.
"Is she of a family such as you would care to marry into--a lady, in
short?" asked his startled mother, who had come softly into the study
during the conversation.
"She is not what in common parlance is called a lady," said Angel,
unflinchingly, "for she is a cottager's daughter, as I am proud to
say. But she IS a lady, nevertheless--in feeling and nature."
"Mercy Chant is of a very good family."
"Pooh!--what's the advantage of that, mother?" said Angel quickly.
"How is family to avail the wife of a man who has to rough it as I
have, and shall have to do?"
"Mercy is accomplished. And accomplishments have their charm,"
returned his mother, looking at him through her silver spectacles.
"As to external accomplishments, what will be the use of them in the
life I am going to lead?--while as to her reading, I can take that
in hand. She'll be apt pupil enough, as you would say if you knew
her. She's brim full of poetry--actualized poetry, if I may use the
expression. She LIVES what paper-poets only write... And she is an
unimpeachable Christian, I am sure; perhaps of the very tribe, genus,
and species you desire to propagate."
"O Angel, you are mocking!"
"Mother, I beg pardon. But as she really does attend Church almost
every Sunday morning, and is a good Christian girl, I am sure you
will tolerate any social shortcomings for the sake of that quality,
and feel that I may do worse than choose her." Angel waxed quite
earnest on that rather automatic orthodoxy in his beloved Tess which
(never dreaming that it might stand him in such good stead) he had
been prone to slight when observing it practised by her and the other
milkmaids, because of its obvious unreality amid beliefs essentially
naturalistic.
In their sad doubts as to whether their son had himself any right
whatever to the title he claimed for the unknown young woman, Mr and
Mrs Clare began to feel it as an advantage not to be overlooked that
she at least was sound in her views; especially as the conjunction of
the pair must have arisen by an act of Providence; for Angel never
would have made orthodoxy a condition of his choice. They said
finally that it was better not to act in a hurry, but that they would
not object to see her.
Angel therefore refrained from declaring more particulars now.
He felt that, single-minded and self-sacrificing as his parents
were, there yet existed certain latent prejudices of theirs, as
middle-class people, which it would require some tact to overcome.
For though legally at liberty to do as he chose, and though their
daughter-in-law's qualifications could make no practical difference
to their lives, in the probability of her living far away from them,
he wished for affection's sake not to wound their sentiment in the
most important decision of his life.
He observed his own inconsistencies in dwelling upon accidents in
Tess's life as if they were vital features. It was for herself that
he loved Tess; her soul, her heart, her substance--not for her skill
in the dairy, her aptness as his scholar, and certainly not for
her simple formal faith-professions. Her unsophisticated open-air
existence required no varnish of conventionality to make it palatable
to him. He held that education had as yet but little affected the
beats of emotion and impulse on which domestic happiness depends. It
was probable that, in the lapse of ages, improved systems of moral
and intellectual training would appreciably, perhaps considerably,
elevate the involuntary and even the unconscious instincts of human
nature; but up to the present day, culture, as far as he could see,
might be said to have affected only the mental epiderm of those
lives which had been brought under its influence. This belief was
confirmed by his experience of women, which, having latterly been
extended from the cultivated middle-class into the rural community,
had taught him how much less was the intrinsic difference between the
good and wise woman of one social stratum and the good and wise woman
of another social stratum, than between the good and bad, the wise
and the foolish, of the same stratum or class.
It was the morning of his departure. His brothers had already left
the Vicarage to proceed on a walking tour in the north, whence one
was to return to his college, and the other to his curacy. Angel
might have accompanied them, but preferred to rejoin his sweetheart
at Talbothays. He would have been an awkward member of the
party; for, though the most appreciative humanist, the most ideal
religionist, even the best-versed Christologist of the three, there
was alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness
would not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him. To
neither Felix nor Cuthbert had he ventured to mention Tess.
His mother made him sandwiches, and his father accompanied him,
on his own mare, a little way along the road. Having fairly well
advanced his own affairs, Angel listened in a willing silence, as
they jogged on together through the shady lanes, to his father's
account of his parish difficulties, and the coldness of brother
clergymen whom he loved, because of his strict interpretations of
the New Testament by the light of what they deemed a pernicious
Calvinistic doctrine.
"Pernicious!" said Mr Clare, with genial scorn; and he proceeded to
recount experiences which would show the absurdity of that idea.
He told of wondrous conversions of evil livers of which he had been
the instrument, not only amongst the poor, but amongst the rich and
well-to-do; and he also candidly admitted many failures.
As an instance of the latter, he mentioned the case of a young
upstart squire named d'Urberville, living some forty miles off, in
the neighbourhood of Trantridge.
"Not one of the ancient d'Urbervilles of Kingsbere and other places?"
asked his son. "That curiously historic worn-out family with its
ghostly legend of the coach-and-four?"
"O no. The original d'Urbervilles decayed and disappeared sixty
or eighty years ago--at least, I believe so. This seems to be a
new family which had taken the name; for the credit of the former
knightly line I hope they are spurious, I'm sure. But it is odd
to hear you express interest in old families. I thought you set less
store by them even than I."
"You misapprehend me, father; you often do," said Angel with a
little impatience. "Politically I am sceptical as to the virtue of
their being old. Some of the wise even among themselves 'exclaim
against their own succession,' as Hamlet puts it; but lyrically,
dramatically, and even historically, I am tenderly attached to them."
This distinction, though by no means a subtle one, was yet too
subtle for Mr Clare the elder, and he went on with the story he had
been about to relate; which was that after the death of the senior
so-called d'Urberville, the young man developed the most culpable
passions, though he had a blind mother, whose condition should have
made him know better. A knowledge of his career having come to
the ears of Mr Clare, when he was in that part of the country
preaching missionary sermons, he boldly took occasion to speak to
the delinquent on his spiritual state. Though he was a stranger,
occupying another's pulpit, he had felt this to be his duty, and
took for his text the words from St Luke: "Thou fool, this night thy
soul shall be required of thee!" The young man much resented this
directness of attack, and in the war of words which followed when
they met he did not scruple publicly to insult Mr Clare, without
respect for his gray hairs.
Angel flushed with distress.
"Dear father," he said sadly, "I wish you would not expose yourself
to such gratuitous pain from scoundrels!"
"Pain?" said his father, his rugged face shining in the ardour of
self-abnegation. "The only pain to me was pain on his account, poor,
foolish young man. Do you suppose his incensed words could give
me any pain, or even his blows? 'Being reviled we bless; being
persecuted we suffer it; being defamed we entreat; we are made as the
filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things unto this
day.' Those ancient and noble words to the Corinthians are strictly
true at this present hour."
"Not blows, father? He did not proceed to blows?"
"No, he did not. Though I have borne blows from men in a mad state
of intoxication."
"No!"
"A dozen times, my boy. What then? I have saved them from the guilt
of murdering their own flesh and blood thereby; and they have lived
to thank me, and praise God."
"May this young man do the same!" said Angel fervently. "But I fear
otherwise, from what you say."
"We'll hope, nevertheless," said Mr Clare. "And I continue to pray
for him, though on this side of the grave we shall probably never
meet again. But, after all, one of those poor words of mine may
spring up in his heart as a good seed some day."
Now, as always, Clare's father was sanguine as a child; and though
the younger could not accept his parent's narrow dogma, he revered
his practice and recognized the hero under the pietist. Perhaps he
revered his father's practice even more now than ever, seeing that,
in the question of making Tessy his wife, his father had not once
thought of inquiring whether she were well provided or penniless.
The same unworldliness was what had necessitated Angel's getting
a living as a farmer, and would probably keep his brothers in the
position of poor parsons for the term of their activities; yet Angel
admired it none the less. Indeed, despite his own heterodoxy, Angel
often felt that he was nearer to his father on the human side than
was either of his brethren. | Later that evening, Angel and his father are left alone together, and Angel seizes the opportunity to talk to his dad about his plans. His father tells him that, since he didn't pay for his college education like he did for Angel's brothers, he instead put aside that money for Angel to buy land with. Angel is appropriately grateful, and mentions that he might, you know, be thinking about getting married. His father agrees that marriage is great--provided it's to a saintly and devout Christian woman. Angel's father tries to push the Mercy Chant card, but Angel interrupts. Yes, yes, Angel says, but isn't it also important that she be good at farming? Angel's mother comes in, and says she hopes that the young lady in question is, in fact, a "lady"--someone he wouldn't be embarrassed to invite among polite, fancy company. He tells them all about Tess, emphasizing that she is a regular church-goer. They finally agree to meet her, and advise him to take things slowly. Even though Angel can legally do what he likes as far as marriage, he doesn't push the point. He goes back to the dairy to see Tess, and his father rides part of the way with him. His father tells him about his efforts to convert wealthy, party-animal types, and how he has often failed. One of the rich people Mr. Clare had been trying to work with was a Mr. D'Urberville. Angel perks up--he's heard of that old family, since their estates were close to the dairy, and knows something about their family history, including a ghost story about a coach and four . Mr. Clare says it's some new family that has adopted the old name. The original family died out more than sixty years before. Anyway, this Alec D'Urberville guy is a total jerk, and when Mr. Clare tried gently to point out the errors of his ways, Alec made fun of him in public. Angel gets upset on his father's behalf, of course, but his father takes it all in stride, and says he'll just keep trying. |
The next day Jude Fawley was pausing in his bedroom with the sloping
ceiling, looking at the books on the table, and then at the black
mark on the plaster above them, made by the smoke of his lamp in past
months.
It was Sunday afternoon, four-and-twenty hours after his meeting with
Arabella Donn. During the whole bygone week he had been resolving to
set this afternoon apart for a special purpose,--the re-reading of
his Greek Testament--his new one, with better type than his old copy,
following Griesbach's text as amended by numerous correctors, and
with variorum readings in the margin. He was proud of the book,
having obtained it by boldly writing to its London publisher, a thing
he had never done before.
He had anticipated much pleasure in this afternoon's reading, under
the quiet roof of his great-aunt's house as formerly, where he now
slept only two nights a week. But a new thing, a great hitch, had
happened yesterday in the gliding and noiseless current of his life,
and he felt as a snake must feel who has sloughed off its winter
skin, and cannot understand the brightness and sensitiveness of its
new one.
He would not go out to meet her, after all. He sat down, opened the
book, and with his elbows firmly planted on the table, and his hands
to his temples, began at the beginning:
HE KAINE DIATHEKE
Had he promised to call for her? Surely he had! She would wait
indoors, poor girl, and waste all her afternoon on account of him.
There was a something in her, too, which was very winning, apart from
promises. He ought not to break faith with her. Even though he had
only Sundays and week-day evenings for reading he could afford one
afternoon, seeing that other young men afforded so many. After
to-day he would never probably see her again. Indeed, it would be
impossible, considering what his plans were.
In short, as if materially, a compelling arm of extraordinary
muscular power seized hold of him--something which had nothing in
common with the spirits and influences that had moved him hitherto.
This seemed to care little for his reason and his will, nothing for
his so-called elevated intentions, and moved him along, as a violent
schoolmaster a schoolboy he has seized by the collar, in a direction
which tended towards the embrace of a woman for whom he had no
respect, and whose life had nothing in common with his own except
locality.
HE KAINE DIATHEKE was no more heeded, and the predestinate Jude
sprang up and across the room. Foreseeing such an event he had
already arrayed himself in his best clothes. In three minutes he was
out of the house and descending by the path across the wide vacant
hollow of corn-ground which lay between the village and the isolated
house of Arabella in the dip beyond the upland.
As he walked he looked at his watch. He could be back in two hours,
easily, and a good long time would still remain to him for reading
after tea.
Passing the few unhealthy fir-trees and cottage where the path
joined the highway he hastened along, and struck away to the left,
descending the steep side of the country to the west of the Brown
House. Here at the base of the chalk formation he neared the brook
that oozed from it, and followed the stream till he reached her
dwelling. A smell of piggeries came from the back, and the grunting
of the originators of that smell. He entered the garden, and knocked
at the door with the knob of his stick.
Somebody had seen him through the window, for a male voice on the
inside said:
"Arabella! Here's your young man come coorting! Mizzle, my girl!"
Jude winced at the words. Courting in such a businesslike aspect as
it evidently wore to the speaker was the last thing he was thinking
of. He was going to walk with her, perhaps kiss her; but "courting"
was too coolly purposeful to be anything but repugnant to his ideas.
The door was opened and he entered, just as Arabella came downstairs
in radiant walking attire.
"Take a chair, Mr. What's-your-name?" said her father, an energetic,
black-whiskered man, in the same businesslike tones Jude had heard
from outside.
"I'd rather go out at once, wouldn't you?" she whispered to Jude.
"Yes," said he. "We'll walk up to the Brown House and back, we can
do it in half an hour."
Arabella looked so handsome amid her untidy surroundings that he felt
glad he had come, and all the misgivings vanished that had hitherto
haunted him.
First they clambered to the top of the great down, during which
ascent he had occasionally to take her hand to assist her. Then
they bore off to the left along the crest into the ridgeway, which
they followed till it intersected the high-road at the Brown
House aforesaid, the spot of his former fervid desires to behold
Christminster. But he forgot them now. He talked the commonest
local twaddle to Arabella with greater zest than he would have felt
in discussing all the philosophies with all the Dons in the recently
adored university, and passed the spot where he had knelt to Diana
and Phoebus without remembering that there were any such people in
the mythology, or that the sun was anything else than a useful
lamp for illuminating Arabella's face. An indescribable lightness
of heel served to lift him along; and Jude, the incipient scholar,
prospective D.D., professor, bishop, or what not, felt himself
honoured and glorified by the condescension of this handsome country
wench in agreeing to take a walk with him in her Sunday frock and
ribbons.
They reached the Brown House barn--the point at which he had planned
to turn back. While looking over the vast northern landscape from
this spot they were struck by the rising of a dense volume of smoke
from the neighbourhood of the little town which lay beneath them at a
distance of a couple of miles.
"It is a fire," said Arabella. "Let's run and see it--do! It is not
far!"
The tenderness which had grown up in Jude's bosom left him no will to
thwart her inclination now--which pleased him in affording him excuse
for a longer time with her. They started off down the hill almost at
a trot; but on gaining level ground at the bottom, and walking a
mile, they found that the spot of the fire was much further off than
it had seemed.
Having begun their journey, however, they pushed on; but it was not
till five o'clock that they found themselves on the scene,--the
distance being altogether about half-a-dozen miles from Marygreen,
and three from Arabella's. The conflagration had been got under
by the time they reached it, and after a short inspection of the
melancholy ruins they retraced their steps--their course lying
through the town of Alfredston.
Arabella said she would like some tea, and they entered an inn of an
inferior class, and gave their order. As it was not for beer they
had a long time to wait. The maid-servant recognized Jude, and
whispered her surprise to her mistress in the background, that he,
the student "who kept hisself up so particular," should have suddenly
descended so low as to keep company with Arabella. The latter
guessed what was being said, and laughed as she met the serious and
tender gaze of her lover--the low and triumphant laugh of a careless
woman who sees she is winning her game.
They sat and looked round the room, and at the picture of Samson and
Delilah which hung on the wall, and at the circular beer-stains on
the table, and at the spittoons underfoot filled with sawdust. The
whole aspect of the scene had that depressing effect on Jude which
few places can produce like a tap-room on a Sunday evening when
the setting sun is slanting in, and no liquor is going, and the
unfortunate wayfarer finds himself with no other haven of rest.
It began to grow dusk. They could not wait longer, really, for the
tea, they said. "Yet what else can we do?" asked Jude. "It is a
three-mile walk for you."
"I suppose we can have some beer," said Arabella.
"Beer, oh yes. I had forgotten that. Somehow it seems odd to come
to a public-house for beer on a Sunday evening."
"But we didn't."
"No, we didn't." Jude by this time wished he was out of such an
uncongenial atmosphere; but he ordered the beer, which was promptly
brought.
Arabella tasted it. "Ugh!" she said.
Jude tasted. "What's the matter with it?" he asked. "I don't
understand beer very much now, it is true. I like it well enough,
but it is bad to read on, and I find coffee better. But this seems
all right."
"Adulterated--I can't touch it!" She mentioned three or four
ingredients that she detected in the liquor beyond malt and hops,
much to Jude's surprise.
"How much you know!" he said good-humouredly.
Nevertheless she returned to the beer and drank her share, and they
went on their way. It was now nearly dark, and as soon as they had
withdrawn from the lights of the town they walked closer together,
till they touched each other. She wondered why he did not put his
arm round her waist, but he did not; he merely said what to himself
seemed a quite bold enough thing: "Take my arm."
She took it, thoroughly, up to the shoulder. He felt the warmth of
her body against his, and putting his stick under his other arm held
with his right hand her right as it rested in its place.
"Now we are well together, dear, aren't we?" he observed.
"Yes," said she; adding to herself: "Rather mild!"
"How fast I have become!" he was thinking.
Thus they walked till they reached the foot of the upland, where they
could see the white highway ascending before them in the gloom. From
this point the only way of getting to Arabella's was by going up the
incline, and dipping again into her valley on the right. Before they
had climbed far they were nearly run into by two men who had been
walking on the grass unseen.
"These lovers--you find 'em out o' doors in all seasons and
weathers--lovers and homeless dogs only," said one of the men as
they vanished down the hill.
Arabella tittered lightly.
"Are we lovers?" asked Jude.
"You know best."
"But you can tell me?"
For answer she inclined her head upon his shoulder. Jude took the
hint, and encircling her waist with his arm, pulled her to him and
kissed her.
They walked now no longer arm in arm but, as she had desired, clasped
together. After all, what did it matter since it was dark, said Jude
to himself. When they were half-way up the long hill they paused as
by arrangement, and he kissed her again. They reached the top, and
he kissed her once more.
"You can keep your arm there, if you would like to," she said gently.
He did so, thinking how trusting she was.
Thus they slowly went towards her home. He had left his cottage
at half-past three, intending to be sitting down again to the New
Testament by half-past five. It was nine o'clock when, with another
embrace, he stood to deliver her up at her father's door.
She asked him to come in, if only for a minute, as it would seem so
odd otherwise, and as if she had been out alone in the dark. He gave
way, and followed her in. Immediately that the door was opened he
found, in addition to her parents, several neighbours sitting round.
They all spoke in a congratulatory manner, and took him seriously as
Arabella's intended partner.
They did not belong to his set or circle, and he felt out of place
and embarrassed. He had not meant this: a mere afternoon of
pleasant walking with Arabella, that was all he had meant. He did
not stay longer than to speak to her stepmother, a simple, quiet
woman without features or character; and bidding them all good night
plunged with a sense of relief into the track over the down.
But that sense was only temporary: Arabella soon re-asserted her
sway in his soul. He walked as if he felt himself to be another man
from the Jude of yesterday. What were his books to him? what were
his intentions, hitherto adhered to so strictly, as to not wasting a
single minute of time day by day? "Wasting!" It depended on your
point of view to define that: he was just living for the first
time: not wasting life. It was better to love a woman than to be a
graduate, or a parson; ay, or a pope!
When he got back to the house his aunt had gone to bed, and a general
consciousness of his neglect seemed written on the face of all things
confronting him. He went upstairs without a light, and the dim
interior of his room accosted him with sad inquiry. There lay his
book open, just as he had left it, and the capital letters on the
title-page regarded him with fixed reproach in the grey starlight,
like the unclosed eyes of a dead man:
HE KAINE DIATHEKE
* * * * * *
Jude had to leave early next morning for his usual week of absence at
lodgings; and it was with a sense of futility that he threw into his
basket upon his tools and other necessaries the unread book he had
brought with him.
He kept his impassioned doings a secret almost from himself.
Arabella, on the contrary, made them public among all her friends
and acquaintances.
Retracing by the light of dawn the road he had followed a few hours
earlier under cover of darkness, with his sweetheart by his side, he
reached the bottom of the hill, where he walked slowly, and stood
still. He was on the spot where he had given her the first kiss. As
the sun had only just risen it was possible that nobody had passed
there since. Jude looked on the ground and sighed. He looked
closely, and could just discern in the damp dust the imprints of
their feet as they had stood locked in each other's arms. She was
not there now, and "the embroidery of imagination upon the stuff of
nature" so depicted her past presence that a void was in his heart
which nothing could fill. A pollard willow stood close to the place,
and that willow was different from all other willows in the world.
Utter annihilation of the six days which must elapse before he could
see her again as he had promised would have been his intensest wish
if he had had only the week to live.
An hour and a half later Arabella came along the same way with her
two companions of the Saturday. She passed unheedingly the scene of
the kiss, and the willow that marked it, though chattering freely on
the subject to the other two.
"And what did he tell 'ee next?"
"Then he said--" And she related almost word for word some of his
tenderest speeches. If Jude had been behind the fence he would have
felt not a little surprised at learning how very few of his sayings
and doings on the previous evening were private.
"You've got him to care for 'ee a bit, 'nation if you han't!"
murmured Anny judicially. "It's well to be you!"
In a few moments Arabella replied in a curiously low, hungry tone of
latent sensuousness: "I've got him to care for me: yes! But I want
him to more than care for me; I want him to have me--to marry me! I
must have him. I can't do without him. He's the sort of man I long
for. I shall go mad if I can't give myself to him altogether! I
felt I should when I first saw him!"
"As he is a romancing, straightfor'ard, honest chap, he's to be had,
and as a husband, if you set about catching him in the right way."
Arabella remained thinking awhile. "What med be the right way?" she
asked.
"Oh you don't know--you don't!" said Sarah, the third girl.
"On my word I don't!--No further, that is, than by plain courting,
and taking care he don't go too far!"
The third girl looked at the second. "She DON'T know!"
"'Tis clear she don't!" said Anny.
"And having lived in a town, too, as one may say! Well, we can teach
'ee som'at then, as well as you us."
"Yes. And how do you mean--a sure way to gain a man? Take me for an
innocent, and have done wi' it!"
"As a husband."
"As a husband."
"A countryman that's honourable and serious-minded such as he; God
forbid that I should say a sojer, or sailor, or commercial gent from
the towns, or any of them that be slippery with poor women! I'd do
no friend that harm!"
"Well, such as he, of course!"
Arabella's companions looked at each other, and turning up their eyes
in drollery began smirking. Then one went up close to Arabella, and,
although nobody was near, imparted some information in a low tone,
the other observing curiously the effect upon Arabella.
"Ah!" said the last-named slowly. "I own I didn't think of that
way! ... But suppose he ISN'T honourable? A woman had better not
have tried it!"
"Nothing venture nothing have! Besides, you make sure that he's
honourable before you begin. You'd be safe enough with yours. I
wish I had the chance! Lots of girls do it; or do you think they'd
get married at all?"
Arabella pursued her way in silent thought. "I'll try it!" she
whispered; but not to them. | The next day, a Sunday, Jude plans to read his New Greek testament. But eventually, all his good intentions evaporate, and he goes off to visit Arabella, promising himself that he will return in two hours. Arabella's father accepts Jude as his daughter's suitor, but Jude is embarrassed at this interpretation. He goes out walking with Arabella, and before he knows it, they have walked a great distance. They are forced to stop at an inn for tea, but only beer is available. Later, they walk home together in the dark, often stealing kisses, and Jude returns home quite late in the evening. His Greek and Latin are forgotten and he is obsessed with Arabella. Arabella discusses her success with Jude with her friends, and they advise her to seduce him so that he will be forced to marry her if she becomes pregnant. |
|ANNE had her "good" summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Diana
fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lover's Lane
and the Dryad's Bubble and Willowmere and Victoria Island afforded.
Marilla offered no objections to Anne's gypsyings. The Spencervale
doctor who had come the night Minnie May had the croup met Anne at the
house of a patient one afternoon early in vacation, looked her over
sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and sent a message to
Marilla Cuthbert by another person. It was:
"Keep that redheaded girl of yours in the open air all summer and don't
let her read books until she gets more spring into her step."
This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne's death
warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a
result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and
frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart's
content; and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a
step that would have satisfied the Spencervale doctor and a heart full
of ambition and zest once more.
"I feel just like studying with might and main," she declared as she
brought her books down from the attic. "Oh, you good old friends, I'm
glad to see your honest faces once more--yes, even you, geometry. I've
had a perfectly beautiful summer, Marilla, and now I'm rejoicing as a
strong man to run a race, as Mr. Allan said last Sunday. Doesn't Mr.
Allan preach magnificent sermons? Mrs. Lynde says he is improving every
day and the first thing we know some city church will gobble him up
and then we'll be left and have to turn to and break in another green
preacher. But I don't see the use of meeting trouble halfway, do you,
Marilla? I think it would be better just to enjoy Mr. Allan while we
have him. If I were a man I think I'd be a minister. They can have
such an influence for good, if their theology is sound; and it must be
thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers' hearts. Why
can't women be ministers, Marilla? I asked Mrs. Lynde that and she was
shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might
be female ministers in the States and she believed there was, but thank
goodness we hadn't got to that stage in Canada yet and she hoped we
never would. But I don't see why. I think women would make splendid
ministers. When there is a social to be got up or a church tea or
anything else to raise money the women have to turn to and do the work.
I'm sure Mrs. Lynde can pray every bit as well as Superintendent Bell
and I've no doubt she could preach too with a little practice."
"Yes, I believe she could," said Marilla dryly. "She does plenty of
unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong
in Avonlea with Rachel to oversee them."
"Marilla," said Anne in a burst of confidence, "I want to tell you
something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me
terribly--on Sunday afternoons, that is, when I think specially about
such matters. I do really want to be good; and when I'm with you or Mrs.
Allan or Miss Stacy I want it more than ever and I want to do just what
would please you and what you would approve of. But mostly when I'm with
Mrs. Lynde I feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the
very thing she tells me I oughtn't to do. I feel irresistibly tempted
to do it. Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you
think it's because I'm really bad and unregenerate?"
Marilla looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed.
"If you are I guess I am too, Anne, for Rachel often has that very
effect on me. I sometimes think she'd have more of an influence for
good, as you say yourself, if she didn't keep nagging people to do
right. There should have been a special commandment against nagging.
But there, I shouldn't talk so. Rachel is a good Christian woman and she
means well. There isn't a kinder soul in Avonlea and she never shirks
her share of work."
"I'm very glad you feel the same," said Anne decidedly. "It's so
encouraging. I shan't worry so much over that after this. But I dare say
there'll be other things to worry me. They keep coming up new all the
time--things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and
there's another right after. There are so many things to be thought over
and decided when you're beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the
time thinking them over and deciding what is right. It's a serious thing
to grow up, isn't it, Marilla? But when I have such good friends as
you and Matthew and Mrs. Allan and Miss Stacy I ought to grow up
successfully, and I'm sure it will be my own fault if I don't. I feel
it's a great responsibility because I have only the one chance. If I
don't grow up right I can't go back and begin over again. I've grown two
inches this summer, Marilla. Mr. Gillis measured me at Ruby's party. I'm
so glad you made my new dresses longer. That dark-green one is so pretty
and it was sweet of you to put on the flounce. Of course I know it
wasn't really necessary, but flounces are so stylish this fall and Josie
Pye has flounces on all her dresses. I know I'll be able to study better
because of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my
mind about that flounce."
"It's worth something to have that," admitted Marilla.
Miss Stacy came back to Avonlea school and found all her pupils eager
for work once more. Especially did the Queen's class gird up their loins
for the fray, for at the end of the coming year, dimly shadowing their
pathway already, loomed up that fateful thing known as "the Entrance,"
at the thought of which one and all felt their hearts sink into their
very shoes. Suppose they did not pass! That thought was doomed to
haunt Anne through the waking hours of that winter, Sunday afternoons
inclusive, to the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological
problems. When Anne had bad dreams she found herself staring miserably
at pass lists of the Entrance exams, where Gilbert Blythe's name was
blazoned at the top and in which hers did not appear at all.
But it was a jolly, busy, happy swift-flying winter. Schoolwork was
as interesting, class rivalry as absorbing, as of yore. New worlds of
thought, feeling, and ambition, fresh, fascinating fields of unexplored
knowledge seemed to be opening out before Anne's eager eyes.
"Hills peeped o'er hill and Alps on Alps arose."
Much of all this was due to Miss Stacy's tactful, careful, broadminded
guidance. She led her class to think and explore and discover for
themselves and encouraged straying from the old beaten paths to a degree
that quite shocked Mrs. Lynde and the school trustees, who viewed all
innovations on established methods rather dubiously.
Apart from her studies Anne expanded socially, for Marilla, mindful of
the Spencervale doctor's dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings.
The Debating Club flourished and gave several concerts; there were one
or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were sleigh
drives and skating frolics galore.
Between times Anne grew, shooting up so rapidly that Marilla was
astonished one day, when they were standing side by side, to find the
girl was taller than herself.
"Why, Anne, how you've grown!" she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh
followed on the words. Marilla felt a queer regret over Anne's inches.
The child she had learned to love had vanished somehow and here was this
tall, serious-eyed girl of fifteen, with the thoughtful brows and the
proudly poised little head, in her place. Marilla loved the girl as much
as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a queer sorrowful
sense of loss. And that night, when Anne had gone to prayer meeting
with Diana, Marilla sat alone in the wintry twilight and indulged in the
weakness of a cry. Matthew, coming in with a lantern, caught her at it
and gazed at her in such consternation that Marilla had to laugh through
her tears.
"I was thinking about Anne," she explained. "She's got to be such a big
girl--and she'll probably be away from us next winter. I'll miss her
terrible."
"She'll be able to come home often," comforted Matthew, to whom Anne was
as yet and always would be the little, eager girl he had brought home
from Bright River on that June evening four years before. "The branch
railroad will be built to Carmody by that time."
"It won't be the same thing as having her here all the time," sighed
Marilla gloomily, determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted.
"But there--men can't understand these things!"
There were other changes in Anne no less real than the physical change.
For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the
more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. Marilla
noticed and commented on this also.
"You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as
many big words. What has come over you?"
Anne colored and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked
dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on
the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine.
"I don't know--I don't want to talk as much," she said, denting her
chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. "It's nicer to think dear, pretty
thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to
have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don't want to use
big words any more. It's almost a pity, isn't it, now that I'm really
growing big enough to say them if I did want to. It's fun to be almost
grown up in some ways, but it's not the kind of fun I expected, Marilla.
There's so much to learn and do and think that there isn't time for big
words. Besides, Miss Stacy says the short ones are much stronger and
better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as possible. It was
hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I
could think of--and I thought of any number of them. But I've got used
to it now and I see it's so much better."
"What has become of your story club? I haven't heard you speak of it for
a long time."
"The story club isn't in existence any longer. We hadn't time for
it--and anyhow I think we had got tired of it. It was silly to be
writing about love and murder and elopements and mysteries. Miss Stacy
sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she
won't let us write anything but what might happen in Avonlea in our own
lives, and she criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own
too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to
look for them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether,
but Miss Stacy said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself
to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to."
"You've only two more months before the Entrance," said Marilla. "Do you
think you'll be able to get through?"
Anne shivered.
"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'll be all right--and then I get
horribly afraid. We've studied hard and Miss Stacy has drilled us
thoroughly, but we mayn't get through for all that. We've each got a
stumbling block. Mine is geometry of course, and Jane's is Latin, and
Ruby and Charlie's is algebra, and Josie's is arithmetic. Moody Spurgeon
says he feels it in his bones that he is going to fail in English
history. Miss Stacy is going to give us examinations in June just as
hard as we'll have at the Entrance and mark us just as strictly, so
we'll have some idea. I wish it was all over, Marilla. It haunts me.
Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I'll do if I don't
pass."
"Why, go to school next year and try again," said Marilla unconcernedly.
"Oh, I don't believe I'd have the heart for it. It would be such a
disgrace to fail, especially if Gil--if the others passed. And I get so
nervous in an examination that I'm likely to make a mess of it. I wish I
had nerves like Jane Andrews. Nothing rattles her."
Anne sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the spring
world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things
upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book.
There would be other springs, but if she did not succeed in passing the
Entrance, Anne felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently
to enjoy them. | Marilla let Anne avoid studies and spend time outside with Diana all summer because the doctor said that Anne needed open air. When September came, Anne was refreshed and eager to return to her studies. As Anne takes her school books down from the attic, she and Marilla discuss why women can't be ministers and how Anne tries to be a good person but feels tempted to do whatever Mrs. Rachel Lynde tells her not to do. School begins and all the students in Anne's class become immediately preoccupied with whether they will pass the entrance exam to Queen's. Throughout the school year, Anne studies hard, participates in Debating Club concerts, socializes, grows taller, and becomes quieter. Marilla feels a sense of sorrow over losing the young version of Anne, but Matthew says that Anne will visit often once she goes away to Queen's. In the spring, Marilla asks Anne about her growing quieter and using shorter words. Anne says that she has begun to enjoy keeping thoughts in her head and that Miss Stacy says short words are stronger. Anne also tells Marilla that the story club disbanded some time ago because everyone needed more time for their studies. With only two months until the entrance exam, Anne wishes she could go outside and enjoy nature, but she focuses on studying instead |
AT one o'clock the next day, Adam was alone in his dull upper room;
his watch lay before him on the table, as if he were counting the
long minutes. He had no knowledge of what was likely to be said by
the witnesses on the trial, for he had shrunk from all the particulars
connected with Hetty's arrest and accusation. This brave active man, who
would have hastened towards any danger or toil to rescue Hetty from an
apprehended wrong or misfortune, felt himself powerless to contemplate
irremediable evil and suffering. The susceptibility which would have
been an impelling force where there was any possibility of action became
helpless anguish when he was obliged to be passive, or else sought an
active outlet in the thought of inflicting justice on Arthur. Energetic
natures, strong for all strenuous deeds, will often rush away from a
hopeless sufferer, as if they were hard-hearted. It is the overmastering
sense of pain that drives them. They shrink by an ungovernable instinct,
as they would shrink from laceration. Adam had brought himself to think
of seeing Hetty, if she would consent to see him, because he thought the
meeting might possibly be a good to her--might help to melt away this
terrible hardness they told him of. If she saw he bore her no ill will
for what she had done to him, she might open her heart to him. But this
resolution had been an immense effort--he trembled at the thought of
seeing her changed face, as a timid woman trembles at the thought of
the surgeon's knife, and he chose now to bear the long hours of suspense
rather than encounter what seemed to him the more intolerable agony of
witnessing her trial.
Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration,
the initiation into a new state. The yearning memories, the bitter
regret, the agonized sympathy, the struggling appeals to the Invisible
Right--all the intense emotions which had filled the days and nights of
the past week, and were compressing themselves again like an eager crowd
into the hours of this single morning, made Adam look back on all the
previous years as if they had been a dim sleepy existence, and he had
only now awaked to full consciousness. It seemed to him as if he had
always before thought it a light thing that men should suffer, as if all
that he had himself endured and called sorrow before was only a moment's
stroke that had never left a bruise. Doubtless a great anguish may do
the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a
soul full of new awe and new pity.
"O God," Adam groaned, as he leaned on the table and looked blankly at
the face of the watch, "and men have suffered like this before...and
poor helpless young things have suffered like her....Such a little while
ago looking so happy and so pretty...kissing 'em all, her grandfather
and all of 'em, and they wishing her luck....O my poor, poor
Hetty...dost think on it now?"
Adam started and looked round towards the door. Vixen had begun to
whimper, and there was a sound of a stick and a lame walk on the stairs.
It was Bartle Massey come back. Could it be all over?
Bartle entered quietly, and, going up to Adam, grasped his hand and
said, "I'm just come to look at you, my boy, for the folks are gone out
of court for a bit."
Adam's heart beat so violently he was unable to speak--he could only
return the pressure of his friend's hand--and Bartle, drawing up the
other chair, came and sat in front of him, taking off his hat and his
spectacles.
"That's a thing never happened to me before," he observed, "to go out o'
the door with my spectacles on. I clean forgot to take 'em off."
The old man made this trivial remark, thinking it better not to respond
at all to Adam's agitation: he would gather, in an indirect way, that
there was nothing decisive to communicate at present.
"And now," he said, rising again, "I must see to your having a bit of
the loaf, and some of that wine Mr. Irwine sent this morning. He'll be
angry with me if you don't have it. Come, now," he went on, bringing
forward the bottle and the loaf and pouring some wine into a cup, "I
must have a bit and a sup myself. Drink a drop with me, my lad--drink
with me."
Adam pushed the cup gently away and said, entreatingly, "Tell me about
it, Mr. Massey--tell me all about it. Was she there? Have they begun?"
"Yes, my boy, yes--it's taken all the time since I first went; but
they're slow, they're slow; and there's the counsel they've got for her
puts a spoke in the wheel whenever he can, and makes a deal to do with
cross-examining the witnesses and quarrelling with the other lawyers.
That's all he can do for the money they give him; and it's a big
sum--it's a big sum. But he's a 'cute fellow, with an eye that 'ud pick
the needles out of the hay in no time. If a man had got no feelings, it
'ud be as good as a demonstration to listen to what goes on in court;
but a tender heart makes one stupid. I'd have given up figures for ever
only to have had some good news to bring to you, my poor lad."
"But does it seem to be going against her?" said Adam. "Tell me what
they've said. I must know it now--I must know what they have to bring
against her."
"Why, the chief evidence yet has been the doctors; all but Martin
Poyser--poor Martin. Everybody in court felt for him--it was like one
sob, the sound they made when he came down again. The worst was when
they told him to look at the prisoner at the bar. It was hard work, poor
fellow--it was hard work. Adam, my boy, the blow falls heavily on him
as well as you; you must help poor Martin; you must show courage. Drink
some wine now, and show me you mean to bear it like a man."
Bartle had made the right sort of appeal. Adam, with an air of quiet
obedience, took up the cup and drank a little.
"Tell me how SHE looked," he said presently.
"Frightened, very frightened, when they first brought her in; it was the
first sight of the crowd and the judge, poor creatur. And there's a lot
o' foolish women in fine clothes, with gewgaws all up their arms
and feathers on their heads, sitting near the judge: they've dressed
themselves out in that way, one 'ud think, to be scarecrows and warnings
against any man ever meddling with a woman again. They put up their
glasses, and stared and whispered. But after that she stood like a white
image, staring down at her hands and seeming neither to hear nor see
anything. And she's as white as a sheet. She didn't speak when they
asked her if she'd plead 'guilty' or 'not guilty,' and they pleaded 'not
guilty' for her. But when she heard her uncle's name, there seemed to go
a shiver right through her; and when they told him to look at her, she
hung her head down, and cowered, and hid her face in her hands.
He'd much ado to speak poor man, his voice trembled so. And the
counsellors--who look as hard as nails mostly--I saw, spared him as much
as they could. Mr. Irwine put himself near him and went with him out o'
court. Ah, it's a great thing in a man's life to be able to stand by a
neighbour and uphold him in such trouble as that."
"God bless him, and you too, Mr. Massey," said Adam, in a low voice,
laying his hand on Bartle's arm.
"Aye, aye, he's good metal; he gives the right ring when you try him,
our parson does. A man o' sense--says no more than's needful. He's not
one of those that think they can comfort you with chattering, as if
folks who stand by and look on knew a deal better what the trouble was
than those who have to bear it. I've had to do with such folks in my
time--in the south, when I was in trouble myself. Mr. Irwine is to be
a witness himself, by and by, on her side, you know, to speak to her
character and bringing up."
"But the other evidence...does it go hard against her!" said Adam. "What
do you think, Mr. Massey? Tell me the truth."
"Yes, my lad, yes. The truth is the best thing to tell. It must come at
last. The doctors' evidence is heavy on her--is heavy. But she's gone
on denying she's had a child from first to last. These poor silly
women-things--they've not the sense to know it's no use denying what's
proved. It'll make against her with the jury, I doubt, her being so
obstinate: they may be less for recommending her to mercy, if the
verdict's against her. But Mr. Irwine 'ull leave no stone unturned with
the judge--you may rely upon that, Adam."
"Is there nobody to stand by her and seem to care for her in the court?"
said Adam.
"There's the chaplain o' the jail sits near her, but he's a sharp
ferrety-faced man--another sort o' flesh and blood to Mr. Irwine. They
say the jail chaplains are mostly the fag-end o' the clergy."
"There's one man as ought to be there," said Adam bitterly. Presently he
drew himself up and looked fixedly out of the window, apparently turning
over some new idea in his mind.
"Mr. Massey," he said at last, pushing the hair off his forehead, "I'll
go back with you. I'll go into court. It's cowardly of me to keep away.
I'll stand by her--I'll own her--for all she's been deceitful. They
oughtn't to cast her off--her own flesh and blood. We hand folks over to
God's mercy, and show none ourselves. I used to be hard sometimes: I'll
never be hard again. I'll go, Mr. Massey--I'll go with you."
There was a decision in Adam's manner which would have prevented Bartle
from opposing him, even if he had wished to do so. He only said, "Take
a bit, then, and another sup, Adam, for the love of me. See, I must stop
and eat a morsel. Now, you take some."
Nerved by an active resolution, Adam took a morsel of bread and drank
some wine. He was haggard and unshaven, as he had been yesterday, but he
stood upright again, and looked more like the Adam Bede of former days. | Adam waits in his room while Mr. Massey leaves to see the beginning of the trial. When he returns, Adam asks about the trial. Mr. Massey tells Adam about the testimony of Mr. Poyser, who is terribly upset. He also explains how Mr. Irwine helped Mr. Poyser from the courtroom when Mr. Poyser was close to collapsing. Adam asks about Hetty, who stands alone with no one near her in the courtroom. Mr. Massey says the doctor's testimony was quite persuasive, especially in the face of Hetty's continuing denial that she even had a child. Adam resolves to go watch the trial and stand by Hetty |
ACT V. Scene I.
The street, near Leonato's house.
[Enter Leonato and his brother Antonio.]
Ant.
If you go on thus, you will kill yourself,
And 'tis not wisdom thus to second grief
Against yourself.
Leon.
I pray thee cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve. Give not me counsel,
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
Bring me a father that so lov'd his child,
Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine,
And bid him speak to me of patience.
Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,
And let it answer every strain for strain,
As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,
In every lineament, branch, shape, and form.
If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,
Bid sorrow wag, cry 'hem' when he should groan,
Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk
With candle-wasters--bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.
But there is no such man; for, brother, men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache with air and agony with words.
No, no! 'Tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
But no man's virtue nor sufficiency
To be so moral when he shall endure
The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel.
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.
Ant.
Therein do men from children nothing differ.
Leon.
I pray thee peace. I will be flesh and blood;
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods
And made a push at chance and sufferance.
Ant.
Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself.
Make those that do offend you suffer too.
Leon.
There thou speak'st reason. Nay, I will do so.
My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;
And that shall Claudio know; so shall the Prince,
And all of them that thus dishonour her.
[Enter Don Pedro and Claudio.]
Ant.
Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.
Pedro.
Good den, Good den.
Claud.
Good day to both of you.
Leon.
Hear you, my lords!
Pedro.
We have some haste, Leonato.
Leon.
Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord.
Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one.
Pedro.
Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.
Ant.
If he could right himself with quarrelling,
Some of us would lie low.
Claud.
Who wrongs him?
Leon.
Marry, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou!
Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;
I fear thee not.
Claud.
Marry, beshrew my hand
If it should give your age such cause of fear.
In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.
Leon.
Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me
I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,
As under privilege of age to brag
What I have done being young, or what would do,
Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,
Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me
That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by
And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,
Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;
Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
And she lies buried with her ancestors-
O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,
Save this of hers, fram'd by thy villany!
Claud.
My villany?
Leon.
Thine, Claudio; thine I say.
Pedro.
You say not right, old man.
Leon.
My lord, my lord,
I'll prove it on his body if he dare,
Despite his nice fence and his active practice,
His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.
Claud.
Away! I will not have to do with you.
Leon.
Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd my child.
If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.
Ant.
He shall kill two of us, and men indeed
But that's no matter; let him kill one first.
Win me and wear me! Let him answer me.
Come, follow me, boy,. Come, sir boy, come follow me.
Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence!
Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.
Leon.
Brother--
Ant.
Content yourself. God knows I lov'd my niece,
And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains,
That dare as well answer a man indeed
As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.
Boys, apes, braggarts, jacks, milksops!
Leon.
Brother Anthony--
Ant.
Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,
And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,
Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,
That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,
Go anticly, show outward hideousness,
And speak off half a dozen dang'rous words,
How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;
And this is all.
Leon.
But, brother Anthony--
Ant.
Come, 'tis no matter.
Do not you meddle; let me deal in this.
Pedro.
Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.
My heart is sorry for your daughter's death;
But, on my honour, she was charg'd with nothing
But what was true, and very full of proof.
Leon.
My lord, my lord--
Pedro.
I will not hear you.
Leon.
No? Come, brother, away!--I will be heard.
Ant.
And shall, or some of us will smart for it.
[Exeunt ambo.]
[Enter Benedick.]
Pedro.
See, see! Here comes the man we went to seek.
Claud.
Now, signior, what news?
Bene.
Good day, my lord.
Pedro.
Welcome, signior. You are almost come to part almost a fray.
Claud.
We had lik'd to have had our two noses snapp'd off with two old
men without teeth.
Pedro.
Leonato and his brother. What think'st thou? Had we fought, I
doubt we should have been too young for them.
Bene.
In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you
both.
Claud.
We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof
melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy
wit?
Bene.
It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it?
Pedro.
Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?
Claud.
Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I
will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrel--draw to pleasure us.
Pedro.
As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick or angry?
Claud.
What, courage, man! What though care kill'd a cat, thou hast
mettle enough in thee to kill care.
Bene.
Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career an you charge it against
me. I pray you choose another subject.
Claud.
Nay then, give him another staff; this last was broke cross.
Pedro.
By this light, he changes more and more. I think he be angry
indeed.
Claud.
If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.
Bene.
Shall I speak a word in your ear?
Claud.
God bless me from a challenge!
Bene.
[aside to Claudio] You are a villain. I jest not; I will make it
good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me
right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have kill'd a sweet
lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from
you.
Claud.
Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.
Pedro.
What, a feast, a feast?
Claud.
I' faith, I thank him, he hath bid me to a calve's head and a
capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife's
naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?
Bene.
Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.
Pedro.
I'll tell thee how Beatrice prais'd thy wit the other day. I
said thou hadst a fine wit: 'True,' said she, 'a fine little
one.' 'No,' said I, 'a great wit.' 'Right,' says she, 'a great
gross one.' 'Nay,' said I, 'a good wit.' 'Just,' said she, 'it
hurts nobody.' 'Nay,' said I, 'the gentleman is wise.'
'Certain,' said she, a wise gentleman.' 'Nay,' said I, 'he hath
the tongues.' 'That I believe' said she, 'for he swore a thing to
me on Monday night which he forswore on Tuesday morning. There's
a double tongue; there's two tongues.' Thus did she an hour
together transshape thy particular virtues. Yet at last she
concluded with a sigh, thou wast the proper'st man in Italy.
Claud.
For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.
Pedro.
Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate
him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man's daughter
told us all.
Claud.
All, all! and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the
garden.
Pedro.
But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the sensible
Benedick's head?
Claud.
Yea, and text underneath, 'Here dwells Benedick, the married
man'?
Bene.
Fare you well, boy; you know my mind. I will leave you now to
your gossiplike humour. You break jests as braggards do their
blades, which God be thanked hurt not. My lord, for your many
courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your
brother the bastard is fled from Messina. You have among you
kill'd a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he
and I shall meet; and till then peace be with him.
[Exit.]
Pedro.
He is in earnest.
Claud.
In most profound earnest; and, I'll warrant you, for the love of
Beatrice.
Pedro.
And hath challeng'd thee.
Claud.
Most sincerely.
Pedro.
What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose
and leaves off his wit!
[Enter Constables Dogberry and Verges, with the Watch, leading
Conrade and Borachio.]
Claud.
He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such
a man.
Pedro.
But, soft you, let me be! Pluck up, my heart, and be sad!
Did he not say my brother was fled?
Dog.
Come you, sir. If justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er weigh
more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite
once, you must be look'd to.
Pedro.
How now? two of my brother's men bound? Borachio one.
Claud.
Hearken after their offence, my lord.
Pedro.
Officers, what offence have these men done?
Dog.
Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have
spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and
lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified
unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.
Pedro.
First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what's
their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and to
conclude, what you lay to their charge.
Claud.
Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and by my troth
there's one meaning well suited.
Pedro.
Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your
answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be understood.
What's your offence?
Bora.
Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer. Do you hear
me, and let this Count kill me. I have deceived even your very
eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these
shallow fools have brought to light, who in the night overheard
me confessing to this man, how Don John your brother incensed me
to slander the Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard
and saw me court Margaret in Hero's garments; how you disgrac'd
her when you should marry her. My villany they have upon record,
which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my
shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master's false
accusation; and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a
villain.
Pedro.
Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?
Claud.
I have drunk poison whiles he utter'd it.
Pedro.
But did my brother set thee on to this?
Bora.
Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it.
Pedro.
He is compos'd and fram'd of treachery,
And fled he is upon this villany.
Claud.
Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear
In the rare semblance that I lov'd it first.
Dog.
Come, bring away the plaintiffs. By this time our sexton hath
reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And, masters, do not
forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an
ass.
Verg.
Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too.
[Enter Leonato, his brother [Antonio], and the Sexton.]
Leon.
Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,
That, when I note another man like him,
I may avoid him. Which of these is he?
Bora.
If you would know your wronger, look on me.
Leon.
Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd
Mine innocent child?
Bora.
Yea, even I alone.
Leon.
No, not so, villain! thou beliest thyself.
Here stand a pair of honourable men--
A third is fled--that had a hand in it.
I thank you princes for my daughter's death.
Record it with your high and worthy deeds.
'Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.
Claud.
I know not how to pray your patience;
Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;
Impose me to what penance your invention
Can lay upon my sin. Yet sinn'd I not
But in mistaking.
Pedro.
By my soul, nor I!
And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
I would bend under any heavy weight
That he'll enjoin me to.
Leon.
I cannot bid you bid my daughter live-
That were impossible; but I pray you both,
Possess the people in Messina here
How innocent she died; and if your love
Can labour aught in sad invention,
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,
And sing it to her bones--sing it to-night.
To-morrow morning come you to my house,
And since you could not be my son-in-law,
Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,
Almost the copy of my child that's dead,
And she alone is heir to both of us.
Give her the right you should have giv'n her cousin,
And so dies my revenge.
Claud.
O noble sir!
Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me.
I do embrace your offer; and dispose
For henceforth of poor Claudio.
Leon.
To-morrow then I will expect your coming;
To-night I take my leave. This naughty man
Shall fact to face be brought to Margaret,
Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong,
Hir'd to it by your brother.
Bora.
No, by my soul, she was not;
Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me;
But always hath been just and virtuous
In anything that I do know by her.
Dog.
Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this
plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass. I beseech you let
it be rememb'red in his punishment. And also the watch heard them
talk of one Deformed. They say he wears a key in his ear, and a
lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God's name, the which he
hath us'd so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted
and will lend nothing for God's sake. Pray you examine him upon
that point.
Leon.
I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.
Dog.
Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth, and
I praise God for you.
Leon.
There's for thy pains. [Gives money.]
Dog.
God save the foundation!
Leon.
Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.
Dog.
I leave an arrant knave with your worship, which I beseech your
worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep
your worship! I wish your worship well. God restore you to
health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry meeting
may be wish'd, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.
[Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges.]
Leon.
Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.
Ant.
Farewell, my lords. We look for you to-morrow.
Pedro.
We will not fall.
Claud.
To-night I'll mourn with Hero.
[Exeunt Don Pedro and Claudio.]
Leon.
[to the Watch] Bring you these fellows on.--We'll talk with
Margaret,
How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.
[Exeunt.] | While his brother Antonio tries to console him, Leonato grieves at the villainy that has ruined his daughter's reputation. When Claudio and Don Pedro appear, trying to leave Leonato's estate, Leonato accuses Claudio of falsely denouncing Hero and, thus, of having caused her death. He challenges Claudio to a duel in spite of their difference in age and their differing abilities with the sword. Antonio heatedly backs Leonato up. Don Pedro maintains that the accusation against Hero was true, and Leonato and Antonio leave them in disgust. Benedick arrives, and Claudio and Don Pedro tell him about the foolhardy challenge by Leonato and Antonio. Benedick ignores their lighthearted talk. They try to engage his humor by talking about Beatrice, but he continues to ignore their chatter. He then accuses Claudio of having killed Hero by his humiliation of her and challenges him to a duel. He tells Don Pedro that he will no longer be a member of his company and that Don John has run away. Benedick repeats his challenge to Claudio and leaves. They are disconcerted by Benedick's words and his challenge. Just then, Dogberry and Verges bring in their prisoners in preparation for meeting with Leonato as governor and judge. Don Pedro, recognizing his brother's followers, tries to find out from Dogberry what Borachio and Conrade have done wrong. Borachio himself, with expressions of regret and shame, finally explains Don John's plot against the marriage of Hero and Claudio, and admits it was Margaret and himself in the window -- not Hero and another lover. Don Pedro and Claudio are stunned at this news, realizing that Hero was innocent and therefore falsely accused by them. Leonato and Antonio appear with the sexton. Leonato first confronts Borachio, who readily admits his wrongdoing. Leonato then confronts Claudio and Don Pedro, accusing them of having caused Hero's death. He commands them to tell everyone in Messina that she was falsely denounced and demands that they appear at her tomb that very night. Claudio is to hang an epitaph upon the tomb, singing it "to her bones." Claudio agrees to marry Antonio's daughter the next day, although he has never heard of nor seen her before. Leonato has one more task to undertake -- to find Margaret and find out if she knew she was participating in this horrible plot. Borachio defends Margaret, saying she did not know she was doing anything wrong. Dogberry makes a final complaint to Leonato about Conrade's calling him an ass. Leonato thanks him for his efforts and asks him to leave the prisoners with him so they can confront Margaret. Dogberry and Verges leave. Claudio promises to mourn at Hero's tomb that night, and he and Don Pedro leave. Leonato leads the prisoners away to talk with Margaret. |
CHAPTER XVII
I
THEY were driving down the lake to the cottages that moonlit January
night, twenty of them in the bob-sled. They sang "Toy Land" and "Seeing
Nelly Home"; they leaped from the low back of the sled to race over the
slippery snow ruts; and when they were tired they climbed on the runners
for a lift. The moon-tipped flakes kicked up by the horses settled over
the revelers and dripped down their necks, but they laughed, yelped,
beat their leather mittens against their chests. The harness rattled,
the sleigh-bells were frantic, Jack Elder's setter sprang beside the
horses, barking.
For a time Carol raced with them. The cold air gave fictive power. She
felt that she could run on all night, leap twenty feet at a stride. But
the excess of energy tired her, and she was glad to snuggle under the
comforters which covered the hay in the sled-box.
In the midst of the babel she found enchanted quietude.
Along the road the shadows from oak-branches were inked on the snow
like bars of music. Then the sled came out on the surface of Lake
Minniemashie. Across the thick ice was a veritable road, a short-cut
for farmers. On the glaring expanse of the lake-levels of hard crust,
flashes of green ice blown clear, chains of drifts ribbed like the
sea-beach--the moonlight was overwhelming. It stormed on the snow, it
turned the woods ashore into crystals of fire. The night was tropical
and voluptuous. In that drugged magic there was no difference between
heavy heat and insinuating cold.
Carol was dream-strayed. The turbulent voices, even Guy Pollock being
connotative beside her, were nothing. She repeated:
Deep on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon.
The words and the light blurred into one vast indefinite happiness, and
she believed that some great thing was coming to her. She withdrew from
the clamor into a worship of incomprehensible gods. The night expanded,
she was conscious of the universe, and all mysteries stooped down to
her.
She was jarred out of her ecstasy as the bob-sled bumped up the steep
road to the bluff where stood the cottages.
They dismounted at Jack Elder's shack. The interior walls of unpainted
boards, which had been grateful in August, were forbidding in the chill.
In fur coats and mufflers tied over caps they were a strange company,
bears and walruses talking. Jack Elder lighted the shavings waiting in
the belly of a cast-iron stove which was like an enlarged bean-pot.
They piled their wraps high on a rocker, and cheered the rocker as it
solemnly tipped over backward.
Mrs. Elder and Mrs. Sam Clark made coffee in an enormous blackened tin
pot; Vida Sherwin and Mrs. McGanum unpacked doughnuts and gingerbread;
Mrs. Dave Dyer warmed up "hot dogs"--frankfurters in rolls; Dr. Terry
Gould, after announcing, "Ladies and gents, prepare to be shocked; shock
line forms on the right," produced a bottle of bourbon whisky.
The others danced, muttering "Ouch!" as their frosted feet struck the
pine planks. Carol had lost her dream. Harry Haydock lifted her by the
waist and swung her. She laughed. The gravity of the people who stood
apart and talked made her the more impatient for frolic.
Kennicott, Sam Clark, Jackson Elder, young Dr. McGanum, and James
Madison Howland, teetering on their toes near the stove, conversed
with the sedate pomposity of the commercialist. In details the men were
unlike, yet they said the same things in the same hearty monotonous
voices. You had to look at them to see which was speaking.
"Well, we made pretty good time coming up," from one--any one.
"Yump, we hit it up after we struck the good going on the lake."
"Seems kind of slow though, after driving an auto."
"Yump, it does, at that. Say, how'd you make out with that Sphinx tire
you got?"
"Seems to hold out fine. Still, I don't know's I like it any better than
the Roadeater Cord."
"Yump, nothing better than a Roadeater. Especially the cord. The cord's
lots better than the fabric."
"Yump, you said something----Roadeater's a good tire."
"Say, how'd you come out with Pete Garsheim on his payments?"
"He's paying up pretty good. That's a nice piece of land he's got."
"Yump, that's a dandy farm."
"Yump, Pete's got a good place there."
They glided from these serious topics into the jocose insults which are
the wit of Main Street. Sam Clark was particularly apt at them. "What's
this wild-eyed sale of summer caps you think you're trying to pull
off?" he clamored at Harry Haydock. "Did you steal 'em, or are you just
overcharging us, as usual? . . . Oh say, speaking about caps, d'I ever
tell you the good one I've got on Will? The doc thinks he's a pretty
good driver, fact, he thinks he's almost got human intelligence, but one
time he had his machine out in the rain, and the poor fish, he hadn't
put on chains, and thinks I----"
Carol had heard the story rather often. She fled back to the dancers,
and at Dave Dyer's masterstroke of dropping an icicle down Mrs.
McGanum's back she applauded hysterically.
They sat on the floor, devouring the food. The men giggled amiably as
they passed the whisky bottle, and laughed, "There's a real sport!" when
Juanita Haydock took a sip. Carol tried to follow; she believed that she
desired to be drunk and riotous; but the whisky choked her and as she
saw Kennicott frown she handed the bottle on repentantly. Somewhat too
late she remembered that she had given up domesticity and repentance.
"Let's play charades!" said Raymie Wutherspoon.
"Oh yes, do let us," said Ella Stowbody.
"That's the caper," sanctioned Harry Haydock.
They interpreted the word "making" as May and King. The crown was a red
flannel mitten cocked on Sam Clark's broad pink bald head. They forgot
they were respectable. They made-believe. Carol was stimulated to cry:
"Let's form a dramatic club and give a play! Shall we? It's been so much
fun tonight!"
They looked affable.
"Sure," observed Sam Clark loyally.
"Oh, do let us! I think it would be lovely to present 'Romeo and
Juliet'!" yearned Ella Stowbody.
"Be a whale of a lot of fun," Dr. Terry Gould granted.
"But if we did," Carol cautioned, "it would be awfully silly to have
amateur theatricals. We ought to paint our own scenery and everything,
and really do something fine. There'd be a lot of hard work. Would
you--would we all be punctual at rehearsals, do you suppose?"
"You bet!" "Sure." "That's the idea." "Fellow ought to be prompt at
rehearsals," they all agreed.
"Then let's meet next week and form the Gopher Prairie Dramatic
Association!" Carol sang.
She drove home loving these friends who raced through moonlit snow,
had Bohemian parties, and were about to create beauty in the theater.
Everything was solved. She would be an authentic part of the town,
yet escape the coma of the Village Virus. . . . She would be free of
Kennicott again, without hurting him, without his knowing.
She had triumphed.
The moon was small and high now, and unheeding.
II
Though they had all been certain that they longed for the privilege of
attending committee meetings and rehearsals, the dramatic association as
definitely formed consisted only of Kennicott, Carol, Guy Pollock,
Vida Sherwin, Ella Stowbody, the Harry Haydocks, the Dave Dyers, Raymie
Wutherspoon, Dr. Terry Gould, and four new candidates: flirtatious Rita
Simons, Dr. and Mrs. Harvey Dillon and Myrtle Cass, an uncomely but
intense girl of nineteen. Of these fifteen only seven came to the first
meeting. The rest telephoned their unparalleled regrets and engagements
and illnesses, and announced that they would be present at all other
meetings through eternity.
Carol was made president and director.
She had added the Dillons. Despite Kennicott's apprehension the dentist
and his wife had not been taken up by the Westlakes but had remained
as definitely outside really smart society as Willis Woodford, who was
teller, bookkeeper, and janitor in Stowbody's bank. Carol had noted Mrs.
Dillon dragging past the house during a bridge of the Jolly Seventeen,
looking in with pathetic lips at the splendor of the accepted. She
impulsively invited the Dillons to the dramatic association meeting, and
when Kennicott was brusque to them she was unusually cordial, and felt
virtuous.
That self-approval balanced her disappointment at the smallness of the
meeting, and her embarrassment during Raymie Wutherspoon's repetitions
of "The stage needs uplifting," and "I believe that there are great
lessons in some plays."
Ella Stowbody, who was a professional, having studied elocution in
Milwaukee, disapproved of Carol's enthusiasm for recent plays. Miss
Stowbody expressed the fundamental principle of the American drama: the
only way to be artistic is to present Shakespeare. As no one listened to
her she sat back and looked like Lady Macbeth.
III
The Little Theaters, which were to give piquancy to American drama three
or four years later, were only in embryo. But of this fast coming revolt
Carol had premonitions. She knew from some lost magazine article that
in Dublin were innovators called The Irish Players. She knew confusedly
that a man named Gordon Craig had painted scenery--or had he written
plays? She felt that in the turbulence of the drama she was discovering
a history more important than the commonplace chronicles which dealt
with senators and their pompous puerilities. She had a sensation of
familiarity; a dream of sitting in a Brussels cafe and going afterward
to a tiny gay theater under a cathedral wall.
The advertisement in the Minneapolis paper leaped from the page to her
eyes:
The Cosmos School of Music, Oratory, and
Dramatic Art announces a program of four
one-act plays by Schnitzler, Shaw, Yeats,
and Lord Dunsany.
She had to be there! She begged Kennicott to "run down to the Cities"
with her.
"Well, I don't know. Be fun to take in a show, but why the deuce do you
want to see those darn foreign plays, given by a lot of amateurs? Why
don't you wait for a regular play, later on? There's going to be some
corkers coming: 'Lottie of Two-Gun Rancho,' and 'Cops and Crooks'--real
Broadway stuff, with the New York casts. What's this junk you want
to see? Hm. 'How He Lied to Her Husband.' That doesn't listen so bad.
Sounds racy. And, uh, well, I could go to the motor show, I suppose. I'd
like to see this new Hup roadster. Well----"
She never knew which attraction made him decide.
She had four days of delightful worry--over the hole in her one good
silk petticoat, the loss of a string of beads from her chiffon and brown
velvet frock, the catsup stain on her best georgette crepe blouse. She
wailed, "I haven't a single solitary thing that's fit to be seen in,"
and enjoyed herself very much indeed.
Kennicott went about casually letting people know that he was "going to
run down to the Cities and see some shows."
As the train plodded through the gray prairie, on a windless day with
the smoke from the engine clinging to the fields in giant cotton-rolls,
in a low and writhing wall which shut off the snowy fields, she did not
look out of the window. She closed her eyes and hummed, and did not know
that she was humming.
She was the young poet attacking fame and Paris.
In the Minneapolis station the crowd of lumberjacks, farmers, and
Swedish families with innumerous children and grandparents and paper
parcels, their foggy crowding and their clamor confused her. She felt
rustic in this once familiar city, after a year and a half of
Gopher Prairie. She was certain that Kennicott was taking the wrong
trolley-car. By dusk, the liquor warehouses, Hebraic clothing-shops,
and lodging-houses on lower Hennepin Avenue were smoky, hideous,
ill-tempered. She was battered by the noise and shuttling of the
rush-hour traffic. When a clerk in an overcoat too closely fitted at the
waist stared at her, she moved nearer to Kennicott's arm. The clerk was
flippant and urban. He was a superior person, used to this tumult. Was
he laughing at her?
For a moment she wanted the secure quiet of Gopher Prairie.
In the hotel-lobby she was self-conscious. She was not used to hotels;
she remembered with jealousy how often Juanita Haydock talked of the
famous hotels in Chicago. She could not face the traveling salesmen,
baronial in large leather chairs. She wanted people to believe that her
husband and she were accustomed to luxury and chill elegance; she was
faintly angry at him for the vulgar way in which, after signing the
register "Dr. W. P. Kennicott & wife," he bellowed at the clerk, "Got a
nice room with bath for us, old man?" She gazed about haughtily, but as
she discovered that no one was interested in her she felt foolish, and
ashamed of her irritation.
She asserted, "This silly lobby is too florid," and simultaneously she
admired it: the onyx columns with gilt capitals, the crown-embroidered
velvet curtains at the restaurant door, the silk-roped alcove where
pretty girls perpetually waited for mysterious men, the two-pound boxes
of candy and the variety of magazines at the news-stand. The hidden
orchestra was lively. She saw a man who looked like a European diplomat,
in a loose top-coat and a Homburg hat. A woman with a broadtail coat,
a heavy lace veil, pearl earrings, and a close black hat entered the
restaurant. "Heavens! That's the first really smart woman I've seen in a
year!" Carol exulted. She felt metropolitan.
But as she followed Kennicott to the elevator the coat-check girl, a
confident young woman, with cheeks powdered like lime, and a blouse
low and thin and furiously crimson, inspected her, and under that
supercilious glance Carol was shy again. She unconsciously waited
for the bellboy to precede her into the elevator. When he snorted "Go
ahead!" she was mortified. He thought she was a hayseed, she worried.
The moment she was in their room, with the bellboy safely out of the
way, she looked critically at Kennicott. For the first time in months
she really saw him.
His clothes were too heavy and provincial. His decent gray suit, made
by Nat Hicks of Gopher Prairie, might have been of sheet iron; it had
no distinction of cut, no easy grace like the diplomat's Burberry. His
black shoes were blunt and not well polished. His scarf was a stupid
brown. He needed a shave.
But she forgot her doubt as she realized the ingenuities of the room.
She ran about, turning on the taps of the bathtub, which gushed instead
of dribbling like the taps at home, snatching the new wash-rag out of
its envelope of oiled paper, trying the rose-shaded light between the
twin beds, pulling out the drawers of the kidney-shaped walnut desk to
examine the engraved stationery, planning to write on it to every one
she knew, admiring the claret-colored velvet armchair and the blue rug,
testing the ice-water tap, and squealing happily when the water really
did come out cold. She flung her arms about Kennicott, kissed him.
"Like it, old lady?"
"It's adorable. It's so amusing. I love you for bringing me. You really
are a dear!"
He looked blankly indulgent, and yawned, and condescended, "That's a
pretty slick arrangement on the radiator, so you can adjust it at any
temperature you want. Must take a big furnace to run this place. Gosh, I
hope Bea remembers to turn off the drafts tonight."
Under the glass cover of the dressing-table was a menu with the most
enchanting dishes: breast of guinea hen De Vitresse, pommes de terre a
la Russe, meringue Chantilly, gateaux Bruxelles.
"Oh, let's----I'm going to have a hot bath, and put on my new hat with
the wool flowers, and let's go down and eat for hours, and we'll have a
cocktail!" she chanted.
While Kennicott labored over ordering it was annoying to see him permit
the waiter to be impertinent, but as the cocktail elevated her to a
bridge among colored stars, as the oysters came in--not canned oysters
in the Gopher Prairie fashion, but on the half-shell--she cried, "If you
only knew how wonderful it is not to have had to plan this dinner, and
order it at the butcher's and fuss and think about it, and then
watch Bea cook it! I feel so free. And to have new kinds of food, and
different patterns of dishes and linen, and not worry about whether the
pudding is being spoiled! Oh, this is a great moment for me!"
IV
They had all the experiences of provincials in a metropolis. After
breakfast Carol bustled to a hair-dresser's, bought gloves and a blouse,
and importantly met Kennicott in front of an optician's, in accordance
with plans laid down, revised, and verified. They admired the diamonds
and furs and frosty silverware and mahogany chairs and polished morocco
sewing-boxes in shop-windows, and were abashed by the throngs in the
department-stores, and were bullied by a clerk into buying too many
shirts for Kennicott, and gaped at the "clever novelty perfumes--just
in from New York." Carol got three books on the theater, and spent
an exultant hour in warning herself that she could not afford this
rajah-silk frock, in thinking how envious it would make Juanita Haydock,
in closing her eyes, and buying it. Kennicott went from shop to shop,
earnestly hunting down a felt-covered device to keep the windshield of
his car clear of rain.
They dined extravagantly at their hotel at night, and next morning
sneaked round the corner to economize at a Childs' Restaurant. They were
tired by three in the afternoon, and dozed at the motion-pictures and
said they wished they were back in Gopher Prairie--and by eleven in the
evening they were again so lively that they went to a Chinese restaurant
that was frequented by clerks and their sweethearts on pay-days. They
sat at a teak and marble table eating Eggs Fooyung, and listened to a
brassy automatic piano, and were altogether cosmopolitan.
On the street they met people from home--the McGanums. They laughed,
shook hands repeatedly, and exclaimed, "Well, this is quite a
coincidence!" They asked when the McGanums had come down, and begged for
news of the town they had left two days before. Whatever the
McGanums were at home, here they stood out as so superior to all the
undistinguishable strangers absurdly hurrying past that the Kennicotts
held them as long as they could. The McGanums said good-by as though
they were going to Tibet instead of to the station to catch No. 7 north.
They explored Minneapolis. Kennicott was conversational and technical
regarding gluten and cockle-cylinders and No. I Hard, when they were
shown through the gray stone hulks and new cement elevators of the
largest flour-mills in the world. They looked across Loring Park and
the Parade to the towers of St. Mark's and the Procathedral, and the
red roofs of houses climbing Kenwood Hill. They drove about the chain of
garden-circled lakes, and viewed the houses of the millers and lumbermen
and real estate peers--the potentates of the expanding city. They
surveyed the small eccentric bungalows with pergolas, the houses of
pebbledash and tapestry brick with sleeping-porches above sun-parlors,
and one vast incredible chateau fronting the Lake of the Isles. They
tramped through a shining-new section of apartment-houses; not the tall
bleak apartments of Eastern cities but low structures of cheerful yellow
brick, in which each flat had its glass-enclosed porch with swinging
couch and scarlet cushions and Russian brass bowls. Between a waste of
tracks and a raw gouged hill they found poverty in staggering shanties.
They saw miles of the city which they had never known in their days
of absorption in college. They were distinguished explorers, and they
remarked, in great mutual esteem, "I bet Harry Haydock's never seen the
City like this! Why, he'd never have sense enough to study the machinery
in the mills, or go through all these outlying districts. Wonder folks
in Gopher Prairie wouldn't use their legs and explore, the way we do!"
They had two meals with Carol's sister, and were bored, and felt that
intimacy which beatifies married people when they suddenly admit that
they equally dislike a relative of either of them.
So it was with affection but also with weariness that they approached
the evening on which Carol was to see the plays at the dramatic school.
Kennicott suggested not going. "So darn tired from all this walking;
don't know but what we better turn in early and get rested up." It was
only from duty that Carol dragged him and herself out of the warm
hotel, into a stinking trolley, up the brownstone steps of the converted
residence which lugubriously housed the dramatic school.
V
They were in a long whitewashed hall with a clumsy draw-curtain across
the front. The folding chairs were filled with people who looked washed
and ironed: parents of the pupils, girl students, dutiful teachers.
"Strikes me it's going to be punk. If the first play isn't good, let's
beat it," said Kennicott hopefully.
"All right," she yawned. With hazy eyes she tried to read the lists of
characters, which were hidden among lifeless advertisements of pianos,
music-dealers, restaurants, candy.
She regarded the Schnitzler play with no vast interest. The actors
moved and spoke stiffly. Just as its cynicism was beginning to rouse her
village-dulled frivolity, it was over.
"Don't think a whale of a lot of that. How about taking a sneak?"
petitioned Kennicott.
"Oh, let's try the next one, 'How He Lied to Her Husband.'"
The Shaw conceit amused her, and perplexed Kennicott:
"Strikes me it's darn fresh. Thought it would be racy. Don't know as I
think much of a play where a husband actually claims he wants a fellow
to make love to his wife. No husband ever did that! Shall we shake a
leg?"
"I want to see this Yeats thing, 'Land of Heart's Desire.' I used to
love it in college." She was awake now, and urgent. "I know you didn't
care so much for Yeats when I read him aloud to you, but you just see if
you don't adore him on the stage."
Most of the cast were as unwieldy as oak chairs marching, and the
setting was an arty arrangement of batik scarfs and heavy tables, but
Maire Bruin was slim as Carol, and larger-eyed, and her voice was
a morning bell. In her, Carol lived, and on her lifting voice was
transported from this sleepy small-town husband and all the rows of
polite parents to the stilly loft of a thatched cottage where in a green
dimness, beside a window caressed by linden branches, she bent over a
chronicle of twilight women and the ancient gods.
"Well--gosh--nice kid played that girl--good-looker," said Kennicott.
"Want to stay for the last piece? Heh?"
She shivered. She did not answer.
The curtain was again drawn aside. On the stage they saw nothing but
long green curtains and a leather chair. Two young men in brown robes
like furniture-covers were gesturing vacuously and droning cryptic
sentences full of repetitions.
It was Carol's first hearing of Dunsany. She sympathized with the
restless Kennicott as he felt in his pocket for a cigar and unhappily
put it back.
Without understanding when or how, without a tangible change in the
stilted intoning of the stage-puppets, she was conscious of another time
and place.
Stately and aloof among vainglorious tiring-maids, a queen in robes
that murmured on the marble floor, she trod the gallery of a crumbling
palace. In the courtyard, elephants trumpeted, and swart men with beards
dyed crimson stood with blood-stained hands folded upon their hilts,
guarding the caravan from El Sharnak, the camels with Tyrian stuffs
of topaz and cinnabar. Beyond the turrets of the outer wall the jungle
glared and shrieked, and the sun was furious above drenched orchids.
A youth came striding through the steel-bossed doors, the sword-bitten
doors that were higher than ten tall men. He was in flexible mail, and
under the rim of his planished morion were amorous curls. His hand was
out to her; before she touched it she could feel its warmth----
"Gosh all hemlock! What the dickens is all this stuff about, Carrie?"
She was no Syrian queen. She was Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. She fell with a
jolt into a whitewashed hall and sat looking at two scared girls and a
young man in wrinkled tights.
Kennicott fondly rambled as they left the hall:
"What the deuce did that last spiel mean? Couldn't make head or tail of
it. If that's highbrow drama, give me a cow-puncher movie, every time!
Thank God, that's over, and we can get to bed. Wonder if we wouldn't
make time by walking over to Nicollet to take a car? One thing I will
say for that dump: they had it warm enough. Must have a big hot-air
furnace, I guess. Wonder how much coal it takes to run 'em through the
winter?"
In the car he affectionately patted her knee, and he was for a second
the striding youth in armor; then he was Doc Kennicott of Gopher
Prairie, and she was recaptured by Main Street. Never, not all her life,
would she behold jungles and the tombs of kings. There were strange
things in the world, they really existed; but she would never see them.
She would recreate them in plays!
She would make the dramatic association understand her aspiration. They
would, surely they would----
She looked doubtfully at the impenetrable reality of yawning trolley
conductor and sleepy passengers and placards advertising soap and
underwear. | Carol rides with twenty other people in a large sled to some lakeside cottages. She tries her best to feel merry. All of the talk at the party is superficial and repetitive, but Carol does her best to enjoy herself. She tells the folks at the party that Gopher Prairie should get together a dramatic association that can put on plays. People are really into the idea, although we're not sure how well they'll follow through on it. Carol later convinces Will to take her to Minneapolis so she can study how plays are put on in the big city. When they get there, though, she's ashamed of how hickish she and Will must look to the city folk. Will wants to get out of the plays as soon as the two of them sit down. Carol convinces him to stay for several more, but she can feel how badly he wants to leave. She tries to fantasize and put herself in the plays, but Will's comments keep pulling her back out. |
CHAPTER XXIV. OF THE NUTRITION, AND PROCREATION OF A COMMON-WEALTH
The Nourishment Of A Common-wealth Consisteth In The Commodities
Of Sea And Land
The NUTRITION of a Common-wealth consisteth, in the Plenty, and
Distribution of Materials conducing to Life: In Concoction, or
Preparation; and (when concocted) in the Conveyance of it, by convenient
conduits, to the Publique use.
As for the Plenty of Matter, it is a thing limited by Nature, to those
commodities, which from (the two breasts of our common Mother) Land,
and Sea, God usually either freely giveth, or for labour selleth to
man-kind.
For the Matter of this Nutriment, consisting in Animals, Vegetals, and
Minerals, God hath freely layd them before us, in or neer to the face of
the Earth; so as there needeth no more but the labour, and industry
of receiving them. Insomuch as Plenty dependeth (next to Gods favour)
meerly on the labour and industry of men.
This Matter, commonly called Commodities, is partly Native, and partly
Forraign: Native, that which is to be had within the Territory of
the Common-wealth; Forraign, that which is imported from without. And
because there is no Territory under the Dominion of one Common-wealth,
(except it be of very vast extent,) that produceth all things needfull
for the maintenance, and motion of the whole Body; and few that produce
not something more than necessary; the superfluous commodities to be had
within, become no more superfluous, but supply these wants at home, by
importation of that which may be had abroad, either by Exchange, or
by just Warre, or by Labour: for a mans Labour also, is a commodity
exchangeable for benefit, as well as any other thing: And there have
been Common-wealths that having no more Territory, than hath served
them for habitation, have neverthelesse, not onely maintained, but also
encreased their Power, partly by the labour of trading from one place to
another, and partly by selling the Manifactures, whereof the Materials
were brought in from other places.
And The Right Of Distribution Of Them
The Distribution of the Materials of this Nourishment, is the
constitution of Mine, and Thine, and His, that is to say, in one word
Propriety; and belongeth in all kinds of Common-wealth to the Soveraign
Power. For where there is no Common-wealth, there is, (as hath been
already shewn) a perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbour;
And therefore every thing is his that getteth it, and keepeth it by
force; which is neither Propriety nor Community; but Uncertainty. Which
is so evident, that even Cicero, (a passionate defender of Liberty,) in
a publique pleading, attributeth all Propriety to the Law Civil, "Let
the Civill Law," saith he, "be once abandoned, or but negligently
guarded, (not to say oppressed,) and there is nothing, that any man can
be sure to receive from his Ancestor, or leave to his Children." And
again; "Take away the Civill Law, and no man knows what is his own, and
what another mans." Seeing therefore the Introduction of Propriety is
an effect of Common-wealth; which can do nothing but by the Person that
Represents it, it is the act onely of the Soveraign; and consisteth in
the Lawes, which none can make that have not the Soveraign Power. And
this they well knew of old, who called that Nomos, (that is to say,
Distribution,) which we call Law; and defined Justice, by distributing
to every man his own.
All Private Estates Of Land Proceed Originally
From The Arbitrary Distribution Of The Soveraign
In this Distribution, the First Law, is for Division of the Land it
selfe: wherein the Soveraign assigneth to every man a portion, according
as he, and not according as any Subject, or any number of them, shall
judge agreeable to Equity, and the Common Good. The Children of Israel,
were a Common-wealth in the Wildernesse; but wanted the commodities
of the Earth, till they were masters of the Land of Promise; which
afterward was divided amongst them, not by their own discretion, but
by the discretion of Eleazar the Priest, and Joshua their Generall: who
when there were twelve Tribes, making them thirteen by subdivision of
the Tribe of Joseph; made neverthelesse but twelve portions of the Land;
and ordained for the Tribe of Levi no land; but assigned them the Tenth
part of the whole fruits; which division was therefore Arbitrary. And
though a People comming into possession of a land by warre, do not
alwaies exterminate the antient Inhabitants, (as did the Jewes,) but
leave to many, or most, or all of them their Estates; yet it is manifest
they hold them afterwards, as of the Victors distribution; as the people
of England held all theirs of William the Conquerour.
Propriety Of A Subject Excludes Not The Dominion Of The Soveraign,
But Onely Of Another Subject
From whence we may collect, that the Propriety which a subject hath in
his lands, consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the
use of them; and not to exclude their Soveraign, be it an Assembly, or
a Monarch. For seeing the Soveraign, that is to say, the Common-wealth
(whose Person he representeth,) is understood to do nothing but in order
to the common Peace and Security, this Distribution of lands, is to be
understood as done in order to the same: And consequently, whatsoever
Distribution he shall make in prejudice thereof, is contrary to the
will of every subject, that committed his Peace, and safety to his
discretion, and conscience; and therefore by the will of every one of
them, is to be reputed voyd. It is true, that a Soveraign Monarch, or
the greater part of a Soveraign Assembly, may ordain the doing of many
things in pursuit of their Passions, contrary to their own consciences,
which is a breach of trust, and of the Law of Nature; but this is not
enough to authorise any subject, either to make warre upon, or so much
as to accuse of Injustice, or any way to speak evill of their Soveraign;
because they have authorised all his actions, and in bestowing the
Soveraign Power, made them their own. But in what cases the Commands
of Soveraigns are contrary to Equity, and the Law of Nature, is to be
considered hereafter in another place.
The Publique Is Not To Be Dieted
In the Distribution of land, the Common-wealth it selfe, may be
conceived to have a portion, and possesse, and improve the same by
their Representative; and that such portion may be made sufficient, to
susteine the whole expence to the common Peace, and defence necessarily
required: Which were very true, if there could be any Representative
conceived free from humane passions, and infirmities. But the nature
of men being as it is, the setting forth of Publique Land, or of any
certaine Revenue for the Common-wealth, is in vaine; and tendeth to the
dissolution of Government, and to the condition of meere Nature, and
War, assoon as ever the Soveraign Power falleth into the hands of a
Monarch, or of an Assembly, that are either too negligent of mony, or
too hazardous in engaging the publique stock, into a long, or costly
war. Common-wealths can endure no Diet: For seeing their expence is
not limited by their own appetite, but by externall Accidents, and the
appetites of their neighbours, the Publique Riches cannot be limited by
other limits, than those which the emergent occasions shall require. And
whereas in England, there were by the Conquerour, divers Lands
reserved to his own use, (besides Forrests, and Chases, either for his
recreation, or for preservation of Woods,) and divers services reserved
on the Land he gave his Subjects; yet it seems they were not reserved
for his Maintenance in his Publique, but in his Naturall capacity: For
he, and his Successors did for all that, lay Arbitrary Taxes on all
Subjects land, when they judged it necessary. Or if those publique
Lands, and Services, were ordained as a sufficient maintenance of the
Common-wealth, it was contrary to the scope of the Institution; being
(as it appeared by those ensuing Taxes) insufficient, and (as it
appeares by the late Revenue of the Crown) Subject to Alienation,
and Diminution. It is therefore in vaine, to assign a portion to the
Common-wealth; which may sell, or give it away; and does sell, and give
it away when tis done by their Representative.
The Places And Matter Of Traffique Depend, As Their Distribution,
On The Soveraign
As the Distribution of Lands at home; so also to assigne in what places,
and for what commodities, the Subject shall traffique abroad, belongeth
to the Soveraign. For if it did belong to private persons to use their
own discretion therein, some of them would bee drawn for gaine, both
to furnish the enemy with means to hurt the Common-wealth, and hurt it
themselves, by importing such things, as pleasing mens appetites, be
neverthelesse noxious, or at least unprofitable to them. And therefore
it belongeth to the Common-wealth, (that is, to the Soveraign only,)
to approve, or disapprove both of the places, and matter of forraign
Traffique.
The Laws Of Transferring Property Belong Also To The Soveraign
Further, seeing it is not enough to the Sustentation of a Common-wealth,
that every man have a propriety in a portion of Land, or in some few
commodities, or a naturall property in some usefull art, and there is no
art in the world, but is necessary either for the being, or well being
almost of every particular man; it is necessary, that men distribute
that which they can spare, and transferre their propriety therein,
mutually one to another, by exchange, and mutuall contract. And
therefore it belongeth to the Common-wealth, (that is to say, to the
Soveraign,) to appoint in what manner, all kinds of contract between
Subjects, (as buying, selling, exchanging, borrowing, lending, letting,
and taking to hire,) are to bee made; and by what words, and signes they
shall be understood for valid. And for the Matter, and Distribution of
the Nourishment, to the severall Members of the Common-wealth, thus much
(considering the modell of the whole worke) is sufficient.
Mony The Bloud Of A Common-wealth
By Concoction, I understand the reducing of all commodities, which are
not presently consumed, but reserved for Nourishment in time to come, to
some thing of equal value, and withall so portably, as not to hinder
the motion of men from place to place; to the end a man may have in
what place soever, such Nourishment as the place affordeth. And this is
nothing else but Gold, and Silver, and Mony. For Gold and Silver, being
(as it happens) almost in all Countries of the world highly valued, is a
commodious measure for the value of all things else between Nations; and
Mony (of what matter soever coyned by the Soveraign of a Common-wealth,)
is a sufficient measure of the value of all things else, between the
Subjects of that Common-wealth. By the means of which measures, all
commodities, Moveable, and Immoveable, are made to accompany a man, to
all places of his resort, within and without the place of his
ordinary residence; and the same passeth from Man to Man, within the
Common-wealth; and goes round about, Nourishing (as it passeth)
every part thereof; In so much as this Concoction, is as it were the
Sanguification of the Common-wealth: For naturall Bloud is in like
manner made of the fruits of the Earth; and circulating, nourisheth by
the way, every Member of the Body of Man.
And because Silver and Gold, have their value from the matter it self;
they have first this priviledge, that the value of them cannot be
altered by the power of one, nor of a few Common-wealths; as being a
common measure of the commodities of all places. But base Mony, may
easily be enhanced, or abased. Secondly, they have the priviledge to
make Common-wealths, move, and stretch out their armes, when need is,
into forraign Countries; and supply, not only private Subjects that
travell, but also whole Armies with provision. But that Coyne, which is
not considerable for the Matter, but for the Stamp of the place, being
unable to endure change of ayr, hath its effect at home only; where
also it is subject to the change of Laws, and thereby to have the value
diminished, to the prejudice many times of those that have it.
The Conduits And Way Of Mony To The Publique Use
The Conduits, and Wayes by which it is conveyed to the Publique use, are
of two sorts; One, that Conveyeth it to the Publique Coffers; The other,
that Issueth the same out againe for publique payments. Of the first
sort, are Collectors, Receivers, and Treasurers; of the second are the
Treasurers againe, and the Officers appointed for payment of severall
publique or private Ministers. And in this also, the Artificiall Man
maintains his resemblance with the Naturall; whose Veins receiving the
Bloud from the severall Parts of the Body, carry it to the Heart; where
being made Vitall, the Heart by the Arteries sends it out again, to
enliven, and enable for motion all the Members of the same.
The Children Of A Common-wealth Colonies
The Procreation, or Children of a Common-wealth, are those we call
Plantations, or Colonies; which are numbers of men sent out from the
Common-wealth, under a Conductor, or Governour, to inhabit a Forraign
Country, either formerly voyd of Inhabitants, or made voyd then, by
warre. And when a Colony is setled, they are either a Common-wealth of
themselves, discharged of their subjection to their Soveraign that sent
them, (as hath been done by many Common-wealths of antient time,) in
which case the Common-wealth from which they went was called their
Metropolis, or Mother, and requires no more of them, then Fathers
require of the Children, whom they emancipate, and make free from their
domestique government, which is Honour, and Friendship; or else they
remain united to their Metropolis, as were the Colonies of the people of
Rome; and then they are no Common-wealths themselves, but Provinces, and
parts of the Common-wealth that sent them. So that the Right of Colonies
(saving Honour, and League with their Metropolis,) dependeth wholly on
their Licence, or Letters, by which their Soveraign authorised them to
Plant. | Deryn climbs over the spine and sees the wrecked gondola. She's worried about Newkirk and Mr. Rigby, but she puts the thought out of her mind so she can go after Dr. Barlow. She finds Dr. Barlow in the cargo room, trying to salvage her secret cargo: large eggs. Most are broken from the crash. Dr. Barlow is very concerned with keeping the eggs warm, so Deryn gives her a thermometer Alek brought. Dr. Barlow immediately notices that the thermometer is marked in Celsius, indicating that it's Clanker equipment. Deryn tells her about the strange boy, and Dr. Barlow finds this very interesting, especially when she sees that the supplies are marked as Austrian military issue. When Deryn tells Dr. Barlow how bad the crash is, Dr. Barlow tells Deryn it may be fatal because the ecosystem won't be able to repair itself on a barren glacier. And now Dr. Barlow wants to meet Alek. |
|JUNIOR Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence
again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and
unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for
weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway
days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really
think she could.
"I'm positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the
same again as it was in those olden days," she said mournfully, as if
referring to a period of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a
while I'll get used to it, but I'm afraid concerts spoil people for
everyday life. I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them.
Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be
sensible; but still, I don't believe I'd really want to be a sensible
person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no
danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now
that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because
I'm tired. I simply couldn't sleep last night for ever so long. I just
lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That's one
splendid thing about such affairs--it's so lovely to look back to them."
Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove
and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby
Gillis and Emma White, who had quarreled over a point of precedence in
their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising
friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did
not "speak" for three months, because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright
that Julia Bell's bow when she got up to recite made her think of a
chicken jerking its head, and Bessie told Julia. None of the Sloanes
would have any dealings with the Bells, because the Bells had declared
that the Sloanes had too much to do in the program, and the Sloanes had
retorted that the Bells were not capable of doing the little they had to
do properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane fought Moody Spurgeon MacPherson,
because Moody Spurgeon had said that Anne Shirley put on airs about
her recitations, and Moody Spurgeon was "licked"; consequently Moody
Spurgeon's sister, Ella May, would not "speak" to Anne Shirley all the
rest of the winter. With the exception of these trifling frictions, work
in Miss Stacy's little kingdom went on with regularity and smoothness.
The winter weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so
little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by
way of the Birch Path. On Anne's birthday they were tripping lightly
down it, keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss
Stacy had told them that they must soon write a composition on "A
Winter's Walk in the Woods," and it behooved them to be observant.
"Just think, Diana, I'm thirteen years old today," remarked Anne in an
awed voice. "I can scarcely realize that I'm in my teens. When I woke
this morning it seemed to me that everything must be different. You've
been thirteen for a month, so I suppose it doesn't seem such a novelty
to you as it does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting.
In two more years I'll be really grown up. It's a great comfort to think
that I'll be able to use big words then without being laughed at."
"Ruby Gillis says she means to have a beau as soon as she's fifteen,"
said Diana.
"Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaus," said Anne disdainfully.
"She's actually delighted when anyone writes her name up in a
take-notice for all she pretends to be so mad. But I'm afraid that is an
uncharitable speech. Mrs. Allan says we should never make uncharitable
speeches; but they do slip out so often before you think, don't they? I
simply can't talk about Josie Pye without making an uncharitable speech,
so I never mention her at all. You may have noticed that. I'm trying to
be as much like Mrs. Allan as I possibly can, for I think she's perfect.
Mr. Allan thinks so too. Mrs. Lynde says he just worships the ground she
treads on and she doesn't really think it right for a minister to
set his affections so much on a mortal being. But then, Diana, even
ministers are human and have their besetting sins just like everybody
else. I had such an interesting talk with Mrs. Allan about besetting
sins last Sunday afternoon. There are just a few things it's proper
to talk about on Sundays and that is one of them. My besetting sin is
imagining too much and forgetting my duties. I'm striving very hard
to overcome it and now that I'm really thirteen perhaps I'll get on
better."
"In four more years we'll be able to put our hair up," said Diana.
"Alice Bell is only sixteen and she is wearing hers up, but I think
that's ridiculous. I shall wait until I'm seventeen."
"If I had Alice Bell's crooked nose," said Anne decidedly, "I
wouldn't--but there! I won't say what I was going to because it was
extremely uncharitable. Besides, I was comparing it with my own nose and
that's vanity. I'm afraid I think too much about my nose ever since I
heard that compliment about it long ago. It really is a great comfort to
me. Oh, Diana, look, there's a rabbit. That's something to remember for
our woods composition. I really think the woods are just as lovely in
winter as in summer. They're so white and still, as if they were asleep
and dreaming pretty dreams."
"I won't mind writing that composition when its time comes," sighed
Diana. "I can manage to write about the woods, but the one we're to
hand in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy telling us to write a
story out of our own heads!"
"Why, it's as easy as wink," said Anne.
"It's easy for you because you have an imagination," retorted Diana,
"but what would you do if you had been born without one? I suppose you
have your composition all done?"
Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and failing
miserably.
"I wrote it last Monday evening. It's called 'The Jealous Rival; or In
Death Not Divided.' I read it to Marilla and she said it was stuff and
nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine. That is
the kind of critic I like. It's a sad, sweet story. I just cried like
a child while I was writing it. It's about two beautiful maidens called
Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the same village
and were devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal brunette
with a coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was
a queenly blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety purple eyes."
"I never saw anybody with purple eyes," said Diana dubiously.
"Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the
common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow too. I've found out what an
alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen. You
know so much more than you did when you were only twelve."
"Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?" asked Diana, who was
beginning to feel rather interested in their fate.
"They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then Bertram
DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with the fair
Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a
carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three
miles; because, you understand, the carriage was all smashed up. I found
it rather hard to imagine the proposal because I had no experience to
go by. I asked Ruby Gillis if she knew anything about how men proposed
because I thought she'd likely be an authority on the subject, having so
many sisters married. Ruby told me she was hid in the hall pantry when
Malcolm Andres proposed to her sister Susan. She said Malcolm told Susan
that his dad had given him the farm in his own name and then said, 'What
do you say, darling pet, if we get hitched this fall?' And Susan said,
'Yes--no--I don't know--let me see'--and there they were, engaged as
quick as that. But I didn't think that sort of a proposal was a very
romantic one, so in the end I had to imagine it out as well as I could.
I made it very flowery and poetical and Bertram went on his knees,
although Ruby Gillis says it isn't done nowadays. Geraldine accepted
him in a speech a page long. I can tell you I took a lot of trouble
with that speech. I rewrote it five times and I look upon it as my
masterpiece. Bertram gave her a diamond ring and a ruby necklace
and told her they would go to Europe for a wedding tour, for he was
immensely wealthy. But then, alas, shadows began to darken over their
path. Cordelia was secretly in love with Bertram herself and when
Geraldine told her about the engagement she was simply furious,
especially when she saw the necklace and the diamond ring. All her
affection for Geraldine turned to bitter hate and she vowed that she
should never marry Bertram. But she pretended to be Geraldine's friend
the same as ever. One evening they were standing on the bridge over a
rushing turbulent stream and Cordelia, thinking they were alone, pushed
Geraldine over the brink with a wild, mocking, 'Ha, ha, ha.' But Bertram
saw it all and he at once plunged into the current, exclaiming, 'I
will save thee, my peerless Geraldine.' But alas, he had forgotten he
couldn't swim, and they were both drowned, clasped in each other's arms.
Their bodies were washed ashore soon afterwards. They were buried in the
one grave and their funeral was most imposing, Diana. It's so much
more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding. As for
Cordelia, she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic
asylum. I thought that was a poetical retribution for her crime."
"How perfectly lovely!" sighed Diana, who belonged to Matthew's school
of critics. "I don't see how you can make up such thrilling things out
of your own head, Anne. I wish my imagination was as good as yours."
"It would be if you'd only cultivate it," said Anne cheeringly. "I've
just thought of a plan, Diana. Let you and me have a story club all our
own and write stories for practice. I'll help you along until you can
do them by yourself. You ought to cultivate your imagination, you know.
Miss Stacy says so. Only we must take the right way. I told her about
the Haunted Wood, but she said we went the wrong way about it in that."
This was how the story club came into existence. It was limited to Diana
and Anne at first, but soon it was extended to include Jane Andrews
and Ruby Gillis and one or two others who felt that their imaginations
needed cultivating. No boys were allowed in it--although Ruby Gillis
opined that their admission would make it more exciting--and each member
had to produce one story a week.
"It's extremely interesting," Anne told Marilla. "Each girl has to read
her story out loud and then we talk it over. We are going to keep them
all sacredly and have them to read to our descendants. We each write
under a nom-de-plume. Mine is Rosamond Montmorency. All the girls
do pretty well. Ruby Gillis is rather sentimental. She puts too much
lovemaking into her stories and you know too much is worse than too
little. Jane never puts any because she says it makes her feel so silly
when she had to read it out loud. Jane's stories are extremely sensible.
Then Diana puts too many murders into hers. She says most of the time
she doesn't know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get
rid of them. I mostly always have to tell them what to write about, but
that isn't hard for I've millions of ideas."
"I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet," scoffed
Marilla. "You'll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time
that should be put on your lessons. Reading stories is bad enough but
writing them is worse."
"But we're so careful to put a moral into them all, Marilla," explained
Anne. "I insist upon that. All the good people are rewarded and all
the bad ones are suitably punished. I'm sure that must have a wholesome
effect. The moral is the great thing. Mr. Allan says so. I read one of
my stories to him and Mrs. Allan and they both agreed that the moral was
excellent. Only they laughed in the wrong places. I like it better when
people cry. Jane and Ruby almost always cry when I come to the pathetic
parts. Diana wrote her Aunt Josephine about our club and her Aunt
Josephine wrote back that we were to send her some of our stories. So
we copied out four of our very best and sent them. Miss Josephine Barry
wrote back that she had never read anything so amusing in her life. That
kind of puzzled us because the stories were all very pathetic and almost
everybody died. But I'm glad Miss Barry liked them. It shows our club
is doing some good in the world. Mrs. Allan says that ought to be our
object in everything. I do really try to make it my object but I forget
so often when I'm having fun. I hope I shall be a little like Mrs. Allan
when I grow up. Do you think there is any prospect of it, Marilla?"
"I shouldn't say there was a great deal" was Marilla's encouraging
answer. "I'm sure Mrs. Allan was never such a silly, forgetful little
girl as you are."
"No; but she wasn't always so good as she is now either," said Anne
seriously. "She told me so herself--that is, she said she was a dreadful
mischief when she was a girl and was always getting into scrapes. I felt
so encouraged when I heard that. Is it very wicked of me, Marilla,
to feel encouraged when I hear that other people have been bad and
mischievous? Mrs. Lynde says it is. Mrs. Lynde says she always feels
shocked when she hears of anyone ever having been naughty, no matter how
small they were. Mrs. Lynde says she once heard a minister confess that
when he was a boy he stole a strawberry tart out of his aunt's pantry
and she never had any respect for that minister again. Now, I wouldn't
have felt that way. I'd have thought that it was real noble of him to
confess it, and I'd have thought what an encouraging thing it would be
for small boys nowadays who do naughty things and are sorry for them
to know that perhaps they may grow up to be ministers in spite of it.
That's how I'd feel, Marilla."
"The way I feel at present, Anne," said Marilla, "is that it's high time
you had those dishes washed. You've taken half an hour longer than
you should with all your chattering. Learn to work first and talk
afterwards." | The Story Club Is Formed After the excitement of the Christmas concert, the Avonlea students return to their normal, humdrum patterns. Anne, now almost thirteen, vows to improve herself by imitating Mrs. Allan, refraining from saying uncharitable things and trying to do good. For school, the students are assigned to write a piece of fiction and a composition about a walk in the winter. These assignments displease Marilla because they rely on imagination rather than memorization. They elate Anne, however, and she completes her original story early. Diana moans that she does not have enough imagination to do the assignment. To help Diana cultivate her imagination and to practice her own writing, Anne proposes that the two girls start a story club. Two of their friends, Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis, eventually join, and the girls spend their time inventing romantic, melodramatic storylines |
Scene 2.
Enter the Constables, Borachio, and the Towne Clerke in gownes.
Keeper. Is our whole dissembly appeard?
Cowley. O a stoole and a cushion for the Sexton
Sexton. Which be the malefactors?
Andrew. Marry that am I, and my partner
Cowley. Nay that's certaine, wee haue the exhibition
to examine
Sexton. But which are the offenders that are to be examined,
let them come before master Constable
Kemp. Yea marry, let them come before mee, what is
your name, friend?
Bor. Borachio
Kem. Pray write downe Borachio. Yours sirra
Con. I am a Gentleman sir, and my name is Conrade
Kee. Write downe Master gentleman Conrade: maisters,
doe you serue God: maisters, it is proued alreadie
that you are little better than false knaues, and it will goe
neere to be thought so shortly, how answer you for your
selues?
Con. Marry sir, we say we are none
Kemp. A maruellous witty fellow I assure you, but I
will goe about with him: come you hither sirra, a word
in your eare sir, I say to you, it is thought you are false
knaues
Bor. Sir, I say to you, we are none
Kemp. Well, stand aside, 'fore God they are both in
a tale: haue you writ downe that they are none?
Sext. Master Constable, you goe not the way to examine,
you must call forth the watch that are their accusers
Kemp. Yea marry, that's the eftest way, let the watch
come forth: masters, I charge you in the Princes name,
accuse these men
Watch 1. This man said sir, that Don Iohn the Princes
brother was a villaine
Kemp. Write down, Prince Iohn a villaine: why this
is flat periurie, to call a Princes brother villaine
Bora. Master Constable
Kemp. Pray thee fellow peace, I do not like thy looke
I promise thee
Sexton. What heard you him say else?
Watch 2. Mary that he had receiued a thousand Dukates
of Don Iohn, for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully
Kemp. Flat Burglarie as euer was committed
Const. Yea by th' masse that it is
Sexton. What else fellow?
Watch 1. And that Count Claudio did meane vpon his
words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and
not marry her
Kemp. O villaine! thou wilt be condemn'd into euerlasting
redemption for this
Sexton. What else?
Watch. This is all
Sexton. And this is more masters then you can deny,
Prince Iohn is this morning secretly stolne away: Hero
was in this manner accus'd, in this very manner refus'd,
and vpon the griefe of this sodainely died: Master Constable,
let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato,
I will goe before, and shew him their examination
Const. Come, let them be opinion'd
Sex. Let them be in the hands of Coxcombe
Kem. Gods my life, where's the Sexton? let him write
downe the Princes Officer Coxcombe: come, binde them
thou naughty varlet
Couley. Away, you are an asse, you are an asse
Kemp. Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not
suspect my yeeres? O that hee were heere to write mee
downe an asse! but masters, remember that I am an asse:
though it be not written down, yet forget not y I am an
asse: No thou villaine, y art full of piety as shall be prou'd
vpon thee by good witnesse, I am a wise fellow, and
which is more, an officer, and which is more, a houshoulder,
and which is more, as pretty a peece of flesh as any in
Messina, and one that knowes the Law, goe to, & a rich
fellow enough, goe to, and a fellow that hath had losses,
and one that hath two gownes, and euery thing handsome
about him: bring him away: O that I had been writ
downe an asse!
Enter. | The scene continues. The rebel leaders meet up with Prince John, who lectures the Archbishop about taking up arms against the king when he should be back at home with his bible, preaching about peace and obedience. Prince John says that the Archbishop is seriously abusing his religious authority by using his power to get the people all riled up against the king. The Archbishop, he says, should know better than anyone that the king is God's "substitute." History Snack: Prince John is referring to a political theory known as the doctrine of "divine right," which says that kings are appointed by God to be his representatives on earth. Rebelling against the king is tantamount to sinning against God. Queen Elizabeth, who ruled England at the time the play was written, even made the churches in England read a sermon called "Homily Against Disobedience and Willful Rebellion." Rebellion, according to the Elizabethan worldview, was a "great a sin against God." York responds that he has no choice because King Henry has refused to address the rebels' grievances. Mowbray and Hastings chime in that they're prepared to fight. Prince John says he's had a chance to look over the rebel's list of grievances and he's prepared to put things to rights. If the rebels send their troops home, Prince John will do the same and they can all sit down and have a drink together, toasting their love for one another. York accepts and Prince John raises his glass in a toast and assures the rebels that they have his word on it - their grievances will be addressed. Hastings gives orders to Coleville to send the rebel troops home and the rebel leaders drink a toast to peace. Mowbray says that he's suddenly feeling sick and the others tell him to cheer up. The rebel troops can be heard in the distance, shouting in celebration of the peace compact. The Archbishop of York says it's great that both sides have come out winners today. Prince John sends Westmoreland to send the king's troops home and makes small talk with the rebel leaders, even suggesting that they all lodge together that night. Westmoreland returns with news that the king's forces refuse to disband until Prince John delivers a speech. Just then, Hastings announces that the rebel army has disbanded - the troops have run home like schoolboys on the last day of classes. Then Westmoreland turns to Hastings, York, and Mowbray and says, "Surprise! You're all under arrest for treason." Mowbray says something like "No fair! You promised to redress our grievances and now you've betrayed our trust." Prince John replies that he's going to address their grievances but first he's also going to sentence the rebels to death. |
BY THE RIVER
Siddhartha walked through the forest, was already far from the city, and
knew nothing but that one thing, that there was no going back for him,
that this life, as he had lived it for many years until now, was over
and done away with, and that he had tasted all of it, sucked everything
out of it until he was disgusted with it. Dead was the singing bird, he
had dreamt of. Dead was the bird in his heart. Deeply, he had been
entangled in Sansara, he had sucked up disgust and death from all sides
into his body, like a sponge sucks up water until it is full. And full
he was, full of the feeling of been sick of it, full of misery, full of
death, there was nothing left in this world which could have attracted
him, given him joy, given him comfort.
Passionately he wished to know nothing about himself anymore, to have
rest, to be dead. If there only was a lightning-bolt to strike him
dead! If there only was a tiger to devour him! If there only was a
wine, a poison which would numb his senses, bring him forgetfulness and
sleep, and no awakening from that! Was there still any kind of filth,
he had not soiled himself with, a sin or foolish act he had not
committed, a dreariness of the soul he had not brought upon himself?
Was it still at all possible to be alive? Was it possible, to breathe
in again and again, to breathe out, to feel hunger, to eat again, to
sleep again, to sleep with a woman again? Was this cycle not exhausted
and brought to a conclusion for him?
Siddhartha reached the large river in the forest, the same river over
which a long time ago, when he had still been a young man and came from
the town of Gotama, a ferryman had conducted him. By this river he
stopped, hesitantly he stood at the bank. Tiredness and hunger had
weakened him, and whatever for should he walk on, wherever to, to which
goal? No, there were no more goals, there was nothing left but the
deep, painful yearning to shake off this whole desolate dream, to spit
out this stale wine, to put an end to this miserable and shameful life.
A hang bent over the bank of the river, a coconut-tree; Siddhartha
leaned against its trunk with his shoulder, embraced the trunk with one
arm, and looked down into the green water, which ran and ran under him,
looked down and found himself to be entirely filled with the wish to
let go and to drown in these waters. A frightening emptiness was
reflected back at him by the water, answering to the terrible emptiness
in his soul. Yes, he had reached the end. There was nothing left for
him, except to annihilate himself, except to smash the failure into
which he had shaped his life, to throw it away, before the feet of
mockingly laughing gods. This was the great vomiting he had longed for:
death, the smashing to bits of the form he hated! Let him be food for
fishes, this dog Siddhartha, this lunatic, this depraved and rotten
body, this weakened and abused soul! Let him be food for fishes and
crocodiles, let him be chopped to bits by the daemons!
With a distorted face, he stared into the water, saw the reflection of
his face and spit at it. In deep tiredness, he took his arm away from
the trunk of the tree and turned a bit, in order to let himself fall
straight down, in order to finally drown. With his eyes closed, he
slipped towards death.
Then, out of remote areas of his soul, out of past times of his now
weary life, a sound stirred up. It was a word, a syllable, which he,
without thinking, with a slurred voice, spoke to himself, the old word
which is the beginning and the end of all prayers of the Brahmans, the
holy "Om", which roughly means "that what is perfect" or "the
completion". And in the moment when the sound of "Om" touched
Siddhartha's ear, his dormant spirit suddenly woke up and realized the
foolishness of his actions.
Siddhartha was deeply shocked. So this was how things were with him,
so doomed was he, so much he had lost his way and was forsaken by all
knowledge, that he had been able to seek death, that this wish, this
wish of a child, had been able to grow in him: to find rest by
annihilating his body! What all agony of these recent times, all
sobering realizations, all desperation had not brought about, this was
brought on by this moment, when the Om entered his consciousness: he
became aware of himself in his misery and in his error.
Om! he spoke to himself: Om! and again he knew about Brahman, knew
about the indestructibility of life, knew about all that is divine,
which he had forgotten.
But this was only a moment, flash. By the foot of the coconut-tree,
Siddhartha collapsed, struck down by tiredness, mumbling Om, placed his
head on the root of the tree and fell into a deep sleep.
Deep was his sleep and without dreams, for a long time he had not known
such a sleep any more. When he woke up after many hours, he felt as if
ten years had passed, he heard the water quietly flowing, did not know
where he was and who had brought him here, opened his eyes, saw with
astonishment that there were trees and the sky above him, and he
remembered where he was and how he got here. But it took him a long
while for this, and the past seemed to him as if it had been covered by
a veil, infinitely distant, infinitely far away, infinitely meaningless.
He only knew that his previous life (in the first moment when he thought
about it, this past life seemed to him like a very old, previous
incarnation, like an early pre-birth of his present self)--that his
previous life had been abandoned by him, that, full of disgust and
wretchedness, he had even intended to throw his life away, but that by a
river, under a coconut-tree, he has come to his senses, the holy word
Om on his lips, that then he had fallen asleep and had now woken up and
was looking at the world as a new man. Quietly, he spoke the word Om to
himself, speaking which he had fallen asleep, and it seemed to him as if
his entire long sleep had been nothing but a long meditative recitation
of Om, a thinking of Om, a submergence and complete entering into Om,
into the nameless, the perfected.
What a wonderful sleep had this been! Never before by sleep, he had
been thus refreshed, thus renewed, thus rejuvenated! Perhaps, he had
really died, had drowned and was reborn in a new body? But no, he knew
himself, he knew his hand and his feet, knew the place where he lay,
knew this self in his chest, this Siddhartha, the eccentric, the weird
one, but this Siddhartha was nevertheless transformed, was renewed,
was strangely well rested, strangely awake, joyful and curious.
Siddhartha straightened up, then he saw a person sitting opposite to him,
an unknown man, a monk in a yellow robe with a shaven head, sitting in
the position of pondering. He observed the man, who had neither hair
on his head nor a beard, and he had not observed him for long when he
recognised this monk as Govinda, the friend of his youth, Govinda who
had taken his refuge with the exalted Buddha. Govinda had aged, he too,
but still his face bore the same features, expressed zeal, faithfulness,
searching, timidness. But when Govinda now, sensing his gaze, opened
his eyes and looked at him, Siddhartha saw that Govinda did not
recognise him. Govinda was happy to find him awake; apparently, he had
been sitting here for a long time and been waiting for him to wake up,
though he did not know him.
"I have been sleeping," said Siddhartha. "However did you get here?"
"You have been sleeping," answered Govinda. "It is not good to be
sleeping in such places, where snakes often are and the animals of the
forest have their paths. I, oh sir, am a follower of the exalted
Gotama, the Buddha, the Sakyamuni, and have been on a pilgrimage
together with several of us on this path, when I saw you lying and
sleeping in a place where it is dangerous to sleep. Therefore, I sought
to wake you up, oh sir, and since I saw that your sleep was very deep,
I stayed behind from my group and sat with you. And then, so it seems,
I have fallen asleep myself, I who wanted to guard your sleep. Badly,
I have served you, tiredness has overwhelmed me. But now that you're
awake, let me go to catch up with my brothers."
"I thank you, Samana, for watching out over my sleep," spoke Siddhartha.
"You're friendly, you followers of the exalted one. Now you may go
then."
"I'm going, sir. May you, sir, always be in good health."
"I thank you, Samana."
Govinda made the gesture of a salutation and said: "Farewell."
"Farewell, Govinda," said Siddhartha.
The monk stopped.
"Permit me to ask, sir, from where do you know my name?"
Now, Siddhartha smiled.
"I know you, oh Govinda, from your father's hut, and from the school
of the Brahmans, and from the offerings, and from our walk to the
Samanas, and from that hour when you took your refuge with the exalted
one in the grove Jetavana."
"You're Siddhartha," Govinda exclaimed loudly. "Now, I'm recognising
you, and don't comprehend any more how I couldn't recognise you right
away. Be welcome, Siddhartha, my joy is great, to see you again."
"It also gives me joy, to see you again. You've been the guard of my
sleep, again I thank you for this, though I wouldn't have required any
guard. Where are you going to, oh friend?"
"I'm going nowhere. We monks are always travelling, whenever it is not
the rainy season, we always move from one place to another, live
according to the rules if the teachings passed on to us, accept alms,
move on. It is always like this. But you, Siddhartha, where are you
going to?"
Quoth Siddhartha: "With me too, friend, it is as it is with you. I'm
going nowhere. I'm just travelling. I'm on a pilgrimage."
Govinda spoke: "You're saying: you're on a pilgrimage, and I believe in
you. But, forgive me, oh Siddhartha, you do not look like a pilgrim.
You're wearing a rich man's garments, you're wearing the shoes of a
distinguished gentleman, and your hair, with the fragrance of perfume,
is not a pilgrim's hair, not the hair of a Samana."
"Right so, my dear, you have observed well, your keen eyes see
everything. But I haven't said to you that I was a Samana. I said:
I'm on a pilgrimage. And so it is: I'm on a pilgrimage."
"You're on a pilgrimage," said Govinda. "But few would go on a
pilgrimage in such clothes, few in such shoes, few with such hair.
Never I have met such a pilgrim, being a pilgrim myself for many years."
"I believe you, my dear Govinda. But now, today, you've met a pilgrim
just like this, wearing such shoes, such a garment. Remember, my dear:
Not eternal is the world of appearances, not eternal, anything but
eternal are our garments and the style of our hair, and our hair and
bodies themselves. I'm wearing a rich man's clothes, you've seen this
quite right. I'm wearing them, because I have been a rich man, and I'm
wearing my hair like the worldly and lustful people, for I have been
one of them."
"And now, Siddhartha, what are you now?"
"I don't know it, I don't know it just like you. I'm travelling. I was
a rich man and am no rich man any more, and what I'll be tomorrow, I
don't know."
"You've lost your riches?"
"I've lost them or they me. They somehow happened to slip away from me.
The wheel of physical manifestations is turning quickly, Govinda. Where
is Siddhartha the Brahman? Where is Siddhartha the Samana? Where is
Siddhartha the rich man? Non-eternal things change quickly, Govinda,
you know it."
Govinda looked at the friend of his youth for a long time, with doubt in
his eyes. After that, he gave him the salutation which one would use
on a gentleman and went on his way.
With a smiling face, Siddhartha watched him leave, he loved him still,
this faithful man, this fearful man. And how could he not have loved
everybody and everything in this moment, in the glorious hour after his
wonderful sleep, filled with Om! The enchantment, which had happened
inside of him in his sleep and by means of the Om, was this very thing
that he loved everything, that he was full of joyful love for everything
he saw. And it was this very thing, so it seemed to him now, which had
been his sickness before, that he was not able to love anybody or
anything.
With a smiling face, Siddhartha watched the leaving monk. The sleep had
strengthened him much, but hunger gave him much pain, for by now he had
not eaten for two days, and the times were long past when he had been
tough against hunger. With sadness, and yet also with a smile, he
thought of that time. In those days, so he remembered, he had boasted
of three things to Kamala, had been able to do three noble and
undefeatable feats: fasting--waiting--thinking. These had been his
possession, his power and strength, his solid staff; in the busy,
laborious years of his youth, he had learned these three feats, nothing
else. And now, they had abandoned him, none of them was his any more,
neither fasting, nor waiting, nor thinking. For the most wretched
things, he had given them up, for what fades most quickly, for sensual
lust, for the good life, for riches! His life had indeed been strange.
And now, so it seemed, now he had really become a childlike person.
Siddhartha thought about his situation. Thinking was hard on him, he
did not really feel like it, but he forced himself.
Now, he thought, since all these most easily perishing things have
slipped from me again, now I'm standing here under the sun again just as
I have been standing here a little child, nothing is mine, I have no
abilities, there is nothing I could bring about, I have learned nothing.
How wondrous is this! Now, that I'm no longer young, that my hair is
already half gray, that my strength is fading, now I'm starting again
at the beginning and as a child! Again, he had to smile. Yes, his fate
had been strange! Things were going downhill with him, and now he was
again facing the world void and naked and stupid. But he could not feed
sad about this, no, he even felt a great urge to laugh, to laugh about
himself, to laugh about this strange, foolish world.
"Things are going downhill with you!" he said to himself, and laughed
about it, and as he was saying it, he happened to glance at the river,
and he also saw the river going downhill, always moving on downhill,
and singing and being happy through it all. He liked this well, kindly
he smiled at the river. Was this not the river in which he had intended
to drown himself, in past times, a hundred years ago, or had he dreamed
this?
Wondrous indeed was my life, so he thought, wondrous detours it has
taken. As I boy, I had only to do with gods and offerings. As a youth,
I had only to do with asceticism, with thinking and meditation, was
searching for Brahman, worshipped the eternal in the Atman. But as a
young man, I followed the penitents, lived in the forest, suffered of
heat and frost, learned to hunger, taught my body to become dead.
Wonderfully, soon afterwards, insight came towards me in the form of the
great Buddha's teachings, I felt the knowledge of the oneness of the
world circling in me like my own blood. But I also had to leave Buddha
and the great knowledge. I went and learned the art of love with
Kamala, learned trading with Kamaswami, piled up money, wasted money,
learned to love my stomach, learned to please my senses. I had to spend
many years losing my spirit, to unlearn thinking again, to forget the
oneness. Isn't it just as if I had turned slowly and on a long detour
from a man into a child, from a thinker into a childlike person? And
yet, this path has been very good; and yet, the bird in my chest has
not died. But what a path has this been! I had to pass through so much
stupidity, through so much vices, through so many errors, through so
much disgust and disappointments and woe, just to become a child again
and to be able to start over. But it was right so, my heart says "Yes"
to it, my eyes smile to it. I've had to experience despair, I've had to
sink down to the most foolish one of all thoughts, to the thought of
suicide, in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear Om
again, to be able to sleep properly and awake properly again. I had to
become a fool, to find Atman in me again. I had to sin, to be able to
live again. Where else might my path lead me to? It is foolish, this
path, it moves in loops, perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let
it go as it likes, I want to take it.
Wonderfully, he felt joy rolling like waves in his chest.
Wherever from, he asked his heart, where from did you get this
happiness? Might it come from that long, good sleep, which has done me
so good? Or from the word Om, which I said? Or from the fact that I
have escaped, that I have completely fled, that I am finally free again
and am standing like a child under the sky? Oh how good is it to have
fled, to have become free! How clean and beautiful is the air here, how
good to breathe! There, where I ran away from, there everything smelled
of ointments, of spices, of wine, of excess, of sloth. How did I hate
this world of the rich, of those who revel in fine food, of the
gamblers! How did I hate myself for staying in this terrible world for
so long! How did I hate myself, have deprive, poisoned, tortured
myself, have made myself old and evil! No, never again I will, as I
used to like doing so much, delude myself into thinking that Siddhartha
was wise! But this one thing I have done well, this I like, this I must
praise, that there is now an end to that hatred against myself, to that
foolish and dreary life! I praise you, Siddhartha, after so many years
of foolishness, you have once again had an idea, have done something,
have heard the bird in your chest singing and have followed it!
Thus he praised himself, found joy in himself, listened curiously to his
stomach, which was rumbling with hunger. He had now, so he felt, in
these recent times and days, completely tasted and spit out, devoured up
to the point of desperation and death, a piece of suffering, a piece of
misery. Like this, it was good. For much longer, he could have stayed
with Kamaswami, made money, wasted money, filled his stomach, and let
his soul die of thirst; for much longer he could have lived in this
soft, well upholstered hell, if this had not happened: the moment of
complete hopelessness and despair, that most extreme moment, when he
hung over the rushing waters and was ready to destroy himself. That he
had felt this despair, this deep disgust, and that he had not succumbed
to it, that the bird, the joyful source and voice in him was still alive
after all, this was why he felt joy, this was why he laughed, this was
why his face was smiling brightly under his hair which had turned gray.
"It is good," he thought, "to get a taste of everything for oneself,
which one needs to know. That lust for the world and riches do not
belong to the good things, I have already learned as a child. I have
known it for a long time, but I have experienced only now. And now I
know it, don't just know it in my memory, but in my eyes, in my heart,
in my stomach. Good for me, to know this!"
For a long time, he pondered his transformation, listened to the bird,
as it sang for joy. Had not this bird died in him, had he not felt its
death? No, something else from within him had died, something which
already for a long time had yearned to die. Was it not this what he
used to intend to kill in his ardent years as a penitent? Was this not
his self, his small, frightened, and proud self, he had wrestled with
for so many years, which had defeated him again and again, which was
back again after every killing, prohibited joy, felt fear? Was it not
this, which today had finally come to its death, here in the forest, by
this lovely river? Was it not due to this death, that he was now like
a child, so full of trust, so without fear, so full of joy?
Now Siddhartha also got some idea of why he had fought this self in
vain as a Brahman, as a penitent. Too much knowledge had held him
back, too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rules, to much
self-castigation, so much doing and striving for that goal! Full of
arrogance, he had been, always the smartest, always working the most,
always one step ahead of all others, always the knowing and spiritual
one, always the priest or wise one. Into being a priest, into this
arrogance, into this spirituality, his self had retreated, there it sat
firmly and grew, while he thought he would kill it by fasting and
penance. Now he saw it and saw that the secret voice had been right,
that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation.
Therefore, he had to go out into the world, lose himself to lust and
power, to woman and money, had to become a merchant, a dice-gambler, a
drinker, and a greedy person, until the priest and Samana in him was
dead. Therefore, he had to continue bearing these ugly years, bearing
the disgust, the teachings, the pointlessness of a dreary and
wasted life up to the end, up to bitter despair, until Siddhartha the
lustful, Siddhartha the greedy could also die. He had died, a new
Siddhartha had woken up from the sleep. He would also grow old, he
would also eventually have to die, mortal was Siddhartha, mortal was
every physical form. But today he was young, was a child, the new
Siddhartha, and was full of joy.
He thought these thoughts, listened with a smile to his stomach,
listened gratefully to a buzzing bee. Cheerfully, he looked into the
rushing river, never before he had liked a water so well as this one,
never before he had perceived the voice and the parable of the moving
water thus strongly and beautifully. It seemed to him, as if the river
had something special to tell him, something he did not know yet, which
was still awaiting him. In this river, Siddhartha had intended to
drown himself, in it the old, tired, desperate Siddhartha had drowned
today. But the new Siddhartha felt a deep love for this rushing water,
and decided for himself, not to leave it very soon. | Siddhartha wanders into the forest far away from the town. He feels disgust for the life he has led. He reaches the long river which the ferryman had helped him to cross when he had returned from Gotama's grove. Weakened by fatigue and hunger, he stops on the banks of this river and wishes for an end to his life. Then, from a remote corner of his soul, Siddhartha hears a sound. It one syllable -- the sound of the holy Om. When it reaches his ears, his slumbering soul suddenly awakens. Siddhartha sinks into a deep sleep at the foot of a coconut tree. When he wakes, he feels refreshed and rejuvenated, as though he is born anew. Siddhartha raises himself and sees a monk with no beard or hair on his head. He realizes it is Govinda, who has aged like Siddhartha; but eagerness, loyalty, curiosity, and anxiety are still written on his face. Siddhartha greets him, but does not reveal his identity. Govinda does not linger, saying that he must go and join the other followers of Gotama with whom he is traveling. When Siddhartha says "good-bye, Govinda," the monk is surprised to hear his name. He then realizes with joy that Siddhartha is before him. When Govinda quizzes his friend, asking "what are you now, Siddhartha," he can only say that he does not know, since he is no longer the Brahmin, the Samana, or the rich man. Govinda looks at his friend doubtfully, bows to him and goes on his way. Siddhartha is suddenly filled with a sense of happiness and joy. He realizes that he still has emotions, for he still loves Govinda. He thinks of himself as a child who is happy with nothing. He glances at the river and sings merrily. He ruminates on all that he has been so far and knows that everything in his past is dead. He realizes that his future salvation must come from within himself, not from any teacher. Siddhartha accepts that he is a new creation, rejuvenated by the river, where he decides to stay. |
Mrs. Jennings was very warm in her praise of Edward's conduct, but only
Elinor and Marianne understood its true merit. THEY only knew how
little he had had to tempt him to be disobedient, and how small was the
consolation, beyond the consciousness of doing right, that could remain
to him in the loss of friends and fortune. Elinor gloried in his
integrity; and Marianne forgave all his offences in compassion for his
punishment. But though confidence between them was, by this public
discovery, restored to its proper state, it was not a subject on which
either of them were fond of dwelling when alone. Elinor avoided it
upon principle, as tending to fix still more upon her thoughts, by the
too warm, too positive assurances of Marianne, that belief of Edward's
continued affection for herself which she rather wished to do away; and
Marianne's courage soon failed her, in trying to converse upon a topic
which always left her more dissatisfied with herself than ever, by the
comparison it necessarily produced between Elinor's conduct and her own.
She felt all the force of that comparison; but not as her sister had
hoped, to urge her to exertion now; she felt it with all the pain of
continual self-reproach, regretted most bitterly that she had never
exerted herself before; but it brought only the torture of penitence,
without the hope of amendment. Her mind was so much weakened that she
still fancied present exertion impossible, and therefore it only
dispirited her more.
Nothing new was heard by them, for a day or two afterwards, of affairs
in Harley Street, or Bartlett's Buildings. But though so much of the
matter was known to them already, that Mrs. Jennings might have had
enough to do in spreading that knowledge farther, without seeking after
more, she had resolved from the first to pay a visit of comfort and
inquiry to her cousins as soon as she could; and nothing but the
hindrance of more visitors than usual, had prevented her going to them
within that time.
The third day succeeding their knowledge of the particulars, was so
fine, so beautiful a Sunday as to draw many to Kensington Gardens,
though it was only the second week in March. Mrs. Jennings and Elinor
were of the number; but Marianne, who knew that the Willoughbys were
again in town, and had a constant dread of meeting them, chose rather
to stay at home, than venture into so public a place.
An intimate acquaintance of Mrs. Jennings joined them soon after they
entered the Gardens, and Elinor was not sorry that by her continuing
with them, and engaging all Mrs. Jennings's conversation, she was
herself left to quiet reflection. She saw nothing of the Willoughbys,
nothing of Edward, and for some time nothing of anybody who could by
any chance whether grave or gay, be interesting to her. But at last
she found herself with some surprise, accosted by Miss Steele, who,
though looking rather shy, expressed great satisfaction in meeting
them, and on receiving encouragement from the particular kindness of
Mrs. Jennings, left her own party for a short time, to join their's.
Mrs. Jennings immediately whispered to Elinor,
"Get it all out of her, my dear. She will tell you any thing if you
ask. You see I cannot leave Mrs. Clarke."
It was lucky, however, for Mrs. Jennings's curiosity and Elinor's too,
that she would tell any thing WITHOUT being asked; for nothing would
otherwise have been learnt.
"I am so glad to meet you;" said Miss Steele, taking her familiarly by
the arm--"for I wanted to see you of all things in the world." And
then lowering her voice, "I suppose Mrs. Jennings has heard all about
it. Is she angry?"
"Not at all, I believe, with you."
"That is a good thing. And Lady Middleton, is SHE angry?"
"I cannot suppose it possible that she should be."
"I am monstrous glad of it. Good gracious! I have had such a time of
it! I never saw Lucy in such a rage in my life. She vowed at first
she would never trim me up a new bonnet, nor do any thing else for me
again, so long as she lived; but now she is quite come to, and we are
as good friends as ever. Look, she made me this bow to my hat, and put
in the feather last night. There now, YOU are going to laugh at me
too. But why should not I wear pink ribbons? I do not care if it IS
the Doctor's favourite colour. I am sure, for my part, I should never
have known he DID like it better than any other colour, if he had not
happened to say so. My cousins have been so plaguing me! I declare
sometimes I do not know which way to look before them."
She had wandered away to a subject on which Elinor had nothing to say,
and therefore soon judged it expedient to find her way back again to
the first.
"Well, but Miss Dashwood," speaking triumphantly, "people may say what
they chuse about Mr. Ferrars's declaring he would not have Lucy, for it
is no such thing I can tell you; and it is quite a shame for such
ill-natured reports to be spread abroad. Whatever Lucy might think
about it herself, you know, it was no business of other people to set
it down for certain."
"I never heard any thing of the kind hinted at before, I assure you,"
said Elinor.
"Oh, did not you? But it WAS said, I know, very well, and by more than
one; for Miss Godby told Miss Sparks, that nobody in their senses could
expect Mr. Ferrars to give up a woman like Miss Morton, with thirty
thousand pounds to her fortune, for Lucy Steele that had nothing at
all; and I had it from Miss Sparks myself. And besides that, my cousin
Richard said himself, that when it came to the point he was afraid Mr.
Ferrars would be off; and when Edward did not come near us for three
days, I could not tell what to think myself; and I believe in my heart
Lucy gave it up all for lost; for we came away from your brother's
Wednesday, and we saw nothing of him not all Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday, and did not know what was become of him. Once Lucy thought
to write to him, but then her spirits rose against that. However this
morning he came just as we came home from church; and then it all came
out, how he had been sent for Wednesday to Harley Street, and been
talked to by his mother and all of them, and how he had declared before
them all that he loved nobody but Lucy, and nobody but Lucy would he
have. And how he had been so worried by what passed, that as soon as
he had went away from his mother's house, he had got upon his horse,
and rid into the country, some where or other; and how he had stayed
about at an inn all Thursday and Friday, on purpose to get the better
of it. And after thinking it all over and over again, he said, it
seemed to him as if, now he had no fortune, and no nothing at all, it
would be quite unkind to keep her on to the engagement, because it must
be for her loss, for he had nothing but two thousand pounds, and no
hope of any thing else; and if he was to go into orders, as he had some
thoughts, he could get nothing but a curacy, and how was they to live
upon that?--He could not bear to think of her doing no better, and so
he begged, if she had the least mind for it, to put an end to the
matter directly, and leave him shift for himself. I heard him say all
this as plain as could possibly be. And it was entirely for HER sake,
and upon HER account, that he said a word about being off, and not upon
his own. I will take my oath he never dropt a syllable of being tired
of her, or of wishing to marry Miss Morton, or any thing like it. But,
to be sure, Lucy would not give ear to such kind of talking; so she
told him directly (with a great deal about sweet and love, you know,
and all that--Oh, la! one can't repeat such kind of things you
know)--she told him directly, she had not the least mind in the world
to be off, for she could live with him upon a trifle, and how little so
ever he might have, she should be very glad to have it all, you know,
or something of the kind. So then he was monstrous happy, and talked
on some time about what they should do, and they agreed he should take
orders directly, and they must wait to be married till he got a living.
And just then I could not hear any more, for my cousin called from
below to tell me Mrs. Richardson was come in her coach, and would take
one of us to Kensington Gardens; so I was forced to go into the room
and interrupt them, to ask Lucy if she would like to go, but she did
not care to leave Edward; so I just run up stairs and put on a pair of
silk stockings and came off with the Richardsons."
"I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them," said Elinor;
"you were all in the same room together, were not you?"
"No, indeed, not us. La! Miss Dashwood, do you think people make love
when any body else is by? Oh, for shame!--To be sure you must know
better than that. (Laughing affectedly.)--No, no; they were shut up in
the drawing-room together, and all I heard was only by listening at the
door."
"How!" cried Elinor; "have you been repeating to me what you only
learnt yourself by listening at the door? I am sorry I did not know it
before; for I certainly would not have suffered you to give me
particulars of a conversation which you ought not to have known
yourself. How could you behave so unfairly by your sister?"
"Oh, la! there is nothing in THAT. I only stood at the door, and heard
what I could. And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me;
for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets
together, she never made any bones of hiding in a closet, or behind a
chimney-board, on purpose to hear what we said."
Elinor tried to talk of something else; but Miss Steele could not be
kept beyond a couple of minutes, from what was uppermost in her mind.
"Edward talks of going to Oxford soon," said she; "but now he is
lodging at No. --, Pall Mall. What an ill-natured woman his mother is,
an't she? And your brother and sister were not very kind! However, I
shan't say anything against them to YOU; and to be sure they did send
us home in their own chariot, which was more than I looked for. And
for my part, I was all in a fright for fear your sister should ask us
for the huswifes she had gave us a day or two before; but, however,
nothing was said about them, and I took care to keep mine out of sight.
Edward have got some business at Oxford, he says; so he must go there
for a time; and after THAT, as soon as he can light upon a Bishop, he
will be ordained. I wonder what curacy he will get!--Good gracious!
(giggling as she spoke) I'd lay my life I know what my cousins will
say, when they hear of it. They will tell me I should write to the
Doctor, to get Edward the curacy of his new living. I know they will;
but I am sure I would not do such a thing for all the world.-- 'La!' I
shall say directly, 'I wonder how you could think of such a thing? I
write to the Doctor, indeed!'"
"Well," said Elinor, "it is a comfort to be prepared against the worst.
You have got your answer ready."
Miss Steele was going to reply on the same subject, but the approach of
her own party made another more necessary.
"Oh, la! here come the Richardsons. I had a vast deal more to say to
you, but I must not stay away from them not any longer. I assure you
they are very genteel people. He makes a monstrous deal of money, and
they keep their own coach. I have not time to speak to Mrs. Jennings
about it myself, but pray tell her I am quite happy to hear she is not
in anger against us, and Lady Middleton the same; and if anything
should happen to take you and your sister away, and Mrs. Jennings
should want company, I am sure we should be very glad to come and stay
with her for as long a time as she likes. I suppose Lady Middleton
won't ask us any more this bout. Good-by; I am sorry Miss Marianne was
not here. Remember me kindly to her. La! if you have not got your
spotted muslin on!--I wonder you was not afraid of its being torn."
Such was her parting concern; for after this, she had time only to pay
her farewell compliments to Mrs. Jennings, before her company was
claimed by Mrs. Richardson; and Elinor was left in possession of
knowledge which might feed her powers of reflection some time, though
she had learnt very little more than what had been already foreseen and
foreplanned in her own mind. Edward's marriage with Lucy was as firmly
determined on, and the time of its taking place remained as absolutely
uncertain, as she had concluded it would be;--every thing depended,
exactly after her expectation, on his getting that preferment, of
which, at present, there seemed not the smallest chance.
As soon as they returned to the carriage, Mrs. Jennings was eager for
information; but as Elinor wished to spread as little as possible
intelligence that had in the first place been so unfairly obtained, she
confined herself to the brief repetition of such simple particulars, as
she felt assured that Lucy, for the sake of her own consequence, would
choose to have known. The continuance of their engagement, and the
means that were able to be taken for promoting its end, was all her
communication; and this produced from Mrs. Jennings the following
natural remark.
"Wait for his having a living!--ay, we all know how THAT will
end:--they will wait a twelvemonth, and finding no good comes of it,
will set down upon a curacy of fifty pounds a-year, with the interest
of his two thousand pounds, and what little matter Mr. Steele and Mr.
Pratt can give her.--Then they will have a child every year! and Lord
help 'em! how poor they will be!--I must see what I can give them
towards furnishing their house. Two maids and two men, indeed!--as I
talked of t'other day.--No, no, they must get a stout girl of all
works.-- Betty's sister would never do for them NOW."
The next morning brought Elinor a letter by the two-penny post from
Lucy herself. It was as follows:
"Bartlett's Building, March.
"I hope my dear Miss Dashwood will excuse the
liberty I take of writing to her; but I know your
friendship for me will make you pleased to hear such
a good account of myself and my dear Edward, after
all the troubles we have went through lately,
therefore will make no more apologies, but proceed
to say that, thank God! though we have suffered
dreadfully, we are both quite well now, and as happy
as we must always be in one another's love. We have
had great trials, and great persecutions, but
however, at the same time, gratefully acknowledge
many friends, yourself not the least among them,
whose great kindness I shall always thankfully
remember, as will Edward too, who I have told of
it. I am sure you will be glad to hear, as likewise
dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent two happy hours with
him yesterday afternoon, he would not hear of our
parting, though earnestly did I, as I thought my
duty required, urge him to it for prudence sake,
and would have parted for ever on the spot, would
he consent to it; but he said it should never be,
he did not regard his mother's anger, while he could
have my affections; our prospects are not very
bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for
the best; he will be ordained shortly; and should
it ever be in your power to recommend him to any
body that has a living to bestow, am very sure you
will not forget us, and dear Mrs. Jennings too,
trust she will speak a good word for us to Sir John,
or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be able to
assist us.--Poor Anne was much to blame for what
she did, but she did it for the best, so I say
nothing; hope Mrs. Jennings won't think it too much
trouble to give us a call, should she come this way
any morning, 'twould be a great kindness, and my
cousins would be proud to know her.--My paper reminds
me to conclude; and begging to be most gratefully
and respectfully remembered to her, and to Sir John,
and Lady Middleton, and the dear children, when you
chance to see them, and love to Miss Marianne,
"I am, &c."
As soon as Elinor had finished it, she performed what she concluded to
be its writer's real design, by placing it in the hands of Mrs.
Jennings, who read it aloud with many comments of satisfaction and
praise.
"Very well indeed!--how prettily she writes!--aye, that was quite
proper to let him be off if he would. That was just like Lucy.--Poor
soul! I wish I COULD get him a living, with all my heart.--She calls me
dear Mrs. Jennings, you see. She is a good-hearted girl as ever
lived.--Very well upon my word. That sentence is very prettily turned.
Yes, yes, I will go and see her, sure enough. How attentive she is, to
think of every body!--Thank you, my dear, for shewing it me. It is as
pretty a letter as ever I saw, and does Lucy's head and heart great
credit." | Three days after the incident at John Dashwood's house, Mrs. Jennings and Elinor go out for a walk to Kensington gardens. After separating from Mrs. Jennings, Elinor meets Anne Steele, and the two talk about Lucy and the unhappy incident. Miss Steele also tells Elinor about Edward's visit that morning and how she had overheard an intimate conversation between him and Lucy. Elinor is disgusted at her behavior. After reaching home, she relates the incident to Mrs. Jennings. Later, she receives a letter from Lucy by the two-penny post informing her of their current circumstances. She seeks the help of the Middletons or Palmers to offer a position to Edward. Elinor shows the letter to Mrs. Jennings. The old lady is impressed by the letter. |
Two hours later, that is, about four o'clock, I woke up, for so soon as
the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the
torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could
sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running
stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find
myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,
that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No
human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up and
rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and
with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
thick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were
still sleeping.
Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a little
pocket copy of the "Ingoldsby Legends" which I had brought with me, and
read "The Jackdaw of Rheims." When I got to where
"A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed, and filled with water as pure
As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,"
literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.
The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had
been there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in and
drunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the suds
of soap "worthy of washing the hands of the Pope," and I knew that the
whole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall upon me for
so doing. I almost think that I must have been a little light-headed
with thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell to thinking how
astonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and the jackdaw would
have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-haired little
elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his dirty face into
the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious water. The idea
amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled aloud, which woke
the others, and they began to rub _their_ dirty faces and drag _their_
gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.
As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,
which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the
bottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they
were dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got it
out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away
from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate
the end.
"If we do not find water we shall die," he said.
"If we can trust to the old Dom's map there should be some about," I
said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.
It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each
other, I observed the Hottentot Ventvoegel rise and begin to walk about
with his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering a
guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.
"What is it?" we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to where
he was standing staring at the sand.
"Well," I said, "it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?"
"Springbucks do not go far from water," he answered in Dutch.
"No," I answered, "I forgot; and thank God for it."
This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when a
man is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest hope,
and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better than
nothing.
Meanwhile Ventvoegel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot air
for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presently
he spoke again.
"I _smell_ water," he said.
Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct
these wild-bred men possess.
Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand a
sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot
our thirst.
There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like
silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba's Breasts;
and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran
the great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe
the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to
fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us, rose
two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to be
seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,
measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a
precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity
straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars of
a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman's breasts,
and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form of a
recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell gently
from the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and smooth;
and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow, exactly
corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch of cliff
that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in height, and
perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far as the eye can
reach, extent similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there by
flat table-topped mountains, something like the world-famed one at Cape
Town; a formation, by the way, that is very common in Africa.
To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my
powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering
about those huge volcanoes--for doubtless they are extinct
volcanoes--that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights played
upon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as
though to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange
vapours and clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, till
presently we could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showing
ghostlike through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards
discovered, usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which
doubtless accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.
Sheba's Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before
our thirst--literally a burning question--reasserted itself.
It was all very well for Ventvoegel to say that he smelt water, but we
could see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye
might reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub.
We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the other
side, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be found;
there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.
"You are a fool," I said angrily to Ventvoegel; "there is no water."
But still he lifted his ugly snub nose and sniffed.
"I smell it, Baas," he answered; "it is somewhere in the air."
"Yes," I said, "no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months
hence it will fall and wash our bones."
Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is on the
top of the hill," he suggested.
"Rot," said Good; "whoever heard of water being found at the top of a
hill!"
"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as
though he was petrified.
"_Nanzia manzie_!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud voice.
We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance. It
was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us. We
gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on our
stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar fit
for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done drinking
we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing the
moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have only
to turn on a couple of taps to summon "hot" and "cold" from an unseen,
vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that muddy wallow
in brackish tepid water.
After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
"biltong," of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
its bank, and slept till noon.
All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.
Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as possible,
in far better spirits we started off again with the moon. That night we
covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to say, found no
more water, though we were lucky enough the following day to get a
little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose, and, for awhile,
cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman's Berg with the two majestic
Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed to be towering right
above us, and looked grander than ever. At the approach of evening we
marched again, and, to cut a long story short, by daylight next morning
found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of Sheba's left breast, for
which we had been steadily steering. By this time our water was
exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely from thirst, nor
indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till we reached the snow
line far, far above us. After resting an hour or two, driven to it by
our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling painfully in the burning heat
up the lava slopes, for we found that the huge base of the mountain was
composed entirely of lava beds belched from the bowels of the earth in
some far past age.
By eleven o'clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on a
little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava had
rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
organs.
So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
heartily that we had never started on this fool's errand. As we were
sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled towards
him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that he had
found water.
"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.
"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the green thing.
Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch
of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.
"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute his
false teeth were fixed in one of them.
I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as
they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.
But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our
thirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the
simple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in the
hot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedingly
hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned from
biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for we
could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment a
lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about
ten large birds flying straight towards us.
"_Skit, Baas, skit!_" "Shoot, master, shoot!" whispered the Hottentot,
throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.
Then I saw that the birds were a flock of _pauw_ or bustards, and that
they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the
repeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and then
jumped to my feet. On seeing me the _pauw_ bunched up together, as I
expected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the thick
of them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine fellow,
that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a fire made of
dry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we made such a feed
as we had not tasted for a week. We ate that _pauw_; nothing was left
of him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt not a little the
better afterwards.
That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as
we could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and
cooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we could
judge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow line.
Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety about
water, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But the
ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow progress,
not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our last morsel of
biltong. As yet, with the exception of the _pauw_, we had seen no
living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a single spring or
stream of water, which struck us as very odd, considering the expanse
of snow above us, which must, we thought, melt sometimes. But as we
afterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it is quite beyond my
power to explain, all the streams flowed down upon the north side of
the mountains.
Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by
thirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The
events of the next three miserable days are best described by copying
the entries made at the time in my note-book.
"21st May.--Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enough
to travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on
all day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of their
district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at sundown,
having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the night from
cold.
"22nd.--Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only
made about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we
ate, but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great
plateau. Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled ourselves
together, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves alive. Are
now suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness. Thought that
Ventvoegel would have died during the night.
"23rd.--Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up, and
had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight, and I
fear that unless we get food this will be our last day's journey. But
little brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up wonderfully,
but Ventvoegel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots, he cannot
stand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of numb feeling
about the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a level with the
precipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two Breasts, and the
view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls away to the
horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard snow almost
level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of which the
nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in circumference,
rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a living thing is to
be seen. God help us; I fear that our time has come."
And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very
interesting reading; also what follows requires telling rather more
fully.
All that day--the 23rd May--we struggled slowly up the incline of snow,
lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we must have
looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet over the
dazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that there was
much use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did not
accomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we found
ourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba's left Breast, which
towered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of frozen
snow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the wonderful scene,
made even more splendid by the flying rays of light from the setting
sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red, and crowned the
great dome above us with a diadem of glory.
"I say," gasped Good, presently, "we ought to be somewhere near that
cave the old gentleman wrote about."
"Yes," said I, "if there is a cave."
"Come, Quatermain," groaned Sir Henry, "don't talk like that; I have
every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the place
soon."
"If we don't find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
it," was my consolatory reply.
For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,
who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a
leather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to "make his hunger
small," as he said, that his waist looked like a girl's, caught me by
the arm.
"Look!" he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.
I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived
what appeared to be a hole in the snow.
"It is the cave," said Umbopa.
We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that the
hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which da
Silvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached shelter
the sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world nearly
dark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So we crept
into the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and huddling
ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of our
brandy--barely a mouthful each--and tried to forget our miseries in
sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I am
convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have
marked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point. What
such a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship, want
of food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine
better than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as
near death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after
hour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander round
and nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face. In vain
did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in our
miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into an
uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and
perhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have
ever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will
that we kept ourselves alive at all.
Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventvoegel, whose teeth
had been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then
his teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at the
time, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was resting
against mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last it
felt like ice.
At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows
sped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the
lava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked upon
Ventvoegel, sitting there amongst us, _stone dead_. No wonder his back
felt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and was now
frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged ourselves from
the corpse--how strange is that horror we mortals have of the
companionship of a dead body--and left it sitting there, its arms
clasped about its knees.
By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they were
cold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an
exclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.
And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern--it was not
more than twenty feet long--was another form, of which the head rested
on its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that
this too was a _dead man_, and, what was more, a white man.
The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered
nerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our
half-frozen limbs would carry us. | Quatermain awakens two hours after falling into his miserable sleep. His body slightly refreshed, his thirst returns to the forefront of his thoughts. He recounts a dream of bathing in a stream surrounded by greenery, only to awaken to his present harsh reality. Already becoming desiccated from the dryness, Quatermain attempts to take his mind off of his suffering by reading, but only manages to frustrate himself further as he reads a passage detailing pure water. The others awaken and as a group assess their situation, as not a drop of water remains among them. In the midst of their collective despair, Ventvogel arises and begins searching the ground with his eyes. He stoops and cries out, pointing at something he sees: "Springbok spoor" he explains. Springboks do not go far from water. Heartened by this evidence of nearby water, the party marches in the direction of the alleged oasis on Silvestra's old map. Ventvogel claims he can smell water, but the others put no stock in his senses. As the sun arises, the travelers are able to see for the first time the reality of the Sulemin Mountains, "Sheba's Breasts" as described by old Silvestre. Though far away, the sight of the two mountains encourages the party as to the accuracy of Silvestre's account; furthermore, they can see snow atop the mountains and, while it is too far away to do them good at present, it promises a fresh supply of water should they make their way to the peaks. Nonetheless, the members of the expedition return to their burning thirst and call Ventvogel a fool for claiming to smell water nearby. Sir Henry suggests they might find water atop a nearby hill; despite the scorn of the others, Quatermain despairingly suggests they follow up on Sir Henry's hunch. Umbopa leads the way and finds a dirty pool of water atop the hill. The men drink their fill and moisten their dried skin in the pool, then refill their canteens for the journey ahead. They eat some of their rations for the first time in twenty-four hours and relax for a while. After resting all day in the shade of the hill, the expedition continues its terrible trek through the desert. They reach "Sheba's left breast" and begin to ascend the mountain. By this time their water supply is again nonexistent, which only adds to their frustration as the walking has become more difficult over the dried lava that covers the base of the dormant volcano. Umbopa discovers a source of temporary relief: a crop of wild melons, ripe and ready to eat. The men feast on the melons, but find them more refreshing to their thirst than to their hungry stomachs. They soon begin to believe they have escaped death by thirst only to die of hunger. Ventvogel spots a flock of birds , and Quatermain expertly shoots one from the sky. The men start a fire with dried melon stems and cook the bird for dinner. The party awaits the rising of the moon to continue their ascent, and does so refreshed but still somewhat hopeless. They see no further game and fewer melons, so food shortage again becomes a concern. They are also unable to determine why, with the snow above them on the volcanic mountain, there are no streams flowing down. Quatermain remarks on his fear of starvation in his journal, dated May 21-23. He resumes his narration of events on the 23rd, when they espy a dark hole in the snow far above them. Heading toward it, they ascertain it is the opening to a cave--the very cave mentioned by Silvestre. The men make for the cave and arrive just as the sun sets and plunges the mountain into darkness. In the cold and dark, the men huddle together in the cave for warmth. During the night Quatermain hears Ventvogel, who is sitting back-to-back with the elephant hunter, give a dismal sigh. He thinks nothing of it until the morning, when he discovers that Ventvogel has died in his sleep. The remaining men are saddened, but wish to leave the company of the dead man. The sun rises, lighting the cave and giving the men a view which terrifies them: at the end of the cave sits another dead man--a dead white man. They flee the cave in fear |
About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of excitement
in the village of Hayslope, and through the whole length of its
little street, from the Donnithorne Arms to the churchyard gate, the
inhabitants had evidently been drawn out of their houses by something
more than the pleasure of lounging in the evening sunshine. The
Donnithorne Arms stood at the entrance of the village, and a small
farmyard and stackyard which flanked it, indicating that there was a
pretty take of land attached to the inn, gave the traveller a promise
of good feed for himself and his horse, which might well console him
for the ignorance in which the weather-beaten sign left him as to the
heraldic bearings of that ancient family, the Donnithornes. Mr. Casson,
the landlord, had been for some time standing at the door with his hands
in his pockets, balancing himself on his heels and toes and looking
towards a piece of unenclosed ground, with a maple in the middle of it,
which he knew to be the destination of certain grave-looking men and
women whom he had observed passing at intervals.
Mr. Casson's person was by no means of that common type which can be
allowed to pass without description. On a front view it appeared to
consist principally of two spheres, bearing about the same relation to
each other as the earth and the moon: that is to say, the lower sphere
might be said, at a rough guess, to be thirteen times larger than the
upper which naturally performed the function of a mere satellite and
tributary. But here the resemblance ceased, for Mr. Casson's head was
not at all a melancholy-looking satellite nor was it a "spotty globe,"
as Milton has irreverently called the moon; on the contrary, no head and
face could look more sleek and healthy, and its expression--which was
chiefly confined to a pair of round and ruddy cheeks, the slight
knot and interruptions forming the nose and eyes being scarcely worth
mention--was one of jolly contentment, only tempered by that sense of
personal dignity which usually made itself felt in his attitude and
bearing. This sense of dignity could hardly be considered excessive in
a man who had been butler to "the family" for fifteen years, and who, in
his present high position, was necessarily very much in contact with
his inferiors. How to reconcile his dignity with the satisfaction of his
curiosity by walking towards the Green was the problem that Mr. Casson
had been revolving in his mind for the last five minutes; but when
he had partly solved it by taking his hands out of his pockets, and
thrusting them into the armholes of his waistcoat, by throwing his
head on one side, and providing himself with an air of contemptuous
indifference to whatever might fall under his notice, his thoughts were
diverted by the approach of the horseman whom we lately saw pausing to
have another look at our friend Adam, and who now pulled up at the door
of the Donnithorne Arms.
"Take off the bridle and give him a drink, ostler," said the traveller
to the lad in a smock-frock, who had come out of the yard at the sound
of the horse's hoofs.
"Why, what's up in your pretty village, landlord?" he continued, getting
down. "There seems to be quite a stir."
"It's a Methodis' preaching, sir; it's been gev hout as a young woman's
a-going to preach on the Green," answered Mr. Casson, in a treble and
wheezy voice, with a slightly mincing accent. "Will you please to step
in, sir, an' tek somethink?"
"No, I must be getting on to Rosseter. I only want a drink for my horse.
And what does your parson say, I wonder, to a young woman preaching just
under his nose?"
"Parson Irwine, sir, doesn't live here; he lives at Brox'on, over the
hill there. The parsonage here's a tumble-down place, sir, not fit for
gentry to live in. He comes here to preach of a Sunday afternoon, sir,
an' puts up his hoss here. It's a grey cob, sir, an' he sets great store
by't. He's allays put up his hoss here, sir, iver since before I hed the
Donnithorne Arms. I'm not this countryman, you may tell by my tongue,
sir. They're cur'ous talkers i' this country, sir; the gentry's hard
work to hunderstand 'em. I was brought hup among the gentry, sir, an'
got the turn o' their tongue when I was a bye. Why, what do you think
the folks here says for 'hevn't you?'--the gentry, you know, says,
'hevn't you'--well, the people about here says 'hanna yey.' It's what
they call the dileck as is spoke hereabout, sir. That's what I've heared
Squire Donnithorne say many a time; it's the dileck, says he."
"Aye, aye," said the stranger, smiling. "I know it very well. But you've
not got many Methodists about here, surely--in this agricultural spot? I
should have thought there would hardly be such a thing as a Methodist to
be found about here. You're all farmers, aren't you? The Methodists can
seldom lay much hold on THEM."
"Why, sir, there's a pretty lot o' workmen round about, sir. There's
Mester Burge as owns the timber-yard over there, he underteks a good bit
o' building an' repairs. An' there's the stone-pits not far off. There's
plenty of emply i' this countryside, sir. An' there's a fine batch o'
Methodisses at Treddles'on--that's the market town about three mile
off--you'll maybe ha' come through it, sir. There's pretty nigh a score
of 'em on the Green now, as come from there. That's where our people
gets it from, though there's only two men of 'em in all Hayslope: that's
Will Maskery, the wheelwright, and Seth Bede, a young man as works at
the carpenterin'."
"The preacher comes from Treddleston, then, does she?"
"Nay, sir, she comes out o' Stonyshire, pretty nigh thirty mile off.
But she's a-visitin' hereabout at Mester Poyser's at the Hall Farm--it's
them barns an' big walnut-trees, right away to the left, sir. She's own
niece to Poyser's wife, an' they'll be fine an' vexed at her for making
a fool of herself i' that way. But I've heared as there's no holding
these Methodisses when the maggit's once got i' their head: many of 'em
goes stark starin' mad wi' their religion. Though this young woman's
quiet enough to look at, by what I can make out; I've not seen her
myself."
"Well, I wish I had time to wait and see her, but I must get on. I've
been out of my way for the last twenty minutes to have a look at that
place in the valley. It's Squire Donnithorne's, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir, that's Donnithorne Chase, that is. Fine hoaks there, isn't
there, sir? I should know what it is, sir, for I've lived butler there
a-going i' fifteen year. It's Captain Donnithorne as is th' heir,
sir--Squire Donnithorne's grandson. He'll be comin' of hage this
'ay-'arvest, sir, an' we shall hev fine doin's. He owns all the land
about here, sir, Squire Donnithorne does."
"Well, it's a pretty spot, whoever may own it," said the traveller,
mounting his horse; "and one meets some fine strapping fellows about
too. I met as fine a young fellow as ever I saw in my life, about
half an hour ago, before I came up the hill--a carpenter, a tall,
broad-shouldered fellow with black hair and black eyes, marching along
like a soldier. We want such fellows as he to lick the French."
"Aye, sir, that's Adam Bede, that is, I'll be bound--Thias Bede's son
everybody knows him hereabout. He's an uncommon clever stiddy fellow,
an' wonderful strong. Lord bless you, sir--if you'll hexcuse me for
saying so--he can walk forty mile a-day, an' lift a matter o' sixty
ston'. He's an uncommon favourite wi' the gentry, sir: Captain
Donnithorne and Parson Irwine meks a fine fuss wi' him. But he's a
little lifted up an' peppery-like."
"Well, good evening to you, landlord; I must get on."
"Your servant, sir; good evenin'."
The traveller put his horse into a quick walk up the village, but when
he approached the Green, the beauty of the view that lay on his right
hand, the singular contrast presented by the groups of villagers with
the knot of Methodists near the maple, and perhaps yet more, curiosity
to see the young female preacher, proved too much for his anxiety to get
to the end of his journey, and he paused.
The Green lay at the extremity of the village, and from it the road
branched off in two directions, one leading farther up the hill by the
church, and the other winding gently down towards the valley. On the
side of the Green that led towards the church, the broken line of
thatched cottages was continued nearly to the churchyard gate; but on
the opposite northwestern side, there was nothing to obstruct the view
of gently swelling meadow, and wooded valley, and dark masses of distant
hill. That rich undulating district of Loamshire to which Hayslope
belonged lies close to a grim outskirt of Stonyshire, overlooked by its
barren hills as a pretty blooming sister may sometimes be seen linked in
the arm of a rugged, tall, swarthy brother; and in two or three hours'
ride the traveller might exchange a bleak treeless region, intersected
by lines of cold grey stone, for one where his road wound under the
shelter of woods, or up swelling hills, muffled with hedgerows and long
meadow-grass and thick corn; and where at every turn he came upon some
fine old country-seat nestled in the valley or crowning the slope, some
homestead with its long length of barn and its cluster of golden ricks,
some grey steeple looking out from a pretty confusion of trees and
thatch and dark-red tiles. It was just such a picture as this last
that Hayslope Church had made to the traveller as he began to mount the
gentle slope leading to its pleasant uplands, and now from his station
near the Green he had before him in one view nearly all the other
typical features of this pleasant land. High up against the horizon were
the huge conical masses of hill, like giant mounds intended to fortify
this region of corn and grass against the keen and hungry winds of the
north; not distant enough to be clothed in purple mystery, but with
sombre greenish sides visibly specked with sheep, whose motion was only
revealed by memory, not detected by sight; wooed from day to day by the
changing hours, but responding with no change in themselves--left for
ever grim and sullen after the flush of morning, the winged gleams of
the April noonday, the parting crimson glory of the ripening summer
sun. And directly below them the eye rested on a more advanced line of
hanging woods, divided by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops,
and not yet deepened into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer, but
still showing the warm tints of the young oak and the tender green of
the ash and lime. Then came the valley, where the woods grew thicker,
as if they had rolled down and hurried together from the patches left
smooth on the slope, that they might take the better care of the tall
mansion which lifted its parapets and sent its faint blue summer smoke
among them. Doubtless there was a large sweep of park and a broad glassy
pool in front of that mansion, but the swelling slope of meadow would
not let our traveller see them from the village green. He saw instead
a foreground which was just as lovely--the level sunlight lying like
transparent gold among the gently curving stems of the feathered grass
and the tall red sorrel, and the white ambels of the hemlocks lining
the bushy hedgerows. It was that moment in summer when the sound of
the scythe being whetted makes us cast more lingering looks at the
flower-sprinkled tresses of the meadows.
He might have seen other beauties in the landscape if he had turned
a little in his saddle and looked eastward, beyond Jonathan Burge's
pasture and woodyard towards the green corn-fields and walnut-trees of
the Hall Farm; but apparently there was more interest for him in the
living groups close at hand. Every generation in the village was there,
from old "Feyther Taft" in his brown worsted night-cap, who was bent
nearly double, but seemed tough enough to keep on his legs a long while,
leaning on his short stick, down to the babies with their little round
heads lolling forward in quilted linen caps. Now and then there was a
new arrival; perhaps a slouching labourer, who, having eaten his supper,
came out to look at the unusual scene with a slow bovine gaze, willing
to hear what any one had to say in explanation of it, but by no means
excited enough to ask a question. But all took care not to join the
Methodists on the Green, and identify themselves in that way with the
expectant audience, for there was not one of them that would not have
disclaimed the imputation of having come out to hear the "preacher
woman"--they had only come out to see "what war a-goin' on, like." The
men were chiefly gathered in the neighbourhood of the blacksmith's shop.
But do not imagine them gathered in a knot. Villagers never swarm: a
whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as incapable of an
undertone as a cow or a stag. Your true rustic turns his back on his
interlocutor, throwing a question over his shoulder as if he meant to
run away from the answer, and walking a step or two farther off when the
interest of the dialogue culminates. So the group in the vicinity of the
blacksmith's door was by no means a close one, and formed no screen in
front of Chad Cranage, the blacksmith himself, who stood with his black
brawny arms folded, leaning against the door-post, and occasionally
sending forth a bellowing laugh at his own jokes, giving them a
marked preference over the sarcasms of Wiry Ben, who had renounced the
pleasures of the Holly Bush for the sake of seeing life under a new
form. But both styles of wit were treated with equal contempt by Mr.
Joshua Rann. Mr. Rann's leathern apron and subdued griminess can leave
no one in any doubt that he is the village shoemaker; the thrusting out
of his chin and stomach and the twirling of his thumbs are more subtle
indications, intended to prepare unwary strangers for the discovery that
they are in the presence of the parish clerk. "Old Joshway," as he
is irreverently called by his neighbours, is in a state of simmering
indignation; but he has not yet opened his lips except to say, in a
resounding bass undertone, like the tuning of a violoncello, "Sehon,
King of the Amorites; for His mercy endureth for ever; and Og the King
of Basan: for His mercy endureth for ever"--a quotation which may seem
to have slight bearing on the present occasion, but, as with every other
anomaly, adequate knowledge will show it to be a natural sequence. Mr.
Rann was inwardly maintaining the dignity of the Church in the face of
this scandalous irruption of Methodism, and as that dignity was bound up
with his own sonorous utterance of the responses, his argument naturally
suggested a quotation from the psalm he had read the last Sunday
afternoon.
The stronger curiosity of the women had drawn them quite to the edge of
the Green, where they could examine more closely the Quakerlike costume
and odd deportment of the female Methodists. Underneath the maple there
was a small cart, which had been brought from the wheelwright's to serve
as a pulpit, and round this a couple of benches and a few chairs had
been placed. Some of the Methodists were resting on these, with their
eyes closed, as if wrapt in prayer or meditation. Others chose to
continue standing, and had turned their faces towards the villagers
with a look of melancholy compassion, which was highly amusing to Bessy
Cranage, the blacksmith's buxom daughter, known to her neighbours as
Chad's Bess, who wondered "why the folks war amakin' faces a that'ns."
Chad's Bess was the object of peculiar compassion, because her hair,
being turned back under a cap which was set at the top of her head,
exposed to view an ornament of which she was much prouder than of her
red cheeks--namely, a pair of large round ear-rings with false garnets
in them, ornaments condemned not only by the Methodists, but by her own
cousin and namesake Timothy's Bess, who, with much cousinly feeling,
often wished "them ear-rings" might come to good.
Timothy's Bess, though retaining her maiden appellation among her
familiars, had long been the wife of Sandy Jim, and possessed a handsome
set of matronly jewels, of which it is enough to mention the heavy
baby she was rocking in her arms, and the sturdy fellow of five in
knee-breeches, and red legs, who had a rusty milk-can round his neck by
way of drum, and was very carefully avoided by Chad's small terrier.
This young olive-branch, notorious under the name of Timothy's Bess's
Ben, being of an inquiring disposition, unchecked by any false modesty,
had advanced beyond the group of women and children, and was walking
round the Methodists, looking up in their faces with his mouth wide
open, and beating his stick against the milk-can by way of musical
accompaniment. But one of the elderly women bending down to take him by
the shoulder, with an air of grave remonstrance, Timothy's Bess's Ben
first kicked out vigorously, then took to his heels and sought refuge
behind his father's legs.
"Ye gallows young dog," said Sandy Jim, with some paternal pride, "if
ye donna keep that stick quiet, I'll tek it from ye. What dy'e mane by
kickin' foulks?"
"Here! Gie him here to me, Jim," said Chad Cranage; "I'll tie hirs up
an' shoe him as I do th' hosses. Well, Mester Casson," he continued,
as that personage sauntered up towards the group of men, "how are ye
t' naight? Are ye coom t' help groon? They say folks allays groon when
they're hearkenin' to th' Methodys, as if they war bad i' th' inside.
I mane to groon as loud as your cow did th' other naight, an' then the
praicher 'ull think I'm i' th' raight way."
"I'd advise you not to be up to no nonsense, Chad," said Mr. Casson,
with some dignity; "Poyser wouldn't like to hear as his wife's niece was
treated any ways disrespectful, for all he mayn't be fond of her taking
on herself to preach."
"Aye, an' she's a pleasant-looked un too," said Wiry Ben. "I'll stick
up for the pretty women preachin'; I know they'd persuade me over a deal
sooner nor th' ugly men. I shouldna wonder if I turn Methody afore the
night's out, an' begin to coort the preacher, like Seth Bede."
"Why, Seth's looking rether too high, I should think," said Mr. Casson.
"This woman's kin wouldn't like her to demean herself to a common
carpenter."
"Tchu!" said Ben, with a long treble intonation, "what's folks's kin got
to do wi't? Not a chip. Poyser's wife may turn her nose up an' forget
bygones, but this Dinah Morris, they tell me, 's as poor as iver she
was--works at a mill, an's much ado to keep hersen. A strappin' young
carpenter as is a ready-made Methody, like Seth, wouldna be a bad match
for her. Why, Poysers make as big a fuss wi' Adam Bede as if he war a
nevvy o' their own."
"Idle talk! idle talk!" said Mr. Joshua Rann. "Adam an' Seth's two men;
you wunna fit them two wi' the same last."
"Maybe," said Wiry Ben, contemptuously, "but Seth's the lad for me,
though he war a Methody twice o'er. I'm fair beat wi' Seth, for I've
been teasin' him iver sin' we've been workin' together, an' he bears me
no more malice nor a lamb. An' he's a stout-hearted feller too, for when
we saw the old tree all afire a-comin' across the fields one night, an'
we thought as it war a boguy, Seth made no more ado, but he up to't
as bold as a constable. Why, there he comes out o' Will Maskery's; an'
there's Will hisself, lookin' as meek as if he couldna knock a nail o'
the head for fear o' hurtin't. An' there's the pretty preacher woman! My
eye, she's got her bonnet off. I mun go a bit nearer."
Several of the men followed Ben's lead, and the traveller pushed his
horse on to the Green, as Dinah walked rather quickly and in advance of
her companions towards the cart under the maple-tree. While she was near
Seth's tall figure, she looked short, but when she had mounted the cart,
and was away from all comparison, she seemed above the middle height of
woman, though in reality she did not exceed it--an effect which was due
to the slimness of her figure and the simple line of her black stuff
dress. The stranger was struck with surprise as he saw her approach and
mount the cart--surprise, not so much at the feminine delicacy of
her appearance, as at the total absence of self-consciousness in her
demeanour. He had made up his mind to see her advance with a measured
step and a demure solemnity of countenance; he had felt sure that her
face would be mantled with the smile of conscious saintship, or
else charged with denunciatory bitterness. He knew but two types of
Methodist--the ecstatic and the bilious. But Dinah walked as simply as
if she were going to market, and seemed as unconscious of her outward
appearance as a little boy: there was no blush, no tremulousness, which
said, "I know you think me a pretty woman, too young to preach"; no
casting up or down of the eyelids, no compression of the lips, no
attitude of the arms that said, "But you must think of me as a saint."
She held no book in her ungloved hands, but let them hang down lightly
crossed before her, as she stood and turned her grey eyes on the people.
There was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding
love than making observations; they had the liquid look which tells that
the mind is full of what it has to give out, rather than impressed by
external objects. She stood with her left hand towards the descending
sun, and leafy boughs screened her from its rays; but in this sober
light the delicate colouring of her face seemed to gather a calm
vividness, like flowers at evening. It was a small oval face, of a
uniform transparent whiteness, with an egg-like line of cheek and chin,
a full but firm mouth, a delicate nostril, and a low perpendicular brow,
surmounted by a rising arch of parting between smooth locks of pale
reddish hair. The hair was drawn straight back behind the ears, and
covered, except for an inch or two above the brow, by a net Quaker cap.
The eyebrows, of the same colour as the hair, were perfectly horizontal
and firmly pencilled; the eyelashes, though no darker, were long and
abundant--nothing was left blurred or unfinished. It was one of those
faces that make one think of white flowers with light touches of colour
on their pure petals. The eyes had no peculiar beauty, beyond that of
expression; they looked so simple, so candid, so gravely loving, that
no accusing scowl, no light sneer could help melting away before their
glance. Joshua Rann gave a long cough, as if he were clearing his throat
in order to come to a new understanding with himself; Chad Cranage
lifted up his leather skull-cap and scratched his head; and Wiry Ben
wondered how Seth had the pluck to think of courting her.
"A sweet woman," the stranger said to himself, "but surely nature never
meant her for a preacher."
Perhaps he was one of those who think that nature has theatrical
properties and, with the considerate view of facilitating art and
psychology, "makes up," her characters, so that there may be no mistake
about them. But Dinah began to speak.
"Dear friends," she said in a clear but not loud voice "let us pray for
a blessing."
She closed her eyes, and hanging her head down a little continued in the
same moderate tone, as if speaking to some one quite near her: "Saviour
of sinners! When a poor woman laden with sins, went out to the well to
draw water, she found Thee sitting at the well. She knew Thee not; she
had not sought Thee; her mind was dark; her life was unholy. But Thou
didst speak to her, Thou didst teach her, Thou didst show her that her
life lay open before Thee, and yet Thou wast ready to give her that
blessing which she had never sought. Jesus, Thou art in the midst of us,
and Thou knowest all men: if there is any here like that poor woman--if
their minds are dark, their lives unholy--if they have come out not
seeking Thee, not desiring to be taught; deal with them according to the
free mercy which Thou didst show to her. Speak to them, Lord, open their
ears to my message, bring their sins to their minds, and make them
thirst for that salvation which Thou art ready to give.
"Lord, Thou art with Thy people still: they see Thee in the
night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with
them by the way. And Thou art near to those who have not known Thee:
open their eyes that they may see Thee--see Thee weeping over them,
and saying 'Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life'--see Thee
hanging on the cross and saying, 'Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do'--see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to
judge them at the last. Amen."
Dinah opened her eyes again and paused, looking at the group of
villagers, who were now gathered rather more closely on her right hand.
"Dear friends," she began, raising her voice a little, "you have all of
you been to church, and I think you must have heard the clergyman
read these words: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.' Jesus Christ spoke those
words--he said he came TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. I don't know
whether you ever thought about those words much, but I will tell you
when I remember first hearing them. It was on just such a sort of
evening as this, when I was a little girl, and my aunt as brought me up
took me to hear a good man preach out of doors, just as we are here. I
remember his face well: he was a very old man, and had very long white
hair; his voice was very soft and beautiful, not like any voice I had
ever heard before. I was a little girl and scarcely knew anything, and
this old man seemed to me such a different sort of a man from anybody
I had ever seen before that I thought he had perhaps come down from
the sky to preach to us, and I said, 'Aunt, will he go back to the sky
to-night, like the picture in the Bible?'
"That man of God was Mr. Wesley, who spent his life in doing what our
blessed Lord did--preaching the Gospel to the poor--and he entered into
his rest eight years ago. I came to know more about him years after, but
I was a foolish thoughtless child then, and I remembered only one thing
he told us in his sermon. He told us as 'Gospel' meant 'good news.' The
Gospel, you know, is what the Bible tells us about God.
"Think of that now! Jesus Christ did really come down from heaven, as
I, like a silly child, thought Mr. Wesley did; and what he came down
for was to tell good news about God to the poor. Why, you and me, dear
friends, are poor. We have been brought up in poor cottages and have
been reared on oat-cake, and lived coarse; and we haven't been to school
much, nor read books, and we don't know much about anything but what
happens just round us. We are just the sort of people that want to
hear good news. For when anybody's well off, they don't much mind about
hearing news from distant parts; but if a poor man or woman's in trouble
and has hard work to make out a living, they like to have a letter to
tell 'em they've got a friend as will help 'em. To be sure, we can't
help knowing something about God, even if we've never heard the Gospel,
the good news that our Saviour brought us. For we know everything comes
from God: don't you say almost every day, 'This and that will happen,
please God,' and 'We shall begin to cut the grass soon, please God to
send us a little more sunshine'? We know very well we are altogether
in the hands of God. We didn't bring ourselves into the world, we can't
keep ourselves alive while we're sleeping; the daylight, and the wind,
and the corn, and the cows to give us milk--everything we have comes
from God. And he gave us our souls and put love between parents and
children, and husband and wife. But is that as much as we want to know
about God? We see he is great and mighty, and can do what he will: we
are lost, as if we was struggling in great waters, when we try to think
of him.
"But perhaps doubts come into your mind like this: Can God take much
notice of us poor people? Perhaps he only made the world for the great
and the wise and the rich. It doesn't cost him much to give us our
little handful of victual and bit of clothing; but how do we know he
cares for us any more than we care for the worms and things in the
garden, so as we rear our carrots and onions? Will God take care of us
when we die? And has he any comfort for us when we are lame and sick and
helpless? Perhaps, too, he is angry with us; else why does the blight
come, and the bad harvests, and the fever, and all sorts of pain and
trouble? For our life is full of trouble, and if God sends us good, he
seems to send bad too. How is it? How is it?
"Ah, dear friends, we are in sad want of good news about God; and what
does other good news signify if we haven't that? For everything else
comes to an end, and when we die we leave it all. But God lasts when
everything else is gone. What shall we do if he is not our friend?"
Then Dinah told how the good news had been brought, and how the mind
of God towards the poor had been made manifest in the life of Jesus,
dwelling on its lowliness and its acts of mercy.
"So you see, dear friends," she went on, "Jesus spent his time almost
all in doing good to poor people; he preached out of doors to them, and
he made friends of poor workmen, and taught them and took pains with
them. Not but what he did good to the rich too, for he was full of love
to all men, only he saw as the poor were more in want of his help. So
he cured the lame and the sick and the blind, and he worked miracles to
feed the hungry because, he said, he was sorry for them; and he was
very kind to the little children and comforted those who had lost their
friends; and he spoke very tenderly to poor sinners that were sorry for
their sins.
"Ah, wouldn't you love such a man if you saw him--if he were here in
this village? What a kind heart he must have! What a friend he would be
to go to in trouble! How pleasant it must be to be taught by him.
"Well, dear friends, who WAS this man? Was he only a good man--a very
good man, and no more--like our dear Mr. Wesley, who has been taken from
us?...He was the Son of God--'in the image of the Father,' the Bible
says; that means, just like God, who is the beginning and end of all
things--the God we want to know about. So then, all the love that
Jesus showed to the poor is the same love that God has for us. We can
understand what Jesus felt, because he came in a body like ours and
spoke words such as we speak to each other. We were afraid to think what
God was before--the God who made the world and the sky and the thunder
and lightning. We could never see him; we could only see the things he
had made; and some of these things was very terrible, so as we might
well tremble when we thought of him. But our blessed Saviour has showed
us what God is in a way us poor ignorant people can understand; he has
showed us what God's heart is, what are his feelings towards us.
"But let us see a little more about what Jesus came on earth for.
Another time he said, 'I came to seek and to save that which was lost';
and another time, 'I came not to call the righteous but sinners to
repentance.'
"The LOST!...SINNERS!...Ah, dear friends, does that mean you and me?"
Hitherto the traveller had been chained to the spot against his will
by the charm of Dinah's mellow treble tones, which had a variety of
modulation like that of a fine instrument touched with the unconscious
skill of musical instinct. The simple things she said seemed like
novelties, as a melody strikes us with a new feeling when we hear
it sung by the pure voice of a boyish chorister; the quiet depth of
conviction with which she spoke seemed in itself an evidence for the
truth of her message. He saw that she had thoroughly arrested her
hearers. The villagers had pressed nearer to her, and there was no
longer anything but grave attention on all faces. She spoke slowly,
though quite fluently, often pausing after a question, or before any
transition of ideas. There was no change of attitude, no gesture; the
effect of her speech was produced entirely by the inflections of her
voice, and when she came to the question, "Will God take care of us
when we die?" she uttered it in such a tone of plaintive appeal that
the tears came into some of the hardest eyes. The stranger had ceased
to doubt, as he had done at the first glance, that she could fix the
attention of her rougher hearers, but still he wondered whether she
could have that power of rousing their more violent emotions, which
must surely be a necessary seal of her vocation as a Methodist preacher,
until she came to the words, "Lost!--Sinners!" when there was a great
change in her voice and manner. She had made a long pause before the
exclamation, and the pause seemed to be filled by agitating thoughts
that showed themselves in her features. Her pale face became paler;
the circles under her eyes deepened, as they did when tears half-gather
without falling; and the mild loving eyes took an expression of appalled
pity, as if she had suddenly discerned a destroying angel hovering over
the heads of the people. Her voice became deep and muffled, but there
was still no gesture. Nothing could be less like the ordinary type of
the Ranter than Dinah. She was not preaching as she heard others preach,
but speaking directly from her own emotions and under the inspiration of
her own simple faith.
But now she had entered into a new current of feeling. Her manner became
less calm, her utterance more rapid and agitated, as she tried to bring
home to the people their guilt, their wilful darkness, their state of
disobedience to God--as she dwelt on the hatefulness of sin, the Divine
holiness, and the sufferings of the Saviour, by which a way had been
opened for their salvation. At last it seemed as if, in her yearning
desire to reclaim the lost sheep, she could not be satisfied by
addressing her hearers as a body. She appealed first to one and then to
another, beseeching them with tears to turn to God while there was
yet time; painting to them the desolation of their souls, lost in sin,
feeding on the husks of this miserable world, far away from God their
Father; and then the love of the Saviour, who was waiting and watching
for their return.
There was many a responsive sigh and groan from her fellow-Methodists,
but the village mind does not easily take fire, and a little smouldering
vague anxiety that might easily die out again was the utmost effect
Dinah's preaching had wrought in them at present. Yet no one had
retired, except the children and "old Feyther Taft," who being too deaf
to catch many words, had some time ago gone back to his inglenook. Wiry
Ben was feeling very uncomfortable, and almost wishing he had not come
to hear Dinah; he thought what she said would haunt him somehow. Yet he
couldn't help liking to look at her and listen to her, though he dreaded
every moment that she would fix her eyes on him and address him in
particular. She had already addressed Sandy Jim, who was now holding the
baby to relieve his wife, and the big soft-hearted man had rubbed away
some tears with his fist, with a confused intention of being a better
fellow, going less to the Holly Bush down by the Stone-pits, and
cleaning himself more regularly of a Sunday.
In front of Sandy Jim stood Chad's Bess, who had shown an unwonted
quietude and fixity of attention ever since Dinah had begun to speak.
Not that the matter of the discourse had arrested her at once, for she
was lost in a puzzling speculation as to what pleasure and satisfaction
there could be in life to a young woman who wore a cap like Dinah's.
Giving up this inquiry in despair, she took to studying Dinah's nose,
eyes, mouth, and hair, and wondering whether it was better to have such
a sort of pale face as that, or fat red cheeks and round black eyes like
her own. But gradually the influence of the general gravity told upon
her, and she became conscious of what Dinah was saying. The gentle
tones, the loving persuasion, did not touch her, but when the more
severe appeals came she began to be frightened. Poor Bessy had always
been considered a naughty girl; she was conscious of it; if it was
necessary to be very good, it was clear she must be in a bad way. She
couldn't find her places at church as Sally Rann could, she had often
been tittering when she "curcheyed" to Mr. Irwine; and these religious
deficiencies were accompanied by a corresponding slackness in the minor
morals, for Bessy belonged unquestionably to that unsoaped lazy class of
feminine characters with whom you may venture to "eat an egg, an apple,
or a nut." All this she was generally conscious of, and hitherto had not
been greatly ashamed of it. But now she began to feel very much as if
the constable had come to take her up and carry her before the justice
for some undefined offence. She had a terrified sense that God, whom she
had always thought of as very far off, was very near to her, and that
Jesus was close by looking at her, though she could not see him. For
Dinah had that belief in visible manifestations of Jesus, which is
common among the Methodists, and she communicated it irresistibly to her
hearers: she made them feel that he was among them bodily, and might at
any moment show himself to them in some way that would strike anguish
and penitence into their hearts.
"See!" she exclaimed, turning to the left, with her eyes fixed on a
point above the heads of the people. "See where our blessed Lord stands
and weeps and stretches out his arms towards you. Hear what he says:
'How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!'...and ye would not," she repeated,
in a tone of pleading reproach, turning her eyes on the people again.
"See the print of the nails on his dear hands and feet. It is your sins
that made them! Ah! How pale and worn he looks! He has gone through all
that great agony in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful
even unto death, and the great drops of sweat fell like blood to the
ground. They spat upon him and buffeted him, they scourged him, they
mocked him, they laid the heavy cross on his bruised shoulders. Then
they nailed him up. Ah, what pain! His lips are parched with thirst, and
they mock him still in this great agony; yet with those parched lips he
prays for them, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'
Then a horror of great darkness fell upon him, and he felt what sinners
feel when they are for ever shut out from God. That was the last drop
in the cup of bitterness. 'My God, my God!' he cries, 'why hast Thou
forsaken me?'
"All this he bore for you! For you--and you never think of him; for
you--and you turn your backs on him; you don't care what he has gone
through for you. Yet he is not weary of toiling for you: he has risen
from the dead, he is praying for you at the right hand of God--'Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.' And he is upon this earth
too; he is among us; he is there close to you now; I see his wounded
body and his look of love."
Here Dinah turned to Bessy Cranage, whose bonny youth and evident vanity
had touched her with pity.
"Poor child! Poor child! He is beseeching you, and you don't listen to
him. You think of ear-rings and fine gowns and caps, and you never think
of the Saviour who died to save your precious soul. Your cheeks will be
shrivelled one day, your hair will be grey, your poor body will be thin
and tottering! Then you will begin to feel that your soul is not saved;
then you will have to stand before God dressed in your sins, in your
evil tempers and vain thoughts. And Jesus, who stands ready to help you
now, won't help you then; because you won't have him to be your Saviour,
he will be your judge. Now he looks at you with love and mercy and says,
'Come to me that you may have life'; then he will turn away from you,
and say, 'Depart from me into ever-lasting fire!'"
Poor Bessy's wide-open black eyes began to fill with tears, her great
red cheeks and lips became quite pale, and her face was distorted like a
little child's before a burst of crying.
"Ah, poor blind child!" Dinah went on, "think if it should happen to you
as it once happened to a servant of God in the days of her vanity. SHE
thought of her lace caps and saved all her money to buy 'em; she thought
nothing about how she might get a clean heart and a right spirit--she
only wanted to have better lace than other girls. And one day when she
put her new cap on and looked in the glass, she saw a bleeding Face
crowned with thorns. That face is looking at you now"--here Dinah
pointed to a spot close in front of Bessy--"Ah, tear off those follies!
Cast them away from you, as if they were stinging adders. They ARE
stinging you--they are poisoning your soul--they are dragging you down
into a dark bottomless pit, where you will sink for ever, and for ever,
and for ever, further away from light and God."
Bessy could bear it no longer: a great terror was upon her, and
wrenching her ear-rings from her ears, she threw them down before her,
sobbing aloud. Her father, Chad, frightened lest he should be "laid hold
on" too, this impression on the rebellious Bess striking him as nothing
less than a miracle, walked hastily away and began to work at his anvil
by way of reassuring himself. "Folks mun ha' hoss-shoes, praichin' or
no praichin': the divil canna lay hould o' me for that," he muttered to
himself.
But now Dinah began to tell of the joys that were in store for the
penitent, and to describe in her simple way the divine peace and love
with which the soul of the believer is filled--how the sense of God's
love turns poverty into riches and satisfies the soul so that no uneasy
desire vexes it, no fear alarms it: how, at last, the very temptation
to sin is extinguished, and heaven is begun upon earth, because no cloud
passes between the soul and God, who is its eternal sun.
"Dear friends," she said at last, "brothers and sisters, whom I love
as those for whom my Lord has died, believe me, I know what this great
blessedness is; and because I know it, I want you to have it too. I am
poor, like you: I have to get my living with my hands; but no lord nor
lady can be so happy as me, if they haven't got the love of God in their
souls. Think what it is--not to hate anything but sin; to be full of
love to every creature; to be frightened at nothing; to be sure that all
things will turn to good; not to mind pain, because it is our Father's
will; to know that nothing--no, not if the earth was to be burnt up, or
the waters come and drown us--nothing could part us from God who loves
us, and who fills our souls with peace and joy, because we are sure that
whatever he wills is holy, just, and good.
"Dear friends, come and take this blessedness; it is offered to you; it
is the good news that Jesus came to preach to the poor. It is not like
the riches of this world, so that the more one gets the less the rest
can have. God is without end; his love is without end--"
Its streams the whole creation reach,
So plenteous is the store;
Enough for all, enough for each,
Enough for evermore.
Dinah had been speaking at least an hour, and the reddening light of the
parting day seemed to give a solemn emphasis to her closing words. The
stranger, who had been interested in the course of her sermon as if
it had been the development of a drama--for there is this sort of
fascination in all sincere unpremeditated eloquence, which opens to one
the inward drama of the speaker's emotions--now turned his horse aside
and pursued his way, while Dinah said, "Let us sing a little, dear
friends"; and as he was still winding down the slope, the voices of the
Methodists reached him, rising and falling in that strange blending of
exultation and sadness which belongs to the cadence of a hymn. | At a quarter to seven, the village of Hayslope shows unusual signs of excitement. Mr. Casson, the landlord of the town inn, stands at the entrance to his property. Although his face looks quite healthy, he is enormously fat. The horseman who stopped to look at Adam pulls up at the door on his horse. Mr. Casson explains that the town is busy because a female Methodist is about to preach on the green. Their parson lives in the next town. The stranger expresses surprise that there are Methodists in such a rural area, and Mr. Casson explains that there are really only two: Will Maskery and Seth Bede. Mr. Casson explains that he is the butler to Squire Donnithorne, and now his grandson, Captain Donnithorne, lives on their property called Donnithorne Chase. The stranger mentions seeing Adam Bede, who he says would be good for helping to "lick the French. Mr. Casson says that he is extremely strong and is popular with the gentry. The stranger rides to the green, where he is interested in the beauty of the landscape and the crowd of curious townpeople who are staring at the green but who are careful not to enter onto it so that they are not mistaken for Methodists. A group of men are gathered around the blacksmith's shop, where the blacksmith, Chad Cranage, laughs at his own jokes. Mr. Joshua Rann, called "Old Joshway" by his neighbors, stands silently with disapproval. The women are more curious, and they draw closer to the green. Bessy Cranage, the blacksmith's busty daughter, wonders why the Methodists make such funny faces. She is known locally as "Chad's Bess. She also wears fake-garnet earrings, of which Methodists disapprove. Timothy's Bess" is the wife of Sandy Jim, who has two children. Her little boy goes by "Timothy's Bess's Ben," and he struggles against being held back from inspecting the Methodists. Mr. Casson says that Seth is wasting his time trying to court the female preacher, because she is too high-class for him, being the niece of the Poysers. As Dinah approaches, the stranger is surprised by her unselfconsciousness, and the other townsmen are surprised by her prettiness. Dinah gives a prayer, and then she talks about hearing Jesus's prayer to preach to the poor at a Methodist revival when she was a young girl--she decided then that this is what she should do. She assures her listeners that although they are poor, the poor were Jesus's main beneficiaries during his lifetime, and they will continue to benefit after they die. The stranger notes that Dinah, unlike other "Ranters," does not preach by shouting and gesturing, but simply by modulating her voice to her changing emotions. Chad's Bess is made vaguely uncomfortable by the preaching, knowing that she could be considered a "bad girl" for having loose morals. Dinah beseeches Chad's Bess to think of God rather than of earrings, and the girl, in a fit, throws her earrings off. As the service ends, the horseman rides away to the sound of Methodist hymns |
It remains now to see what ought to be the rules of conduct for a prince
towards subject and friends. And as I know that many have written on
this point, I expect I shall be considered presumptuous in mentioning it
again, especially as in discussing it I shall depart from the methods of
other people. But, it being my intention to write a thing which shall
be useful to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate to
follow up the real truth of the matter than the imagination of it; for
many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never
been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one
ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to
be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who
wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with
what destroys him among so much that is evil.
Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know
how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.
Therefore, putting on one side imaginary things concerning a prince, and
discussing those which are real, I say that all men when they are spoken
of, and chiefly princes for being more highly placed, are remarkable
for some of those qualities which bring them either blame or praise; and
thus it is that one is reputed liberal, another miserly, using a Tuscan
term (because an avaricious person in our language is still he who
desires to possess by robbery, whilst we call one miserly who deprives
himself too much of the use of his own); one is reputed generous,
one rapacious; one cruel, one compassionate; one faithless, another
faithful; one effeminate and cowardly, another bold and brave; one
affable, another haughty; one lascivious, another chaste; one sincere,
another cunning; one hard, another easy; one grave, another frivolous;
one religious, another unbelieving, and the like. And I know that every
one will confess that it would be most praiseworthy in a prince to
exhibit all the above qualities that are considered good; but because
they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for human
conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be sufficiently
prudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which
would lose him his state; and also to keep himself, if it be possible,
from those which would not lose him it; but this not being possible, he
may with less hesitation abandon himself to them. And again, he need
not make himself uneasy at incurring a reproach for those vices without
which the state can only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is
considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like
virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which
looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity. | Concerning Things for Which Men, and Princes Especially, Are Praised or Censured Machiavelli turns the discussion from the strength of states and principalities to the correct behavior of the prince. Machiavelli admits that this subject has been treated by others, but he argues that an original set of practical--rather than theoretical--rules is needed. Other philosophers have conceived republics built upon an idealized notion of how men should live rather than how men actually live. But truth strays far from the expectations of imagined ideals. Specifically, men never live every part of their life virtuously. A prince should not concern himself with living virtuously, but rather with acting so as to achieve the most practical benefit. In general, some personal characteristics will earn men praise, others condemnation. Courage, compassion, faith, craftiness, and generosity number among the qualities that receive praise. Cowardice, cruelty, stubbornness, and miserliness are usually met with condemnation. Ideally, a prince would possess all the qualities deemed "good" by other men. But this expectation is unrealistic. A prince's first job is to safeguard the state, and harboring "bad" characteristics is sometimes necessary for this end. Such vices are truly evil if they endanger the state, but when vices are employed in the proper interests of the state, a prince must not be influenced by condemnation from other men |
Jo was the first to wake in the gray dawn of Christmas morning. No
stockings hung at the fireplace, and for a moment she felt as much
disappointed as she did long ago, when her little sock fell down
because it was crammed so full of goodies. Then she remembered her
mother's promise and, slipping her hand under her pillow, drew out a
little crimson-covered book. She knew it very well, for it was that
beautiful old story of the best life ever lived, and Jo felt that it
was a true guidebook for any pilgrim going on a long journey. She woke
Meg with a "Merry Christmas," and bade her see what was under her
pillow. A green-covered book appeared, with the same picture inside,
and a few words written by their mother, which made their one present
very precious in their eyes. Presently Beth and Amy woke to rummage
and find their little books also, one dove-colored, the other blue, and
all sat looking at and talking about them, while the east grew rosy
with the coming day.
In spite of her small vanities, Margaret had a sweet and pious nature,
which unconsciously influenced her sisters, especially Jo, who loved
her very tenderly, and obeyed her because her advice was so gently
given.
"Girls," said Meg seriously, looking from the tumbled head beside her
to the two little night-capped ones in the room beyond, "Mother wants
us to read and love and mind these books, and we must begin at once.
We used to be faithful about it, but since Father went away and all
this war trouble unsettled us, we have neglected many things. You can
do as you please, but I shall keep my book on the table here and read a
little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good
and help me through the day."
Then she opened her new book and began to read. Jo put her arm round
her and, leaning cheek to cheek, read also, with the quiet expression
so seldom seen on her restless face.
"How good Meg is! Come, Amy, let's do as they do. I'll help you with
the hard words, and they'll explain things if we don't understand,"
whispered Beth, very much impressed by the pretty books and her
sisters' example.
"I'm glad mine is blue," said Amy. and then the rooms were very still
while the pages were softly turned, and the winter sunshine crept in to
touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.
"Where is Mother?" asked Meg, as she and Jo ran down to thank her for
their gifts, half an hour later.
"Goodness only knows. Some poor creeter came a-beggin', and your ma
went straight off to see what was needed. There never was such a woman
for givin' away vittles and drink, clothes and firin'," replied Hannah,
who had lived with the family since Meg was born, and was considered by
them all more as a friend than a servant.
"She will be back soon, I think, so fry your cakes, and have everything
ready," said Meg, looking over the presents which were collected in a
basket and kept under the sofa, ready to be produced at the proper
time. "Why, where is Amy's bottle of cologne?" she added, as the
little flask did not appear.
"She took it out a minute ago, and went off with it to put a ribbon on
it, or some such notion," replied Jo, dancing about the room to take
the first stiffness off the new army slippers.
"How nice my handkerchiefs look, don't they? Hannah washed and ironed
them for me, and I marked them all myself," said Beth, looking proudly
at the somewhat uneven letters which had cost her such labor.
"Bless the child! She's gone and put 'Mother' on them instead of 'M.
March'. How funny!" cried Jo, taking one up.
"Isn't that right? I thought it was better to do it so, because Meg's
initials are M.M., and I don't want anyone to use these but Marmee,"
said Beth, looking troubled.
"It's all right, dear, and a very pretty idea, quite sensible too, for
no one can ever mistake now. It will please her very much, I know,"
said Meg, with a frown for Jo and a smile for Beth.
"There's Mother. Hide the basket, quick!" cried Jo, as a door slammed
and steps sounded in the hall.
Amy came in hastily, and looked rather abashed when she saw her sisters
all waiting for her.
"Where have you been, and what are you hiding behind you?" asked Meg,
surprised to see, by her hood and cloak, that lazy Amy had been out so
early.
"Don't laugh at me, Jo! I didn't mean anyone should know till the time
came. I only meant to change the little bottle for a big one, and I
gave all my money to get it, and I'm truly trying not to be selfish any
more."
As she spoke, Amy showed the handsome flask which replaced the cheap
one, and looked so earnest and humble in her little effort to forget
herself that Meg hugged her on the spot, and Jo pronounced her 'a
trump', while Beth ran to the window, and picked her finest rose to
ornament the stately bottle.
"You see I felt ashamed of my present, after reading and talking about
being good this morning, so I ran round the corner and changed it the
minute I was up, and I'm so glad, for mine is the handsomest now."
Another bang of the street door sent the basket under the sofa, and the
girls to the table, eager for breakfast.
"Merry Christmas, Marmee! Many of them! Thank you for our books. We
read some, and mean to every day," they all cried in chorus.
"Merry Christmas, little daughters! I'm glad you began at once, and
hope you will keep on. But I want to say one word before we sit down.
Not far away from here lies a poor woman with a little newborn baby.
Six children are huddled into one bed to keep from freezing, for they
have no fire. There is nothing to eat over there, and the oldest boy
came to tell me they were suffering hunger and cold. My girls, will
you give them your breakfast as a Christmas present?"
They were all unusually hungry, having waited nearly an hour, and for a
minute no one spoke, only a minute, for Jo exclaimed impetuously, "I'm
so glad you came before we began!"
"May I go and help carry the things to the poor little children?" asked
Beth eagerly.
"I shall take the cream and the muffings," added Amy, heroically giving
up the article she most liked.
Meg was already covering the buckwheats, and piling the bread into one
big plate.
"I thought you'd do it," said Mrs. March, smiling as if satisfied. "You
shall all go and help me, and when we come back we will have bread and
milk for breakfast, and make it up at dinnertime."
They were soon ready, and the procession set out. Fortunately it was
early, and they went through back streets, so few people saw them, and
no one laughed at the queer party.
A poor, bare, miserable room it was, with broken windows, no fire,
ragged bedclothes, a sick mother, wailing baby, and a group of pale,
hungry children cuddled under one old quilt, trying to keep warm.
How the big eyes stared and the blue lips smiled as the girls went in.
"Ach, mein Gott! It is good angels come to us!" said the poor woman,
crying for joy.
"Funny angels in hoods and mittens," said Jo, and set them to laughing.
In a few minutes it really did seem as if kind spirits had been at work
there. Hannah, who had carried wood, made a fire, and stopped up the
broken panes with old hats and her own cloak. Mrs. March gave the
mother tea and gruel, and comforted her with promises of help, while
she dressed the little baby as tenderly as if it had been her own. The
girls meantime spread the table, set the children round the fire, and
fed them like so many hungry birds, laughing, talking, and trying to
understand the funny broken English.
"Das ist gut!" "Die Engel-kinder!" cried the poor things as they ate
and warmed their purple hands at the comfortable blaze. The girls had
never been called angel children before, and thought it very agreeable,
especially Jo, who had been considered a 'Sancho' ever since she was
born. That was a very happy breakfast, though they didn't get any of
it. And when they went away, leaving comfort behind, I think there
were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little
girls who gave away their breakfasts and contented themselves with
bread and milk on Christmas morning.
"That's loving our neighbor better than ourselves, and I like it," said
Meg, as they set out their presents while their mother was upstairs
collecting clothes for the poor Hummels.
Not a very splendid show, but there was a great deal of love done up in
the few little bundles, and the tall vase of red roses, white
chrysanthemums, and trailing vines, which stood in the middle, gave
quite an elegant air to the table.
"She's coming! Strike up, Beth! Open the door, Amy! Three cheers for
Marmee!" cried Jo, prancing about while Meg went to conduct Mother to
the seat of honor.
Beth played her gayest march, Amy threw open the door, and Meg enacted
escort with great dignity. Mrs. March was both surprised and touched,
and smiled with her eyes full as she examined her presents and read the
little notes which accompanied them. The slippers went on at once, a
new handkerchief was slipped into her pocket, well scented with Amy's
cologne, the rose was fastened in her bosom, and the nice gloves were
pronounced a perfect fit.
There was a good deal of laughing and kissing and explaining, in the
simple, loving fashion which makes these home festivals so pleasant at
the time, so sweet to remember long afterward, and then all fell to
work.
The morning charities and ceremonies took so much time that the rest of
the day was devoted to preparations for the evening festivities. Being
still too young to go often to the theater, and not rich enough to
afford any great outlay for private performances, the girls put their
wits to work, and necessity being the mother of invention, made
whatever they needed. Very clever were some of their productions,
pasteboard guitars, antique lamps made of old-fashioned butter boats
covered with silver paper, gorgeous robes of old cotton, glittering
with tin spangles from a pickle factory, and armor covered with the
same useful diamond shaped bits left in sheets when the lids of
preserve pots were cut out. The big chamber was the scene of many
innocent revels.
No gentleman were admitted, so Jo played male parts to her heart's
content and took immense satisfaction in a pair of russet leather boots
given her by a friend, who knew a lady who knew an actor. These boots,
an old foil, and a slashed doublet once used by an artist for some
picture, were Jo's chief treasures and appeared on all occasions. The
smallness of the company made it necessary for the two principal actors
to take several parts apiece, and they certainly deserved some credit
for the hard work they did in learning three or four different parts,
whisking in and out of various costumes, and managing the stage
besides. It was excellent drill for their memories, a harmless
amusement, and employed many hours which otherwise would have been
idle, lonely, or spent in less profitable society.
On Christmas night, a dozen girls piled onto the bed which was the
dress circle, and sat before the blue and yellow chintz curtains in a
most flattering state of expectancy. There was a good deal of rustling
and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an
occasional giggle from Amy, who was apt to get hysterical in the
excitement of the moment. Presently a bell sounded, the curtains flew
apart, and the _operatic tragedy_ began.
"A gloomy wood," according to the one playbill, was represented by a
few shrubs in pots, green baize on the floor, and a cave in the
distance. This cave was made with a clothes horse for a roof, bureaus
for walls, and in it was a small furnace in full blast, with a black
pot on it and an old witch bending over it. The stage was dark and the
glow of the furnace had a fine effect, especially as real steam issued
from the kettle when the witch took off the cover. A moment was
allowed for the first thrill to subside, then Hugo, the villain,
stalked in with a clanking sword at his side, a slouching hat, black
beard, mysterious cloak, and the boots. After pacing to and fro in
much agitation, he struck his forehead, and burst out in a wild strain,
singing of his hatred for Roderigo, his love for Zara, and his pleasing
resolution to kill the one and win the other. The gruff tones of Hugo's
voice, with an occasional shout when his feelings overcame him, were
very impressive, and the audience applauded the moment he paused for
breath. Bowing with the air of one accustomed to public praise, he
stole to the cavern and ordered Hagar to come forth with a commanding,
"What ho, minion! I need thee!"
Out came Meg, with gray horsehair hanging about her face, a red and
black robe, a staff, and cabalistic signs upon her cloak. Hugo
demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo.
Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call
up the spirit who would bring the love philter.
Hither, hither, from thy home,
Airy sprite, I bid thee come!
Born of roses, fed on dew,
Charms and potions canst thou brew?
Bring me here, with elfin speed,
The fragrant philter which I need.
Make it sweet and swift and strong,
Spirit, answer now my song!
A soft strain of music sounded, and then at the back of the cave
appeared a little figure in cloudy white, with glittering wings, golden
hair, and a garland of roses on its head. Waving a wand, it sang...
Hither I come,
From my airy home,
Afar in the silver moon.
Take the magic spell,
And use it well,
Or its power will vanish soon!
And dropping a small, gilded bottle at the witch's feet, the spirit
vanished. Another chant from Hagar produced another apparition, not a
lovely one, for with a bang an ugly black imp appeared and, having
croaked a reply, tossed a dark bottle at Hugo and disappeared with a
mocking laugh. Having warbled his thanks and put the potions in his
boots, Hugo departed, and Hagar informed the audience that as he had
killed a few of her friends in times past, she had cursed him, and
intends to thwart his plans, and be revenged on him. Then the curtain
fell, and the audience reposed and ate candy while discussing the
merits of the play.
A good deal of hammering went on before the curtain rose again, but
when it became evident what a masterpiece of stage carpentery had been
got up, no one murmured at the delay. It was truly superb. A tower
rose to the ceiling, halfway up appeared a window with a lamp burning
in it, and behind the white curtain appeared Zara in a lovely blue and
silver dress, waiting for Roderigo. He came in gorgeous array, with
plumed cap, red cloak, chestnut lovelocks, a guitar, and the boots, of
course. Kneeling at the foot of the tower, he sang a serenade in
melting tones. Zara replied and, after a musical dialogue, consented
to fly. Then came the grand effect of the play. Roderigo produced a
rope ladder, with five steps to it, threw up one end, and invited Zara
to descend. Timidly she crept from her lattice, put her hand on
Roderigo's shoulder, and was about to leap gracefully down when "Alas!
Alas for Zara!" she forgot her train. It caught in the window, the
tower tottered, leaned forward, fell with a crash, and buried the
unhappy lovers in the ruins.
A universal shriek arose as the russet boots waved wildly from the
wreck and a golden head emerged, exclaiming, "I told you so! I told
you so!" With wonderful presence of mind, Don Pedro, the cruel sire,
rushed in, dragged out his daughter, with a hasty aside...
"Don't laugh! Act as if it was all right!" and, ordering Roderigo up,
banished him from the kingdom with wrath and scorn. Though decidedly
shaken by the fall from the tower upon him, Roderigo defied the old
gentleman and refused to stir. This dauntless example fired Zara. She
also defied her sire, and he ordered them both to the deepest dungeons
of the castle. A stout little retainer came in with chains and led
them away, looking very much frightened and evidently forgetting the
speech he ought to have made.
Act third was the castle hall, and here Hagar appeared, having come to
free the lovers and finish Hugo. She hears him coming and hides, sees
him put the potions into two cups of wine and bid the timid little
servant, "Bear them to the captives in their cells, and tell them I
shall come anon." The servant takes Hugo aside to tell him something,
and Hagar changes the cups for two others which are harmless.
Ferdinando, the 'minion', carries them away, and Hagar puts back the
cup which holds the poison meant for Roderigo. Hugo, getting thirsty
after a long warble, drinks it, loses his wits, and after a good deal
of clutching and stamping, falls flat and dies, while Hagar informs him
what she has done in a song of exquisite power and melody.
This was a truly thrilling scene, though some persons might have
thought that the sudden tumbling down of a quantity of long red hair
rather marred the effect of the villain's death. He was called before
the curtain, and with great propriety appeared, leading Hagar, whose
singing was considered more wonderful than all the rest of the
performance put together.
Act fourth displayed the despairing Roderigo on the point of stabbing
himself because he has been told that Zara has deserted him. Just as
the dagger is at his heart, a lovely song is sung under his window,
informing him that Zara is true but in danger, and he can save her if
he will. A key is thrown in, which unlocks the door, and in a spasm of
rapture he tears off his chains and rushes away to find and rescue his
lady love.
Act fifth opened with a stormy scene between Zara and Don Pedro. He
wishes her to go into a convent, but she won't hear of it, and after a
touching appeal, is about to faint when Roderigo dashes in and demands
her hand. Don Pedro refuses, because he is not rich. They shout and
gesticulate tremendously but cannot agree, and Rodrigo is about to bear
away the exhausted Zara, when the timid servant enters with a letter
and a bag from Hagar, who has mysteriously disappeared. The latter
informs the party that she bequeaths untold wealth to the young pair
and an awful doom to Don Pedro, if he doesn't make them happy. The bag
is opened, and several quarts of tin money shower down upon the stage
till it is quite glorified with the glitter. This entirely softens the
stern sire. He consents without a murmur, all join in a joyful chorus,
and the curtain falls upon the lovers kneeling to receive Don Pedro's
blessing in attitudes of the most romantic grace.
Tumultuous applause followed but received an unexpected check, for the
cot bed, on which the dress circle was built, suddenly shut up and
extinguished the enthusiastic audience. Roderigo and Don Pedro flew to
the rescue, and all were taken out unhurt, though many were speechless
with laughter. The excitement had hardly subsided when Hannah
appeared, with "Mrs. March's compliments, and would the ladies walk
down to supper."
This was a surprise even to the actors, and when they saw the table,
they looked at one another in rapturous amazement. It was like Marmee
to get up a little treat for them, but anything so fine as this was
unheard of since the departed days of plenty. There was ice cream,
actually two dishes of it, pink and white, and cake and fruit and
distracting French bonbons and, in the middle of the table, four great
bouquets of hot house flowers.
It quite took their breath away, and they stared first at the table and
then at their mother, who looked as if she enjoyed it immensely.
"Is it fairies?" asked Amy.
"Santa Claus," said Beth.
"Mother did it." And Meg smiled her sweetest, in spite of her gray
beard and white eyebrows.
"Aunt March had a good fit and sent the supper," cried Jo, with a
sudden inspiration.
"All wrong. Old Mr. Laurence sent it," replied Mrs. March.
"The Laurence boy's grandfather! What in the world put such a thing
into his head? We don't know him!" exclaimed Meg.
"Hannah told one of his servants about your breakfast party. He is an
odd old gentleman, but that pleased him. He knew my father years ago,
and he sent me a polite note this afternoon, saying he hoped I would
allow him to express his friendly feeling toward my children by sending
them a few trifles in honor of the day. I could not refuse, and so you
have a little feast at night to make up for the bread-and-milk
breakfast."
"That boy put it into his head, I know he did! He's a capital fellow,
and I wish we could get acquainted. He looks as if he'd like to know
us but he's bashful, and Meg is so prim she won't let me speak to him
when we pass," said Jo, as the plates went round, and the ice began to
melt out of sight, with ohs and ahs of satisfaction.
"You mean the people who live in the big house next door, don't you?"
asked one of the girls. "My mother knows old Mr. Laurence, but says
he's very proud and doesn't like to mix with his neighbors. He keeps
his grandson shut up, when he isn't riding or walking with his tutor,
and makes him study very hard. We invited him to our party, but he
didn't come. Mother says he's very nice, though he never speaks to us
girls."
"Our cat ran away once, and he brought her back, and we talked over the
fence, and were getting on capitally, all about cricket, and so on,
when he saw Meg coming, and walked off. I mean to know him some day,
for he needs fun, I'm sure he does," said Jo decidedly.
"I like his manners, and he looks like a little gentleman, so I've no
objection to your knowing him, if a proper opportunity comes. He
brought the flowers himself, and I should have asked him in, if I had
been sure what was going on upstairs. He looked so wistful as he went
away, hearing the frolic and evidently having none of his own."
"It's a mercy you didn't, Mother!" laughed Jo, looking at her boots.
"But we'll have another play sometime that he can see. Perhaps he'll
help act. Wouldn't that be jolly?"
"I never had such a fine bouquet before! How pretty it is!" And Meg
examined her flowers with great interest.
"They are lovely. But Beth's roses are sweeter to me," said Mrs.
March, smelling the half-dead posy in her belt.
Beth nestled up to her, and whispered softly, "I wish I could send my
bunch to Father. I'm afraid he isn't having such a merry Christmas as
we are." | The girls wake up on Christmas morning to find no stockings hanging by the fireplace, but instead a small Bible under each girls pillow. Following Megs example they vow to read a little every day. Their mother has already gone somewhere; Amy disappears for a while and returns with a larger, prettier bottle of cologne for Marmees present. She says she felt guilty about buying the small one in order to save a little money for herself, and now she will be giving Marmee the best present of all. Mrs. March returns to tell the girls about a family who has a new baby and six other children huddled in a bed trying to keep warm without heat or food. She asks if the girls would be willing to give up their breakfast to which they almost immediately agree. After making the family as comfortable as they can, the return home to a breakfast of bread and milk, then continue with their Christmas plans, putting on a play for a dozen friends. Christmas dinner is ample reward for their morning sacrifice. Mr. Laurence, their next door neighbor has sent over cake and ice cream along with flowers for decoration. The note says he heard of their generosity and wanted to send a few "trifles" of appreciation. The girls decide they would like to become better acquainted with Mr. Laurence and his grandson Laurie. |
Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her
friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard's, her evil stars had led her
to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to _The Rev.
Philip Elton, White-Hart, Bath_, was to be seen under the operation of
being lifted into the butcher's cart, which was to convey it to where
the coaches past; and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk
and the direction, was consequently a blank.
She went, however; and when they reached the farm, and she was to be
put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between
espalier apple-trees to the front door, the sight of every thing which
had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to
revive a little local agitation; and when they parted, Emma observed her
to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined
her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour.
She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who
was married, and settled in Donwell.
The quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again;
and Miss Smith receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and
unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the
gravel walk--a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with
her seemingly with ceremonious civility.
Harriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was
feeling too much; but at last Emma collected from her enough to
understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating.
She had seen only Mrs. Martin and the two girls. They had received her
doubtingly, if not coolly; and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had
been talked almost all the time--till just at last, when Mrs. Martin's
saying, all of a sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had
brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very
room she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There
were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window.
_He_ had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour,
the party, the occasion--to feel the same consciousness, the same
regrets--to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they
were just growing again like themselves, (Harriet, as Emma must suspect,
as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy,) when the carriage
reappeared, and all was over. The style of the visit, and the shortness
of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given
to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months
ago!--Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might
resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She
would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had
the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a
_little_ higher should have been enough: but as it was, how could she
have done otherwise?--Impossible!--She could not repent. They must be
separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the process--so much
to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little
consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls to
procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the Martins. The
refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary.
It was a good scheme; but on driving to the door they heard that neither
"master nor mistress was at home;" they had both been out some time; the
man believed they were gone to Hartfield.
"This is too bad," cried Emma, as they turned away. "And now we shall
just miss them; too provoking!--I do not know when I have been so
disappointed." And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her
murmurs, or to reason them away; probably a little of both--such being
the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage
stopt; she looked up; it was stopt by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were
standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of
them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound--for Mr. Weston
immediately accosted her with,
"How d'ye do?--how d'ye do?--We have been sitting with your father--glad
to see him so well. Frank comes to-morrow--I had a letter this
morning--we see him to-morrow by dinner-time to a certainty--he is at
Oxford to-day, and he comes for a whole fortnight; I knew it would be
so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days; I
was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have
just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall
enjoy him completely; every thing has turned out exactly as we could
wish."
There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the
influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston's, confirmed as it all was
by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not
less to the purpose. To know that _she_ thought his coming certain was
enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in
their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits.
The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in
the rapidity of half a moment's thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now
be talked of no more.
Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which
allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command,
as well as the route and the method of his journey; and she listened,
and smiled, and congratulated.
"I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield," said he, at the conclusion.
Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his
wife.
"We had better move on, Mr. Weston," said she, "we are detaining the
girls."
"Well, well, I am ready;"--and turning again to Emma, "but you must
not be expecting such a _very_ fine young man; you have only
had _my_ account you know; I dare say he is really nothing
extraordinary:"--though his own sparkling eyes at the moment were
speaking a very different conviction.
Emma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a
manner that appropriated nothing.
"Think of me to-morrow, my dear Emma, about four o'clock," was Mrs.
Weston's parting injunction; spoken with some anxiety, and meant only
for her.
"Four o'clock!--depend upon it he will be here by three," was Mr.
Weston's quick amendment; and so ended a most satisfactory meeting.
Emma's spirits were mounted quite up to happiness; every thing wore
a different air; James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as
before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least
must soon be coming out; and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw
something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there.
"Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?"--was a
question, however, which did not augur much.
But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once, and Emma
was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time.
The morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston's faithful
pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve o'clock, that
she was to think of her at four.
"My dear, dear anxious friend,"--said she, in mental soliloquy, while
walking downstairs from her own room, "always overcareful for every
body's comfort but your own; I see you now in all your little fidgets,
going again and again into his room, to be sure that all is right."
The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. "'Tis twelve;
I shall not forget to think of you four hours hence; and by this
time to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the
possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring him
soon."
She opened the parlour door, and saw two gentlemen sitting with her
father--Mr. Weston and his son. They had been arrived only a few
minutes, and Mr. Weston had scarcely finished his explanation of Frank's
being a day before his time, and her father was yet in the midst of his
very civil welcome and congratulations, when she appeared, to have her
share of surprize, introduction, and pleasure.
The Frank Churchill so long talked of, so high in interest, was actually
before her--he was presented to her, and she did not think too much had
been said in his praise; he was a _very_ good looking young man; height,
air, address, all were unexceptionable, and his countenance had a great
deal of the spirit and liveliness of his father's; he looked quick and
sensible. She felt immediately that she should like him; and there was
a well-bred ease of manner, and a readiness to talk, which convinced her
that he came intending to be acquainted with her, and that acquainted
they soon must be.
He had reached Randalls the evening before. She was pleased with the
eagerness to arrive which had made him alter his plan, and travel
earlier, later, and quicker, that he might gain half a day.
"I told you yesterday," cried Mr. Weston with exultation, "I told you
all that he would be here before the time named. I remembered what I
used to do myself. One cannot creep upon a journey; one cannot help
getting on faster than one has planned; and the pleasure of coming in
upon one's friends before the look-out begins, is worth a great deal
more than any little exertion it needs."
"It is a great pleasure where one can indulge in it," said the young
man, "though there are not many houses that I should presume on so far;
but in coming _home_ I felt I might do any thing."
The word _home_ made his father look on him with fresh complacency.
Emma was directly sure that he knew how to make himself agreeable; the
conviction was strengthened by what followed. He was very much pleased
with Randalls, thought it a most admirably arranged house, would hardly
allow it even to be very small, admired the situation, the walk to
Highbury, Highbury itself, Hartfield still more, and professed himself
to have always felt the sort of interest in the country which none but
one's _own_ country gives, and the greatest curiosity to visit it. That
he should never have been able to indulge so amiable a feeling before,
passed suspiciously through Emma's brain; but still, if it were a
falsehood, it was a pleasant one, and pleasantly handled. His manner had
no air of study or exaggeration. He did really look and speak as if in a
state of no common enjoyment.
Their subjects in general were such as belong to an opening
acquaintance. On his side were the inquiries,--"Was she a
horsewoman?--Pleasant rides?--Pleasant walks?--Had they a large
neighbourhood?--Highbury, perhaps, afforded society enough?--There were
several very pretty houses in and about it.--Balls--had they balls?--Was
it a musical society?"
But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance
proportionably advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while
their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his
mother-in-law, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much
warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his
father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional
proof of his knowing how to please--and of his certainly thinking it
worth while to try to please her. He did not advance a word of praise
beyond what she knew to be thoroughly deserved by Mrs. Weston; but,
undoubtedly he could know very little of the matter. He understood
what would be welcome; he could be sure of little else. "His father's
marriage," he said, "had been the wisest measure, every friend must
rejoice in it; and the family from whom he had received such a blessing
must be ever considered as having conferred the highest obligation on
him."
He got as near as he could to thanking her for Miss Taylor's merits,
without seeming quite to forget that in the common course of things it
was to be rather supposed that Miss Taylor had formed Miss Woodhouse's
character, than Miss Woodhouse Miss Taylor's. And at last, as if
resolved to qualify his opinion completely for travelling round to its
object, he wound it all up with astonishment at the youth and beauty of
her person.
"Elegant, agreeable manners, I was prepared for," said he; "but I
confess that, considering every thing, I had not expected more than a
very tolerably well-looking woman of a certain age; I did not know that
I was to find a pretty young woman in Mrs. Weston."
"You cannot see too much perfection in Mrs. Weston for my feelings,"
said Emma; "were you to guess her to be _eighteen_, I should listen with
pleasure; but _she_ would be ready to quarrel with you for using such
words. Don't let her imagine that you have spoken of her as a pretty
young woman."
"I hope I should know better," he replied; "no, depend upon it, (with a
gallant bow,) that in addressing Mrs. Weston I should understand whom
I might praise without any danger of being thought extravagant in my
terms."
Emma wondered whether the same suspicion of what might be expected from
their knowing each other, which had taken strong possession of her mind,
had ever crossed his; and whether his compliments were to be considered
as marks of acquiescence, or proofs of defiance. She must see more
of him to understand his ways; at present she only felt they were
agreeable.
She had no doubt of what Mr. Weston was often thinking about. His quick
eye she detected again and again glancing towards them with a happy
expression; and even, when he might have determined not to look, she was
confident that he was often listening.
Her own father's perfect exemption from any thought of the kind, the
entire deficiency in him of all such sort of penetration or suspicion,
was a most comfortable circumstance. Happily he was not farther from
approving matrimony than from foreseeing it.--Though always objecting
to every marriage that was arranged, he never suffered beforehand from
the apprehension of any; it seemed as if he could not think so ill of
any two persons' understanding as to suppose they meant to marry till it
were proved against them. She blessed the favouring blindness. He could
now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a
glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all
his natural kind-hearted civility in solicitous inquiries after Mr.
Frank Churchill's accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils
of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed
anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching cold--which,
however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself till
after another night.
A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move.--"He must be going.
He had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for
Mrs. Weston at Ford's, but he need not hurry any body else." His son,
too well bred to hear the hint, rose immediately also, saying,
"As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity
of paying a visit, which must be paid some day or other, and therefore
may as well be paid now. I have the honour of being acquainted with
a neighbour of yours, (turning to Emma,) a lady residing in or near
Highbury; a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall have no difficulty,
I suppose, in finding the house; though Fairfax, I believe, is not
the proper name--I should rather say Barnes, or Bates. Do you know any
family of that name?"
"To be sure we do," cried his father; "Mrs. Bates--we passed her
house--I saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted
with Miss Fairfax; I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl
she is. Call upon her, by all means."
"There is no necessity for my calling this morning," said the young man;
"another day would do as well; but there was that degree of acquaintance
at Weymouth which--"
"Oh! go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done
cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank;
any want of attention to her _here_ should be carefully avoided. You saw
her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of every body she mixed
with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother, who has barely enough
to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight."
The son looked convinced.
"I have heard her speak of the acquaintance," said Emma; "she is a very
elegant young woman."
He agreed to it, but with so quiet a "Yes," as inclined her almost to
doubt his real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort
of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought
only ordinarily gifted with it.
"If you were never particularly struck by her manners before," said she,
"I think you will to-day. You will see her to advantage; see her and
hear her--no, I am afraid you will not hear her at all, for she has an
aunt who never holds her tongue."
"You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you?" said Mr.
Woodhouse, always the last to make his way in conversation; "then give
me leave to assure you that you will find her a very agreeable young
lady. She is staying here on a visit to her grandmama and aunt, very
worthy people; I have known them all my life. They will be extremely
glad to see you, I am sure; and one of my servants shall go with you to
shew you the way."
"My dear sir, upon no account in the world; my father can direct me."
"But your father is not going so far; he is only going to the Crown,
quite on the other side of the street, and there are a great many
houses; you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty walk,
unless you keep on the footpath; but my coachman can tell you where you
had best cross the street."
Mr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could,
and his father gave his hearty support by calling out, "My good friend,
this is quite unnecessary; Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees
it, and as to Mrs. Bates's, he may get there from the Crown in a hop,
step, and jump."
They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one, and a
graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained
very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now
engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full
confidence in their comfort. | Emma takes Harriet to visit the Martins. Ahead of time, they agree that Emma is to return and retrieve Harriet after fifteen minutes. Harriet has a friendly and emotional visit with Mr. Martin's mother and sister, but when the visit is cut short, it is clear the Martins understand that they have been slighted. Though pained, Emma still believes she is doing what is best for Harriet. Emma's spirits are revived by a meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who bring the news that Frank Churchill's arrival is imminent. The following day, Emma unexpectedly meets Frank at Hartfield, and she is pleased to find that he is very good-looking, bright, and charming. Frank has just the right compliment for everyone, especially Mrs. Weston, which pleases Emma. Emma can see that Mr. Weston hopes that she and Frank might form an attachment, and she wonders if the thought has occurred to Frank. When his father departs on an errand, Frank leaves to call on his acquaintance from Weymouth, Jane Fairfax |
The barrier between Mr Dombey and his wife was not weakened by time.
Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other, bound
together by no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered hands, and
straining that so harshly, in their shrinking asunder, that it wore and
chafed to the bone, Time, consoler of affliction and softener of anger,
could do nothing to help them. Their pride, however different in kind
and object, was equal in degree; and, in their flinty opposition,
struck out fire between them which might smoulder or might blaze, as
circumstances were, but burned up everything within their mutual reach,
and made their marriage way a road of ashes.
Let us be just to him. In the monstrous delusion of his life, swelling
with every grain of sand that shifted in its glass, he urged her on, he
little thought to what, or considered how; but still his feeling towards
her, such as it was, remained as at first. She had the grand demerit of
unaccountably putting herself in opposition to the recognition of his
vast importance, and to the acknowledgment of her complete submission to
it, and so far it was necessary to correct and reduce her; but otherwise
he still considered her, in his cold way, a lady capable of doing
honour, if she would, to his choice and name, and of reflecting credit
on his proprietorship.
Now, she, with all her might of passionate and proud resentment, bent
her dark glance from day to day, and hour to hour--from that night in
her own chamber, when she had sat gazing at the shadows on the wall,
to the deeper night fast coming--upon one figure directing a crowd of
humiliations and exasperations against her; and that figure, still her
husband's.
Was Mr Dombey's master-vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an unnatural
characteristic? It might be worthwhile, sometimes, to inquire what
Nature is, and how men work to change her, and whether, in the enforced
distortions so produced, it is not natural to be unnatural. Coop any
son or daughter of our mighty mother within narrow range, and bind the
prisoner to one idea, and foster it by servile worship of it on the part
of the few timid or designing people standing round, and what is Nature
to the willing captive who has never risen up upon the wings of a free
mind--drooping and useless soon--to see her in her comprehensive truth!
Alas! are there so few things in the world, about us, most unnatural,
and yet most natural in being so? Hear the magistrate or judge admonish
the unnatural outcasts of society; unnatural in brutal habits, unnatural
in want of decency, unnatural in losing and confounding all distinctions
between good and evil; unnatural in ignorance, in vice, in recklessness,
in contumacy, in mind, in looks, in everything. But follow the good
clergyman or doctor, who, with his life imperilled at every breath
he draws, goes down into their dens, lying within the echoes of our
carriage wheels and daily tread upon the pavement stones. Look round
upon the world of odious sights--millions of immortal creatures have no
other world on earth--at the lightest mention of which humanity revolts,
and dainty delicacy living in the next street, stops her ears, and lisps
'I don't believe it!' Breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity
that is poisonous to health and life; and have every sense, conferred
upon our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened and
disgusted, and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter.
Vainly attempt to think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome
weed, that, set in this foetid bed, could have its natural growth,
or put its little leaves off to the sun as GOD designed it. And then,
calling up some ghastly child, with stunted form and wicked face, hold
forth on its unnatural sinfulness, and lament its being, so early, far
away from Heaven--but think a little of its having been conceived, and
born and bred, in Hell!
Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the
health of Man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from
vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see them lowering in
a dense black cloud above such haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt
the better portions of a town. But if the moral pestilence that rises
with them, and in the eternal laws of our Nature, is inseparable from
them, could be made discernible too, how terrible the revelation! Then
should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long
train of nameless sins against the natural affections and repulsions of
mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight the
innocent and spread contagion among the pure. Then should we see how the
same poisoned fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar-houses,
inundate the jails, and make the convict-ships swim deep, and roll
across the seas, and over-run vast continents with crime. Then should
we stand appalled to know, that where we generate disease to strike our
children down and entail itself on unborn generations, there also we
breed, by the same certain process, infancy that knows no innocence,
youth without modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing but
in suffering and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the form we
bear, unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes from thorns, and
figs from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the
offal in the bye-ways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat
churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity,
and find it growing from such seed.
Oh for a good spirit who would take the house-tops off, with a more
potent and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show
a Christian people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to
swell the retinue of the Destroying Angel as he moves forth among them!
For only one night's view of the pale phantoms rising from the scenes of
our too-long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air where Vice and
Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous social retributions
which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! Bright and blest
the morning that should rise on such a night: for men, delayed no more
by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust
upon the path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves,
like creatures of one common origin, owing one duty to the Father of one
family, and tending to one common end, to make the world a better place!
Not the less bright and blest would that day be for rousing some who
never have looked out upon the world of human life around them, to a
knowledge of their own relation to it, and for making them acquainted
with a perversion of nature in their own contracted sympathies and
estimates; as great, and yet as natural in its development when once
begun, as the lowest degradation known.
But no such day had ever dawned on Mr Dombey, or his wife; and the
course of each was taken.
Through six months that ensued upon his accident, they held the same
relations one towards the other. A marble rock could not have stood more
obdurately in his way than she; and no chilled spring, lying uncheered
by any ray of light in the depths of a deep cave, could be more sullen
or more cold than he.
The hope that had fluttered within her when the promise of her new home
dawned, was quite gone from the heart of Florence now. That home was
nearly two years old; and even the patient trust that was in her,
could not survive the daily blight of such experience. If she had any
lingering fancy in the nature of hope left, that Edith and her father
might be happier together, in some distant time, she had none, now, that
her father would ever love her. The little interval in which she had
imagined that she saw some small relenting in him, was forgotten in the
long remembrance of his coldness since and before, or only remembered as
a sorrowful delusion.
Florence loved him still, but, by degrees, had come to love him rather
as some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as the hard
reality before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness with which
she loved the memory of little Paul, or of her mother, seemed to enter
now into her thoughts of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear
remembrance. Whether it was that he was dead to her, and that partly for
this reason, partly for his share in those old objects of her affection,
and partly for the long association of him with hopes that were withered
and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not have told; but the father
whom she loved began to be a vague and dreamy idea to her: hardly more
substantially connected with her real life, than the image she would
sometimes conjure up, of her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a
man, who would protect and cherish her.
The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change
from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost
seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these
thoughts.
She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her
Mama was greatly changed. At the time of her father's accident, and when
he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first observed that
Edith avoided her. Wounded and shocked, and yet unable to reconcile this
with her affection when they did meet, she sought her in her own room at
night, once more.
'Mama,' said Florence, stealing softly to her side, 'have I offended
you?'
Edith answered 'No.'
'I must have done something,' said Florence. 'Tell me what it is. You
have changed your manner to me, dear Mama. I cannot say how instantly I
feel the least change; for I love you with my whole heart.'
'As I do you,' said Edith. 'Ah, Florence, believe me never more than
now!'
'Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?' asked Florence.
'And why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear Mama? You do so,
do you not?'
Edith signified assent with her dark eyes.
'Why?' returned Florence imploringly. 'Tell me why, that I may know how
to please you better; and tell me this shall not be so any more.'
'My Florence,' answered Edith, taking the hand that embraced her neck,
and looking into the eyes that looked into hers so lovingly, as Florence
knelt upon the ground before her; 'why it is, I cannot tell you. It is
neither for me to say, nor you to hear; but that it is, and that it must
be, I know. Should I do it if I did not?'
'Are we to be estranged, Mama?' asked Florence, gazing at her like one
frightened.
Edith's silent lips formed 'Yes.'
Florence looked at her with increasing fear and wonder, until she could
see her no more through the blinding tears that ran down her face.
'Florence! my life!' said Edith, hurriedly, 'listen to me. I cannot
bear to see this grief. Be calmer. You see that I am composed, and is it
nothing to me?'
She resumed her steady voice and manner as she said the latter words,
and added presently:
'Not wholly estranged. Partially: and only that, in appearance,
Florence, for in my own breast I am still the same to you, and ever will
be. But what I do is not done for myself.'
'Is it for me, Mama?' asked Florence.
'It is enough,' said Edith, after a pause, 'to know what it is; why,
matters little. Dear Florence, it is better--it is necessary--it must
be--that our association should be less frequent. The confidence there
has been between us must be broken off.'
'When?' cried Florence. 'Oh, Mama, when?'
'Now,' said Edith.
'For all time to come?' asked Florence.
'I do not say that,' answered Edith. 'I do not know that. Nor will I
say that companionship between us is, at the best, an ill-assorted and
unholy union, of which I might have known no good could come. My way
here has been through paths that you will never tread, and my way
henceforth may lie--God knows--I do not see it--'
Her voice died away into silence; and she sat, looking at Florence,
and almost shrinking from her, with the same strange dread and wild
avoidance that Florence had noticed once before. The same dark pride and
rage succeeded, sweeping over her form and features like an angry chord
across the strings of a wild harp. But no softness or humility ensued on
that. She did not lay her head down now, and weep, and say that she
had no hope but in Florence. She held it up as if she were a beautiful
Medusa, looking on him, face to face, to strike him dead. Yes, and she
would have done it, if she had had the charm.
'Mama,' said Florence, anxiously, 'there is a change in you, in more
than what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a
little.'
'No,' said Edith, 'no, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do best
to keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but believe
that what I am when I seem fickle or capricious to you, I am not of my
own will, or for myself. Believe, though we are stranger to each other
than we have been, that I am unchanged to you within. Forgive me
for having ever darkened your dark home--I am a shadow on it, I know
well--and let us never speak of this again.'
'Mama,' sobbed Florence, 'we are not to part?'
'We do this that we may not part,' said Edith. 'Ask no more. Go,
Florence! My love and my remorse go with you!'
She embraced her, and dismissed her; and as Florence passed out of her
room, Edith looked on the retiring figure, as if her good angel went out
in that form, and left her to the haughty and indignant passions that
now claimed her for their own, and set their seal upon her brow.
From that hour, Florence and she were, as they had been, no more. For
days together, they would seldom meet, except at table, and when Mr
Dombey was present. Then Edith, imperious, inflexible, and silent, never
looked at her. Whenever Mr Carker was of the party, as he often was,
during the progress of Mr Dombey's recovery, and afterwards, Edith held
herself more removed from her, and was more distant towards her, than at
other times. Yet she and Florence never encountered, when there was no
one by, but she would embrace her as affectionately as of old, though
not with the same relenting of her proud aspect; and often, when she had
been out late, she would steal up to Florence's room, as she had been
used to do, in the dark, and whisper 'Good-night,' on her pillow. When
unconscious, in her slumber, of such visits, Florence would sometimes
awake, as from a dream of those words, softly spoken, and would seem
to feel the touch of lips upon her face. But less and less often as the
months went on.
And now the void in Florence's own heart began again, indeed, to make
a solitude around her. As the image of the father whom she loved had
insensibly become a mere abstraction, so Edith, following the fate of
all the rest about whom her affections had entwined themselves, was
fleeting, fading, growing paler in the distance, every day. Little by
little, she receded from Florence, like the retiring ghost of what she
had been; little by little, the chasm between them widened and seemed
deeper; little by little, all the power of earnestness and tenderness
she had shown, was frozen up in the bold, angry hardihood with which she
stood, upon the brink of a deep precipice unseen by Florence, daring to
look down.
There was but one consideration to set against the heavy loss of Edith,
and though it was slight comfort to her burdened heart, she tried to
think it some relief. No longer divided between her affection and duty
to the two, Florence could love both and do no injustice to either. As
shadows of her fond imagination, she could give them equal place in her
own bosom, and wrong them with no doubts.
So she tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations on
the cause of this change in Edith, would obtrude themselves upon her
mind and frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once more to
silent grief and loneliness, it was not a curious mind. Florence had
only to remember that her star of promise was clouded in the general
gloom that hung upon the house, and to weep and be resigned.
Thus living, in a dream wherein the overflowing love of her young
heart expended itself on airy forms, and in a real world where she had
experienced little but the rolling back of that strong tide upon itself,
Florence grew to be seventeen. Timid and retiring as her solitary life
had made her, it had not embittered her sweet temper, or her
earnest nature. A child in innocent simplicity; a woman in her modest
self-reliance, and her deep intensity of feeling; both child and woman
seemed at once expressed in her face and fragile delicacy of shape, and
gracefully to mingle there;--as if the spring should be unwilling to
depart when summer came, and sought to blend the earlier beauties of the
flowers with their bloom. But in her thrilling voice, in her calm eyes,
sometimes in a sage ethereal light that seemed to rest upon her head,
and always in a certain pensive air upon her beauty, there was an
expression, such as had been seen in the dead boy; and the council in
the Servants' Hall whispered so among themselves, and shook their heads,
and ate and drank the more, in a closer bond of good-fellowship.
This observant body had plenty to say of Mr and Mrs Dombey, and of Mr
Carker, who appeared to be a mediator between them, and who came and
went as if he were trying to make peace, but never could. They all
deplored the uncomfortable state of affairs, and all agreed that Mrs
Pipchin (whose unpopularity was not to be surpassed) had some hand in
it; but, upon the whole, it was agreeable to have so good a subject
for a rallying point, and they made a great deal of it, and enjoyed
themselves very much.
The general visitors who came to the house, and those among whom Mr and
Mrs Dombey visited, thought it a pretty equal match, as to haughtiness,
at all events, and thought nothing more about it. The young lady
with the back did not appear for some time after Mrs Skewton's death;
observing to some particular friends, with her usual engaging little
scream, that she couldn't separate the family from a notion of
tombstones, and horrors of that sort; but when she did come, she saw
nothing wrong, except Mr Dombey's wearing a bunch of gold seals to his
watch, which shocked her very much, as an exploded superstition. This
youthful fascinator considered a daughter-in-law objectionable in
principle; otherwise, she had nothing to say against Florence, but that
she sadly wanted 'style'--which might mean back, perhaps. Many, who only
came to the house on state occasions, hardly knew who Florence was, and
said, going home, 'Indeed, was that Miss Dombey, in the corner? Very
pretty, but a little delicate and thoughtful in appearance!'
None the less so, certainly, for her life of the last six months.
Florence took her seat at the dinner-table, on the day before the second
anniversary of her father's marriage to Edith (Mrs Skewton had been
lying stricken with paralysis when the first came round), with an
uneasiness, amounting to dread. She had no other warrant for it, than
the occasion, the expression of her father's face, in the hasty
glance she caught of it, and the presence of Mr Carker, which, always
unpleasant to her, was more so on this day, than she had ever felt it
before.
Edith was richly dressed, for she and Mr Dombey were engaged in the
evening to some large assembly, and the dinner-hour that day was late.
She did not appear until they were seated at table, when Mr Carker rose
and led her to her chair. Beautiful and lustrous as she was, there was
that in her face and air which seemed to separate her hopelessly from
Florence, and from everyone, for ever more. And yet, for an instant,
Florence saw a beam of kindness in her eyes, when they were turned
on her, that made the distance to which she had withdrawn herself, a
greater cause of sorrow and regret than ever.
There was very little said at dinner. Florence heard her father speak to
Mr Carker sometimes on business matters, and heard him softly reply, but
she paid little attention to what they said, and only wished the dinner
at an end. When the dessert was placed upon the table, and they were
left alone, with no servant in attendance, Mr Dombey, who had been
several times clearing his throat in a manner that augured no good,
said:
'Mrs Dombey, you know, I suppose, that I have instructed the housekeeper
that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow.'
'I do not dine at home,' she answered.
'Not a large party,' pursued Mr Dombey, with an indifferent assumption
of not having heard her; 'merely some twelve or fourteen. My sister,
Major Bagstock, and some others whom you know but slightly.'
'I do not dine at home,' she repeated.
'However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, still
going majestically on, as if she had not spoken, 'to hold the occasion
in very pleasant remembrance just now, there are appearances in these
things which must be maintained before the world. If you have no respect
for yourself, Mrs Dombey--'
'I have none,' she said.
'Madam,' cried Mr Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, 'hear me if
you please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself--'
'And I say I have none,' she answered.
He looked at her; but the face she showed him in return would not have
changed, if death itself had looked.
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, turning more quietly to that gentleman, 'as
you have been my medium of communication with Mrs Dombey on former
occasions, and as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far as
I am individually concerned, I will trouble you to have the goodness to
inform Mrs Dombey that if she has no respect for herself, I have
some respect for myself, and therefore insist on my arrangements for
to-morrow.'
'Tell your sovereign master, Sir,' said Edith, 'that I will take leave
to speak to him on this subject by-and-bye, and that I will speak to him
alone.'
'Mr Carker, Madam,' said her husband, 'being in possession of the reason
which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be absolved from
the delivery of any such message.' He saw her eyes move, while he spoke,
and followed them with his own.
'Your daughter is present, Sir,' said Edith.
'My daughter will remain present,' said Mr Dombey.
Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her face in her hands,
and trembling.
'My daughter, Madam'--began Mr Dombey.
But Edith stopped him, in a voice which, although not raised in the
least, was so clear, emphatic, and distinct, that it might have been
heard in a whirlwind.
'I tell you I will speak to you alone,' she said. 'If you are not mad,
heed what I say.'
'I have authority to speak to you, Madam,' returned her husband, 'when
and where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and now.'
She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and looking at
him with all outward composure, said, in the same voice:
'You shall!'
'I must tell you first, that there is a threatening appearance in your
manner, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'which does not become you.'
She laughed. The shaken diamonds in her hair started and trembled. There
are fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer being
in danger. Had these been such, their imprisoned rays of light would
have taken flight that moment, and they would have been as dull as lead.
Carker listened, with his eyes cast down.
'As to my daughter, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, resuming the thread of his
discourse, 'it is by no means inconsistent with her duty to me, that
she should know what conduct to avoid. At present you are a very strong
example to her of this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.'
'I would not stop you now,' returned his wife, immoveable in eye, and
voice, and attitude; 'I would not rise and go away, and save you the
utterance of one word, if the room were burning.'
Mr Dombey moved his head, as if in a sarcastic acknowledgment of the
attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as before;
for Edith's quick uneasiness in reference to Florence, and Edith's
indifference to him and his censure, chafed and galled him like a
stiffening wound.
'Mrs Dombey,' said he, 'it may not be inconsistent with my daughter's
improvement to know how very much to be lamented, and how necessary to
be corrected, a stubborn disposition is, especially when it is indulged
in--unthankfully indulged in, I will add--after the gratification of
ambition and interest. Both of which, I believe, had some share in
inducing you to occupy your present station at this board.'
'No! I would not rise, and go away, and save you the utterance of one
word,' she repeated, exactly as before, 'if the room were burning.'
'It may be natural enough, Mrs Dombey,' he pursued, 'that you should
be uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable truths;
though why'--he could not hide his real feeling here, or keep his eyes
from glancing gloomily at Florence--'why anyone can give them greater
force and point than myself, whom they so nearly concern, I do not
pretend to understand. It may be natural enough that you should object
to hear, in anybody's presence, that there is a rebellious principle
within you which you cannot curb too soon; which you must curb,
Mrs Dombey; and which, I regret to say, I remember to have seen
manifested--with some doubt and displeasure, on more than one occasion
before our marriage--towards your deceased mother. But you have the
remedy in your own hands. I by no means forgot, when I began, that my
daughter was present, Mrs Dombey. I beg you will not forget, to-morrow,
that there are several persons present; and that, with some regard to
appearances, you will receive your company in a becoming manner.'
'So it is not enough,' said Edith, 'that you know what has passed
between yourself and me; it is not enough that you can look here,'
pointing at Carker, who still listened, with his eyes cast down, 'and be
reminded of the affronts you have put upon me; it is not enough that you
can look here,' pointing to Florence with a hand that slightly trembled
for the first and only time, 'and think of what you have done, and of
the ingenious agony, daily, hourly, constant, you have made me feel in
doing it; it is not enough that this day, of all others in the year, is
memorable to me for a struggle (well-deserved, but not conceivable by
such as you) in which I wish I had died! You add to all this, do you,
the last crowning meanness of making her a witness of the depth to which
I have fallen; when you know that you have made me sacrifice to her
peace, the only gentle feeling and interest of my life, when you know
that for her sake, I would now if I could--but I can not, my soul
recoils from you too much--submit myself wholly to your will, and be the
meekest vassal that you have!'
This was not the way to minister to Mr Dombey's greatness. The old
feeling was roused by what she said, into a stronger and fiercer
existence than it had ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this
rough passage of his life, put forth by even this rebellious woman, as
powerful where he was powerless, and everything where he was nothing!
He turned on Florence, as if it were she who had spoken, and bade her
leave the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling and
weeping as she went.
'I understand, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with an angry flush of triumph,
'the spirit of opposition that turned your affections in that channel,
but they have been met, Mrs Dombey; they have been met, and turned
back!'
'The worse for you!' she answered, with her voice and manner still
unchanged. 'Ay!' for he turned sharply when she said so, 'what is the
worse for me, is twenty million times the worse for you. Heed that, if
you heed nothing else.'
The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered like
a starry bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have turned
as dull and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and listened, with
his eyes cast down.
'Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his
arrogant composure, 'you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any
purpose, by this course of conduct.'
'It is the only true although it is a faint expression of what is within
me,' she replied. 'But if I thought it would conciliate you, I would
repress it, if it were repressible by any human effort. I will do
nothing that you ask.'
'I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs Dombey,' he observed; 'I direct.'
'I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence of
to-morrow. I will be exhibited to no one, as the refractory slave you
purchased, such a time. If I kept my marriage day, I would keep it as a
day of shame. Self-respect! appearances before the world! what are these
to me? You have done all you can to make them nothing to me, and they
are nothing.'
'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, speaking with knitted brows, and after a
moment's consideration, 'Mrs Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me in
all this, and places me in a position so unsuited to my character, that
I must bring this state of matters to a close.'
'Release me, then,' said Edith, immoveable in voice, in look, and
bearing, as she had been throughout, 'from the chain by which I am
bound. Let me go.'
'Madam?' exclaimed Mr Dombey.
'Loose me. Set me free!'
'Madam?' he repeated, 'Mrs Dombey?'
'Tell him,' said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, 'that I
wish for a separation between us, That there had better be one. That I
recommend it to him, Tell him it may take place on his own terms--his
wealth is nothing to me--but that it cannot be too soon.'
'Good Heaven, Mrs Dombey!' said her husband, with supreme amazement, 'do
you imagine it possible that I could ever listen to such a proposition?
Do you know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I represent? Did you ever
hear of Dombey and Son? People to say that Mr Dombey--Mr Dombey!--was
separated from his wife! Common people to talk of Mr Dombey and his
domestic affairs! Do you seriously think, Mrs Dombey, that I would
permit my name to be banded about in such connexion? Pooh, pooh, Madam!
Fie for shame! You're absurd.' Mr Dombey absolutely laughed.
But not as she did. She had better have been dead than laugh as she did,
in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him. He had better have been
dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.
'No, Mrs Dombey,' he resumed. 'No, Madam. There is no possibility of
separation between you and me, and therefore I the more advise you to be
awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you--'
Mr Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes,
in which there was a bright unusual light.
'--As I was about to say to you,' resumed Mr Dombey, 'I must beg you, now
that matters have come to this, to inform Mrs Dombey, that it is not
the rule of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody--anybody,
Carker--or to suffer anybody to be paraded as a stronger motive for
obedience in those who owe obedience to me than I am my self. The
mention that has been made of my daughter, and the use that is made of
my daughter, in opposition to me, are unnatural. Whether my daughter is
in actual concert with Mrs Dombey, I do not know, and do not care; but
after what Mrs Dombey has said today, and my daughter has heard to-day,
I beg you to make known to Mrs Dombey, that if she continues to make
this house the scene of contention it has become, I shall consider my
daughter responsible in some degree, on that lady's own avowal, and
shall visit her with my severe displeasure. Mrs Dombey has asked
"whether it is not enough," that she had done this and that. You will
please to answer no, it is not enough.'
'A moment!' cried Carker, interposing, 'permit me! painful as my
position is, at the best, and unusually painful in seeming to entertain
a different opinion from you,' addressing Mr Dombey, 'I must ask, had
you not better reconsider the question of a separation. I know how
incompatible it appears with your high public position, and I know how
determined you are when you give Mrs Dombey to understand'--the light
in his eyes fell upon her as he separated his words each from each, with
the distinctness of so many bells--'that nothing but death can ever part
you. Nothing else. But when you consider that Mrs Dombey, by living in
this house, and making it as you have said, a scene of contention, not
only has her part in that contention, but compromises Miss Dombey every
day (for I know how determined you are), will you not relieve her from a
continual irritation of spirit, and a continual sense of being unjust
to another, almost intolerable? Does this not seem like--I do not say
it is--sacrificing Mrs Dombey to the preservation of your preeminent and
unassailable position?'
Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking at her
husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face.
'Carker,' returned Mr Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in a tone
that was intended to be final, 'you mistake your position in offering
advice to me on such a point, and you mistake me (I am surprised to
find) in the character of your advice. I have no more to say.'
'Perhaps,' said Carker, with an unusual and indefinable taunt in
his air, 'you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the
negotiations in which I have been engaged here'--with a motion of his
hand towards Mrs Dombey.
'Not at all, Sir, not at all,' returned the other haughtily. 'You were
employed--'
'Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs Dombey. I forgot.
Oh, yes, it was expressly understood!' said Carker. 'I beg your pardon!'
As he bent his head to Mr Dombey, with an air of deference that accorded
ill with his words, though they were humbly spoken, he moved it round
towards her, and kept his watching eyes that way.
She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have stood up
with such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's majesty of
scorn and beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of bright jewels
radiant on her head, and, plucking it off with a force that dragged
and strained her rich black hair with heedless cruelty, and brought it
tumbling wildly on her shoulders, cast the gems upon the ground. From
each arm, she unclasped a diamond bracelet, flung it down, and trod upon
the glittering heap. Without a word, without a shadow on the fire of
her bright eye, without abatement of her awful smile, she looked on Mr
Dombey to the last, in moving to the door; and left him.
Florence had heard enough before quitting the room, to know that Edith
loved her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she had kept
her sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace. She did not
want to speak to her of this--she could not, remembering to whom she
was opposed--but she wished, in one silent and affectionate embrace, to
assure her that she felt it all, and thanked her.
Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing from her
own chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in search of Edith,
but unavailingly. She was in her own rooms, where Florence had
long ceased to go, and did not dare to venture now, lest she should
unconsciously engender new trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet her
before going to bed, changed from room to room, and wandered through the
house so splendid and so dreary, without remaining anywhere.
She was crossing a gallery of communication that opened at some little
distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great occasions, when
she saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the figure of a man
coming down some few stairs opposite. Instinctively apprehensive of
her father, whom she supposed it was, she stopped, in the dark, gazing
through the arch into the light. But it was Mr Carker coming down alone,
and looking over the railing into the hall. No bell was rung to announce
his departure, and no servant was in attendance. He went down quietly,
opened the door for himself, glided out, and shut it softly after him.
Her invincible repugnance to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act of
watching anyone, which, even under such innocent circumstances, is in a
manner guilty and oppressive, made Florence shake from head to foot. Her
blood seemed to run cold. As soon as she could--for at first she felt
an insurmountable dread of moving--she went quickly to her own room and
locked her door; but even then, shut in with her dog beside her, felt
a chill sensation of horror, as if there were danger brooding somewhere
near her.
It invaded her dreams and disturbed the whole night. Rising in the
morning, unrefreshed, and with a heavy recollection of the domestic
unhappiness of the preceding day, she sought Edith again in all the
rooms, and did so, from time to time, all the morning. But she remained
in her own chamber, and Florence saw nothing of her. Learning, however,
that the projected dinner at home was put off, Florence thought it
likely that she would go out in the evening to fulfil the engagement
she had spoken of; and resolved to try and meet her, then, upon the
staircase.
When the evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she sat
on purpose, a footstep on the stairs that she thought to be Edith's.
Hurrying out, and up towards her room, Florence met her immediately,
coming down alone.
What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with her
tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked!
'Don't come near me!' she cried. 'Keep away! Let me go by!'
'Mama!' said Florence.
'Don't call me by that name! Don't speak to me! Don't look at
me!--Florence!' shrinking back, as Florence moved a step towards her,
'don't touch me!'
As Florence stood transfixed before the haggard face and staring eyes,
she noted, as in a dream, that Edith spread her hands over them, and
shuddering through all her form, and crouching down against the wall,
crawled by her like some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away.
Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by Mrs
Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more, until she found herself
lying on her own bed, with Mrs Pipchin and some servants standing round
her.
'Where is Mama?' was her first question.
'Gone out to dinner,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'And Papa?'
'Mr Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'and the
best thing you can do, is to take off your things and go to bed this
minute.' This was the sagacious woman's remedy for all complaints,
particularly lowness of spirits, and inability to sleep; for which
offences, many young victims in the days of the Brighton Castle had been
committed to bed at ten o'clock in the morning.
Without promising obedience, but on the plea of desiring to be very
quiet, Florence disengaged herself, as soon as she could, from the
ministration of Mrs Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone, she thought
of what had happened on the staircase, at first in doubt of its reality;
then with tears; then with an indescribable and terrible alarm, like
that she had felt the night before.
She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if she could
not speak to her, at least to be sure that she was safe at home. What
indistinct and shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, she did
not know, and did not dare to think. She only knew that until Edith came
back, there was no repose for her aching head or throbbing heart.
The evening deepened into night; midnight came; no Edith.
Florence could not read, or rest a moment. She paced her own room,
opened the door and paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of
window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain falling,
sat down and watched the faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon
flying like a storm-driven ship through the sea of clouds.
All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting the
return of their mistress, downstairs.
One o'clock. The carriages that rumbled in the distance, turned away,
or stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, and was
more and more rarely broken, save by a rush of wind or sweep of rain.
Two o'clock. No Edith!
Florence, more agitated, paced her room; and paced the gallery outside;
and looked out at the night, blurred and wavy with the raindrops on the
glass, and the tears in her own eyes; and looked up at the hurry in
the sky, so different from the repose below, and yet so tranquil and
solitary. Three o'clock! There was a terror in every ash that dropped
out of the fire. No Edith yet.
More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the gallery,
and looked out at the moon with a new fancy of her likeness to a pale
fugitive hurrying away and hiding her guilty face. Four struck! Five! No
Edith yet.
But now there was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence found
that Mrs Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, had risen
and had gone down to her father's door. Stealing lower down the stairs,
and observing what passed, she saw her father come out in his morning
gown, and start when he was told his wife had not come home. He
dispatched a messenger to the stables to inquire whether the coachman
was there; and while the man was gone, dressed himself very hurriedly.
The man came back, in great haste, bringing the coachman with him, who
said he had been at home and in bed, since ten o'clock. He had driven
his mistress to her old house in Brook Street, where she had been met by
Mr Carker--
Florence stood upon the very spot where she had seen him coming down.
Again she shivered with the nameless terror of that sight, and had
hardly steadiness enough to hear and understand what followed.
--Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would not
want the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him.
She saw her father turn white in the face, and heard him ask in a quick,
trembling voice, for Mrs Dombey's maid. The whole house was roused; for
she was there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking incoherently.
She said she had dressed her mistress early--full two hours before she
went out--and had been told, as she often was, that she would not be
wanted at night. She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but--
'But what! what was it?' Florence heard her father demand like a madman.
'But the inner dressing-room was locked and the key gone.'
Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground--someone had
put it down there, and forgotten it--and came running upstairs with such
fury, that Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly before him.
She heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with her hands widely
spread, and her hair streaming, and her face like a distracted person's,
back to her own room.
When the door yielded, and he rushed in, what did he see there? No
one knew. But thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground, was every
ornament she had had, since she had been his wife; every dress she had
worn; and everything she had possessed. This was the room in which he
had seen, in yonder mirror, the proud face discard him. This was the
room in which he had wondered, idly, how these things would look when he
should see them next!
Heaping them back into the drawers, and locking them up in a rage of
haste, he saw some papers on the table. The deed of settlement he had
executed on their marriage, and a letter. He read that she was gone.
He read that he was dishonoured. He read that she had fled, upon
her shameful wedding-day, with the man whom he had chosen for her
humiliation; and he tore out of the room, and out of the house, with
a frantic idea of finding her yet, at the place to which she had been
taken, and beating all trace of beauty out of the triumphant face with
his bare hand.
Florence, not knowing what she did, put on a shawl and bonnet, in a
dream of running through the streets until she found Edith, and then
clasping her in her arms, to save and bring her back. But when she
hurried out upon the staircase, and saw the frightened servants going up
and down with lights, and whispering together, and falling away from her
father as he passed down, she awoke to a sense of her own powerlessness;
and hiding in one of the great rooms that had been made gorgeous for
this, felt as if her heart would burst with grief.
Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made head
against the flood of sorrow which overwhelmed her. Her constant nature
turned to him in his distress, as fervently and faithfully, as if,
in his prosperity, he had been the embodiment of that idea which had
gradually become so faint and dim. Although she did not know, otherwise
than through the suggestions of a shapeless fear, the full extent of
his calamity, he stood before her, wronged and deserted; and again her
yearning love impelled her to his side.
He was not long away; for Florence was yet weeping in the great room and
nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come back. He ordered the
servants to set about their ordinary occupations, and went into his own
apartment, where he trod so heavily that she could hear him walking up
and down from end to end.
Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection, timid at all other
times, but bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and undaunted by
past repulse, Florence, dressed as she was, hurried downstairs. As she
set her light foot in the hall, he came out of his room. She hastened
towards him unchecked, with her arms stretched out, and crying 'Oh dear,
dear Papa!' as if she would have clasped him round the neck.
And so she would have done. But in his frenzy, he lifted up his cruel
arm, and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness, that she tottered
on the marble floor; and as he dealt the blow, he told her what Edith
was, and bade her follow her, since they had always been in league.
She did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of him
with her trembling hands; she did not weep; she did not utter one word
of reproach. But she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from
her heart. For as she looked, she saw him murdering that fond idea to
which she had held in spite of him. She saw his cruelty, neglect, and
hatred dominant above it, and stamping it down. She saw she had no
father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his house.
Ran out of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock, the cry
was on her lips, his face was there, made paler by the yellow candles
hastily put down and guttering away, and by the daylight coming in above
the door. Another moment, and the close darkness of the shut-up house
(forgotten to be opened, though it was long since day) yielded to the
unexpected glare and freedom of the morning; and Florence, with her head
bent down to hide her agony of tears, was in the streets. | Edith and Mr. Dombey continue to be unhappy in their marriage. Florence has almost entirely given up on the hope of her father coming to love her, and is also saddened by the absence of closeness between her and Edith. After Dombey's accident, Florence noticed that Edith had begun to avoid her, so one day she questions her. Edith will say only that, while she still loves Florence, she must be no longer as close with her as before. Edith also implies that their relationship may not have been good for Florence anyways. After that, she only shows Florence affection in secret. On the evening before Edith and Dombey's second wedding anniversary, Florence, Dombey, Edith, and Carker all gather for dinner. Dombey announces plans for a dinner the following evening to mark the anniversary while Edith insists she has pre-existing plans. Dombey says that Carker will be entrusted with making her attend the dinner. Edith tries to insist on a private conversation with her husband, especially since Florence is visibly distressed. Dombey says he has the right to shame her before others if he wants. He finally sends Florence out of the room only when Edith accuses him of mistreating her. Edith reaches her breaking point, and, in front of Carker, asks Dombey for a separation. Dombey rejects this suggestion as ridiculous. Dombey also says that he is growing mistrustful of Florence's role in Edith's resistance, and that if Edith's behavior does not change, he will punish Florence for it. Carker suggests that perhaps a separation between Dombey and Edith would be best after all, but Dombey dismisses this possibility a second time, and the group goes their separate ways. Later, when Mr. Dombey has gone out, Florence goes to look for Edith, hoping to comfort her. She sees Carker coming downstairs alone, leaving the house. Florence is disturbed by this and retreats to her room. The next day she does not see Edith until the evening, and when she approaches her, Edith reacts so violently that Florence faints. When she awakens she is told that Edith has gone out, and while Mrs. Pipchin urges Florence to go to bed, she decides to wait up for Edith. She waits all night, becoming more and more distressed. In the morning, Mr. Dombey is notified that his wife has not come home. Florence watches as her father calls the coachman to ask for more information. The coachman explains that the previous night, he drove Edith to her old residence, where Carker was waiting for her. He was told that Edith would not need the coach to return, and had been sent home. Edith's maid confirms that her mistress's dressing room is locked. Furious, Dombey rushes upstairs and breaks down the door, finding all of Edith's discarded things, and a letter telling him that she is leaving him for Carker. Dombey is shocked and enraged, and runs into the street. When he returns to the house, Florence goes to try to comfort him, but he strikes her, accusing her of having conspired with Edith. Distraught, Florence finally accepts that her father is not a good man, and flees the house |
The Subject Continued
In the first place, and as a matter of the greatest necessity, we are
bound to describe how a house may be got for nothing a year. These
mansions are to be had either unfurnished, where, if you have credit
with Messrs. Gillows or Bantings, you can get them splendidly montees
and decorated entirely according to your own fancy; or they are to be
let furnished, a less troublesome and complicated arrangement to most
parties. It was so that Crawley and his wife preferred to hire their
house.
Before Mr. Bowls came to preside over Miss Crawley's house and cellar
in Park Lane, that lady had had for a butler a Mr. Raggles, who was
born on the family estate of Queen's Crawley, and indeed was a younger
son of a gardener there. By good conduct, a handsome person and
calves, and a grave demeanour, Raggles rose from the knife-board to the
footboard of the carriage; from the footboard to the butler's pantry.
When he had been a certain number of years at the head of Miss
Crawley's establishment, where he had had good wages, fat perquisites,
and plenty of opportunities of saving, he announced that he was about
to contract a matrimonial alliance with a late cook of Miss Crawley's,
who had subsisted in an honourable manner by the exercise of a mangle,
and the keeping of a small greengrocer's shop in the neighbourhood.
The truth is, that the ceremony had been clandestinely performed some
years back; although the news of Mr. Raggles' marriage was first
brought to Miss Crawley by a little boy and girl of seven and eight
years of age, whose continual presence in the kitchen had attracted the
attention of Miss Briggs.
Mr. Raggles then retired and personally undertook the superintendence
of the small shop and the greens. He added milk and cream, eggs and
country-fed pork to his stores, contenting himself whilst other retired
butlers were vending spirits in public houses, by dealing in the
simplest country produce. And having a good connection amongst the
butlers in the neighbourhood, and a snug back parlour where he and Mrs.
Raggles received them, his milk, cream, and eggs got to be adopted by
many of the fraternity, and his profits increased every year. Year
after year he quietly and modestly amassed money, and when at length
that snug and complete bachelor's residence at No. 201, Curzon Street,
May Fair, lately the residence of the Honourable Frederick Deuceace,
gone abroad, with its rich and appropriate furniture by the first
makers, was brought to the hammer, who should go in and purchase the
lease and furniture of the house but Charles Raggles? A part of the
money he borrowed, it is true, and at rather a high interest, from a
brother butler, but the chief part he paid down, and it was with no
small pride that Mrs. Raggles found herself sleeping in a bed of carved
mahogany, with silk curtains, with a prodigious cheval glass opposite
to her, and a wardrobe which would contain her, and Raggles, and all
the family.
Of course, they did not intend to occupy permanently an apartment so
splendid. It was in order to let the house again that Raggles
purchased it. As soon as a tenant was found, he subsided into the
greengrocer's shop once more; but a happy thing it was for him to walk
out of that tenement and into Curzon Street, and there survey his
house--his own house--with geraniums in the window and a carved bronze
knocker. The footman occasionally lounging at the area railing,
treated him with respect; the cook took her green stuff at his house
and called him Mr. Landlord, and there was not one thing the tenants
did, or one dish which they had for dinner, that Raggles might not know
of, if he liked.
He was a good man; good and happy. The house brought him in so
handsome a yearly income that he was determined to send his children to
good schools, and accordingly, regardless of expense, Charles was sent
to boarding at Dr. Swishtail's, Sugar-cane Lodge, and little Matilda to
Miss Peckover's, Laurentinum House, Clapham.
Raggles loved and adored the Crawley family as the author of all his
prosperity in life. He had a silhouette of his mistress in his back
shop, and a drawing of the Porter's Lodge at Queen's Crawley, done by
that spinster herself in India ink--and the only addition he made to
the decorations of the Curzon Street House was a print of Queen's
Crawley in Hampshire, the seat of Sir Walpole Crawley, Baronet, who was
represented in a gilded car drawn by six white horses, and passing by a
lake covered with swans, and barges containing ladies in hoops, and
musicians with flags and periwigs. Indeed Raggles thought there was no
such palace in all the world, and no such august family.
As luck would have it, Raggles' house in Curzon Street was to let when
Rawdon and his wife returned to London. The Colonel knew it and its
owner quite well; the latter's connection with the Crawley family had
been kept up constantly, for Raggles helped Mr. Bowls whenever Miss
Crawley received friends. And the old man not only let his house to
the Colonel but officiated as his butler whenever he had company; Mrs.
Raggles operating in the kitchen below and sending up dinners of which
old Miss Crawley herself might have approved. This was the way, then,
Crawley got his house for nothing; for though Raggles had to pay taxes
and rates, and the interest of the mortgage to the brother butler; and
the insurance of his life; and the charges for his children at school;
and the value of the meat and drink which his own family--and for a
time that of Colonel Crawley too--consumed; and though the poor wretch
was utterly ruined by the transaction, his children being flung on the
streets, and himself driven into the Fleet Prison: yet somebody must
pay even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year--and so it was this
unlucky Raggles was made the representative of Colonel Crawley's
defective capital.
I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by great
practitioners in Crawley's way?--how many great noblemen rob their petty
tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched
little sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a noble
nobleman has left for the Continent, or that another noble nobleman has
an execution in his house--and that one or other owes six or seven
millions, the defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in
the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can't get
his money for powdering the footmen's heads; or a poor carpenter who
has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady's
dejeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes,
and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries
ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great
house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed:
as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself,
he sends plenty of other souls thither.
Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all such of Miss
Crawley's tradesmen and purveyors as chose to serve them. Some were
willing enough, especially the poor ones. It was wonderful to see the
pertinacity with which the washerwoman from Tooting brought the cart
every Saturday, and her bills week after week. Mr. Raggles himself had
to supply the greengroceries. The bill for servants' porter at the
Fortune of War public house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer.
Every servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and thus
kept up perforce an interest in the house. Nobody in fact was paid.
Not the blacksmith who opened the lock; nor the glazier who mended the
pane; nor the jobber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it;
nor the butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals which
roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the servants who ate it:
and this I am given to understand is not unfrequently the way in which
people live elegantly on nothing a year.
In a little town such things cannot be done without remark. We know
there the quantity of milk our neighbour takes and espy the joint or
the fowls which are going in for his dinner. So, probably, 200 and 202
in Curzon Street might know what was going on in the house between
them, the servants communicating through the area-railings; but Crawley
and his wife and his friends did not know 200 and 202. When you came to
201 there was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a good dinner, and a
jolly shake of the hand from the host and hostess there, just for all
the world as if they had been undisputed masters of three or four
thousand a year--and so they were, not in money, but in produce and
labour--if they did not pay for the mutton, they had it: if they did
not give bullion in exchange for their wine, how should we know? Never
was better claret at any man's table than at honest Rawdon's; dinners
more gay and neatly served. His drawing-rooms were the prettiest,
little, modest salons conceivable: they were decorated with the
greatest taste, and a thousand knick-knacks from Paris, by Rebecca:
and when she sat at her piano trilling songs with a lightsome heart,
the stranger voted himself in a little paradise of domestic comfort and
agreed that, if the husband was rather stupid, the wife was charming,
and the dinners the pleasantest in the world.
Rebecca's wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily the vogue in
London among a certain class. You saw demure chariots at her door, out
of which stepped very great people. You beheld her carriage in the
park, surrounded by dandies of note. The little box in the third tier
of the opera was crowded with heads constantly changing; but it must be
confessed that the ladies held aloof from her, and that their doors
were shut to our little adventurer.
With regard to the world of female fashion and its customs, the present
writer of course can only speak at second hand. A man can no more
penetrate or understand those mysteries than he can know what the
ladies talk about when they go upstairs after dinner. It is only by
inquiry and perseverance that one sometimes gets hints of those
secrets; and by a similar diligence every person who treads the Pall
Mall pavement and frequents the clubs of this metropolis knows, either
through his own experience or through some acquaintance with whom he
plays at billiards or shares the joint, something about the genteel
world of London, and how, as there are men (such as Rawdon Crawley,
whose position we mentioned before) who cut a good figure to the eyes
of the ignorant world and to the apprentices in the park, who behold
them consorting with the most notorious dandies there, so there are
ladies, who may be called men's women, being welcomed entirely by all
the gentlemen and cut or slighted by all their wives. Mrs. Firebrace
is of this sort; the lady with the beautiful fair ringlets whom you see
every day in Hyde Park, surrounded by the greatest and most famous
dandies of this empire. Mrs. Rockwood is another, whose parties are
announced laboriously in the fashionable newspapers and with whom you
see that all sorts of ambassadors and great noblemen dine; and many
more might be mentioned had they to do with the history at present in
hand. But while simple folks who are out of the world, or country
people with a taste for the genteel, behold these ladies in their
seeming glory in public places, or envy them from afar off, persons who
are better instructed could inform them that these envied ladies have
no more chance of establishing themselves in "society," than the
benighted squire's wife in Somersetshire who reads of their doings in
the Morning Post. Men living about London are aware of these awful
truths. You hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming rank and wealth
are excluded from this "society." The frantic efforts which they make
to enter this circle, the meannesses to which they submit, the insults
which they undergo, are matters of wonder to those who take human or
womankind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion under difficulties
would be a fine theme for any very great person who had the wit, the
leisure, and the knowledge of the English language necessary for the
compiling of such a history.
Now the few female acquaintances whom Mrs. Crawley had known abroad not
only declined to visit her when she came to this side of the Channel,
but cut her severely when they met in public places. It was curious to
see how the great ladies forgot her, and no doubt not altogether a
pleasant study to Rebecca. When Lady Bareacres met her in the
waiting-room at the opera, she gathered her daughters about her as if
they would be contaminated by a touch of Becky, and retreating a step
or two, placed herself in front of them, and stared at her little
enemy. To stare Becky out of countenance required a severer glance than
even the frigid old Bareacres could shoot out of her dismal eyes. When
Lady de la Mole, who had ridden a score of times by Becky's side at
Brussels, met Mrs. Crawley's open carriage in Hyde Park, her Ladyship
was quite blind, and could not in the least recognize her former
friend. Even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the banker's wife, cut her at church.
Becky went regularly to church now; it was edifying to see her enter
there with Rawdon by her side, carrying a couple of large gilt
prayer-books, and afterwards going through the ceremony with the
gravest resignation.
Rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were passed upon
his wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and savage. He talked of
calling out the husbands or brothers of every one of the insolent women
who did not pay a proper respect to his wife; and it was only by the
strongest commands and entreaties on her part that he was brought into
keeping a decent behaviour. "You can't shoot me into society," she
said good-naturedly. "Remember, my dear, that I was but a governess,
and you, you poor silly old man, have the worst reputation for debt,
and dice, and all sorts of wickedness. We shall get quite as many
friends as we want by and by, and in the meanwhile you must be a good
boy and obey your schoolmistress in everything she tells you to do.
When we heard that your aunt had left almost everything to Pitt and his
wife, do you remember what a rage you were in? You would have told all
Paris, if I had not made you keep your temper, and where would you have
been now?--in prison at Ste. Pelagie for debt, and not established in
London in a handsome house, with every comfort about you--you were in
such a fury you were ready to murder your brother, you wicked Cain you,
and what good would have come of remaining angry? All the rage in the
world won't get us your aunt's money; and it is much better that we
should be friends with your brother's family than enemies, as those
foolish Butes are. When your father dies, Queen's Crawley will be a
pleasant house for you and me to pass the winter in. If we are ruined,
you can carve and take charge of the stable, and I can be a governess
to Lady Jane's children. Ruined! fiddlede-dee! I will get you a good
place before that; or Pitt and his little boy will die, and we will be
Sir Rawdon and my lady. While there is life, there is hope, my dear,
and I intend to make a man of you yet. Who sold your horses for you?
Who paid your debts for you?" Rawdon was obliged to confess that he
owed all these benefits to his wife, and to trust himself to her
guidance for the future.
Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that money for which
all her relatives had been fighting so eagerly was finally left to
Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found that only five thousand pounds had been
left to him instead of the twenty upon which he calculated, was in such
a fury at his disappointment that he vented it in savage abuse upon his
nephew; and the quarrel always rankling between them ended in an utter
breach of intercourse. Rawdon Crawley's conduct, on the other hand,
who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to astonish his brother and
delight his sister-in-law, who was disposed to look kindly upon all the
members of her husband's family. He wrote to his brother a very frank,
manly, good-humoured letter from Paris. He was aware, he said, that by
his own marriage he had forfeited his aunt's favour; and though he did
not disguise his disappointment that she should have been so entirely
relentless towards him, he was glad that the money was still kept in
their branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother on
his good fortune. He sent his affectionate remembrances to his sister,
and hoped to have her good-will for Mrs. Rawdon; and the letter
concluded with a postscript to Pitt in the latter lady's own
handwriting. She, too, begged to join in her husband's
congratulations. She should ever remember Mr. Crawley's kindness to
her in early days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress of
his little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the tenderest
interest. She wished him every happiness in his married life, and,
asking his permission to offer her remembrances to Lady Jane (of whose
goodness all the world informed her), she hoped that one day she might
be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and aunt, and begged
to bespeak for him their good-will and protection.
Pitt Crawley received this communication very graciously--more
graciously than Miss Crawley had received some of Rebecca's previous
compositions in Rawdon's handwriting; and as for Lady Jane, she was so
charmed with the letter that she expected her husband would instantly
divide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions and send off one-half
to his brother at Paris.
To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to accommodate his
brother with a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. But he made Rawdon a
handsome offer of his hand whenever the latter should come to England
and choose to take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for her good opinion
of himself and Lady Jane, he graciously pronounced his willingness to
take any opportunity to serve her little boy.
Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about between the brothers.
When Rebecca came to town Pitt and his wife were not in London. Many a
time she drove by the old door in Park Lane to see whether they had
taken possession of Miss Crawley's house there. But the new family did
not make its appearance; it was only through Raggles that she heard of
their movements--how Miss Crawley's domestics had been dismissed with
decent gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only once made his appearance
in London, when he stopped for a few days at the house, did business
with his lawyers there, and sold off all Miss Crawley's French novels
to a bookseller out of Bond Street. Becky had reasons of her own which
caused her to long for the arrival of her new relation. "When Lady Jane
comes," thought she, "she shall be my sponsor in London society; and as
for the women! bah! the women will ask me when they find the men want
to see me."
An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her brougham or
her bouquet is her companion. I have always admired the way in which
the tender creatures, who cannot exist without sympathy, hire an
exceedingly plain friend of their own sex from whom they are almost
inseparable. The sight of that inevitable woman in her faded gown
seated behind her dear friend in the opera-box, or occupying the back
seat of the barouche, is always a wholesome and moral one to me, as
jolly a reminder as that of the Death's-head which figured in the
repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic memorial of Vanity
Fair. What? even battered, brazen, beautiful, conscienceless,
heartless, Mrs. Firebrace, whose father died of her shame: even
lovely, daring Mrs. Mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any man
in England will take, and who drives her greys in the park, while her
mother keeps a huckster's stall in Bath still--even those who are so
bold, one might fancy they could face anything, dare not face the world
without a female friend. They must have somebody to cling to, the
affectionate creatures! And you will hardly see them in any public
place without a shabby companion in a dyed silk, sitting somewhere in
the shade close behind them.
"Rawdon," said Becky, very late one night, as a party of gentlemen were
seated round her crackling drawing-room fire (for the men came to her
house to finish the night; and she had ice and coffee for them, the
best in London): "I must have a sheep-dog."
"A what?" said Rawdon, looking up from an ecarte table.
"A sheep-dog!" said young Lord Southdown. "My dear Mrs. Crawley, what
a fancy! Why not have a Danish dog? I know of one as big as a
camel-leopard, by Jove. It would almost pull your brougham. Or a
Persian greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug that
would go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes? There's a man at
Bayswater got one with such a nose that you might--I mark the king and
play--that you might hang your hat on it."
"I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said. He attended to his game
commonly and didn't much meddle with the conversation, except when it
was about horses and betting.
"What CAN you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively little Southdown
continued.
"I mean a MORAL shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing and looking up at
Lord Steyne.
"What the devil's that?" said his Lordship.
"A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued. "A companion."
"Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the marquis; and his
jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little eyes leering
towards Rebecca.
The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping coffee. The
fire crackled and blazed pleasantly. There was a score of candles
sparkling round the mantel piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of
gilt and bronze and porcelain. They lighted up Rebecca's figure to
admiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy
flowers. She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as a rose; her
dazzling white arms and shoulders were half-covered with a thin hazy
scarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her
neck; one of her little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of
the silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal in
the finest silk stocking in the world.
The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head, which was
fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eyebrows, with little
twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His jaw
was underhung, and when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded
themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin. He had been
dining with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbon. A short
man was his Lordship, broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of the
fineness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-knee.
"And so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to defend his lambkin?"
"The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going to his clubs,"
answered Becky, laughing.
"'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!" said my lord--"what a mouth for a
pipe!"
"I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the card-table.
"Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's pastorally
occupied too: he's shearing a Southdown. What an innocent mutton, hey?
Damme, what a snowy fleece!"
Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour. "My lord," she said,
"you are a knight of the Order." He had the collar round his neck,
indeed--a gift of the restored princes of Spain.
Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his daring and his
success at play. He had sat up two days and two nights with Mr. Fox at
hazard. He had won money of the most august personages of the realm:
he had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gaming-table; but he did
not like an allusion to those bygone fredaines. Rebecca saw the scowl
gathering over his heavy brow.
She rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee cup out of his
hand with a little curtsey. "Yes," she said, "I must get a watchdog.
But he won't bark at YOU." And, going into the other drawing-room, she
sat down to the piano and began to sing little French songs in such a
charming, thrilling voice that the mollified nobleman speedily followed
her into that chamber, and might be seen nodding his head and bowing
time over her.
Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until they had enough.
The Colonel won; but, say that he won ever so much and often, nights
like these, which occurred many times in the week--his wife having all
the talk and all the admiration, and he sitting silent without the
circle, not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the
mystical language within--must have been rather wearisome to the
ex-dragoon.
"How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?" Lord Steyne used to say to him by way
of a good day when they met; and indeed that was now his avocation in
life. He was Colonel Crawley no more. He was Mrs. Crawley's husband.
About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all this while, it is
because he is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere, or has crawled
below into the kitchen for companionship. His mother scarcely ever
took notice of him. He passed the days with his French bonne as long
as that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's family, and when the
Frenchwoman went away, the little fellow, howling in the loneliness of
the night, had compassion taken on him by a housemaid, who took him out
of his solitary nursery into her bed in the garret hard by and
comforted him.
Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were in the drawing-room
taking tea after the opera, when this shouting was heard overhead.
"It's my cherub crying for his nurse," she said. She did not offer to
move to go and see the child. "Don't agitate your feelings by going to
look for him," said Lord Steyne sardonically. "Bah!" replied the other,
with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself to sleep"; and they fell to
talking about the opera.
Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son and heir; and came
back to the company when he found that honest Dolly was consoling the
child. The Colonel's dressing-room was in those upper regions. He
used to see the boy there in private. They had interviews together
every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a box by his
father's side and watching the operation with never-ceasing pleasure.
He and the sire were great friends. The father would bring him
sweetmeats from the dessert and hide them in a certain old epaulet box,
where the child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on discovering
the treasure; laughed, but not too loud: for mamma was below asleep
and must not be disturbed. She did not go to rest till very late and
seldom rose till after noon.
Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and crammed his nursery
with toys. Its walls were covered with pictures pasted up by the
father's own hand and purchased by him for ready money. When he was
off duty with Mrs. Rawdon in the park, he would sit up here, passing
hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his great
mustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent days with him in
indefatigable gambols. The room was a low room, and once, when the
child was not five years old, his father, who was tossing him wildly up
in his arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against the
ceiling that he almost dropped the child, so terrified was he at the
disaster.
Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl--the severity
of the blow indeed authorized that indulgence; but just as he was going
to begin, the father interposed.
"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he cried. And the child,
looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips,
clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story at
the clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," he
explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one that boy
of mine is--what a trump he is! I half-sent his head through the
ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for fear of disturbing his mother."
Sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited the upper regions
in which the child lived. She came like a vivified figure out of the
Magasin des Modes--blandly smiling in the most beautiful new clothes
and little gloves and boots. Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels
glittered about her. She had always a new bonnet on, and flowers
bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling ostrich
feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. She nodded twice or thrice
patronizingly to the little boy, who looked up from his dinner or from
the pictures of soldiers he was painting. When she left the room, an
odour of rose, or some other magical fragrance, lingered about the
nursery. She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his
father--to all the world: to be worshipped and admired at a distance.
To drive with that lady in the carriage was an awful rite: he sat up
in the back seat and did not dare to speak: he gazed with all his eyes
at the beautifully dressed Princess opposite to him. Gentlemen on
splendid prancing horses came up and smiled and talked with her. How
her eyes beamed upon all of them! Her hand used to quiver and wave
gracefully as they passed. When he went out with her he had his new
red dress on. His old brown holland was good enough when he stayed at
home. Sometimes, when she was away, and Dolly his maid was making his
bed, he came into his mother's room. It was as the abode of a fairy to
him--a mystic chamber of splendour and delights. There in the wardrobe
hung those wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted. There was
the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous bronze hand on the
dressing-table, glistening all over with a hundred rings. There was
the cheval-glass, that miracle of art, in which he could just see his
own wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly distorted, and
as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting the pillows of the bed.
Oh, thou poor lonely little benighted boy! Mother is the name for God
in the lips and hearts of little children; and here was one who was
worshipping a stone!
Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had certain manly
tendencies of affection in his heart and could love a child and a woman
still. For Rawdon minor he had a great secret tenderness then, which
did not escape Rebecca, though she did not talk about it to her
husband. It did not annoy her: she was too good-natured. It only
increased her scorn for him. He felt somehow ashamed of this paternal
softness and hid it from his wife--only indulging in it when alone with
the boy.
He used to take him out of mornings when they would go to the stables
together and to the park. Little Lord Southdown, the best-natured of
men, who would make you a present of the hat from his head, and whose
main occupation in life was to buy knick-knacks that he might give them
away afterwards, bought the little chap a pony not much bigger than a
large rat, the donor said, and on this little black Shetland pygmy
young Rawdon's great father was pleased to mount the boy, and to walk
by his side in the park. It pleased him to see his old quarters, and
his old fellow-guardsmen at Knightsbridge: he had begun to think of his
bachelorhood with something like regret. The old troopers were glad to
recognize their ancient officer and dandle the little colonel. Colonel
Crawley found dining at mess and with his brother-officers very
pleasant. "Hang it, I ain't clever enough for her--I know it. She
won't miss me," he used to say: and he was right, his wife did not
miss him.
Rebecca was fond of her husband. She was always perfectly good-humoured
and kind to him. She did not even show her scorn much for
him; perhaps she liked him the better for being a fool. He was her
upper servant and maitre d'hotel. He went on her errands; obeyed her
orders without question; drove in the carriage in the ring with her
without repining; took her to the opera-box, solaced himself at his
club during the performance, and came punctually back to fetch her when
due. He would have liked her to be a little fonder of the boy, but
even to that he reconciled himself. "Hang it, you know she's so
clever," he said, "and I'm not literary and that, you know." For, as we
have said before, it requires no great wisdom to be able to win at
cards and billiards, and Rawdon made no pretensions to any other sort
of skill.
When the companion came, his domestic duties became very light. His
wife encouraged him to dine abroad: she would let him off duty at the
opera. "Don't stay and stupefy yourself at home to-night, my dear,"
she would say. "Some men are coming who will only bore you. I would
not ask them, but you know it's for your good, and now I have a
sheep-dog, I need not be afraid to be alone."
"A sheep-dog--a companion! Becky Sharp with a companion! Isn't it
good fun?" thought Mrs. Crawley to herself. The notion tickled hugely
her sense of humour.
One Sunday morning, as Rawdon Crawley, his little son, and the pony
were taking their accustomed walk in the park, they passed by an old
acquaintance of the Colonel's, Corporal Clink, of the regiment, who was
in conversation with a friend, an old gentleman, who held a boy in his
arms about the age of little Rawdon. This other youngster had seized
hold of the Waterloo medal which the Corporal wore, and was examining
it with delight.
"Good morning, your Honour," said Clink, in reply to the "How do,
Clink?" of the Colonel. "This ere young gentleman is about the little
Colonel's age, sir," continued the corporal.
"His father was a Waterloo man, too," said the old gentleman, who
carried the boy. "Wasn't he, Georgy?"
"Yes," said Georgy. He and the little chap on the pony were looking at
each other with all their might--solemnly scanning each other as
children do.
"In a line regiment," Clink said with a patronizing air.
"He was a Captain in the --th regiment," said the old gentleman rather
pompously. "Captain George Osborne, sir--perhaps you knew him. He
died the death of a hero, sir, fighting against the Corsican tyrant."
Colonel Crawley blushed quite red. "I knew him very well, sir," he
said, "and his wife, his dear little wife, sir--how is she?"
"She is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman, putting down the boy
and taking out a card with great solemnity, which he handed to the
Colonel. On it written--
"Mr. Sedley, Sole Agent for the Black Diamond and Anti-Cinder Coal
Association, Bunker's Wharf, Thames Street, and Anna-Maria Cottages,
Fulham Road West."
Little Georgy went up and looked at the Shetland pony.
"Should you like to have a ride?" said Rawdon minor from the saddle.
"Yes," said Georgy. The Colonel, who had been looking at him with some
interest, took up the child and put him on the pony behind Rawdon minor.
"Take hold of him, Georgy," he said--"take my little boy round the
waist--his name is Rawdon." And both the children began to laugh.
"You won't see a prettier pair I think, THIS summer's day, sir," said
the good-natured Corporal; and the Colonel, the Corporal, and old Mr.
Sedley with his umbrella, walked by the side of the children. | In London, the Crawleys go right back to living off credit without paying anything to anyone. Mr. Raggles, who used to be Miss Crawley's butler before Bowls, now owns a house that he rents out to Becky and Rawdon. He also provides all their food and whenever they have company, he acts as their butler while his wife does the cooking. Wow. Becky can talk miles around anyone and basically just relies on that to keep from paying anyone who works for her. It's a good system, right? For everyone except all the people who go broke under it. Think about it - the Crawleys aren't paying Raggles but he still has to pay the house mortgage, the taxes, the insurance, and so on and so forth. Soon enough he's going to run out of money. But obviously Becky doesn't care about this. She is busy trying to get into the upper ranks of society. It's hard. The men like her because she's hot and funny. But the women really don't - maybe for the same reason, and also because she's so low-born. And it's the women who really hold the keys to society. At first, the women's insults to Becky make Rawdon furious. But Becky tells him that getting mad will solve nothing. She's good at keeping him calm. He was seeing red after Miss Crawley's death because she left him nothing at all. But Becky made him relax and thus accomplished two things: 1) his credit remained good and he wasn't arrested for debt, since everyone assumed he got an inheritance; and 2) he kept up a relationship with Pitt, who now has all the money and could be helpful. More than that, Becky wrote Pitt a letter saying all nice things and wanting to be friends with him, Lady Jane, and their new son. Pitt and Jane were touched but have yet to actually meet with Becky and Rawdon in London. Meanwhile, Becky keeps having little dinner parties just for men at her house. Rawdon plays cards with them and usually wins, but he is totally bored of this life. Becky comes up with the idea of hiring a companion for herself. That way Rawdon won't have to be around, but Becky can still have a bunch of dudes over without it being improper. One of her new visitors is a marquis, Lord Steyne. He's a really, really high-ranking guy who personally knows the royal family. Also, he's very clearly a gross, amoral, highly unpleasant man. OK, so while Becky is leading this fun social life, what's happening with Rawdon Jr.? Well, he's certainly not getting any mommy attention, that's for sure. He just stays upstairs in his room, raised by a nanny. Becky sees him once a week, tops. When he is little, he half-worships her as a kind of goddess, but as he gets older...not so much. Still, Rawdon really loves him and spends many hours playing with him and taking him out. One day, Rawdon is taking Rawdon Jr. on a pony ride in the park when they meet another little boy about the same age with his grandfather. Turns out this is Mr. Sedley, and the little boy is George Jr. The boys share the pony, while Rawdon and Mr. Sedley talk a little bit about Waterloo, the army, and George Osborne. |
Scene II.
A prison.
[Enter the Constables [Dogberry and Verges] and the Sexton, in
gowns, [and the Watch, with Conrade and] Borachio.]
Dog.
Is our whole dissembly appear'd?
Verg.
O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton.
Sex.
Which be the malefactors?
Dog.
Marry, that am I and my partner.
Verg.
Nay, that's certain. We have the exhibition to examine.
Sex.
But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them
come before Master Constable.
Dog.
Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend?
Bor.
Borachio.
Dog.
Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah?
Con.
I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.
Dog.
Write down Master Gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve God?
Both.
Yea, sir, we hope.
Dog.
Write down that they hope they serve God; and write God first,
for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters,
it is proved already that you are little better than false
knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer
you for yourselves?
Con.
Marry, sir, we say we are none.
Dog.
A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with
him. Come you hither, sirrah. A word in your ear. Sir, I say to
you, it is thought you are false knaves.
Bora.
Sir, I say to you we are none.
Dog.
Well, stand aside. Fore God, they are both in a tale.
Have you writ down that they are none?
Sex.
Master Constable, you go not the way to examine. You must call
forth the watch that are their accusers.
Dog.
Yea, marry, that's the eftest way. Let the watch come forth.
Masters, I charge you in the Prince's name accuse these men.
1. Watch.
This man said, sir, that Don John the Prince's brother was a
villain.
Dog.
Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to
call a prince's brother villain.
Bora.
Master Constable--
Dog.
Pray thee, fellow, peace. I do not like thy look, I promise thee.
Sex.
What heard you him say else?
2. Watch.
Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for
accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.
Dog.
Flat burglary as ever was committed.
Verg.
Yea, by th' mass, that it is.
Sex.
What else, fellow?
1. Watch.
And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero
before the whole assembly, and not marry her.
Dog.
O villain! thou wilt be condemn'd into everlasting redemption for
this.
Sex.
What else?
Watchmen.
This is all.
Sex.
And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this
morning secretly stol'n away. Hero was in this manner accus'd, in
this manner refus'd, and upon the grief of this
suddenly died. Master Constable, let these men be bound and
brought to Leonato's. I will go before and show him their
examination. [Exit.]
Dog.
Come, let them be opinion'd.
Verg.
Let them be in the hands--
Con.
Off, coxcomb!
Dog.
God's my life, where's the sexton? Let him write down the
Prince's officer coxcomb. Come, bind them.--Thou naughty varlet!
Con.
Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.
Dog.
Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O
that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember
that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not
that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as
shall be prov'd upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow;
and which is more, an officer; and which is more, a householder;
and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in
Messina, and one that knows the law, go to! and a rich fellow
enough, go to! and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that
hath two gowns and everything handsome about him. Bring him away.
O that I had been writ down an ass!
[Exeunt.] | Elsewhere, Dogberry, Verges, and the Watch interrogate Borachio and Conrad. Borachio confesses that he received money from Don John for pretending to make love to Hero and then lying about it to Claudio and Don Pedro. When they hear about what has happened at the wedding, the watchmen tie up the captives and take them to Leonato's house. Dost thou not suspect my place. Dost thou not suspect my years. O that he were here to write me down an ass. But masters, remember that I am an ass. |
I
On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling a
mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in
its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if
abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other
end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as
the eye could reach. To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting
ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its foundations set
in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie
below my feet; even the track of light from the westering sun shone
smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible
ripple. And when I turned my head to take a parting glance at the tug
which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line
of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect
and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor half brown, half blue under
the enormous dome of the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to
the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one on each side of
the only fault in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river
Meinam we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward
journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger and loftier mass,
the grove surrounding the great Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on
which the eye could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous
sweep of the horizon. Here and there gleams as of a few scattered pieces
of silver marked the windings of the great river; and on the nearest of
them, just within the bar, the tug steaming right into the land became
lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as though the impassive
earth had swallowed her up without an effort, without a tremor. My eye
followed the light cloud of her smoke, now here, now there, above the
plain, according to the devious curves of the stream, but always fainter
and farther away, till I lost it at last behind the miter-shaped hill
of the great pagoda. And then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at
the head of the Gulf of Siam.
She floated at the starting point of a long journey, very still in an
immense stillness, the shadows of her spars flung far to the eastward by
the setting sun. At that moment I was alone on her decks. There was not
a sound in her--and around us nothing moved, nothing lived, not a canoe
on the water, not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this
breathless pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be
measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise, the appointed
task of both our existences to be carried out, far from all human eyes,
with only sky and sea for spectators and for judges.
There must have been some glare in the air to interfere with one's
sight, because it was only just before the sun left us that my roaming
eyes made out beyond the highest ridges of the principal islet of the
group something which did away with the solemnity of perfect solitude.
The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and with tropical suddenness a
swarm of stars came out above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet,
my hand resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder of a
trusted friend. But, with all that multitude of celestial bodies staring
down at one, the comfort of quiet communion with her was gone for good.
And there were also disturbing sounds by this time--voices, footsteps
forward; the steward flitted along the main-deck, a busily ministering
spirit; a hand bell tinkled urgently under the poop deck....
I found my two officers waiting for me near the supper table, in the
lighted cuddy. We sat down at once, and as I helped the chief mate, I
said:
"Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside the islands? I saw
her mastheads above the ridge as the sun went down."
He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by a terrible growth of
whisker, and emitted his usual ejaculations: "Bless my soul, sir! You
don't say so!"
My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young man, grave beyond his
years, I thought; but as our eyes happened to meet I detected a slight
quiver on his lips. I looked down at once. It was not my part to
encourage sneering on board my ship. It must be said, too, that I knew
very little of my officers. In consequence of certain events of no
particular significance, except to myself, I had been appointed to the
command only a fortnight before. Neither did I know much of the hands
forward. All these people had been together for eighteen months or so,
and my position was that of the only stranger on board. I mention this
because it has some bearing on what is to follow. But what I felt most
was my being a stranger to the ship; and if all the truth must be
told, I was somewhat of a stranger to myself. The youngest man on board
(barring the second mate), and untried as yet by a position of the
fullest responsibility, I was willing to take the adequacy of the others
for granted. They had simply to be equal to their tasks; but I wondered
how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own
personality every man sets up for himself secretly.
Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible effect of collaboration
on the part of his round eyes and frightful whiskers, was trying to
evolve a theory of the anchored ship. His dominant trait was to take all
things into earnest consideration. He was of a painstaking turn of mind.
As he used to say, he "liked to account to himself" for practically
everything that came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion he had
found in his cabin a week before. The why and the wherefore of that
scorpion--how it got on board and came to select his room rather than
the pantry (which was a dark place and more what a scorpion would be
partial to), and how on earth it managed to drown itself in the inkwell
of his writing desk--had exercised him infinitely. The ship within the
islands was much more easily accounted for; and just as we were about
to rise from table he made his pronouncement. She was, he doubted not, a
ship from home lately arrived. Probably she drew too much water to cross
the bar except at the top of spring tides. Therefore she went into that
natural harbor to wait for a few days in preference to remaining in an
open roadstead.
"That's so," confirmed the second mate, suddenly, in his slightly hoarse
voice. "She draws over twenty feet. She's the Liverpool ship Sephora
with a cargo of coal. Hundred and twenty-three days from Cardiff."
We looked at him in surprise.
"The tugboat skipper told me when he came on board for your letters,
sir," explained the young man. "He expects to take her up the river the
day after tomorrow."
After thus overwhelming us with the extent of his information he slipped
out of the cabin. The mate observed regretfully that he "could not
account for that young fellow's whims." What prevented him telling us
all about it at once, he wanted to know.
I detained him as he was making a move. For the last two days the crew
had had plenty of hard work, and the night before they had very little
sleep. I felt painfully that I--a stranger--was doing something unusual
when I directed him to let all hands turn in without setting an
anchor watch. I proposed to keep on deck myself till one o'clock or
thereabouts. I would get the second mate to relieve me at that hour.
"He will turn out the cook and the steward at four," I concluded, "and
then give you a call. Of course at the slightest sign of any sort of
wind we'll have the hands up and make a start at once."
He concealed his astonishment. "Very well, sir." Outside the cuddy he
put his head in the second mate's door to inform him of my unheard-of
caprice to take a five hours' anchor watch on myself. I heard the other
raise his voice incredulously--"What? The Captain himself?" Then a few
more murmurs, a door closed, then another. A few moments later I went on
deck.
My strangeness, which had made me sleepless, had prompted that
unconventional arrangement, as if I had expected in those solitary hours
of the night to get on terms with the ship of which I knew nothing,
manned by men of whom I knew very little more. Fast alongside a wharf,
littered like any ship in port with a tangle of unrelated things,
invaded by unrelated shore people, I had hardly seen her yet properly.
Now, as she lay cleared for sea, the stretch of her main-deck seemed to
me very fine under the stars. Very fine, very roomy for her size,
and very inviting. I descended the poop and paced the waist, my mind
picturing to myself the coming passage through the Malay Archipelago,
down the Indian Ocean, and up the Atlantic. All its phases were familiar
enough to me, every characteristic, all the alternatives which were
likely to face me on the high seas--everything!... except the novel
responsibility of command. But I took heart from the reasonable thought
that the ship was like other ships, the men like other men, and that
the sea was not likely to keep any special surprises expressly for my
discomfiture.
Arrived at that comforting conclusion, I bethought myself of a cigar and
went below to get it. All was still down there. Everybody at the
after end of the ship was sleeping profoundly. I came out again on
the quarter-deck, agreeably at ease in my sleeping suit on that warm
breathless night, barefooted, a glowing cigar in my teeth, and, going
forward, I was met by the profound silence of the fore end of the ship.
Only as I passed the door of the forecastle, I heard a deep, quiet,
trustful sigh of some sleeper inside. And suddenly I rejoiced in the
great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in
my choice of that untempted life presenting no disquieting
problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the absolute
straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose.
The riding light in the forerigging burned with a clear, untroubled, as
if symbolic, flame, confident and bright in the mysterious shades of
the night. Passing on my way aft along the other side of the ship, I
observed that the rope side ladder, put over, no doubt, for the master
of the tug when he came to fetch away our letters, had not been hauled
in as it should have been. I became annoyed at this, for exactitude in
some small matters is the very soul of discipline. Then I reflected that
I had myself peremptorily dismissed my officers from duty, and by my
own act had prevented the anchor watch being formally set and things
properly attended to. I asked myself whether it was wise ever to
interfere with the established routine of duties even from the kindest
of motives. My action might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only
knew how that absurdly whiskered mate would "account" for my conduct,
and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new
captain. I was vexed with myself.
Not from compunction certainly, but, as it were mechanically, I
proceeded to get the ladder in myself. Now a side ladder of that sort
is a light affair and comes in easily, yet my vigorous tug, which should
have brought it flying on board, merely recoiled upon my body in a
totally unexpected jerk. What the devil!... I was so astounded by
the immovableness of that ladder that I remained stock-still, trying to
account for it to myself like that imbecile mate of mine. In the end, of
course, I put my head over the rail.
The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling
glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated and
pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a
faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly
from the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping water with the
elusive, silent play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a gasp I
saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad livid
back immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow. One
hand, awash, clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was complete
but for the head. A headless corpse! The cigar dropped out of my gaping
mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss quite audible in the absolute
stillness of all things under heaven. At that I suppose he raised up his
face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship's side. But even then
I could only barely make out down there the shape of his black-haired
head. However, it was enough for the horrid, frost-bound sensation
which had gripped me about the chest to pass off. The moment of vain
exclamations was past, too. I only climbed on the spare spar and leaned
over the rail as far as I could, to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery
floating alongside.
As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea lightning
played about his limbs at every stir; and he appeared in it ghastly,
silvery, fishlike. He remained as mute as a fish, too. He made no motion
to get out of the water, either. It was inconceivable that he should
not attempt to come on board, and strangely troubling to suspect that
perhaps he did not want to. And my first words were prompted by just
that troubled incertitude.
"What's the matter?" I asked in my ordinary tone, speaking down to the
face upturned exactly under mine.
"Cramp," it answered, no louder. Then slightly anxious, "I say, no need
to call anyone."
"I was not going to," I said.
"Are you alone on deck?"
"Yes."
I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the
ladder to swim away beyond my ken--mysterious as he came. But, for the
moment, this being appearing as if he had risen from the bottom of the
sea (it was certainly the nearest land to the ship) wanted only to know
the time. I told him. And he, down there, tentatively:
"I suppose your captain's turned in?"
"I am sure he isn't," I said.
He seemed to struggle with himself, for I heard something like the low,
bitter murmur of doubt. "What's the good?" His next words came out with
a hesitating effort.
"Look here, my man. Could you call him out quietly?"
I thought the time had come to declare myself.
"I am the captain."
I heard a "By Jove!" whispered at the level of the water. The
phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of the water all about his limbs,
his other hand seized the ladder.
"My name's Leggatt."
The voice was calm and resolute. A good voice. The self-possession of
that man had somehow induced a corresponding state in myself. It was
very quietly that I remarked:
"You must be a good swimmer."
"Yes. I've been in the water practically since nine o'clock. The
question for me now is whether I am to let go this ladder and go on
swimming till I sink from exhaustion, or--to come on board here."
I felt this was no mere formula of desperate speech, but a real
alternative in the view of a strong soul. I should have gathered from
this that he was young; indeed, it is only the young who are ever
confronted by such clear issues. But at the time it was pure intuition
on my part. A mysterious communication was established already between
us two--in the face of that silent, darkened tropical sea. I was
young, too; young enough to make no comment. The man in the water began
suddenly to climb up the ladder, and I hastened away from the rail to
fetch some clothes.
Before entering the cabin I stood still, listening in the lobby at the
foot of the stairs. A faint snore came through the closed door of the
chief mate's room. The second mate's door was on the hook, but the
darkness in there was absolutely soundless. He, too, was young and could
sleep like a stone. Remained the steward, but he was not likely to
wake up before he was called. I got a sleeping suit out of my room and,
coming back on deck, saw the naked man from the sea sitting on the main
hatch, glimmering white in the darkness, his elbows on his knees and
his head in his hands. In a moment he had concealed his damp body in a
sleeping suit of the same gray-stripe pattern as the one I was wearing
and followed me like my double on the poop. Together we moved right aft,
barefooted, silent.
"What is it?" I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp out
of the binnacle, and raising it to his face.
"An ugly business."
He had rather regular features; a good mouth; light eyes under somewhat
heavy, dark eyebrows; a smooth, square forehead; no growth on his
cheeks; a small, brown mustache, and a well-shaped, round chin. His
expression was concentrated, meditative, under the inspecting light of
the lamp I held up to his face; such as a man thinking hard in solitude
might wear. My sleeping suit was just right for his size. A well-knit
young fellow of twenty-five at most. He caught his lower lip with the
edge of white, even teeth.
"Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle. The warm, heavy
tropical night closed upon his head again.
"There's a ship over there," he murmured.
"Yes, I know. The Sephora. Did you know of us?"
"Hadn't the slightest idea. I am the mate of her--" He paused and
corrected himself. "I should say I _was_."
"Aha! Something wrong?"
"Yes. Very wrong indeed. I've killed a man."
"What do you mean? Just now?"
"No, on the passage. Weeks ago. Thirty-nine south. When I say a man--"
"Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently.
The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly above the
ghostly gray of my sleeping suit. It was, in the night, as though I had
been faced by my own reflection in the depths of a somber and immense
mirror.
"A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway boy," murmured my
double, distinctly.
"You're a Conway boy?"
"I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly... "Perhaps you too--"
It was so; but being a couple of years older I had left before he
joined. After a quick interchange of dates a silence fell; and I thought
suddenly of my absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the "Bless my
soul--you don't say so" type of intellect. My double gave me an inkling
of his thoughts by saying: "My father's a parson in Norfolk. Do you see
me before a judge and jury on that charge? For myself I can't see the
necessity. There are fellows that an angel from heaven--And I am not
that. He was one of those creatures that are just simmering all the time
with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils that have no business
to live at all. He wouldn't do his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do
theirs. But what's the good of talking! You know well enough the sort of
ill-conditioned snarling cur--"
He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as identical as
our clothes. And I knew well enough the pestiferous danger of such a
character where there are no means of legal repression. And I knew well
enough also that my double there was no homicidal ruffian. I did not
think of asking him for details, and he told me the story roughly in
brusque, disconnected sentences. I needed no more. I saw it all going on
as though I were myself inside that other sleeping suit.
"It happened while we were setting a reefed foresail, at dusk. Reefed
foresail! You understand the sort of weather. The only sail we had left
to keep the ship running; so you may guess what it had been like for
days. Anxious sort of job, that. He gave me some of his cursed insolence
at the sheet. I tell you I was overdone with this terrific weather that
seemed to have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you--and a deep ship. I
believe the fellow himself was half crazed with funk. It was no time for
gentlemanly reproof, so I turned round and felled him like an ox. He up
and at me. We closed just as an awful sea made for the ship. All hands
saw it coming and took to the rigging, but I had him by the throat, and
went on shaking him like a rat, the men above us yelling, 'Look out!
look out!' Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head. They
say that for over ten minutes hardly anything was to be seen of the
ship--just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head and of the
poop all awash driving along in a smother of foam. It was a miracle that
they found us, jammed together behind the forebitts. It's clear that I
meant business, because I was holding him by the throat still when they
picked us up. He was black in the face. It was too much for them.
It seems they rushed us aft together, gripped as we were, screaming
'Murder!' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the cuddy. And the ship
running for her life, touch and go all the time, any minute her last in
a sea fit to turn your hair gray only a-looking at it. I understand that
the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them. The man had been
deprived of sleep for more than a week, and to have this sprung on him
at the height of a furious gale nearly drove him out of his mind. I
wonder they didn't fling me overboard after getting the carcass of their
precious shipmate out of my fingers. They had rather a job to separate
us, I've been told. A sufficiently fierce story to make an old judge and
a respectable jury sit up a bit. The first thing I heard when I came to
myself was the maddening howling of that endless gale, and on that the
voice of the old man. He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face
out of his sou'wester.
"'Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can act no longer as chief
mate of this ship.'"
His care to subdue his voice made it sound monotonous. He rested a hand
on the end of the skylight to steady himself with, and all that time did
not stir a limb, so far as I could see. "Nice little tale for a quiet
tea party," he concluded in the same tone.
One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the skylight; neither did
I stir a limb, so far as I knew. We stood less than a foot from each
other. It occurred to me that if old "Bless my soul--you don't say so"
were to put his head up the companion and catch sight of us, he would
think he was seeing double, or imagine himself come upon a scene of
weird witchcraft; the strange captain having a quiet confabulation
by the wheel with his own gray ghost. I became very much concerned to
prevent anything of the sort. I heard the other's soothing undertone.
"My father's a parson in Norfolk," it said. Evidently he had forgotten
he had told me this important fact before. Truly a nice little tale.
"You had better slip down into my stateroom now," I said, moving off
stealthily. My double followed my movements; our bare feet made no
sound; I let him in, closed the door with care, and, after giving a call
to the second mate, returned on deck for my relief.
"Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when he approached.
"No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his hoarse voice, with
just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn.
"Well, that's all you have to look out for. You have got your orders."
"Yes, sir."
I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take up his position face
forward with his elbow in the ratlines of the mizzen rigging before I
went below. The mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully.
The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood a vase with
flowers, a polite attention from the ship's provision merchant--the
last flowers we should see for the next three months at the very least.
Two bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetrically, one on each
side of the rudder casing. Everything was as before in the ship--except
that two of her captain's sleeping suits were simultaneously in use, one
motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very still in the captain's
stateroom.
It must be explained here that my cabin had the form of the capital
letter L, the door being within the angle and opening into the short
part of the letter. A couch was to the left, the bed place to the right;
my writing desk and the chronometers' table faced the door. But anyone
opening it, unless he stepped right inside, had no view of what I call
the long (or vertical) part of the letter. It contained some lockers
surmounted by a bookcase; and a few clothes, a thick jacket or two,
caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on hooks. There was at the
bottom of that part a door opening into my bathroom, which could be
entered also directly from the saloon. But that way was never used.
The mysterious arrival had discovered the advantage of this particular
shape. Entering my room, lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung
on gimbals above my writing desk, I did not see him anywhere till he
stepped out quietly from behind the coats hung in the recessed part.
"I heard somebody moving about, and went in there at once," he
whispered.
I, too, spoke under my breath.
"Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting
permission."
He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though he had
been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently, kept under
arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there was nothing sickly
in his eyes or in his expression. He was not a bit like me, really; yet,
as we stood leaning over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our
dark heads together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to
open it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight of a
double captain busy talking in whispers with his other self.
"But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang on to our side
ladder," I inquired, in the hardly audible murmurs we used, after he had
told me something more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once the
bad weather was over.
"When we sighted Java Head I had had time to think all those matters out
several times over. I had six weeks of doing nothing else, and with only
an hour or so every evening for a tramp on the quarter-deck."
He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my bed place, staring
through the open port. And I could imagine perfectly the manner of this
thinking out--a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of
which I should have been perfectly incapable.
"I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with the land," he
continued, so low that I had to strain my hearing near as we were to
each other, shoulder touching shoulder almost. "So I asked to speak to
the old man. He always seemed very sick when he came to see me--as if he
could not look me in the face. You know, that foresail saved the ship.
She was too deep to have run long under bare poles. And it was I
that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. When I had him in my
cabin--he stood by the door looking at me as if I had the halter round
my neck already--I asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked
at night while the ship was going through Sunda Straits. There would
be the Java coast within two or three miles, off Angier Point. I wanted
nothing more. I've had a prize for swimming my second year in the
Conway."
"I can believe it," I breathed out.
"God only knows why they locked me in every night. To see some of
their faces you'd have thought they were afraid I'd go about at night
strangling people. Am I a murdering brute? Do I look it? By Jove! If I
had been he wouldn't have trusted himself like that into my room. You'll
say I might have chucked him aside and bolted out, there and then--it
was dark already. Well, no. And for the same reason I wouldn't think of
trying to smash the door. There would have been a rush to stop me at the
noise, and I did not mean to get into a confounded scrimmage. Somebody
else might have got killed--for I would not have broken out only to
get chucked back, and I did not want any more of that work. He refused,
looking more sick than ever. He was afraid of the men, and also of
that old second mate of his who had been sailing with him for years--a
gray-headed old humbug; and his steward, too, had been with him devil
knows how long--seventeen years or more--a dogmatic sort of loafer who
hated me like poison, just because I was the chief mate. No chief mate
ever made more than one voyage in the Sephora, you know. Those two old
chaps ran the ship. Devil only knows what the skipper wasn't afraid of
(all his nerve went to pieces altogether in that hellish spell of bad
weather we had)--of what the law would do to him--of his wife, perhaps.
Oh, yes! she's on board. Though I don't think she would have meddled.
She would have been only too glad to have me out of the ship in any way.
The 'brand of Cain' business, don't you see. That's all right. I was
ready enough to go off wandering on the face of the earth--and that was
price enough to pay for an Abel of that sort. Anyhow, he wouldn't listen
to me. 'This thing must take its course. I represent the law here.' He
was shaking like a leaf. 'So you won't?' 'No!' 'Then I hope you will
be able to sleep on that,' I said, and turned my back on him. 'I wonder
that you can,' cries he, and locks the door.
"Well after that, I couldn't. Not very well. That was three weeks ago.
We have had a slow passage through the Java Sea; drifted about Carimata
for ten days. When we anchored here they thought, I suppose, it was
all right. The nearest land (and that's five miles) is the ship's
destination; the consul would soon set about catching me; and there
would have been no object in holding to these islets there. I don't
suppose there's a drop of water on them. I don't know how it was, but
tonight that steward, after bringing me my supper, went out to let me
eat it, and left the door unlocked. And I ate it--all there was, too.
After I had finished I strolled out on the quarter-deck. I don't know
that I meant to do anything. A breath of fresh air was all I wanted, I
believe. Then a sudden temptation came over me. I kicked off my slippers
and was in the water before I had made up my mind fairly. Somebody heard
the splash and they raised an awful hullabaloo. 'He's gone! Lower the
boats! He's committed suicide! No, he's swimming.' Certainly I was
swimming. It's not so easy for a swimmer like me to commit suicide by
drowning. I landed on the nearest islet before the boat left the ship's
side. I heard them pulling about in the dark, hailing, and so on, but
after a bit they gave up. Everything quieted down and the anchorage
became still as death. I sat down on a stone and began to think. I felt
certain they would start searching for me at daylight. There was no
place to hide on those stony things--and if there had been, what would
have been the good? But now I was clear of that ship, I was not going
back. So after a while I took off all my clothes, tied them up in a
bundle with a stone inside, and dropped them in the deep water on the
outer side of that islet. That was suicide enough for me. Let them think
what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till
I sank--but that's not the same thing. I struck out for another of these
little islands, and it was from that one that I first saw your riding
light. Something to swim for. I went on easily, and on the way I came
upon a flat rock a foot or two above water. In the daytime, I dare say,
you might make it out with a glass from your poop. I scrambled up on it
and rested myself for a bit. Then I made another start. That last spell
must have been over a mile."
His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all the time he stared
straight out through the porthole, in which there was not even a star
to be seen. I had not interrupted him. There was something that made
comment impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in himself; a sort of
feeling, a quality, which I can't find a name for. And when he ceased,
all I found was a futile whisper: "So you swam for our light?"
"Yes--straight for it. It was something to swim for. I couldn't see any
stars low down because the coast was in the way, and I couldn't see the
land, either. The water was like glass. One might have been swimming in
a confounded thousand-feet deep cistern with no place for scrambling out
anywhere; but what I didn't like was the notion of swimming round and
round like a crazed bullock before I gave out; and as I didn't mean to
go back... No. Do you see me being hauled back, stark naked, off one
of these little islands by the scruff of the neck and fighting like a
wild beast? Somebody would have got killed for certain, and I did not
want any of that. So I went on. Then your ladder--"
"Why didn't you hail the ship?" I asked, a little louder.
He touched my shoulder lightly. Lazy footsteps came right over our heads
and stopped. The second mate had crossed from the other side of the poop
and might have been hanging over the rail for all we knew.
"He couldn't hear us talking--could he?" My double breathed into my very
ear, anxiously.
His anxiety was in answer, a sufficient answer, to the question I had
put to him. An answer containing all the difficulty of that situation. I
closed the porthole quietly, to make sure. A louder word might have been
overheard.
"Who's that?" he whispered then.
"My second mate. But I don't know much more of the fellow than you do."
And I told him a little about myself. I had been appointed to take
charge while I least expected anything of the sort, not quite a
fortnight ago. I didn't know either the ship or the people. Hadn't had
the time in port to look about me or size anybody up. And as to the
crew, all they knew was that I was appointed to take the ship home.
For the rest, I was almost as much of a stranger on board as himself,
I said. And at the moment I felt it most acutely. I felt that it would
take very little to make me a suspect person in the eyes of the ship's
company.
He had turned about meantime; and we, the two strangers in the ship,
faced each other in identical attitudes.
"Your ladder--" he murmured, after a silence. "Who'd have thought of
finding a ladder hanging over at night in a ship anchored out here! I
felt just then a very unpleasant faintness. After the life I've been
leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got out of condition. I
wasn't capable of swimming round as far as your rudder chains. And, lo
and behold! there was a ladder to get hold of. After I gripped it I said
to myself, 'What's the good?' When I saw a man's head looking over I
thought I would swim away presently and leave him shouting--in whatever
language it was. I didn't mind being looked at. I--I liked it. And then
you speaking to me so quietly--as if you had expected me--made me hold
on a little longer. It had been a confounded lonely time--I don't mean
while swimming. I was glad to talk a little to somebody that didn't
belong to the Sephora. As to asking for the captain, that was a mere
impulse. It could have been no use, with all the ship knowing about me
and the other people pretty certain to be round here in the morning. I
don't know--I wanted to be seen, to talk with somebody, before I went
on. I don't know what I would have said.... 'Fine night, isn't it?'
or something of the sort."
"Do you think they will be round here presently?" I asked with some
incredulity.
"Quite likely," he said, faintly.
"He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden. His head rolled on his
shoulders.
"H'm. We shall see then. Meantime get into that bed," I whispered. "Want
help? There."
It was a rather high bed place with a set of drawers underneath. This
amazing swimmer really needed the lift I gave him by seizing his leg. He
tumbled in, rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his eyes.
And then, with his face nearly hidden, he must have looked exactly as I
used to look in that bed. I gazed upon my other self for a while before
drawing across carefully the two green serge curtains which ran on a
brass rod. I thought for a moment of pinning them together for greater
safety, but I sat down on the couch, and once there I felt unwilling
to rise and hunt for a pin. I would do it in a moment. I was extremely
tired, in a peculiarly intimate way, by the strain of stealthiness, by
the effort of whispering and the general secrecy of this excitement. It
was three o'clock by now and I had been on my feet since nine, but I
was not sleepy; I could not have gone to sleep. I sat there, fagged
out, looking at the curtains, trying to clear my mind of the confused
sensation of being in two places at once, and greatly bothered by an
exasperating knocking in my head. It was a relief to discover suddenly
that it was not in my head at all, but on the outside of the door.
Before I could collect myself the words "Come in" were out of my mouth,
and the steward entered with a tray, bringing in my morning coffee. I
had slept, after all, and I was so frightened that I shouted, "This way!
I am here, steward," as though he had been miles away. He put down the
tray on the table next the couch and only then said, very quietly, "I
can see you are here, sir." I felt him give me a keen look, but I dared
not meet his eyes just then. He must have wondered why I had drawn the
curtains of my bed before going to sleep on the couch. He went out,
hooking the door open as usual.
I heard the crew washing decks above me. I knew I would have been told
at once if there had been any wind. Calm, I thought, and I was doubly
vexed. Indeed, I felt dual more than ever. The steward reappeared
suddenly in the doorway. I jumped up from the couch so quickly that he
gave a start.
"What do you want here?"
"Close your port, sir--they are washing decks."
"It is closed," I said, reddening.
"Very well, sir." But he did not move from the doorway and returned my
stare in an extraordinary, equivocal manner for a time. Then his eyes
wavered, all his expression changed, and in a voice unusually gentle,
almost coaxingly:
"May I come in to take the empty cup away, sir?"
"Of course!" I turned my back on him while he popped in and out. Then
I unhooked and closed the door and even pushed the bolt. This sort of
thing could not go on very long. The cabin was as hot as an oven, too. I
took a peep at my double, and discovered that he had not moved, his arm
was still over his eyes; but his chest heaved; his hair was wet; his
chin glistened with perspiration. I reached over him and opened the
port.
"I must show myself on deck," I reflected.
Of course, theoretically, I could do what I liked, with no one to say
nay to me within the whole circle of the horizon; but to lock my cabin
door and take the key away I did not dare. Directly I put my head out
of the companion I saw the group of my two officers, the second mate
barefooted, the chief mate in long India-rubber boots, near the break of
the poop, and the steward halfway down the poop ladder talking to them
eagerly. He happened to catch sight of me and dived, the second ran down
on the main-deck shouting some order or other, and the chief mate came
to meet me, touching his cap.
There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did not like. I don't
know whether the steward had told them that I was "queer" only, or
downright drunk, but I know the man meant to have a good look at me. I
watched him coming with a smile which, as he got into point-blank range,
took effect and froze his very whiskers. I did not give him time to open
his lips.
"Square the yards by lifts and braces before the hands go to breakfast."
It was the first particular order I had given on board that ship; and I
stayed on deck to see it executed, too. I had felt the need of asserting
myself without loss of time. That sneering young cub got taken down a
peg or two on that occasion, and I also seized the opportunity of having
a good look at the face of every foremast man as they filed past me
to go to the after braces. At breakfast time, eating nothing myself, I
presided with such frigid dignity that the two mates were only too glad
to escape from the cabin as soon as decency permitted; and all the
time the dual working of my mind distracted me almost to the point of
insanity. I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent
on my actions as my own personality, sleeping in that bed, behind that
door which faced me as I sat at the head of the table. It was very much
like being mad, only it was worse because one was aware of it.
I had to shake him for a solid minute, but when at last he opened his
eyes it was in the full possession of his senses, with an inquiring
look.
"All's well so far," I whispered. "Now you must vanish into the
bathroom."
He did so, as noiseless as a ghost, and then I rang for the steward,
and facing him boldly, directed him to tidy up my stateroom while I
was having my bath--"and be quick about it." As my tone admitted of
no excuses, he said, "Yes, sir," and ran off to fetch his dustpan and
brushes. I took a bath and did most of my dressing, splashing, and
whistling softly for the steward's edification, while the secret sharer
of my life stood drawn up bolt upright in that little space, his face
looking very sunken in daylight, his eyelids lowered under the stern,
dark line of his eyebrows drawn together by a slight frown.
When I left him there to go back to my room the steward was finishing
dusting. I sent for the mate and engaged him in some insignificant
conversation. It was, as it were, trifling with the terrific character
of his whiskers; but my object was to give him an opportunity for a
good look at my cabin. And then I could at last shut, with a clear
conscience, the door of my stateroom and get my double back into the
recessed part. There was nothing else for it. He had to sit still on a
small folding stool, half smothered by the heavy coats hanging there.
We listened to the steward going into the bathroom out of the saloon,
filling the water bottles there, scrubbing the bath, setting things
to rights, whisk, bang, clatter--out again into the saloon--turn the
key--click. Such was my scheme for keeping my second self invisible.
Nothing better could be contrived under the circumstances. And there
we sat; I at my writing desk ready to appear busy with some papers, he
behind me out of sight of the door. It would not have been prudent to
talk in daytime; and I could not have stood the excitement of that queer
sense of whispering to myself. Now and then, glancing over my shoulder,
I saw him far back there, sitting rigidly on the low stool, his
bare feet close together, his arms folded, his head hanging on his
breast--and perfectly still. Anybody would have taken him for me.
I was fascinated by it myself. Every moment I had to glance over my
shoulder. I was looking at him when a voice outside the door said:
"Beg pardon, sir."
"Well!..." I kept my eyes on him, and so when the voice outside the
door announced, "There's a ship's boat coming our way, sir," I saw him
give a start--the first movement he had made for hours. But he did not
raise his bowed head.
"All right. Get the ladder over."
I hesitated. Should I whisper something to him? But what? His immobility
seemed to have been never disturbed. What could I tell him he did not
know already?... Finally I went on deck. | As dusk begins to fall, the unnamed narrator of the story stands on the deck of his ship, currently anchored at the mouth of the Meinam River in the Gulf of Siam. The narrator is the Captain of the ship who leaves the deck to eat supper with his mates. The time is approximately eight o'clock. At supper, the Captain remarks that he saw the masts of a ship anchored amongst some nearby islands. The Chief Mate explains that the ship to which the Captain is referring is probably another English one, waiting for the right moment to sail home with a favorable tide. The Second Mate elaborates: The ship is the Sephora, from Liverpool, and is bound home from Cardiff with a cargo of coal. The Captain makes a magnanimous gesture by offering to take the anchor watch himself until one o'clock, after which time he will get the Second Mate to relieve him. Again alone on deck, the Captain meditatively smokes a cigar and again considers his own "strangeness" to the ship and its command. The rest of the crew sleeps soundly. The Captain notices that the rope side ladder, hung over the side of the ship to accommodate the skipper of the tugboat, has not been brought in. As he begins to pull it, he feels a jerk at the other end and curious, looks over the rail into the sea. He sees a naked man floating in the water and holding the end of the ladder. The man introduces himself as Leggatt. He has been in the water since nine o'clock, which makes the Captain consider his strength and youth. Leggatt climbs up the ladder and the Captain rushes to his cabin to fetch him some clothes. The Captain learns that Leggatt was the chief mate of the Sephora and that he accidentally killed a fellow crewman. Although Leggatt unintentionally murdered the man, the Skipper stripped Leggatt of his title. The Captain tells Leggatt that they should retire to his cabin so as not to be discovered by the Chief Mate. The Captain hides Leggatt in his cabin, returns to the deck, summons the Chief Mate to take over the anchor watch, and returns to his cabin. Leggatt continues his story: After killing the man, he was placed under arrest and kept in his cabin for almost seven weeks. Approximately six weeks into his confinement, Leggatt asked to see the Skipper and asked him to leave his door unlocked that night, while the Sephora sailed through the Sunda Straits, so that he could jump off and swim to the Java coast. The Skipper refused. Three weeks later, the Sephora came to its present location, and Leggatt discovered that the ship's steward -- wholly by accident -- had left the door to his cabin unlocked. Leggatt wandered onto the deck and jumped off into the sea. He swam to a nearby islet while the Sephora's crew lowered a boat to search for him. Leggatt removed his clothes and sank them, determined never to return. He swam to another small island, saw the riding light of the Captain's ship, and swam to it. Eventually, he reached the rope ladder, completely exhausted after swimming over a mile. The Captain helps Leggatt into his bed, where he falls asleep immediately. The Captain eventually falls asleep himself; the next morning, the steward enters the Captain's cabin to bring him his morning coffee. The Captain becomes more paranoid that someone will discover Leggatt and decides that he must show himself on deck. The Captain learns that a ship's boat is coming toward their ship. He orders the ladder to be dropped over the side and leaves Leggatt to meet who he is sure will be the Skipper of the Sephora, searching for Leggatt. |
A Quarrel About an Heiress
Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such qualities as Miss
Swartz possessed; and a great dream of ambition entered into old Mr.
Osborne's soul, which she was to realize. He encouraged, with the
utmost enthusiasm and friendliness, his daughters' amiable attachment
to the young heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest
pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well disposed.
"You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that splendour and rank
to which you are accustomed at the West End, my dear Miss, at our
humble mansion in Russell Square. My daughters are plain,
disinterested girls, but their hearts are in the right place, and
they've conceived an attachment for you which does them honour--I say,
which does them honour. I'm a plain, simple, humble British
merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends Hulker and Bullock
will vouch, who were the correspondents of your late lamented father.
You'll find us a united, simple, happy, and I think I may say
respected, family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome,
my dear Miss Rhoda--Rhoda, let me say, for my heart warms to you, it
does really. I'm a frank man, and I like you. A glass of Champagne!
Hicks, Champagne to Miss Swartz."
There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he said, and that
the girls were quite earnest in their protestations of affection for
Miss Swartz. People in Vanity Fair fasten on to rich folks quite
naturally. If the simplest people are disposed to look not a little
kindly on great Prosperity (for I defy any member of the British public
to say that the notion of Wealth has not something awful and pleasing
to him; and you, if you are told that the man next you at dinner has
got half a million, not to look at him with a certain interest)--if the
simple look benevolently on money, how much more do your old worldlings
regard it! Their affections rush out to meet and welcome money. Their
kind sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors
of it. I know some respectable people who don't consider themselves at
liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who has not a
certain competency, or place in society. They give a loose to their
feelings on proper occasions. And the proof is, that the major part of
the Osborne family, who had not, in fifteen years, been able to get up
a hearty regard for Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss Swartz in the
course of a single evening as the most romantic advocate of friendship
at first sight could desire.
What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and Miss Wirt agreed),
and how much better than that insignificant little Amelia! Such a
dashing young fellow as he is, with his good looks, rank, and
accomplishments, would be the very husband for her. Visions of balls
in Portland Place, presentations at Court, and introductions to half
the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies; who talked of
nothing but George and his grand acquaintances to their beloved new
friend.
Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too, for his son. He
should leave the army; he should go into Parliament; he should cut a
figure in the fashion and in the state. His blood boiled with honest
British exultation, as he saw the name of Osborne ennobled in the
person of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor of a
glorious line of baronets. He worked in the City and on 'Change, until
he knew everything relating to the fortune of the heiress, how her
money was placed, and where her estates lay. Young Fred Bullock, one
of his chief informants, would have liked to make a bid for her himself
(it was so the young banker expressed it), only he was booked to Maria
Osborne. But not being able to secure her as a wife, the disinterested
Fred quite approved of her as a sister-in-law. "Let George cut in
directly and win her," was his advice. "Strike while the iron's hot,
you know--while she's fresh to the town: in a few weeks some d----
fellow from the West End will come in with a title and a rotten
rent-roll and cut all us City men out, as Lord Fitzrufus did last year
with Miss Grogram, who was actually engaged to Podder, of Podder &
Brown's. The sooner it is done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my
sentiments," the wag said; though, when Osborne had left the bank
parlour, Mr. Bullock remembered Amelia, and what a pretty girl she was,
and how attached to George Osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds
of his valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had befallen
that unlucky young woman.
While thus George Osborne's good feelings, and his good friend and
genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the truant to Amelia's feet,
George's parent and sisters were arranging this splendid match for him,
which they never dreamed he would resist.
When the elder Osborne gave what he called "a hint," there was no
possibility for the most obtuse to mistake his meaning. He called
kicking a footman downstairs a hint to the latter to leave his service.
With his usual frankness and delicacy he told Mrs. Haggistoun that he
would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds on the day his son was
married to her ward; and called that proposal a hint, and considered it
a very dexterous piece of diplomacy. He gave George finally such
another hint regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out of
hand, as he would have ordered his butler to draw a cork, or his clerk
to write a letter.
This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal. He was in the very
first enthusiasm and delight of his second courtship of Amelia, which
was inexpressibly sweet to him. The contrast of her manners and
appearance with those of the heiress, made the idea of a union with the
latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious. Carriages and opera-boxes,
thought he; fancy being seen in them by the side of such a mahogany
charmer as that! Add to all that the junior Osborne was quite as
obstinate as the senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his
resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered, as his father
in his most stern moments.
On the first day when his father formally gave him the hint that he was
to place his affections at Miss Swartz's feet, George temporised with
the old gentleman. "You should have thought of the matter sooner,
sir," he said. "It can't be done now, when we're expecting every day to
go on foreign service. Wait till my return, if I do return"; and then
he represented, that the time when the regiment was daily expecting to
quit England, was exceedingly ill-chosen: that the few days or weeks
during which they were still to remain at home, must be devoted to
business and not to love-making: time enough for that when he came home
with his majority; "for, I promise you," said he, with a satisfied air,
"that one way or other you shall read the name of George Osborne in the
Gazette."
The father's reply to this was founded upon the information which he
had got in the City: that the West End chaps would infallibly catch
hold of the heiress if any delay took place: that if he didn't marry
Miss S., he might at least have an engagement in writing, to come into
effect when he returned to England; and that a man who could get ten
thousand a year by staying at home, was a fool to risk his life abroad.
"So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir, and our name
dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz's money," George interposed.
This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he had to reply to it,
and as his mind was nevertheless made up, he said, "You will dine here
to-morrow, sir, and every day Miss Swartz comes, you will be here to
pay your respects to her. If you want for money, call upon Mr.
Chopper." Thus a new obstacle was in George's way, to interfere with
his plans regarding Amelia; and about which he and Dobbin had more than
one confidential consultation. His friend's opinion respecting the
line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we know already. And as for
Osborne, when he was once bent on a thing, a fresh obstacle or two only
rendered him the more resolute.
The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs of the Osborne
family had entered, was quite ignorant of all their plans regarding her
(which, strange to say, her friend and chaperon did not divulge), and,
taking all the young ladies' flattery for genuine sentiment, and being,
as we have before had occasion to show, of a very warm and impetuous
nature, responded to their affection with quite a tropical ardour. And
if the truth may be told, I dare say that she too had some selfish
attraction in the Russell Square house; and in a word, thought George
Osborne a very nice young man. His whiskers had made an impression upon
her, on the very first night she beheld them at the ball at Messrs.
Hulkers; and, as we know, she was not the first woman who had been
charmed by them. George had an air at once swaggering and melancholy,
languid and fierce. He looked like a man who had passions, secrets,
and private harrowing griefs and adventures. His voice was rich and
deep. He would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to take
an ice, with a tone as sad and confidential as if he were breaking her
mother's death to her, or preluding a declaration of love. He trampled
over all the young bucks of his father's circle, and was the hero among
those third-rate men. Some few sneered at him and hated him. Some,
like Dobbin, fanatically admired him. And his whiskers had begun to do
their work, and to curl themselves round the affections of Miss Swartz.
Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell Square, that
simple and good-natured young woman was quite in a flurry to see her
dear Misses Osborne. She went to great expenses in new gowns, and
bracelets, and bonnets, and in prodigious feathers. She adorned her
person with her utmost skill to please the Conqueror, and exhibited all
her simple accomplishments to win his favour. The girls would ask her,
with the greatest gravity, for a little music, and she would sing her
three songs and play her two little pieces as often as ever they asked,
and with an always increasing pleasure to herself. During these
delectable entertainments, Miss Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and
conned over the peerage, and talked about the nobility.
The day after George had his hint from his father, and a short time
before the hour of dinner, he was lolling upon a sofa in the
drawing-room in a very becoming and perfectly natural attitude of
melancholy. He had been, at his father's request, to Mr. Chopper in
the City (the old gentleman, though he gave great sums to his son,
would never specify any fixed allowance for him, and rewarded him only
as he was in the humour). He had then been to pass three hours with
Amelia, his dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came home to find his
sisters spread in starched muslin in the drawing-room, the dowagers
cackling in the background, and honest Swartz in her favourite
amber-coloured satin, with turquoise bracelets, countless rings,
flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as
elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.
The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation, talked
about fashions and the last drawing-room until he was perfectly sick of
their chatter. He contrasted their behaviour with little Emmy's--their
shrill voices with her tender ringing tones; their attitudes and their
elbows and their starch, with her humble soft movements and modest
graces. Poor Swartz was seated in a place where Emmy had been
accustomed to sit. Her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her amber
satin lap. Her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her big eyes rolled
about. She was doing nothing with perfect contentment, and thinking
herself charming. Anything so becoming as the satin the sisters had
never seen.
"Dammy," George said to a confidential friend, "she looked like a China
doll, which has nothing to do all day but to grin and wag its head. By
Jove, Will, it was all I I could do to prevent myself from throwing the
sofa-cushion at her." He restrained that exhibition of sentiment,
however.
The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague. "Stop that d----
thing," George howled out in a fury from the sofa. "It makes me mad.
You play us something, Miss Swartz, do. Sing something, anything but
the Battle of Prague."
"Shall I sing 'Blue Eyed Mary' or the air from the Cabinet?" Miss
Swartz asked.
"That sweet thing from the Cabinet," the sisters said.
"We've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa.
"I can sing 'Fluvy du Tajy,'" Swartz said, in a meek voice, "if I had
the words." It was the last of the worthy young woman's collection.
"O, 'Fleuve du Tage,'" Miss Maria cried; "we have the song," and went
off to fetch the book in which it was.
Now it happened that this song, then in the height of the fashion, had
been given to the young ladies by a young friend of theirs, whose name
was on the title, and Miss Swartz, having concluded the ditty with
George's applause (for he remembered that it was a favourite of
Amelia's), was hoping for an encore perhaps, and fiddling with the
leaves of the music, when her eye fell upon the title, and she saw
"Amelia Sedley" written in the comer.
"Lor!" cried Miss Swartz, spinning swiftly round on the music-stool,
"is it my Amelia? Amelia that was at Miss P.'s at Hammersmith? I know
it is. It's her, and-- Tell me about her--where is she?"
"Don't mention her," Miss Maria Osborne said hastily. "Her family has
disgraced itself. Her father cheated Papa, and as for her, she is
never to be mentioned HERE." This was Miss Maria's return for George's
rudeness about the Battle of Prague.
"Are you a friend of Amelia's?" George said, bouncing up. "God bless
you for it, Miss Swartz. Don't believe what the girls say. SHE'S not
to blame at any rate. She's the best--"
"You know you're not to speak about her, George," cried Jane. "Papa
forbids it."
"Who's to prevent me?" George cried out. "I will speak of her. I say
she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the sweetest girl in
England; and that, bankrupt or no, my sisters are not fit to hold
candles to her. If you like her, go and see her, Miss Swartz; she
wants friends now; and I say, God bless everybody who befriends her.
Anybody who speaks kindly of her is my friend; anybody who speaks
against her is my enemy. Thank you, Miss Swartz"; and he went up and
wrung her hand.
"George! George!" one of the sisters cried imploringly.
"I say," George said fiercely, "I thank everybody who loves Amelia
Sed--" He stopped. Old Osborne was in the room with a face livid with
rage, and eyes like hot coals.
Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his blood being up, he
was not to be cowed by all the generations of Osborne; rallying
instantly, he replied to the bullying look of his father, with another
so indicative of resolution and defiance that the elder man quailed in
his turn, and looked away. He felt that the tussle was coming. "Mrs.
Haggistoun, let me take you down to dinner," he said. "Give your arm to
Miss Swartz, George," and they marched.
"Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we've been engaged almost all our
lives," Osborne said to his partner; and during all the dinner, George
rattled on with a volubility which surprised himself, and made his
father doubly nervous for the fight which was to take place as soon as
the ladies were gone.
The difference between the pair was, that while the father was violent
and a bully, the son had thrice the nerve and courage of the parent,
and could not merely make an attack, but resist it; and finding that
the moment was now come when the contest between him and his father was
to be decided, he took his dinner with perfect coolness and appetite
before the engagement began. Old Osborne, on the contrary, was
nervous, and drank much. He floundered in his conversation with the
ladies, his neighbours: George's coolness only rendering him more
angry. It made him half mad to see the calm way in which George,
flapping his napkin, and with a swaggering bow, opened the door for the
ladies to leave the room; and filling himself a glass of wine, smacked
it, and looked his father full in the face, as if to say, "Gentlemen of
the Guard, fire first." The old man also took a supply of ammunition,
but his decanter clinked against the glass as he tried to fill it.
After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking face, he then
began. "How dare you, sir, mention that person's name before Miss
Swartz to-day, in my drawing-room? I ask you, sir, how dare you do it?"
"Stop, sir," says George, "don't say dare, sir. Dare isn't a word to
be used to a Captain in the British Army."
"I shall say what I like to my son, sir. I can cut him off with a
shilling if I like. I can make him a beggar if I like. I WILL say what
I like," the elder said.
"I'm a gentleman though I AM your son, sir," George answered haughtily.
"Any communications which you have to make to me, or any orders which
you may please to give, I beg may be couched in that kind of language
which I am accustomed to hear."
Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it always created either
great awe or great irritation in the parent. Old Osborne stood in
secret terror of his son as a better gentleman than himself; and
perhaps my readers may have remarked in their experience of this Vanity
Fair of ours, that there is no character which a low-minded man so much
mistrusts as that of a gentleman.
"My father didn't give me the education you have had, nor the
advantages you have had, nor the money you have had. If I had kept the
company SOME FOLKS have had through MY MEANS, perhaps my son wouldn't
have any reason to brag, sir, of his SUPERIORITY and WEST END AIRS
(these words were uttered in the elder Osborne's most sarcastic tones).
But it wasn't considered the part of a gentleman, in MY time, for a man
to insult his father. If I'd done any such thing, mine would have
kicked me downstairs, sir."
"I never insulted you, sir. I said I begged you to remember your son
was a gentleman as well as yourself. I know very well that you give me
plenty of money," said George (fingering a bundle of notes which he had
got in the morning from Mr. Chopper). "You tell it me often enough,
sir. There's no fear of my forgetting it."
"I wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the sire answered.
"I wish you'd remember that in this house--so long as you choose to
HONOUR it with your COMPANY, Captain--I'm the master, and that name,
and that that--that you--that I say--"
"That what, sir?" George asked, with scarcely a sneer, filling another
glass of claret.
"----!" burst out his father with a screaming oath--"that the name of
those Sedleys never be mentioned here, sir--not one of the whole damned
lot of 'em, sir."
"It wasn't I, sir, that introduced Miss Sedley's name. It was my
sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and by Jove I'll defend
her wherever I go. Nobody shall speak lightly of that name in my
presence. Our family has done her quite enough injury already, I
think, and may leave off reviling her now she's down. I'll shoot any
man but you who says a word against her."
"Go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes starting out of
his head.
"Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've treated that angel
of a girl? Who told me to love her? It was your doing. I might have
chosen elsewhere, and looked higher, perhaps, than your society: but I
obeyed you. And now that her heart's mine you give me orders to fling
it away, and punish her, kill her perhaps--for the faults of other
people. It's a shame, by Heavens," said George, working himself up
into passion and enthusiasm as he proceeded, "to play at fast and loose
with a young girl's affections--and with such an angel as that--one so
superior to the people amongst whom she lived, that she might have
excited envy, only she was so good and gentle, that it's a wonder
anybody dared to hate her. If I desert her, sir, do you suppose she
forgets me?"
"I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense and humbug
here, sir," the father cried out. "There shall be no beggar-marriages
in my family. If you choose to fling away eight thousand a year, which
you may have for the asking, you may do it: but by Jove you take your
pack and walk out of this house, sir. Will you do as I tell you, once
for all, sir, or will you not?"
"Marry that mulatto woman?" George said, pulling up his shirt-collars.
"I don't like the colour, sir. Ask the black that sweeps opposite
Fleet Market, sir. I'm not going to marry a Hottentot Venus."
Mr. Osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he was accustomed
to summon the butler when he wanted wine--and almost black in the face,
ordered that functionary to call a coach for Captain Osborne.
"I've done it," said George, coming into the Slaughters' an hour
afterwards, looking very pale.
"What, my boy?" says Dobbin.
George told what had passed between his father and himself.
"I'll marry her to-morrow," he said with an oath. "I love her more
every day, Dobbin." | Mr. Osborne strongly encourages his daughters to be friends with Miss Swartz. He brags about how colorblind and inclusive he is, but obviously it's just because of her money. Mr. Osborne is also really hoping for George to marry her. He checks out the way her money is invested and does a little digging on the Stock Exchange. All seems good there. Fred Bullock, a banker on the Stock Exchange who is engaged to Maria Osborne, tells Mr. Osborne that they better snatch Miss Swartz up pretty quick before a member of the aristocracy comes and steals her out from under them. Mr. Osborne offers Miss Swartz's governess five thousand pounds to seal the deal between her and George. He also orders George to marry Miss Swartz. George kind of hems and haws and says that he'll wait until after the military campaign is over. His father isn't having it. He orders George to come to have dinner with the family and Miss Swartz every day and woo her. Miss Swartz isn't in on all these schemes going on behind her back. But George is hot, and she is starting to be into him. The next day, George comes home for dinner after hanging out with Amelia. He is shocked at how even more gross Miss Swartz seems after Amelia's delicate and feminine qualities. Miss Swartz sees Amelia's name on the title page of a book and realizes that the Osbornes know her school friend. George is psyched to talk about her, but his sisters freak out because no one is supposed to mention the Sedleys anymore in the Osborne house. After dinner, it's clear that George and Mr. Osborne have to get into it. George is all haughty and obnoxious, telling his father that he is a much better gentleman and is farther removed from the business end of where the family money comes from. This is a sore point with Mr. Osborne, who is totally enraged. Mr. Osborne makes an ultimatum - marry Miss Swartz or else be totally cut off. George says Miss Swartz is the wrong color for him and storms off. George then finds Dobbin, tells him what has happened, and says he will marry Amelia the next day come hell or high water. |
Half dead of that inconceivable anguish which the rolling of a ship
produces, one-half of the passengers were not even sensible of the
danger. The other half shrieked and prayed. The sheets were rent, the
masts broken, the vessel gaped. Work who would, no one heard, no one
commanded. The Anabaptist being upon deck bore a hand; when a brutish
sailor struck him roughly and laid him sprawling; but with the violence
of the blow he himself tumbled head foremost overboard, and stuck upon a
piece of the broken mast. Honest James ran to his assistance, hauled him
up, and from the effort he made was precipitated into the sea in sight
of the sailor, who left him to perish, without deigning to look at him.
Candide drew near and saw his benefactor, who rose above the water one
moment and was then swallowed up for ever. He was just going to jump
after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who
demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been made on purpose for
the Anabaptist to be drowned. While he was proving this _a priori_, the
ship foundered; all perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brutal
sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to
the shore, while Pangloss and Candide were borne thither upon a plank.
As soon as they recovered themselves a little they walked toward Lisbon.
They had some money left, with which they hoped to save themselves from
starving, after they had escaped drowning. Scarcely had they reached the
city, lamenting the death of their benefactor, when they felt the earth
tremble under their feet. The sea swelled and foamed in the harbour, and
beat to pieces the vessels riding at anchor. Whirlwinds of fire and
ashes covered the streets and public places; houses fell, roofs were
flung upon the pavements, and the pavements were scattered. Thirty
thousand inhabitants of all ages and sexes were crushed under the
ruins.[4] The sailor, whistling and swearing, said there was booty to be
gained here.
"What can be the _sufficient reason_ of this phenomenon?" said Pangloss.
"This is the Last Day!" cried Candide.
The sailor ran among the ruins, facing death to find money; finding it,
he took it, got drunk, and having slept himself sober, purchased the
favours of the first good-natured wench whom he met on the ruins of the
destroyed houses, and in the midst of the dying and the dead. Pangloss
pulled him by the sleeve.
"My friend," said he, "this is not right. You sin against the _universal
reason_; you choose your time badly."
"S'blood and fury!" answered the other; "I am a sailor and born at
Batavia. Four times have I trampled upon the crucifix in four voyages to
Japan[5]; a fig for thy universal reason."
Some falling stones had wounded Candide. He lay stretched in the street
covered with rubbish.
"Alas!" said he to Pangloss, "get me a little wine and oil; I am dying."
"This concussion of the earth is no new thing," answered Pangloss. "The
city of Lima, in America, experienced the same convulsions last year;
the same cause, the same effects; there is certainly a train of sulphur
under ground from Lima to Lisbon."
"Nothing more probable," said Candide; "but for the love of God a little
oil and wine."
"How, probable?" replied the philosopher. "I maintain that the point is
capable of being demonstrated."
Candide fainted away, and Pangloss fetched him some water from a
neighbouring fountain. The following day they rummaged among the ruins
and found provisions, with which they repaired their exhausted strength.
After this they joined with others in relieving those inhabitants who
had escaped death. Some, whom they had succoured, gave them as good a
dinner as they could in such disastrous circumstances; true, the repast
was mournful, and the company moistened their bread with tears; but
Pangloss consoled them, assuring them that things could not be
otherwise.
"For," said he, "all that is is for the best. If there is a volcano at
Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be
other than they are; for everything is right."
A little man dressed in black, Familiar of the Inquisition, who sat by
him, politely took up his word and said:
"Apparently, then, sir, you do not believe in original sin; for if all
is for the best there has then been neither Fall nor punishment."
"I humbly ask your Excellency's pardon," answered Pangloss, still more
politely; "for the Fall and curse of man necessarily entered into the
system of the best of worlds."
"Sir," said the Familiar, "you do not then believe in liberty?"
"Your Excellency will excuse me," said Pangloss; "liberty is consistent
with absolute necessity, for it was necessary we should be free; for, in
short, the determinate will----"
Pangloss was in the middle of his sentence, when the Familiar beckoned
to his footman, who gave him a glass of wine from Porto or Opporto. | Traveling to Lisbon on a business trip, Jacques brings along his two philosopher friends, Candide and Pangloss. A terrifying storm ravishes the sea during the boat trip, destroying the vessel and killing all but three of those on board-Candide, Pangloss, and a "brutal sailor" who survives at the expense of the kind Christian, Jacques. Once ashore, Candide and his mentor see the awful effects of the Lisbon earthquake, a historical natural disaster which killed over 30,000. With Candide helping many of the surviving victims of the earthquake, Pangloss "consoles" the people with his doctrine of universal reason. When an Inquisition agent asks the wise philosopher if he believes in original sin or free will, Pangloss asserts that both agree with his theory |
I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of
being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to
me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age.
A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation,
quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems
wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But
none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind
in the service of Murdstone and Grinby.
Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside. It was down in
Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it was the
last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down hill to the
river, with some stairs at the end, where people took boat. It was a
crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the
tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun
with rats. Its panelled rooms, discoloured with the dirt and smoke of
a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the
squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and
the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago,
in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as
they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time,
with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's.
Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people, but
an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain
packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there
were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies.
I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of
this traffic, and that certain men and boys were employed to examine
them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse
and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be
pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put
upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work
was my work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one.
There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was
established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could see
me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the
counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither,
on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own
account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my
business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a
paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in
a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor's Show. He also informed me
that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by
the--to me--extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however,
that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had
been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion,
which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the
additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at
one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's--I think
his little sister--did Imps in the Pantomimes.
No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this
companionship; compared these henceforth everyday associates with those
of my happier childhood--not to say with Steerforth, Traddles, and the
rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned
and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the
sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in
my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day
by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my
fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little,
never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick
Walker went away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with
the water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there
were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting.
The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was
general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the
counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and
found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black
tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large
one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very
extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby,
but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a
stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass
hung outside his coat,--for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very
seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did.
'This,' said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, 'is he.'
'This,' said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his
voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which
impressed me very much, 'is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well,
sir?'
I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at
ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that
time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was.
'I am,' said the stranger, 'thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a
letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire
me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at
present unoccupied--and is, in short, to be let as a--in short,'
said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, 'as a
bedroom--the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to--' and the
stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt-collar.
'This is Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion to me.
'Ahem!' said the stranger, 'that is my name.'
'Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion, 'is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes
orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to
by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive
you as a lodger.'
'My address,' said Mr. Micawber, 'is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I--in
short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another
burst of confidence--'I live there.'
I made him a bow.
'Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your peregrinations in
this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have
some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the
direction of the City Road,--in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another
burst of confidence, 'that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to
call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.'
I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to offer to
take that trouble.
'At what hour,' said Mr. Micawber, 'shall I--'
'At about eight,' said Mr. Quinion.
'At about eight,' said Mr. Micawber. 'I beg to wish you good day, Mr.
Quinion. I will intrude no longer.'
So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm: very
upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house.
Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in
the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six
shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am
inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six
at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down (from his own
pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my
trunk carried to Windsor Terrace that night: it being too heavy for my
strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more for my dinner, which was
a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring pump; and passed the hour which
was allowed for that meal, in walking about the streets.
At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I washed
my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility, and we
walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together; Mr.
Micawber impressing the name of streets, and the shapes of corner houses
upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the
morning.
Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was shabby
like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he
presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady, not at all
young, who was sitting in the parlour (the first floor was altogether
unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude the neighbours),
with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of twins; and I may remark
here that I hardly ever, in all my experience of the family, saw both
the twins detached from Mrs. Micawber at the same time. One of them was
always taking refreshment.
There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four, and
Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a dark-complexioned young
woman, with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family, and
informed me, before half an hour had expired, that she was 'a Orfling',
and came from St. Luke's workhouse, in the neighbourhood, completed the
establishment. My room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close
chamber; stencilled all over with an ornament which my young imagination
represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished.
'I never thought,' said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and all,
to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, 'before I was
married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever find it
necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in difficulties, all
considerations of private feeling must give way.'
I said: 'Yes, ma'am.'
'Mr. Micawber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just at present,'
said Mrs. Micawber; 'and whether it is possible to bring him through
them, I don't know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, I really
should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which
I now employ it, but experientia does it,--as papa used to say.'
I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had been
an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I only know
that I believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines once upon a time,
without knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller for a number
of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little or nothing of it, I am
afraid.
'If Mr. Micawber's creditors will not give him time,' said Mrs.
Micawber, 'they must take the consequences; and the sooner they bring it
to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither
can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law
expenses) from Mr. Micawber.'
I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence
confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so
full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very
twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was
the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time
I knew her.
Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself, and so,
I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street door was perfectly
covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved 'Mrs. Micawber's
Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies': but I never found that any
young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever
came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made
to receive any young lady. The only visitors I ever saw, or heard of,
were creditors. THEY used to come at all hours, and some of them were
quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a boot-maker,
used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o'clock in the
morning, and call up the stairs to Mr. Micawber--'Come! You ain't out
yet, you know. Pay us, will you? Don't hide, you know; that's mean. I
wouldn't be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, d'ye
hear? Come!' Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in
his wrath to the words 'swindlers' and 'robbers'; and these being
ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the
street, and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he knew
Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. Micawber would be transported with
grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once made aware by
a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor;
but within half-an-hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with
extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of
gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known
her to be thrown into fainting fits by the king's taxes at three
o'clock, and to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for
with two tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker's) at four. On one
occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home through
some chance as early as six o'clock, I saw her lying (of course with a
twin) under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face;
but I never knew her more cheerful than she was, that very same night,
over a veal cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her
papa and mama, and the company they used to keep.
In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time. My own
exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I provided
myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese, on a
particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my supper on when I
came back at night. This made a hole in the six or seven shillings, I
know well; and I was out at the warehouse all day, and had to support
myself on that money all the week. From Monday morning until Saturday
night, I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation,
no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to
mind, as I hope to go to heaven!
I was so young and childish, and so little qualified--how could I be
otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that
often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby's, of a morning, I could
not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at the
pastrycooks' doors, and spent in that the money I should have kept for
my dinner. Then, I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or a slice
of pudding. I remember two pudding shops, between which I was divided,
according to my finances. One was in a court close to St. Martin's
Church--at the back of the church,--which is now removed altogether.
The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special
pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth
of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the
Strand--somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a
stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it,
stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time
every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and
handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a fourpenny plate of
red beef from a cook's shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and a
glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of
business, called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have
forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which I had brought
from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper,
like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane,
and ordering a 'small plate' of that delicacy to eat with it. What the
waiter thought of such a strange little apparition coming in all alone,
I don't know; but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner,
and bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for
himself, and I wish he hadn't taken it.
We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I used
to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter.
When I had none, I used to look at a venison shop in Fleet Street; or
I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent Garden Market, and
stared at the pineapples. I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi,
because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself
emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house
close to the river, with an open space before it, where some
coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom I sat down upon a bench. I
wonder what they thought of me!
I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the
bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten
what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember
one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the
landlord: 'What is your best--your very best--ale a glass?' For it was a
special occasion. I don't know what. It may have been my birthday.
'Twopence-halfpenny,' says the landlord, 'is the price of the Genuine
Stunning ale.'
'Then,' says I, producing the money, 'just draw me a glass of the
Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.'
The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot,
with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer,
looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She came out
from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying
me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord in his
shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife looking
over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them
from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions; as,
what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed,
and how I came there. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I
invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers. They served me with the ale,
though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord's
wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave
me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half
compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.
I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the
scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know that
if a shilling were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I spent it in
a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked, from morning until night, with
common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the
streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for
the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken
of me, a little robber or a little vagabond.
Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby's too. Besides that Mr.
Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so
anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from the
rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it was that I came to be there,
or gave the least indication of being sorry that I was there. That I
suffered in secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew
but I. How much I suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly
beyond my power to tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work.
I knew from the first, that, if I could not do my work as well as any
of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon
became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the other
boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manner were
different enough from theirs to place a space between us. They and
the men generally spoke of me as 'the little gent', or 'the young
Suffolker.' A certain man named Gregory, who was foreman of the packers,
and another named Tipp, who was the carman, and wore a red jacket, used
to address me sometimes as 'David': but I think it was mostly when we
were very confidential, and when I had made some efforts to entertain
them, over our work, with some results of the old readings; which were
fast perishing out of my remembrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and
rebelled against my being so distinguished; but Mick Walker settled him
in no time.
My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless, and
abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that I never for
one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy;
but I bore it; and even to Peggotty, partly for the love of her and
partly for shame, never in any letter (though many passed between us)
revealed the truth.
Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed state of
my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to the family, and
used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's calculations of ways and
means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber's debts. On a Saturday
night, which was my grand treat,--partly because it was a great thing
to walk home with six or seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the
shops and thinking what such a sum would buy, and partly because I went
home early,--Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences
to me; also on a Sunday morning, when I mixed the portion of tea or
coffee I had bought over-night, in a little shaving-pot, and sat late
at my breakfast. It was nothing at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to sob
violently at the beginning of one of these Saturday night conversations,
and sing about Jack's delight being his lovely Nan, towards the end of
it. I have known him come home to supper with a flood of tears, and a
declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to bed making a
calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house, 'in
case anything turned up', which was his favourite expression. And Mrs.
Micawber was just the same.
A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our
respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people,
notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never
allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat and
drink with them out of their stock (knowing that they got on badly with
the butcher and baker, and had often not too much for themselves),
until Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire confidence. This she did one
evening as follows:
'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I make no stranger of you,
and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber's difficulties
are coming to a crisis.'
It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. Micawber's
red eyes with the utmost sympathy.
'With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese--which is not adapted
to the wants of a young family'--said Mrs. Micawber, 'there is really
not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was accustomed to speak of
the larder when I lived with papa and mama, and I use the word almost
unconsciously. What I mean to express is, that there is nothing to eat
in the house.'
'Dear me!' I said, in great concern.
I had two or three shillings of my week's money in my pocket--from which
I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we held this
conversation--and I hastily produced them, and with heartfelt emotion
begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan. But that lady, kissing
me, and making me put them back in my pocket, replied that she couldn't
think of it.
'No, my dear Master Copperfield,' said she, 'far be it from my thoughts!
But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render me another
kind of service, if you will; and a service I will thankfully accept
of.'
I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it.
'I have parted with the plate myself,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'Six tea, two
salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times borrowed money on,
in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great tie; and to me,
with my recollections, of papa and mama, these transactions are very
painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part with. Mr.
Micawber's feelings would never allow him to dispose of them; and
Clickett'--this was the girl from the workhouse--'being of a vulgar
mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence was reposed in
her. Master Copperfield, if I might ask you--'
I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to any
extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles of property
that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition almost every
morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby's.
Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he called the
library; and those went first. I carried them, one after another, to
a bookstall in the City Road--one part of which, near our house, was
almost all bookstalls and bird shops then--and sold them for whatever
they would bring. The keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little
house behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be violently
scolded by his wife every morning. More than once, when I went there
early, I had audience of him in a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his
forehead or a black eye, bearing witness to his excesses over-night (I
am afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink), and he, with a shaking
hand, endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the
pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife, with a
baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off rating him.
Sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask me to call again;
but his wife had always got some--had taken his, I dare say, while he
was drunk--and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went
down together. At the pawnbroker's shop, too, I began to be very well
known. The principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took
a good deal of notice of me; and often got me, I recollect, to decline a
Latin noun or adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb, in his ear, while
he transacted my business. After all these occasions Mrs. Micawber made
a little treat, which was generally a supper; and there was a peculiar
relish in these meals which I well remember.
At last Mr. Micawber's difficulties came to a crisis, and he was
arrested early one morning, and carried over to the King's Bench Prison
in the Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house, that the God
of day had now gone down upon him--and I really thought his heart was
broken and mine too. But I heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a
lively game at skittles, before noon.
On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and see him,
and have dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a place, and just
short of that place I should see such another place, and just short of
that I should see a yard, which I was to cross, and keep straight on
until I saw a turnkey. All this I did; and when at last I did see a
turnkey (poor little fellow that I was!), and thought how, when Roderick
Random was in a debtors' prison, there was a man there with nothing
on him but an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my
beating heart.
Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his
room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly conjured me,
I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man
had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds
nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he
spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After which he borrowed a
shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for
the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up.
We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted
grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until
another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came in from the
bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our joint-stock repast.
Then I was sent up to 'Captain Hopkins' in the room overhead, with Mr.
Micawber's compliments, and I was his young friend, and would Captain
Hopkins lend me a knife and fork.
Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to Mr.
Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two wan
girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought it was better
to borrow Captain Hopkins's knife and fork, than Captain Hopkins's comb.
The Captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with large
whiskers, and an old, old brown great-coat with no other coat below it.
I saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots
he had, on a shelf; and I divined (God knows how) that though the two
girls with the shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins's children, the
dirty lady was not married to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his
threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; but
I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as the knife
and fork were in my hand.
There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after all.
I took back Captain Hopkins's knife and fork early in the afternoon,
and went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account of my visit.
She fainted when she saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot
afterwards to console us while we talked it over.
I don't know how the household furniture came to be sold for the family
benefit, or who sold it, except that I did not. Sold it was, however,
and carried away in a van; except the bed, a few chairs, and the kitchen
table. With these possessions we encamped, as it were, in the two
parlours of the emptied house in Windsor Terrace; Mrs. Micawber, the
children, the Orfling, and myself; and lived in those rooms night and
day. I have no idea for how long, though it seems to me for a long
time. At last Mrs. Micawber resolved to move into the prison, where Mr.
Micawber had now secured a room to himself. So I took the key of the
house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the beds were
sent over to the King's Bench, except mine, for which a little room was
hired outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that Institution, very
much to my satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too used
to one another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was likewise
accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same neighbourhood.
Mine was a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant
prospect of a timberyard; and when I took possession of it, with the
reflection that Mr. Micawber's troubles had come to a crisis at last, I
thought it quite a paradise.
All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's in the same common
way, and with the same common companions, and with the same sense of
unmerited degradation as at first. But I never, happily for me no doubt,
made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the many boys whom I
saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming from it, and in prowling
about the streets at meal-times. I led the same secretly unhappy life;
but I led it in the same lonely, self-reliant manner. The only changes
I am conscious of are, firstly, that I had grown more shabby, and
secondly, that I was now relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber's cares; for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them
at their present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison
than they had lived for a long while out of it. I used to breakfast with
them now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have forgotten
the details. I forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the
morning, admitting of my going in; but I know that I was often up at six
o'clock, and that my favourite lounging-place in the interval was old
London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses,
watching the people going by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun
shining in the water, and lighting up the golden flame on the top of the
Monument. The Orfling met me here sometimes, to be told some astonishing
fictions respecting the wharves and the Tower; of which I can say no
more than that I hope I believed them myself. In the evening I used
to go back to the prison, and walk up and down the parade with Mr.
Micawber; or play casino with Mrs. Micawber, and hear reminiscences of
her papa and mama. Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I am unable
to say. I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby's.
Mr. Micawber's affairs, although past their crisis, were very much
involved by reason of a certain 'Deed', of which I used to hear a great
deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former composition
with his creditors, though I was so far from being clear about it
then, that I am conscious of having confounded it with those demoniacal
parchments which are held to have, once upon a time, obtained to a great
extent in Germany. At last this document appeared to be got out of the
way, somehow; at all events it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been;
and Mrs. Micawber informed me that 'her family' had decided that Mr.
Micawber should apply for his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act,
which would set him free, she expected, in about six weeks.
'And then,' said Mr. Micawber, who was present, 'I have no doubt I
shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to live
in a perfectly new manner, if--in short, if anything turns up.'
By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I call to
mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the
House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment
for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to
myself of the manner in which I fitted my old books to my altered life,
and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and out of men and
women; and how some main points in the character I shall unconsciously
develop, I suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all this
while.
There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a gentleman,
was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea of this petition
to the club, and the club had strongly approved of the same. Wherefore
Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a
creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never
so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be of any
profit to him) set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it
on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a
time for all the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come
up to his room and sign it.
When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see them
all come in, one after another, though I knew the greater part of
them already, and they me, that I got an hour's leave of absence from
Murdstone and Grinby's, and established myself in a corner for that
purpose. As many of the principal members of the club as could be got
into the small room without filling it, supported Mr. Micawber in front
of the petition, while my old friend Captain Hopkins (who had washed
himself, to do honour to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close
to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. The
door was then thrown open, and the general population began to come in,
in a long file: several waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his
signature, and went out. To everybody in succession, Captain Hopkins
said: 'Have you read it?'--'No.'---'Would you like to hear it read?' If
he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain Hopkins, in
a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain would
have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have
heard him, one by one. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to
such phrases as 'The people's representatives in Parliament assembled,'
'Your petitioners therefore humbly approach your honourable house,' 'His
gracious Majesty's unfortunate subjects,' as if the words were something
real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; Mr. Micawber, meanwhile,
listening with a little of an author's vanity, and contemplating (not
severely) the spikes on the opposite wall.
As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars, and
lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which
may, for anything I know, be worn at this moment by my childish feet, I
wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used to
come filing before me in review again, to the echo of Captain Hopkins's
voice! When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, I
wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a
mist of fancy over well-remembered facts! When I tread the old ground,
I do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an
innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange
experiences and sordid things! | I begin Life on my own Account, and don't like it I wonder what they thought of me. David's companions at Mr. Murdstone's business dismay David. They are coarse, uneducated boys whose fathers work in blue-collar professions. David meets Mr. Micawber, a poor but genteel man who speaks in tremendous phrases and makes a great show of nobility despite his shabby appearance. Through an agreement with Mr. Murdstone, David goes to live with Mr. Micawber, his wife, and four children. The Micawbers befriend David and openly tell him of their financial troubles, each time becoming overwhelmingly upset and then recovering fully over good food and wine. David gets very little pay at his factory job and lives primarily on bread. In retrospect, David wonders what the waiters and shopkeepers must have thought of him, so independent at so young an age. At the factory, David is known as "the little gent" and gets along fine because he never complains. Eventually, Mr. Micawber's debts overwhelm him. He is thrown into debtors' prison, where he becomes a political figure among the inmates, lobbying to eliminate that establishment |
Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass
What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the
operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid,
becomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf? As Alexis,
after a few passes from Dr. Elliotson, despises pain, reads with the
back of his head, sees miles off, looks into next week, and performs
other wonders, of which, in his own private normal condition, he is
quite incapable; so you see, in the affairs of the world and under the
magnetism of friendships, the modest man becomes bold, the shy
confident, the lazy active, or the impetuous prudent and peaceful.
What is it, on the other hand, that makes the lawyer eschew his own
cause, and call in his learned brother as an adviser? And what causes
the doctor, when ailing, to send for his rival, and not sit down and
examine his own tongue in the chimney glass, or write his own
prescription at his study-table? I throw out these queries for
intelligent readers to answer, who know, at once, how credulous we are,
and how sceptical, how soft and how obstinate, how firm for others and
how diffident about ourselves: meanwhile, it is certain that our
friend William Dobbin, who was personally of so complying a disposition
that if his parents had pressed him much, it is probable he would have
stepped down into the kitchen and married the cook, and who, to further
his own interests, would have found the most insuperable difficulty in
walking across the street, found himself as busy and eager in the
conduct of George Osborne's affairs, as the most selfish tactician
could be in the pursuit of his own.
Whilst our friend George and his young wife were enjoying the first
blushing days of the honeymoon at Brighton, honest William was left as
George's plenipotentiary in London, to transact all the business part
of the marriage. His duty it was to call upon old Sedley and his wife,
and to keep the former in good humour: to draw Jos and his
brother-in-law nearer together, so that Jos's position and dignity, as
collector of Boggley Wollah, might compensate for his father's loss of
station, and tend to reconcile old Osborne to the alliance: and
finally, to communicate it to the latter in such a way as should least
irritate the old gentleman.
Now, before he faced the head of the Osborne house with the news which
it was his duty to tell, Dobbin bethought him that it would be politic
to make friends of the rest of the family, and, if possible, have the
ladies on his side. They can't be angry in their hearts, thought he.
No woman ever was really angry at a romantic marriage. A little crying
out, and they must come round to their brother; when the three of us
will lay siege to old Mr. Osborne. So this Machiavellian captain of
infantry cast about him for some happy means or stratagem by which he
could gently and gradually bring the Misses Osborne to a knowledge of
their brother's secret.
By a little inquiry regarding his mother's engagements, he was pretty
soon able to find out by whom of her ladyship's friends parties were
given at that season; where he would be likely to meet Osborne's
sisters; and, though he had that abhorrence of routs and evening
parties which many sensible men, alas! entertain, he soon found one
where the Misses Osborne were to be present. Making his appearance at
the ball, where he danced a couple of sets with both of them, and was
prodigiously polite, he actually had the courage to ask Miss Osborne
for a few minutes' conversation at an early hour the next day, when he
had, he said, to communicate to her news of the very greatest interest.
What was it that made her start back, and gaze upon him for a moment,
and then on the ground at her feet, and make as if she would faint on
his arm, had he not by opportunely treading on her toes, brought the
young lady back to self-control? Why was she so violently agitated at
Dobbin's request? This can never be known. But when he came the next
day, Maria was not in the drawing-room with her sister, and Miss Wirt
went off for the purpose of fetching the latter, and the Captain and
Miss Osborne were left together. They were both so silent that the
ticktock of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia clock on the mantelpiece became
quite rudely audible.
"What a nice party it was last night," Miss Osborne at length began,
encouragingly; "and--and how you're improved in your dancing, Captain
Dobbin. Surely somebody has taught you," she added, with amiable
archness.
"You should see me dance a reel with Mrs. Major O'Dowd of ours; and a
jig--did you ever see a jig? But I think anybody could dance with you,
Miss Osborne, who dance so well."
"Is the Major's lady young and beautiful, Captain?" the fair questioner
continued. "Ah, what a terrible thing it must be to be a soldier's
wife! I wonder they have any spirits to dance, and in these dreadful
times of war, too! O Captain Dobbin, I tremble sometimes when I think
of our dearest George, and the dangers of the poor soldier. Are there
many married officers of the --th, Captain Dobbin?"
"Upon my word, she's playing her hand rather too openly," Miss Wirt
thought; but this observation is merely parenthetic, and was not heard
through the crevice of the door at which the governess uttered it.
"One of our young men is just married," Dobbin said, now coming to the
point. "It was a very old attachment, and the young couple are as poor
as church mice." "O, how delightful! O, how romantic!" Miss Osborne
cried, as the Captain said "old attachment" and "poor." Her sympathy
encouraged him.
"The finest young fellow in the regiment," he continued. "Not a braver
or handsomer officer in the army; and such a charming wife! How you
would like her! how you will like her when you know her, Miss
Osborne." The young lady thought the actual moment had arrived, and
that Dobbin's nervousness which now came on and was visible in many
twitchings of his face, in his manner of beating the ground with his
great feet, in the rapid buttoning and unbuttoning of his frock-coat,
&c.--Miss Osborne, I say, thought that when he had given himself a
little air, he would unbosom himself entirely, and prepared eagerly to
listen. And the clock, in the altar on which Iphigenia was situated,
beginning, after a preparatory convulsion, to toll twelve, the mere
tolling seemed as if it would last until one--so prolonged was the
knell to the anxious spinster.
"But it's not about marriage that I came to speak--that is that
marriage--that is--no, I mean--my dear Miss Osborne, it's about our
dear friend George," Dobbin said.
"About George?" she said in a tone so discomfited that Maria and Miss
Wirt laughed at the other side of the door, and even that abandoned
wretch of a Dobbin felt inclined to smile himself; for he was not
altogether unconscious of the state of affairs: George having often
bantered him gracefully and said, "Hang it, Will, why don't you take
old Jane? She'll have you if you ask her. I'll bet you five to two she
will."
"Yes, about George, then," he continued. "There has been a difference
between him and Mr. Osborne. And I regard him so much--for you know
we have been like brothers--that I hope and pray the quarrel may be
settled. We must go abroad, Miss Osborne. We may be ordered off at a
day's warning. Who knows what may happen in the campaign? Don't be
agitated, dear Miss Osborne; and those two at least should part
friends."
"There has been no quarrel, Captain Dobbin, except a little usual scene
with Papa," the lady said. "We are expecting George back daily. What
Papa wanted was only for his good. He has but to come back, and I'm
sure all will be well; and dear Rhoda, who went away from here in sad
sad anger, I know will forgive him. Woman forgives but too readily,
Captain."
"Such an angel as YOU I am sure would," Mr. Dobbin said, with atrocious
astuteness. "And no man can pardon himself for giving a woman pain.
What would you feel, if a man were faithless to you?"
"I should perish--I should throw myself out of window--I should take
poison--I should pine and die. I know I should," Miss cried, who had
nevertheless gone through one or two affairs of the heart without any
idea of suicide.
"And there are others," Dobbin continued, "as true and as kind-hearted
as yourself. I'm not speaking about the West Indian heiress, Miss
Osborne, but about a poor girl whom George once loved, and who was bred
from her childhood to think of nobody but him. I've seen her in her
poverty uncomplaining, broken-hearted, without a fault. It is of Miss
Sedley I speak. Dear Miss Osborne, can your generous heart quarrel
with your brother for being faithful to her? Could his own conscience
ever forgive him if he deserted her? Be her friend--she always loved
you--and--and I am come here charged by George to tell you that he
holds his engagement to her as the most sacred duty he has; and to
entreat you, at least, to be on his side."
When any strong emotion took possession of Mr. Dobbin, and after the
first word or two of hesitation, he could speak with perfect fluency,
and it was evident that his eloquence on this occasion made some
impression upon the lady whom he addressed.
"Well," said she, "this is--most surprising--most painful--most
extraordinary--what will Papa say?--that George should fling away such
a superb establishment as was offered to him but at any rate he has
found a very brave champion in you, Captain Dobbin. It is of no use,
however," she continued, after a pause; "I feel for poor Miss Sedley,
most certainly--most sincerely, you know. We never thought the match a
good one, though we were always very kind to her here--very. But Papa
will never consent, I am sure. And a well brought up young woman, you
know--with a well-regulated mind, must--George must give her up, dear
Captain Dobbin, indeed he must."
"Ought a man to give up the woman he loved, just when misfortune befell
her?" Dobbin said, holding out his hand. "Dear Miss Osborne, is this
the counsel I hear from you? My dear young lady! you must befriend
her. He can't give her up. He must not give her up. Would a man,
think you, give YOU up if you were poor?"
This adroit question touched the heart of Miss Jane Osborne not a
little. "I don't know whether we poor girls ought to believe what you
men say, Captain," she said. "There is that in woman's tenderness which
induces her to believe too easily. I'm afraid you are cruel, cruel
deceivers,"--and Dobbin certainly thought he felt a pressure of the
hand which Miss Osborne had extended to him.
He dropped it in some alarm. "Deceivers!" said he. "No, dear Miss
Osborne, all men are not; your brother is not; George has loved Amelia
Sedley ever since they were children; no wealth would make him marry
any but her. Ought he to forsake her? Would you counsel him to do so?"
What could Miss Jane say to such a question, and with her own peculiar
views? She could not answer it, so she parried it by saying, "Well, if
you are not a deceiver, at least you are very romantic"; and Captain
William let this observation pass without challenge.
At length when, by the help of farther polite speeches, he deemed that
Miss Osborne was sufficiently prepared to receive the whole news, he
poured it into her ear. "George could not give up Amelia--George was
married to her"--and then he related the circumstances of the marriage
as we know them already: how the poor girl would have died had not her
lover kept his faith: how Old Sedley had refused all consent to the
match, and a licence had been got: and Jos Sedley had come from
Cheltenham to give away the bride: how they had gone to Brighton in
Jos's chariot-and-four to pass the honeymoon: and how George counted on
his dear kind sisters to befriend him with their father, as women--so
true and tender as they were--assuredly would do. And so, asking
permission (readily granted) to see her again, and rightly conjecturing
that the news he had brought would be told in the next five minutes to
the other ladies, Captain Dobbin made his bow and took his leave.
He was scarcely out of the house, when Miss Maria and Miss Wirt rushed
in to Miss Osborne, and the whole wonderful secret was imparted to them
by that lady. To do them justice, neither of the sisters was very much
displeased. There is something about a runaway match with which few
ladies can be seriously angry, and Amelia rather rose in their
estimation, from the spirit which she had displayed in consenting to
the union. As they debated the story, and prattled about it, and
wondered what Papa would do and say, came a loud knock, as of an
avenging thunder-clap, at the door, which made these conspirators
start. It must be Papa, they thought. But it was not he. It was only
Mr. Frederick Bullock, who had come from the City according to
appointment, to conduct the ladies to a flower-show.
This gentleman, as may be imagined, was not kept long in ignorance of
the secret. But his face, when he heard it, showed an amazement which
was very different to that look of sentimental wonder which the
countenances of the sisters wore. Mr. Bullock was a man of the world,
and a junior partner of a wealthy firm. He knew what money was, and
the value of it: and a delightful throb of expectation lighted up his
little eyes, and caused him to smile on his Maria, as he thought that
by this piece of folly of Mr. George's she might be worth thirty
thousand pounds more than he had ever hoped to get with her.
"Gad! Jane," said he, surveying even the elder sister with some
interest, "Eels will be sorry he cried off. You may be a fifty
thousand pounder yet."
The sisters had never thought of the money question up to that moment,
but Fred Bullock bantered them with graceful gaiety about it during
their forenoon's excursion; and they had risen not a little in their
own esteem by the time when, the morning amusement over, they drove
back to dinner. And do not let my respected reader exclaim against
this selfishness as unnatural. It was but this present morning, as he
rode on the omnibus from Richmond; while it changed horses, this
present chronicler, being on the roof, marked three little children
playing in a puddle below, very dirty, and friendly, and happy. To
these three presently came another little one. "POLLY," says she, "YOUR
SISTER'S GOT A PENNY." At which the children got up from the puddle
instantly, and ran off to pay their court to Peggy. And as the omnibus
drove off I saw Peggy with the infantine procession at her tail,
marching with great dignity towards the stall of a neighbouring
lollipop-woman. | Like many people, Dobbin is shy on his own behalf, but when he is trying to be altruistic, he has all the energy in the world. While Amelia and George are on their honeymoon, Dobbin is in London trying to figure out the business side of their marriage. He has dealt with the Sedleys, and now the time has come to tell the Osbornes what George has done. Dobbin decides it's better to first tell George's sisters about it, since girls are always romantic and won't be as angry as his father is going to be. He hangs out with Jane Osborne, the older sister, at a party, and then asks to speak with her about something serious the next day. She kind of flips out a little because she is way into him and thinks he's about to propose. The next day there is a pretty comical scene of misunderstanding. Dobbin is beating around the bush trying to get to his point, and she is beating around the bush trying to encourage him to ask her to marry him. Finally he starts playing on her feelings about how romance and love are awesome, and also how men need to be honorable to the women who love them. When he puts it like this, she obviously can't disagree. So he tells her about George and Amelia's wedding, then he leaves. Jane Osborne is bummed about the lack of a proposal but is OK with the other news. She tells Maria and Fred Bullock about it. Fred points out that George is an idiot who will most likely be disinherited. If that happens, then Maria and Jane will each get a lot more money when Mr. Osborne dies. |
Well, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was
off for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would
do for Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to Uncle Harvey,
which was a little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her
sisters and sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby, with a
pallet in it. The king said the cubby would do for his valley--meaning
me.
So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was
plain but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other
traps took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he
said they warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them
was a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor. There
was an old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and
all sorts of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls
brisken up a room with. The king said it was all the more homely and
more pleasanter for these fixings, and so don't disturb them. The
duke's room was pretty small, but plenty good enough, and so was my
cubby.
That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was
there, and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on
them, and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the
head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the
biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough
the fried chickens was--and all that kind of rot, the way women always
do for to force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything
was tiptop, and said so--said "How _do_ you get biscuits to brown so
nice?" and "Where, for the land's sake, _did_ you get these amaz'n
pickles?" and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people
always does at a supper, you know.
And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen
off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean
up the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and
blest if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She
says:
"Did you ever see the king?"
"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have--he goes to our church." I
knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he
goes to our church, she says:
"What--regular?"
"Yes--regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn--on t'other side the
pulpit."
"I thought he lived in London?"
"Well, he does. Where _would_ he live?"
"But I thought _you_ lived in Sheffield?"
I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a
chicken-bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I
says:
"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's
only in the summer-time, when he comes there to take the sea baths."
"Why, how you talk--Sheffield ain't on the sea."
"Well, who said it was?"
"Why, you did."
"I _didn't_, nuther."
"You did!"
"I didn't."
"You did."
"I never said nothing of the kind."
"Well, what _did_ you say, then?"
"Said he come to take the sea _baths_--that's what I said."
"Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the
sea?"
"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?"
"Yes."
"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?"
"Why, no."
"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea
bath."
"How does he get it, then?"
"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water--in barrels.
There in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants
his water hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there at
the sea. They haven't got no conveniences for it."
"Oh, I see, now. You might 'a' said that in the first place and saved
time."
When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was
comfortable and glad. Next, she says:
"Do you go to church, too?"
"Yes--regular."
"Where do you set?"
"Why, in our pew."
"_Whose_ pew?"
"Why, _ourn_--your Uncle Harvey's."
"His'n? What does _he_ want with a pew?"
"Wants it to set in. What did you _reckon_ he wanted with it?"
"Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit."
Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so
I played another chicken-bone and got another think. Then I says:
"Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?"
"Why, what do they want with more?"
"What!--to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you.
They don't have no less than seventeen."
"Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that,
not if I _never_ got to glory. It must take 'em a week."
"Shucks, they don't _all_ of 'em preach the same day--only _one_ of
'em."
"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?"
"Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate--and one thing or
another. But mainly they don't do nothing."
"Well, then, what are they _for_?"
"Why, they're for _style_. Don't you know nothing?"
"Well, I don't _want_ to know no such foolishness as that. How is
servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our
niggers?"
"_No!_ A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs."
"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's
week, and Fourth of July?"
"Oh, just listen! A body could tell _you_ hain't ever been to England
by that. Why, Hare-l--why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from
year's end to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor
nigger shows, nor nowheres."
"Nor church?"
"Nor church."
"But _you_ always went to church."
Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But
next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was
different from a common servant, and _had_ to go to church whether he
wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the
law. But I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she
warn't satisfied. She says:
"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?"
"Honest injun," says I.
"None of it at all?"
"None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I.
"Lay your hand on this book and say it."
I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and
said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:
"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll
believe the rest."
"What is it you won't believe, Jo?" says Mary Jane, stepping in with
Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him,
and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to
be treated so?"
"That's always your way, Maim--always sailing in to help somebody
before they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some
stretchers, I reckon, and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's
every bit and grain I _did_ say. I reckon he can stand a little thing
like that, can't he?"
"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big; he's here in
our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If you
was in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't
to say a thing to another person that will make _them_ feel ashamed."
"Why, Maim, he said--"
"It don't make no difference what he _said_--that ain't the thing. The
thing is for you to treat him _kind,_ and not be saying things to make
him remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks."
I says to myself, _this_ is a girl that I'm letting that old reptile
rob her of her money!
Then Susan _she_ waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give
Hare-lip hark from the tomb!
Says I to myself, and this is _another_ one that I'm letting him rob
her of her money!
Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely
again--which was her way; but when she got done there warn't hardly
anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered.
"All right, then," says the other girls; "you just ask his pardon."
She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful
it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so
she could do it again.
I says to myself, this is _another_ one that I'm letting him rob her
of her money. And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves
out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so
ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind's made up;
I'll hive that money for them or bust.
So then I lit out--for bed, I said, meaning some time or another. When
I got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I says to myself,
shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds? No--that
won't do. He might tell who told him; then the king and the duke would
make it warm for me. Shall I go, private, and tell Mary Jane? No--I
dasn't do it. Her face would give them a hint, sure; they've got the
money, and they'd slide right out and get away with it. If she was to
fetch in help I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done
with, I judge. No; there ain't no good way but one. I got to steal
that money, somehow; and I got to steal it some way that they won't
suspicion that I done it. They've got a good thing here, and they
ain't a-going to leave till they've played this family and this town
for all they're worth, so I'll find a chance time enough. I'll steal
it and hide it; and by and by, when I'm away down the river, I'll
write a letter and tell Mary Jane where it's hid. But I better hive it
to-night if I can, because the doctor maybe hasn't let up as much as
he lets on he has; he might scare them out of here yet.
So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Upstairs the hall was
dark, but I found the duke's room, and started to paw around it with
my hands; but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king to let
anybody else take care of that money but his own self; so then I went
to his room and begun to paw around there. But I see I couldn't do
nothing without a candle, and I dasn't light one, of course. So I
judged I'd got to do the other thing--lay for them and eavesdrop.
About that time I hears their footsteps coming, and was going to skip
under the bed; I reached for it, but it wasn't where I thought it
would be; but I touched the curtain that hid Mary Jane's frocks, so I
jumped in behind that and snuggled in amongst the gowns, and stood
there perfectly still. They come in and shut the door; and the first
thing the duke done was to get down and look under the bed. Then I was
glad I hadn't found the bed when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it's
kind of natural to hide under the bed when you are up to anything
private. They sets down then, and the king says:
"Well, what is it? And cut it middlin' short, because it's better for
us to be down there a-whoopin' up the mournin' than up here givin' 'em
a chance to talk us over."
"Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy; I ain't comfortable. That
doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I've got a
notion, and I think it's a sound one."
"What is it, duke?"
"That we better glide out of this before three in the morning, and
clip it down the river with what we've got. Specially, seeing we got
it so easy--_given_ back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say,
when of course we allowed to have to steal it back. I'm for knocking
off and lighting out."
That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it would 'a'
been a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed.
The king rips out and says:
"What! And not sell out the rest o' the property? March off like a
passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' worth o'
property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped in?--and all good,
salable stuff, too."
The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn't
want to go no deeper--didn't want to rob a lot of orphans of
_everything_ they had.
"Why, how you talk!" says the king. "We sha'n't rob 'em of nothing at
all but jest this money. The people that _buys_ the property is the
suff'rers; because as soon 's it's found out 'at we didn't own
it--which won't be long after we've slid--the sale won't be valid, and
it 'll all go back to the estate. These yer orphans 'll git their
house back ag'in, and that's enough for _them;_ they're young and
spry, and k'n easy earn a livin'. _They_ ain't a-goin' to suffer. Why,
jest think--there's thous'n's and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well
off. Bless you, _they_ ain't got noth'n' to complain of."
Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said
all right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay, and
that doctor hanging over them. But the king says:
"Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for _him?_ Hain't we got all the
fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any
town?"
So they got ready to go down-stairs again. The duke says:
"I don't think we put that money in a good place."
That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a hint of
no kind to help me. The king says:
"Why?"
"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you
know the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these
duds up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across
money and not borrow some of it?"
"Your head's level ag'in, duke," says the king; and he comes
a-fumbling under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I
stuck tight to the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I
wondered what them fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I
tried to think what I'd better do if they did catch me. But the king
he got the bag before I could think more than about a half a thought,
and he never suspicioned I was around. They took and shoved the bag
through a rip in the straw tick that was under the feather-bed, and
crammed it in a foot or two amongst the straw and said it was all
right now, because a nigger only makes up the feather-bed, and don't
turn over the straw tick only about twice a year, and so it warn't in
no danger of getting stole now.
But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was half-way
down-stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I
could get a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it outside of
the house somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the
house a good ransacking: I knowed that very well. Then I turned in,
with my clothes all on; but I couldn't 'a' gone to sleep if I'd 'a'
wanted to, I was in such a sweat to get through with the business. By
and by I heard the king and the duke come up; so I rolled off my
pallet and laid with my chin at the top of my ladder, and waited to
see if anything was going to happen. But nothing did.
So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones
hadn't begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder. | The dauphin arranges to stay in the Wilks house. Huck has supper with Joanna, the youngest Wilks sister, whom he calls "the hare-lip" because of her cleft lip, a birth defect. Joanna tests Huck's knowledge of England, and he makes several slips, forgetting that he is supposedly from Sheffield and that the dauphin is supposed to be a Protestant minister. Finally, Joanna asks if he has made the entire thing up. Joanna's sisters, Mary Jane and Susan, interrupt and instruct Joanna to be courteous to their guest, and she graciously apologizes. Huck feels terrible about letting such sweet women be swindled and resolves to get them their money back. He goes to the con men's room to search for the money and hides when they enter. The duke wants to leave town that night, but the dauphin convinces him to stay until they have stolen all the family's property. After the men leave the room, Huck finds the $6,000 in gold, takes it to his sleeping cubby, and then sneaks out late at night |
SCENE IV.
Rome. Before the palace
Enter the EMPEROR, and the EMPRESS and her two sons, DEMETRIUS
and CHIRON;
LORDS and others. The EMPEROR brings the arrows in his hand that
TITUS
shot at him
SATURNINUS. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen
An emperor in Rome thus overborne,
Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent
Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt?
My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,
However these disturbers of our peace
Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd
But even with law against the wilful sons
Of old Andronicus. And what an if
His sorrows have so overwhelm'd his wits,
Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,
His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?
And now he writes to heaven for his redress.
See, here's 'To Jove' and this 'To Mercury';
This 'To Apollo'; this 'To the God of War'-
Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!
What's this but libelling against the Senate,
And blazoning our unjustice every where?
A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?
As who would say in Rome no justice were.
But if I live, his feigned ecstasies
Shall be no shelter to these outrages;
But he and his shall know that justice lives
In Saturninus' health; whom, if she sleep,
He'll so awake as he in fury shall
Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.
TAMORA. My gracious lord, my lovely Saturnine,
Lord of my life, commander of my thoughts,
Calm thee, and bear the faults of Titus' age,
Th' effects of sorrow for his valiant sons
Whose loss hath pierc'd him deep and scarr'd his heart;
And rather comfort his distressed plight
Than prosecute the meanest or the best
For these contempts. [Aside] Why, thus it shall become
High-witted Tamora to gloze with all.
But, Titus, I have touch'd thee to the quick,
Thy life-blood on't; if Aaron now be wise,
Then is all safe, the anchor in the port.
Enter CLOWN
How now, good fellow! Wouldst thou speak with us?
CLOWN. Yes, forsooth, an your mistriship be Emperial.
TAMORA. Empress I am, but yonder sits the Emperor.
CLOWN. 'Tis he.- God and Saint Stephen give you godden. I have
brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.
[SATURNINUS reads the letter]
SATURNINUS. Go take him away, and hang him presently.
CLOWN. How much money must I have?
TAMORA. Come, sirrah, you must be hang'd.
CLOWN. Hang'd! by'r lady, then I have brought up a neck to a
fair
end. [Exit guarded]
SATURNINUS. Despiteful and intolerable wrongs!
Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?
I know from whence this same device proceeds.
May this be borne- as if his traitorous sons
That died by law for murder of our brother
Have by my means been butchered wrongfully?
Go drag the villain hither by the hair;
Nor age nor honour shall shape privilege.
For this proud mock I'll be thy slaughterman,
Sly frantic wretch, that holp'st to make me great,
In hope thyself should govern Rome and me.
Enter NUNTIUS AEMILIUS
What news with thee, Aemilius?
AEMILIUS. Arm, my lords! Rome never had more cause.
The Goths have gathered head; and with a power
Of high resolved men, bent to the spoil,
They hither march amain, under conduct
Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;
Who threats in course of this revenge to do
As much as ever Coriolanus did.
SATURNINUS. Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?
These tidings nip me, and I hang the head
As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.
Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.
'Tis he the common people love so much;
Myself hath often heard them say-
When I have walked like a private man-
That Lucius' banishment was wrongfully,
And they have wish'd that Lucius were their emperor.
TAMORA. Why should you fear? Is not your city strong?
SATURNINUS. Ay, but the citizens favour Lucius,
And will revolt from me to succour him.
TAMORA. King, be thy thoughts imperious like thy name!
Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?
The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
He can at pleasure stint their melody;
Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.
Then cheer thy spirit; for know thou, Emperor,
I will enchant the old Andronicus
With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,
Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,
When as the one is wounded with the bait,
The other rotted with delicious feed.
SATURNINUS. But he will not entreat his son for us.
TAMORA. If Tamora entreat him, then he will;
For I can smooth and fill his aged ears
With golden promises, that, were his heart
Almost impregnable, his old ears deaf,
Yet should both ear and heart obey my tongue.
[To AEMILIUS] Go thou before to be our ambassador;
Say that the Emperor requests a parley
Of warlike Lucius, and appoint the meeting
Even at his father's house, the old Andronicus.
SATURNINUS. Aemilius, do this message honourably;
And if he stand on hostage for his safety,
Bid him demand what pledge will please him best.
AEMILIUS. Your bidding shall I do effectually. Exit
TAMORA. Now will I to that old Andronicus,
And temper him with all the art I have,
To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.
And now, sweet Emperor, be blithe again,
And bury all thy fear in my devices.
SATURNINUS. Then go successantly, and plead to him.
Exeunt | Titus arrows rain down on Saturninus and serve only to anger him. Tamora tries to placate him saying that Titus grief has affected his mind. When the clown hands Titus message to Saturninus the latter commands the clown to be hanged. In his message Titus states, that his sons have been wrongfully killed by Saturninus. Saturninus commands that Titus should be arrested and killed. He suspects Titus of imperial ambition, for the crown of Rome. Titus however is saved when Aemilius enters with the news that the Goths are getting ready to attack Rome under Lucius leadership. Saturninus fears that the citizens of Rome will support Lucius. Tamora decides to persuade Titus to convince Lucius to drop his plans for revolt. |
SCENE III.
Another room in the castle.
Enter Othello, Lodovico, Desdemona, Emilia, and Attendants.
LODOVICO. I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.
OTHELLO. O, pardon me; 'twill do me good to walk.
LODOVICO. Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.
DESDEMONA. Your honor is most welcome.
OTHELLO. Will you walk, sir?
O--Desdemona--
DESDEMONA. My lord?
OTHELLO. Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned
forthwith. Dismiss your attendant there; look it be done.
DESDEMONA. I will, my lord.
Exeunt Othello, Lodovico, and
Attendants.
EMILIA. How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.
DESDEMONA. He says he will return incontinent.
He hath commanded me to go to bed,
And bade me to dismiss you.
EMILIA. Dismiss me?
DESDEMONA. It was his bidding; therefore, good Emilia,
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu.
We must not now displease him.
EMILIA. I would you had never seen him!
DESDEMONA. So would not I. My love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns--
Prithee, unpin me--have grace and favor in them.
EMILIA. I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.
DESDEMONA. All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me
In one of those same sheets.
EMILIA. Come, come, you talk.
DESDEMONA. My mother had a maid call'd Barbary;
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her. She had a song of "willow";
An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,
And she died singing it. That song tonight
Will not go from my mind; I have much to do
But to go hang my head all at one side
And sing it like poor Barbary. Prithee, dispatch.
EMILIA. Shall I go fetch your nightgown?
DESDEMONA. No, unpin me here.
This Lodovico is a proper man.
EMILIA. A very handsome man.
DESDEMONA. He speaks well.
EMILIA. I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to
Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.
DESDEMONA. [Sings.]
"The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow;
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow.
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans,
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones--"
Lay by these--
[Sings.] "Sing willow, willow, willow--"
Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon--
[Sings.] "Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve--"
Nay, that's not next. Hark, who is't that knocks?
EMILIA. It's the wind.
DESDEMONA. [Sings.]
"I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow.
If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men--"
So get thee gone; good night. Mine eyes do itch;
Doth that bode weeping?
EMILIA. 'Tis neither here nor there.
DESDEMONA. I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think--tell me, Emilia--
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
EMILIA. There be some such, no question.
DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA. Why, would not you?
DESDEMONA. No, by this heavenly light!
EMILIA. Nor I neither by this heavenly light; I might do't as
well
i' the dark.
DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA. The world's a huge thing; it is a great price
For a small vice.
DESDEMONA. In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
EMILIA. In troth, I think I should, and undo't when I had done.
Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for
measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor
any
petty exhibition; but, for the whole world--why, who would
not
make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should
venture purgatory for't.
DESDEMONA. Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
For the whole world.
EMILIA. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and having
the
world for your labor, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you
might quickly make it right.
DESDEMONA. I do not think there is any such woman.
EMILIA. Yes, a dozen, and as many to the vantage as would store
the
world they played for.
But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall; say that they slack their duties
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us, or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite,
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is. And doth affection breed it?
I think it doth. Is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too. And have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well; else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
DESDEMONA. Good night, good night. Heaven me such uses send,
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!
Exeunt. | After dinner, Othello suggests a walk with Lodovico and orders Desdemona to get ready for bed. He promises to meet her there soon, and demands that she send Emilia away. The men exit, leaving the women to chat and get ready for bed. Emilia notes that Othello looked to be in better spirits, but she's shocked that he told Desdemona to get rid of her. Desdemona just shrugs it off--she can't risk upsetting Othello now. Emilia says she wishes Desdemona had never seen the man. But Desdemona responds that she loves Othello, so much that she would rather be with him, even when he's being totally strange, than live without him. Desdemona is in a strange mood that foreshadows her coming death. When Emilia says, "Hey, I put those sheets on the bed for you," Desdemona replies with, "If I die before you do, will you wrap my dead body in them?" Emilia's a little creeped out by the death talk, but Desdemona's got a one track mind tonight. She follows that comment up with a story of her mom's maid, Barbary. Apparently Barbary fell in love with a man who left her, and was fond of singing a song that reminded her of her sorrow. She died singing it. Desdemona abruptly changes the subject to Lodovico and what a nice guy he is. He did defend her against Othello, so perhaps she's thinking about what it would be like to have a husband who didn't seem to hate her. This line of thought is short lived, though, as Desdemona launches into the song her mom's maid died singing. The song is about a willow, which is bad news, as willows are symbolic of disappointed love. Desdemona stops singing when she thinks she hears a knock at the door, but Emilia tells her it's just the wind. She finishes singing the song, and then says her eyes itch. She asks Emilia if that means she's going to cry soon, but Emilia says it doesn't mean anything. She and Emilia then converse about whether women are ever as awful to their men as men are to their women. Emilia is certain this is the case, especially when it comes to cheating. Desdemona asks whether Emilia would ever cheat on Iago, and Emilia, much older and more cynical, tells her that plenty of women cheat. She says you could justify cheating in lots of different ways. Desdemona declares again that she can't believe there's a single woman in the world who would cheat on her husband. This leads Emilia into a bit of a rant. Emilia says there are plenty of women who cheat and argues that when women do cheat, it's their husbands's fault. They've either shirked their duties or spent too much time lavishing attention on others. Or maybe they've been hitting their wives. Women are full of grace, but they can be pushed too far. And besides, women have the same sexual needs as men. Since men change their women sportingly, women should have the same option. Desdemona's only response is to say she hopes she can use others' bad behavior as a guide of what not to do, instead of an excuse to behave badly. |
Strether couldn't have said he had during the previous hours definitely
expected it; yet when, later on, that morning--though no later indeed
than for his coming forth at ten o'clock--he saw the concierge produce,
on his approach, a petit bleu delivered since his letters had been sent
up, he recognised the appearance as the first symptom of a sequel. He
then knew he had been thinking of some early sign from Chad as more
likely, after all, than not; and this would be precisely the early
sign. He took it so for granted that he opened the petit bleu just
where he had stopped, in the pleasant cool draught of the
porte-cochere--only curious to see where the young man would, at such a
juncture, break out. His curiosity, however, was more than gratified;
the small missive, whose gummed edge he had detached without attention
to the address, not being from the young man at all, but from the
person whom the case gave him on the spot as still more worth while.
Worth while or not, he went round to the nearest telegraph-office, the
big one on the Boulevard, with a directness that almost confessed to a
fear of the danger of delay. He might have been thinking that if he
didn't go before he could think he wouldn't perhaps go at all. He at
any rate kept, in the lower side-pocket of his morning coat, a very
deliberate hand on his blue missive, crumpling it up rather tenderly
than harshly. He wrote a reply, on the Boulevard, also in the form of
a petit bleu--which was quickly done, under pressure of the place,
inasmuch as, like Madame de Vionnet's own communication, it consisted
of the fewest words. She had asked him if he could do her the very
great kindness of coming to see her that evening at half-past nine, and
he answered, as if nothing were easier, that he would present himself
at the hour she named. She had added a line of postscript, to the
effect that she would come to him elsewhere and at his own hour if he
preferred; but he took no notice of this, feeling that if he saw her at
all half the value of it would be in seeing her where he had already
seen her best. He mightn't see her at all; that was one of the
reflexions he made after writing and before he dropped his closed card
into the box; he mightn't see any one at all any more at all; he might
make an end as well now as ever, leaving things as they were, since he
was doubtless not to leave them better, and taking his way home so far
as should appear that a home remained to him. This alternative was for
a few minutes so sharp that if he at last did deposit his missive it
was perhaps because the pressure of the place had an effect.
There was none other, however, than the common and constant pressure,
familiar to our friend under the rubric of Postes et Telegraphes--the
something in the air of these establishments; the vibration of the vast
strange life of the town, the influence of the types, the performers
concocting their messages; the little prompt Paris women, arranging,
pretexting goodness knew what, driving the dreadful needle-pointed
public pen at the dreadful sand-strewn public table: implements that
symbolised for Strether's too interpretative innocence something more
acute in manners, more sinister in morals, more fierce in the national
life. After he had put in his paper he had ranged himself, he was
really amused to think, on the side of the fierce, the sinister, the
acute. He was carrying on a correspondence, across the great city,
quite in the key of the Postes et Telegraphes in general; and it was
fairly as if the acceptance of that fact had come from something in his
state that sorted with the occupation of his neighbours. He was mixed
up with the typical tale of Paris, and so were they, poor things--how
could they all together help being? They were no worse than he, in
short, and he no worse than they--if, queerly enough, no better; and at
all events he had settled his hash, so that he went out to begin, from
that moment, his day of waiting. The great settlement was, as he felt,
in his preference for seeing his correspondent in her own best
conditions. THAT was part of the typical tale, the part most
significant in respect to himself. He liked the place she lived in,
the picture that each time squared itself, large and high and clear,
around her: every occasion of seeing it was a pleasure of a different
shade. Yet what precisely was he doing with shades of pleasure now,
and why hadn't he properly and logically compelled her to commit
herself to whatever of disadvantage and penalty the situation might
throw up? He might have proposed, as for Sarah Pocock, the cold
hospitality of his own salon de lecture, in which the chill of Sarah's
visit seemed still to abide and shades of pleasure were dim; he might
have suggested a stone bench in the dusty Tuileries or a penny chair at
the back part of the Champs Elysees. These things would have been a
trifle stern, and sternness alone now wouldn't be sinister. An
instinct in him cast about for some form of discipline in which they
might meet--some awkwardness they would suffer from, some danger, or at
least some grave inconvenience, they would incur. This would give a
sense--which the spirit required, rather ached and sighed in the
absence of--that somebody was paying something somewhere and somehow,
that they were at least not all floating together on the silver stream
of impunity. Just instead of that to go and see her late in the
evening, as if, for all the world--well, as if he were as much in the
swim as anybody else: this had as little as possible in common with
the penal form.
Even when he had felt that objection melt away, however, the practical
difference was small; the long stretch of his interval took the colour
it would, and if he lived on thus with the sinister from hour to hour
it proved an easier thing than one might have supposed in advance. He
reverted in thought to his old tradition, the one he had been brought
up on and which even so many years of life had but little worn away;
the notion that the state of the wrongdoer, or at least this person's
happiness, presented some special difficulty. What struck him now
rather was the ease of it--for nothing in truth appeared easier. It
was an ease he himself fairly tasted of for the rest of the day; giving
himself quite up; not so much as trying to dress it out, in any
particular whatever, as a difficulty; not after all going to see
Maria--which would have been in a manner a result of such dressing;
only idling, lounging, smoking, sitting in the shade, drinking lemonade
and consuming ices. The day had turned to heat and eventual thunder,
and he now and again went back to his hotel to find that Chad hadn't
been there. He hadn't yet struck himself, since leaving Woollett, so
much as a loafer, though there had been times when he believed himself
touching bottom. This was a deeper depth than any, and with no
foresight, scarcely with a care, as to what he should bring up. He
almost wondered if he didn't LOOK demoralised and disreputable; he had
the fanciful vision, as he sat and smoked, of some accidental, some
motived, return of the Pococks, who would be passing along the
Boulevard and would catch this view of him. They would have distinctly,
on his appearance, every ground for scandal. But fate failed to
administer even that sternness; the Pococks never passed and Chad made
no sign. Strether meanwhile continued to hold off from Miss Gostrey,
keeping her till to-morrow; so that by evening his irresponsibility,
his impunity, his luxury, had become--there was no other word for
them--immense.
Between nine and ten, at last, in the high clear picture--he was moving
in these days, as in a gallery, from clever canvas to clever canvas--he
drew a long breath: it was so presented to him from the first that the
spell of his luxury wouldn't be broken. He wouldn't have, that is, to
become responsible--this was admirably in the air: she had sent for him
precisely to let him feel it, so that he might go on with the comfort
(comfort already established, hadn't it been?) of regarding his ordeal,
the ordeal of the weeks of Sarah's stay and of their climax, as safely
traversed and left behind him. Didn't she just wish to assure him that
SHE now took it all and so kept it; that he was absolutely not to worry
any more, was only to rest on his laurels and continue generously to
help her? The light in her beautiful formal room was dim, though it
would do, as everything would always do; the hot night had kept out
lamps, but there was a pair of clusters of candles that glimmered over
the chimney-piece like the tall tapers of an altar. The windows were
all open, their redundant hangings swaying a little, and he heard once
more, from the empty court, the small plash of the fountain. From
beyond this, and as from a great distance--beyond the court, beyond the
corps de logis forming the front--came, as if excited and exciting, the
vague voice of Paris. Strether had all along been subject to sudden
gusts of fancy in connexion with such matters as these--odd starts of
the historic sense, suppositions and divinations with no warrant but
their intensity. Thus and so, on the eve of the great recorded dates,
the days and nights of revolution, the sounds had come in, the omens,
the beginnings broken out. They were the smell of revolution, the
smell of the public temper--or perhaps simply the smell of blood.
It was at present queer beyond words, "subtle," he would have risked
saying, that such suggestions should keep crossing the scene; but it
was doubtless the effect of the thunder in the air, which had hung
about all day without release. His hostess was dressed as for
thunderous times, and it fell in with the kind of imagination we have
just attributed to him that she should be in simplest coolest white, of
a character so old-fashioned, if he were not mistaken, that Madame
Roland must on the scaffold have worn something like it. This effect
was enhanced by a small black fichu or scarf, of crape or gauze,
disposed quaintly round her bosom and now completing as by a mystic
touch the pathetic, the noble analogy. Poor Strether in fact scarce
knew what analogy was evoked for him as the charming woman, receiving
him and making him, as she could do such things, at once familiarly and
gravely welcome, moved over her great room with her image almost
repeated in its polished floor, which had been fully bared for summer.
The associations of the place, all felt again; the gleam here and
there, in the subdued light, of glass and gilt and parquet, with the
quietness of her own note as the centre--these things were at first as
delicate as if they had been ghostly, and he was sure in a moment that,
whatever he should find he had come for, it wouldn't be for an
impression that had previously failed him. That conviction held him
from the outset, and, seeming singularly to simplify, certified to him
that the objects about would help him, would really help them both. No,
he might never see them again--this was only too probably the last
time; and he should certainly see nothing in the least degree like
them. He should soon be going to where such things were not, and it
would be a small mercy for memory, for fancy, to have, in that stress,
a loaf on the shelf. He knew in advance he should look back on the
perception actually sharpest with him as on the view of something old,
old, old, the oldest thing he had ever personally touched; and he also
knew, even while he took his companion in as the feature among
features, that memory and fancy couldn't help being enlisted for her.
She might intend what she would, but this was beyond anything she could
intend, with things from far back--tyrannies of history, facts of type,
values, as the painters said, of expression--all working for her and
giving her the supreme chance, the chance of the happy, the really
luxurious few, the chance, on a great occasion, to be natural and
simple. She had never, with him, been more so; or if it was the
perfection of art it would never--and that came to the same thing--be
proved against her.
What was truly wonderful was her way of differing so from time to time
without detriment to her simplicity. Caprices, he was sure she felt,
were before anything else bad manners, and that judgement in her was by
itself a thing making more for safety of intercourse than anything that
in his various own past intercourses he had had to reckon on. If
therefore her presence was now quite other than the one she had shown
him the night before, there was nothing of violence in the change--it
was all harmony and reason. It gave him a mild deep person, whereas he
had had on the occasion to which their interview was a direct reference
a person committed to movement and surface and abounding in them; but
she was in either character more remarkable for nothing than for her
bridging of intervals, and this now fell in with what he understood he
was to leave to her. The only thing was that, if he was to leave it
ALL to her, why exactly had she sent for him? He had had, vaguely, in
advance, his explanation, his view of the probability of her wishing to
set something right, to deal in some way with the fraud so lately
practised on his presumed credulity. Would she attempt to carry it
further or would she blot it out? Would she throw over it some more or
less happy colour; or would she do nothing about it at all? He
perceived soon enough at least that, however reasonable she might be,
she wasn't vulgarly confused, and it herewith pressed upon him that
their eminent "lie," Chad's and hers, was simply after all such an
inevitable tribute to good taste as he couldn't have wished them not to
render. Away from them, during his vigil, he had seemed to wince at
the amount of comedy involved; whereas in his present posture he could
only ask himself how he should enjoy any attempt from her to take the
comedy back. He shouldn't enjoy it at all; but, once more and yet once
more, he could trust her. That is he could trust her to make deception
right. As she presented things the ugliness--goodness knew why--went
out of them; none the less too that she could present them, with an art
of her own, by not so much as touching them. She let the matter, at
all events, lie where it was--where the previous twenty-four hours had
placed it; appearing merely to circle about it respectfully, tenderly,
almost piously, while she took up another question.
She knew she hadn't really thrown dust in his eyes; this, the previous
night, before they separated, had practically passed between them; and,
as she had sent for him to see what the difference thus made for him
might amount to, so he was conscious at the end of five minutes that he
had been tried and tested. She had settled with Chad after he left
them that she would, for her satisfaction, assure herself of this
quantity, and Chad had, as usual, let her have her way. Chad was
always letting people have their way when he felt that it would somehow
turn his wheel for him; it somehow always did turn his wheel. Strether
felt, oddly enough, before these facts, freshly and consentingly
passive; they again so rubbed it into him that the couple thus fixing
his attention were intimate, that his intervention had absolutely aided
and intensified their intimacy, and that in fine he must accept the
consequence of that. He had absolutely become, himself, with his
perceptions and his mistakes, his concessions and his reserves, the
droll mixture, as it must seem to them, of his braveries and his fears,
the general spectacle of his art and his innocence, almost an added
link and certainly a common priceless ground for them to meet upon. It
was as if he had been hearing their very tone when she brought out a
reference that was comparatively straight. "The last twice that you've
been here, you know, I never asked you," she said with an abrupt
transition--they had been pretending before this to talk simply of the
charm of yesterday and of the interest of the country they had seen.
The effort was confessedly vain; not for such talk had she invited him;
and her impatient reminder was of their having done for it all the
needful on his coming to her after Sarah's flight. What she hadn't
asked him then was to state to her where and how he stood for her; she
had been resting on Chad's report of their midnight hour together in
the Boulevard Malesherbes. The thing therefore she at present desired
was ushered in by this recall of the two occasions on which,
disinterested and merciful, she hadn't worried him. To-night truly she
WOULD worry him, and this was her appeal to him to let her risk it. He
wasn't to mind if she bored him a little: she had behaved, after
all--hadn't she?--so awfully, awfully well. | Strether receives a special delivery letter which he thinks is from Chad, but upon opening it, he is surprised to learn that it is from Madame de Vionnet, requesting him to visit her that evening. Quickly, "with a directness that almost confessed to a fear of the danger of delay," he sends her an affirmative reply, thinking, with amusement, that he has now "ranged himself . . . on the side of the fierce, the sinister, the acute." After spending the day in reflection and anticipation, he arrives at Madame de Vionnet's apartment at the appointed hour. Strether, finding his hostess at ease, becomes romantically in tune with the appearance of the room. Madame de Vionnet "might intend what we would, but this was beyond anything she could intend, with things from far back -- tyrannies of history, facts of types, values, as the painters said, of expression -- all working for her and giving her the supreme chance, the chance of the happy, the really luxurious few, the chance, on a great occasion, to be natural and simple. She had never, with him, been more so." He wonders why she has sent for him and whether or not she intends to extend the "lie" of her trip to the country with Chad. He had realized the night before that Madame de Vionnet was certain that he knew the truth. Now "she had sent for him to see what the difference thus made for him might amount to, so he was conscious at the end of five minutes that he had been tried and tested." Leaving their pretense to conversation about the country behind, she begins, "The last twice that you've been here, you know, I never asked you." |
SCENE II.
Fife. A Room in Macduff's Castle.
[Enter Lady Macduff, her Son, and Ross.]
LADY MACDUFF.
What had he done, to make him fly the land?
ROSS.
You must have patience, madam.
LADY MACDUFF.
He had none:
His flight was madness: when our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
ROSS.
You know not
Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
LADY MACDUFF.
Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,
His mansion, and his titles, in a place
From whence himself does fly? He loves us not:
He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear, and nothing is the love;
As little is the wisdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason.
ROSS.
My dearest coz,
I pray you, school yourself: but, for your husband,
He is noble, wise, Judicious, and best knows
The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further:
But cruel are the times, when we are traitors,
And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way and move.--I take my leave of you:
Shall not be long but I'll be here again:
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before.--My pretty cousin,
Blessing upon you!
LADY MACDUFF.
Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.
ROSS.
I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,
It would be my disgrace and your discomfort:
I take my leave at once.
[Exit.]
LADY MACDUFF.
Sirrah, your father's dead;
And what will you do now? How will you live?
SON.
As birds do, mother.
LADY MACDUFF.
What, with worms and flies?
SON.
With what I get, I mean; and so do they.
LADY MACDUFF.
Poor bird! thou'dst never fear the net nor lime,
The pit-fall nor the gin.
SON.
Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.
My father is not dead, for all your saying.
LADY MACDUFF.
Yes, he is dead: how wilt thou do for father?
SON.
Nay, how will you do for a husband?
LADY MACDUFF.
Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
SON.
Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.
LADY MACDUFF.
Thou speak'st with all thy wit; and yet, i' faith,
With wit enough for thee.
SON.
Was my father a traitor, mother?
LADY MACDUFF.
Ay, that he was.
SON.
What is a traitor?
LADY MACDUFF.
Why, one that swears and lies.
SON.
And be all traitors that do so?
LADY MACDUFF.
Everyone that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.
SON.
And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
LADY MACDUFF.
Every one.
SON.
Who must hang them?
LADY MACDUFF.
Why, the honest men.
SON.
Then the liars and swearers are fools: for there are liars
and swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.
LADY MACDUFF.
Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt
thou do for a father?
SON.
If he were dead, you'ld weep for him: if you would not, it
were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.
LADY MACDUFF.
Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!
[Enter a Messenger.]
MESSENGER.
Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,
Though in your state of honor I am perfect.
I doubt some danger does approach you nearly:
If you will take a homely man's advice,
Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.
To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage;
To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!
I dare abide no longer.
[Exit.]
LADY MACDUFF.
Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world; where to do harm
Is often laudable; to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas,
Do I put up that womanly defence,
To say I have done no harm?--What are these faces?
[Enter Murderers.]
FIRST MURDERER.
Where is your husband?
LADY MACDUFF.
I hope, in no place so unsanctified
Where such as thou mayst find him.
FIRST MURDERER.
He's a traitor.
SON.
Thou liest, thou shag-haar'd villain!
FIRST MURDERER.
What, you egg!
[Stabbing him.]
Young fry of treachery!
SON.
He has kill'd me, mother:
Run away, I pray you!
[Dies. Exit Lady Macduff, crying Murder, and pursued by the
Murderers.] | At Macduff's castle, Lady Macduff accosts Ross, demanding to know why her husband has fled. She feels betrayed. Ross insists that she trust her husband's judgment and then regretfully departs. Once he is gone, Lady Macduff tells her son that his father is dead, but the little boy perceptively argues that he is not. Suddenly, a messenger hurries in, warning Lady Macduff that she is in danger and urging her to flee. Lady Macduff protests, arguing that she has done no wrong. A group of murderers then enters. When one of them denounces Macduff, Macduff's son calls the murderer a liar, and the murderer stabs him. Lady Macduff turns and runs, and the pack of killers chases after her |
Christmas was approaching. Grandmother brought me materials, and I busied
myself making some new garments and little playthings for my children. Were
it not that hiring day is near at hand, and many families are fearfully
looking forward to the probability of separation in a few days, Christmas
might be a happy season for the poor slaves. Even slave mothers try to
gladden the hearts of their little ones on that occasion. Benny and Ellen
had their Christmas stockings filled. Their imprisoned mother could not
have the privilege of witnessing their surprise and joy. But I had the
pleasure of peeping at them as they went into the street with their new
suits on. I heard Benny ask a little playmate whether Santa Claus brought
him any thing. "Yes," replied the boy; "but Santa Claus ain't a real man.
It's the children's mothers that put things into the stockings." "No, that
can't be," replied Benny, "for Santa Claus brought Ellen and me these new
clothes, and my mother has been gone this long time."
How I longed to tell him that his mother made those garments, and that many
a tear fell on them while she worked!
Every child rises early on Christmas morning to see the Johnkannaus.
Without them, Christmas would be shorn of its greatest attraction. They
consist of companies of slaves from the plantations, generally of the lower
class. Two athletic men, in calico wrappers, have a net thrown over them,
covered with all manner of bright-colored stripes. Cows' tails are fastened
to their backs, and their heads are decorated with horns. A box, covered
with sheepskin, is called the gumbo box. A dozen beat on this, while other
strike triangles and jawbones, to which bands of dancers keep time. For a
month previous they are composing songs, which are sung on this occasion.
These companies, of a hundred each, turn out early in the morning, and are
allowed to go round till twelve o'clock, begging for contributions. Not a
door is left unvisited where there is the least chance of obtaining a penny
or a glass of rum. They do not drink while they are out, but carry the rum
home in jugs, to have a carousal. These Christmas donations frequently
amount to twenty or thirty dollars. It is seldom that any white man or
child refuses to give them a trifle. If he does, they regale his ears with
the following song:--
Poor massa, so dey say;
Down in de heel, so dey say;
Got no money, so dey say;
Not one shillin, so dey say;
God A'mighty bress you, so dey say.
Christmas is a day of feasting, both with white and colored people. Slaves,
who are lucky enough to have a few shillings, are sure to spend them for
good eating; and many a turkey and pig is captured, without saying, "By
your leave, sir." Those who cannot obtain these, cook a 'possum, or a
raccoon, from which savory dishes can be made. My grandmother raised
poultry and pigs for sale and it was her established custom to have both a
turkey and a pig roasted for Christmas dinner.
On this occasion, I was warned to keep extremely quiet, because two guests
had been invited. One was the town constable, and the other was a free
colored man, who tried to pass himself off for white, and who was always
ready to do any mean work for the sake of currying favor with white people.
My grandmother had a motive for inviting them. She managed to take them all
over the house. All the rooms on the lower floor were thrown open for them
to pass in and out; and after dinner, they were invited up stairs to look
at a fine mocking bird my uncle had just brought home. There, too, the
rooms were all thrown open that they might look in. When I heard them
talking on the piazza, my heart almost stood still. I knew this colored man
had spent many nights hunting for me. Every body knew he had the blood of a
slave father in his veins; but for the sake of passing himself off for
white, he was ready to kiss the slaveholders' feet. How I despised him! As
for the constable, he wore no false colors. The duties of his office were
despicable, but he was superior to his companion, inasmuch as he did not
pretend to be what he was not. Any white man, who could raise money enough
to buy a slave, would have considered himself degraded by being a
constable; but the office enabled its possessor to exercise authority. If
he found any slave out after nine o'clock, he could whip him as much as he
liked; and that was a privilege to be coveted. When the guests were ready
to depart, my grandmother gave each of them some of her nice pudding, as a
present for their wives. Through my peep-hole I saw them go out of the
gate, and I was glad when it closed after them. So passed the first
Christmas in my den. | Linda describes the rituals and festivities surrounding Christmas, focusing on the Johnkannaus dancers. She discusses her grandmother's two "special" guests -- the town constable and the "free colored man" who tries to pass for white -- who are invited specifically to convince them that Linda is nowhere near her grandmother's house. |
XIX. AMY'S WILL.
While these things were happening at home, Amy was having hard times at
Aunt March's. She felt her exile deeply, and, for the first time in her
life, realized how much she was beloved and petted at home. Aunt March
never petted any one; she did not approve of it; but she meant to be
kind, for the well-behaved little girl pleased her very much, and Aunt
March had a soft place in her old heart for her nephew's children,
though she didn't think proper to confess it. She really did her best to
make Amy happy, but, dear me, what mistakes she made! Some old people
keep young at heart in spite of wrinkles and gray hairs, can sympathize
with children's little cares and joys, make them feel at home, and can
hide wise lessons under pleasant plays, giving and receiving friendship
in the sweetest way. But Aunt March had not this gift, and she worried
Amy very much with her rules and orders, her prim ways, and long, prosy
talks. Finding the child more docile and amiable than her sister, the
old lady felt it her duty to try and counteract, as far as possible, the
bad effects of home freedom and indulgence. So she took Amy in hand, and
taught her as she herself had been taught sixty years ago,--a process
which carried dismay to Amy's soul, and made her feel like a fly in the
web of a very strict spider.
[Illustration: Polish up the spoons and the fat silver teapot]
She had to wash the cups every morning, and polish up the old-fashioned
spoons, the fat silver teapot, and the glasses, till they shone. Then
she must dust the room, and what a trying job that was! Not a speck
escaped Aunt March's eye, and all the furniture had claw legs, and much
carving, which was never dusted to suit. Then Polly must be fed, the
lap-dog combed, and a dozen trips upstairs and down, to get things, or
deliver orders, for the old lady was very lame, and seldom left her big
chair. After these tiresome labors, she must do her lessons, which was a
daily trial of every virtue she possessed. Then she was allowed one hour
for exercise or play, and didn't she enjoy it? Laurie came every day,
and wheedled Aunt March, till Amy was allowed to go out with him, when
they walked and rode, and had capital times. After dinner, she had to
read aloud, and sit still while the old lady slept, which she usually
did for an hour, as she dropped off over the first page. Then patchwork
or towels appeared, and Amy sewed with outward meekness and inward
rebellion till dusk, when she was allowed to amuse herself as she liked
till tea-time. The evenings were the worst of all, for Aunt March fell
to telling long stories about her youth, which were so unutterably dull
that Amy was always ready to go to bed, intending to cry over her hard
fate, but usually going to sleep before she had squeezed out more than a
tear or two.
If it had not been for Laurie, and old Esther, the maid, she felt that
she never could have got through that dreadful time. The parrot alone
was enough to drive her distracted, for he soon felt that she did not
admire him, and revenged himself by being as mischievous as possible. He
pulled her hair whenever she came near him, upset his bread and milk to
plague her when she had newly cleaned his cage, made Mop bark by pecking
at him while Madam dozed; called her names before company, and behaved
in all respects like a reprehensible old bird. Then she could not endure
the dog,--a fat, cross beast, who snarled and yelped at her when she
made his toilet, and who lay on his back, with all his legs in the air
and a most idiotic expression of countenance when he wanted something to
eat, which was about a dozen times a day. The cook was bad-tempered, the
old coachman deaf, and Esther the only one who ever took any notice of
the young lady.
[Illustration: On his back, with all his legs in the air]
Esther was a Frenchwoman, who had lived with "Madame," as she called her
mistress, for many years, and who rather tyrannized over the old lady,
who could not get along without her. Her real name was Estelle, but
Aunt March ordered her to change it, and she obeyed, on condition that
she was never asked to change her religion. She took a fancy to
Mademoiselle, and amused her very much, with odd stories of her life in
France, when Amy sat with her while she got up Madame's laces. She also
allowed her to roam about the great house, and examine the curious and
pretty things stored away in the big wardrobes and the ancient chests;
for Aunt March hoarded like a magpie. Amy's chief delight was an Indian
cabinet, full of queer drawers, little pigeon-holes, and secret places,
in which were kept all sorts of ornaments, some precious, some merely
curious, all more or less antique. To examine and arrange these things
gave Amy great satisfaction, especially the jewel-cases, in which, on
velvet cushions, reposed the ornaments which had adorned a belle forty
years ago. There was the garnet set which Aunt March wore when she came
out, the pearls her father gave her on her wedding-day, her lover's
diamonds, the jet mourning rings and pins, the queer lockets, with
portraits of dead friends, and weeping willows made of hair inside; the
baby bracelets her one little daughter had worn; Uncle March's big
watch, with the red seal so many childish hands had played with, and in
a box, all by itself, lay Aunt March's wedding-ring, too small now for
her fat finger, but put carefully away, like the most precious jewel of
them all.
[Illustration: I should choose this]
"Which would Mademoiselle choose if she had her will?" asked Esther, who
always sat near to watch over and lock up the valuables.
"I like the diamonds best, but there is no necklace among them, and I'm
fond of necklaces, they are so becoming. I should choose this if I
might," replied Amy, looking with great admiration at a string of gold
and ebony beads, from which hung a heavy cross of the same.
"I, too, covet that, but not as a necklace; ah, no! to me it is a
rosary, and as such I should use it like a good Catholic," said Esther,
eying the handsome thing wistfully.
"Is it meant to use as you use the string of good-smelling wooden beads
hanging over your glass?" asked Amy.
"Truly, yes, to pray with. It would be pleasing to the saints if one
used so fine a rosary as this, instead of wearing it as a vain bijou."
"You seem to take a great deal of comfort in your prayers, Esther, and
always come down looking quiet and satisfied. I wish I could."
"If Mademoiselle was a Catholic, she would find true comfort; but, as
that is not to be, it would be well if you went apart each day, to
meditate and pray, as did the good mistress whom I served before Madame.
She had a little chapel, and in it found solacement for much trouble."
"Would it be right for me to do so too?" asked Amy, who, in her
loneliness, felt the need of help of some sort, and found that she was
apt to forget her little book, now that Beth was not there to remind her
of it.
"It would be excellent and charming; and I shall gladly arrange the
little dressing-room for you if you like it. Say nothing to Madame, but
when she sleeps go you and sit alone a while to think good thoughts, and
pray the dear God to preserve your sister."
Esther was truly pious, and quite sincere in her advice; for she had an
affectionate heart, and felt much for the sisters in their anxiety. Amy
liked the idea, and gave her leave to arrange the light closet next her
room, hoping it would do her good.
"I wish I knew where all these pretty things would go when Aunt March
dies," she said, as she slowly replaced the shining rosary, and shut the
jewel-cases one by one.
"To you and your sisters. I know it; Madame confides in me; I witnessed
her will, and it is to be so," whispered Esther, smiling.
"How nice! but I wish she'd let us have them now. Pro-cras-ti-nation is
not agreeable," observed Amy, taking a last look at the diamonds.
"It is too soon yet for the young ladies to wear these things. The first
one who is affianced will have the pearls--Madame has said it; and I
have a fancy that the little turquoise ring will be given to you when
you go, for Madame approves your good behavior and charming manners."
"Do you think so? Oh, I'll be a lamb, if I can only have that lovely
ring! It's ever so much prettier than Kitty Bryant's. I do like Aunt
March, after all;" and Amy tried on the blue ring with a delighted face,
and a firm resolve to earn it.
From that day she was a model of obedience, and the old lady
complacently admired the success of her training. Esther fitted up the
closet with a little table, placed a footstool before it, and over it a
picture taken from one of the shut-up rooms. She thought it was of no
great value, but, being appropriate, she borrowed it, well knowing that
Madame would never know it, nor care if she did. It was, however, a very
valuable copy of one of the famous pictures of the world, and Amy's
beauty-loving eyes were never tired of looking up at the sweet face of
the divine mother, while tender thoughts of her own were busy at her
heart. On the table she laid her little Testament and hymn-book, kept a
vase always full of the best flowers Laurie brought her, and came every
day to "sit alone, thinking good thoughts, and praying the dear God to
preserve her sister." Esther had given her a rosary of black beads, with
a silver cross, but Amy hung it up and did not use it, feeling doubtful
as to its fitness for Protestant prayers.
The little girl was very sincere in all this, for, being left alone
outside the safe home-nest, she felt the need of some kind hand to hold
by so sorely, that she instinctively turned to the strong and tender
Friend, whose fatherly love most closely surrounds his little children.
She missed her mother's help to understand and rule herself, but having
been taught where to look, she did her best to find the way, and walk in
it confidingly. But Amy was a young pilgrim, and just now her burden
seemed very heavy. She tried to forget herself, to keep cheerful, and be
satisfied with doing right, though no one saw or praised her for it. In
her first effort at being very, very good, she decided to make her will,
as Aunt March had done; so that if she _did_ fall ill and die, her
possessions might be justly and generously divided. It cost her a pang
even to think of giving up the little treasures which in her eyes were
as precious as the old lady's jewels.
During one of her play-hours she wrote out the important document as
well as she could, with some help from Esther as to certain legal terms,
and, when the good-natured Frenchwoman had signed her name, Amy felt
relieved, and laid it by to show Laurie, whom she wanted as a second
witness. As it was a rainy day, she went upstairs to amuse herself in
one of the large chambers, and took Polly with her for company. In this
room there was a wardrobe full of old-fashioned costumes, with which
Esther allowed her to play, and it was her favorite amusement to array
herself in the faded brocades, and parade up and down before the long
mirror, making stately courtesies, and sweeping her train about, with a
rustle which delighted her ears. So busy was she on this day that she
did not hear Laurie's ring, nor see his face peeping in at her, as she
gravely promenaded to and fro, flirting her fan and tossing her head, on
which she wore a great pink turban, contrasting oddly with her blue
brocade dress and yellow quilted petticoat. She was obliged to walk
carefully, for she had on high-heeled shoes, and, as Laurie told Jo
afterward, it was a comical sight to see her mince along in her gay
suit, with Polly sidling and bridling just behind her, imitating her as
well as he could, and occasionally stopping to laugh or exclaim, "Ain't
we fine? Get along, you fright! Hold your tongue! Kiss me, dear! Ha!
ha!"
[Illustration: Gravely promenaded to and fro]
Having with difficulty restrained an explosion of merriment, lest it
should offend her majesty, Laurie tapped, and was graciously received.
"Sit down and rest while I put these things away; then I want to consult
you about a very serious matter," said Amy, when she had shown her
splendor, and driven Polly into a corner. "That bird is the trial of my
life," she continued, removing the pink mountain from her head, while
Laurie seated himself astride of a chair. "Yesterday, when aunt was
asleep, and I was trying to be as still as a mouse, Polly began to
squall and flap about in his cage; so I went to let him out, and found a
big spider there. I poked it out, and it ran under the bookcase; Polly
marched straight after it, stooped down and peeped under the bookcase,
saying, in his funny way, with a cock of his eye, 'Come out and take a
walk, my dear.' I _couldn't_ help laughing, which made Poll swear, and
aunt woke up and scolded us both."
"Did the spider accept the old fellow's invitation?" asked Laurie,
yawning.
"Yes; out it came, and away ran Polly, frightened to death, and
scrambled up on aunt's chair, calling out, 'Catch her! catch her! catch
her!' as I chased the spider.
"That's a lie! Oh lor!" cried the parrot, pecking at Laurie's toes.
"I'd wring your neck if you were mine, you old torment," cried Laurie,
shaking his fist at the bird, who put his head on one side, and gravely
croaked, "Allyluyer! bless your buttons, dear!"
"Now I'm ready," said Amy, shutting the wardrobe, and taking a paper out
of her pocket. "I want you to read that, please, and tell me if it is
legal and right. I felt that I ought to do it, for life is uncertain and
I don't want any ill-feeling over my tomb."
[Illustration: Amy's Will]
Laurie bit his lips, and turning a little from the pensive speaker, read
the following document, with praiseworthy gravity, considering the
spelling:--
"MY LAST WILL AND TESTIMENT.
"I, Amy Curtis March, being in my sane mind, do give and
bequeethe all my earthly property--viz. to wit:--namely
"To my father, my best pictures, sketches, maps, and works of
art, including frames. Also my $100, to do what he likes with.
"To my mother, all my clothes, except the blue apron with
pockets,--also my likeness, and my medal, with much love.
"To my dear sister Margaret, I give my turkquoise ring (if I get
it), also my green box with the doves on it, also my piece of
real lace for her neck, and my sketch of her as a memorial of
her 'little girl.'
"To Jo I leave my breast-pin, the one mended with sealing wax,
also my bronze inkstand--she lost the cover--and my most
precious plaster rabbit, because I am sorry I burnt up her
story.
"To Beth (if she lives after me) I give my dolls and the little
bureau, my fan, my linen collars and my new slippers if she can
wear them being thin when she gets well. And I herewith also
leave her my regret that I ever made fun of old Joanna.
"To my friend and neighbor Theodore Laurence I bequeethe my
paper marshay portfolio, my clay model of a horse though he did
say it hadn't any neck. Also in return for his great kindness in
the hour of affliction any one of my artistic works he likes,
Noter Dame is the best.
"To our venerable benefactor Mr. Laurence I leave my purple box
with a looking glass in the cover which will be nice for his
pens and remind him of the departed girl who thanks him for his
favors to her family, specially Beth.
"I wish my favorite playmate Kitty Bryant to have the blue silk
apron and my gold-bead ring with a kiss.
"To Hannah I give the bandbox she wanted and all the patch work
I leave hoping she 'will remember me, when it you see.'
"And now having disposed of my most valuable property I hope all
will be satisfied and not blame the dead. I forgive every one,
and trust we may all meet when the trump shall sound. Amen.
"To this will and testiment I set my hand and seal on this 20th
day of Nov. Anni Domino 1861.
"AMY CURTIS MARCH.
{ESTELLE VALNOR,
"_Witnesses_: {
{THEODORE LAURENCE."
The last name was written in pencil, and Amy explained that he was to
rewrite it in ink, and seal it up for her properly.
"What put it into your head? Did any one tell you about Beth's giving
away her things?" asked Laurie soberly, as Amy laid a bit of red tape,
with sealing-wax, a taper, and a standish before him.
She explained; and then asked anxiously, "What about Beth?"
"I'm sorry I spoke; but as I did, I'll tell you. She felt so ill one day
that she told Jo she wanted to give her piano to Meg, her cats to you,
and the poor old doll to Jo, who would love it for her sake. She was
sorry she had so little to give, and left locks of hair to the rest of
us, and her best love to grandpa. _She_ never thought of a will."
Laurie was signing and sealing as he spoke, and did not look up till a
great tear dropped on the paper. Amy's face was full of trouble; but she
only said, "Don't people put sort of postscripts to their wills,
sometimes?"
"Yes; 'codicils,' they call them."
"Put one in mine then--that I wish _all_ my curls cut off, and given
round to my friends. I forgot it; but I want it done, though it will
spoil my looks."
Laurie added it, smiling at Amy's last and greatest sacrifice. Then he
amused her for an hour, and was much interested in all her trials. But
when he came to go, Amy held him back to whisper, with trembling lips,
"Is there really any danger about Beth?"
"I'm afraid there is; but we must hope for the best, so don't cry,
dear;" and Laurie put his arm about her with a brotherly gesture which
was very comforting.
When he had gone, she went to her little chapel, and, sitting in the
twilight, prayed for Beth, with streaming tears and an aching heart,
feeling that a million turquoise rings would not console her for the
loss of her gentle little sister.
[Illustration: Tail-piece]
[Illustration: Mrs. March would not leave Beth's side] | While her sisters are nursing Beth, Amy is suffering under the strict rules of Aunt March's house. Aunt March does love Amy, but she doesn't really show it. She tries to improve Amy's character by making her follow a harsh routine, including lots of housework, lessons, reading aloud to Aunt March, and listening to long lectures. Amy is sustained by her friendship with Laurie, who comes to visit her regularly, and the kindness of Aunt March's maid Esther. Even Aunt March's pets irritate Amy - the parrot pulls her hair and calls her names, and the little dog barks at her. Esther, the maid, is Amy's only friend in the house. Her real name is Estelle, and she is a French Catholic - Aunt March, like many nineteenth-century English and American employers, forces her foreign servants to adopt English names. Esther tells Amy stories about her homeland and shows Amy the jewelry and other treasures that Aunt March has gathered over the years. One day, Esther asks Amy which piece of Aunt March's jewelry she would choose, if she could have one. Amy chooses a string of gold and ebony beads, and Esther explains that it is actually a rosary - used by Catholics for saying prayers. Esther and Amy talk about the comfort of prayer. Esther offers to set up a little chapel for Amy in a spare room of Aunt March's mansion. Amy asks Esther who will get Aunt March's jewelry when she dies. Esther says that, in her will, Aunt March has left the jewelry to Amy and her sisters. Amy wishes she could have some of Aunt March's jewelry now. Esther shows her a turquoise ring and tells her that Aunt March is planning to give it to her when she goes back home as a reward for her good behavior. Amy tries harder to be good and obedient to Aunt March in order to earn the turquoise ring. Esther sets up a little chapel for Amy, using a portrait of Mary with the baby Jesus that was stored away in the house. Amy adds a vase of flowers, her copy of the New Testament, her hymnbook, and a rosary that Esther gave her. She doesn't use the rosary because she's Protestant, but she hangs it in the room. Amy tries to use her little chapel and her prayers to replace her mother's influence and advice. She becomes more religious and draws closer to God, even though she's just a little girl. Amy starts thinking about what will happen if she gets scarlet fever and dies. With Esther's help, she writes a will of her own. One day, as Amy is playing dress-up with some of Aunt March's clothes, Laurie comes in to see her. Amy puts the clothes away and tells Laurie about the will. She asks him to sign it as a witness. Laurie, doing his best not to laugh at Amy, reads her will. She has left some of her possessions to her father, mother, sisters, Laurie, Mr. Laurence, Hannah, and her friend Kitty Bryant. Laurie asks Amy what made her write the will, and tells her that Beth has given her possessions away already. As Laurie signs Amy's will as a witness, she adds an additional bequest - that her curls should be cut off and one given to each of her family and friends. Amy asks Laurie if Beth is really in danger of dying. Laurie says that she is and tries to comfort Amy. After Laurie leaves, Amy goes to her chapel and prays for Beth. |
The immediate result of this was nothing. Results from such things
are usually long in growing. Morning brings a change of feeling. The
existent condition invariably pleads for itself. It is only at odd
moments that we get glimpses of the misery of things. The heart
understands when it is confronted with contrasts. Take them away and the
ache subsides.
Carrie went on, leading much this same life for six months thereafter or
more. She did not see Ames any more. He called once upon the Vances, but
she only heard about it through the young wife. Then he went West,
and there was a gradual subsidence of whatever personal attraction had
existed. The mental effect of the thing had not gone, however, and never
would entirely. She had an ideal to contrast men by--particularly men
close to her.
During all this time--a period rapidly approaching three
years--Hurstwood had been moving along in an even path. There was no
apparent slope downward, and distinctly none upward, so far as the
casual observer might have seen. But psychologically there was a change,
which was marked enough to suggest the future very distinctly indeed.
This was in the mere matter of the halt his career had received when he
departed from Chicago. A man's fortune or material progress is very much
the same as his bodily growth. Either he is growing stronger, healthier,
wiser, as the youth approaching manhood, or he is growing weaker, older,
less incisive mentally, as the man approaching old age. There are no
other states. Frequently there is a period between the cessation of
youthful accretion and the setting in, in the case of the middle-aged
man, of the tendency toward decay when the two processes are almost
perfectly balanced and there is little doing in either direction. Given
time enough, however, the balance becomes a sagging to the grave side.
Slowly at first, then with a modest momentum, and at last the graveward
process is in the full swing. So it is frequently with man's fortune.
If its process of accretion is never halted, if the balancing stage is
never reached, there will be no toppling. Rich men are, frequently,
in these days, saved from this dissolution of their fortune by their
ability to hire younger brains. These younger brains look upon the
interests of the fortune as their own, and so steady and direct its
progress. If each individual were left absolutely to the care of his own
interests, and were given time enough in which to grow exceedingly old,
his fortune would pass as his strength and will. He and his would be
utterly dissolved and scattered unto the four winds of the heavens.
But now see wherein the parallel changes. A fortune, like a man, is an
organism which draws to itself other minds and other strength than that
inherent in the founder. Beside the young minds drawn to it by salaries,
it becomes allied with young forces, which make for its existence
even when the strength and wisdom of the founder are fading. It may be
conserved by the growth of a community or of a state. It may be involved
in providing something for which there is a growing demand. This removes
it at once beyond the special care of the founder. It needs not so much
foresight now as direction. The man wanes, the need continues or grows,
and the fortune, fallen into whose hands it may, continues. Hence, some
men never recognise the turning in the tide of their abilities. It is
only in chance cases, where a fortune or a state of success is wrested
from them, that the lack of ability to do as they did formerly becomes
apparent. Hurstwood, set down under new conditions, was in a position to
see that he was no longer young. If he did not, it was due wholly to the
fact that his state was so well balanced that an absolute change for the
worse did not show.
Not trained to reason or introspect himself, he could not analyse the
change that was taking place in his mind, and hence his body, but he
felt the depression of it. Constant comparison between his old state and
his new showed a balance for the worse, which produced a constant state
of gloom or, at least, depression. Now, it has been shown experimentally
that a constantly subdued frame of mind produces certain poisons in
the blood, called katastates, just as virtuous feelings of pleasure
and delight produce helpful chemicals called anastates. The poisons
generated by remorse inveigh against the system, and eventually produce
marked physical deterioration. To these Hurstwood was subject.
In the course of time it told upon his temper. His eye no longer
possessed that buoyant, searching shrewdness which had characterised
it in Adams Street. His step was not as sharp and firm. He was given
to thinking, thinking, thinking. The new friends he made were not
celebrities. They were of a cheaper, a slightly more sensual and cruder,
grade. He could not possibly take the pleasure in this company that he
had in that of those fine frequenters of the Chicago resort. He was left
to brood.
Slowly, exceedingly slowly, his desire to greet, conciliate, and make at
home these people who visited the Warren Street place passed from him.
More and more slowly the significance of the realm he had left began to
be clear. It did not seem so wonderful to be in it when he was in it. It
had seemed very easy for any one to get up there and have ample raiment
and money to spend, but now that he was out of it, how far off it
became. He began to see as one sees a city with a wall about it. Men
were posted at the gates. You could not get in. Those inside did not
care to come out to see who you were. They were so merry inside there
that all those outside were forgotten, and he was on the outside.
Each day he could read in the evening papers of the doings within this
walled city. In the notices of passengers for Europe he read the names
of eminent frequenters of his old resort. In the theatrical column
appeared, from time to time, announcements of the latest successes of
men he had known. He knew that they were at their old gayeties. Pullmans
were hauling them to and fro about the land, papers were greeting them
with interesting mentions, the elegant lobbies of hotels and the glow
of polished dining-rooms were keeping them close within the walled city.
Men whom he had known, men whom he had tipped glasses with--rich men,
and he was forgotten! Who was Mr. Wheeler? What was the Warren Street
resort? Bah!
If one thinks that such thoughts do not come to so common a type of
mind--that such feelings require a higher mental development--I would
urge for their consideration the fact that it is the higher mental
development that does away with such thoughts. It is the higher mental
development which induces philosophy and that fortitude which refuses
to dwell upon such things--refuses to be made to suffer by their
consideration. The common type of mind is exceedingly keen on all
matters which relate to its physical welfare--exceedingly keen. It
is the unintellectual miser who sweats blood at the loss of a hundred
dollars. It is the Epictetus who smiles when the last vestige of
physical welfare is removed.
The time came, in the third year, when this thinking began to produce
results in the Warren Street place. The tide of patronage dropped a
little below what it had been at its best since he had been there. This
irritated and worried him.
There came a night when he confessed to Carrie that the business was not
doing as well this month as it had the month before. This was in lieu of
certain suggestions she had made concerning little things she wanted to
buy. She had not failed to notice that he did not seem to consult her
about buying clothes for himself. For the first time, it struck her as
a ruse, or that he said it so that she would not think of asking for
things. Her reply was mild enough, but her thoughts were rebellious. He
was not looking after her at all. She was depending for her enjoyment
upon the Vances.
And now the latter announced that they were going away. It was
approaching spring, and they were going North.
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Vance to Carrie, "we think we might as well give
up the flat and store our things. We'll be gone for the summer, and it
would be a useless expense. I think we'll settle a little farther down
town when we come back."
Carrie heard this with genuine sorrow. She had enjoyed Mrs. Vance's
companionship so much. There was no one else in the house whom she knew.
Again she would be all alone.
Hurstwood's gloom over the slight decrease in profits and the departure
of the Vances came together. So Carrie had loneliness and this mood
of her husband to enjoy at the same time. It was a grievous thing. She
became restless and dissatisfied, not exactly, as she thought, with
Hurstwood, but with life. What was it? A very dull round indeed. What
did she have? Nothing but this narrow, little flat. The Vances could
travel, they could do the things worth doing, and here she was. For
what was she made, anyhow? More thought followed, and then tears--tears
seemed justified, and the only relief in the world.
For another period this state continued, the twain leading a rather
monotonous life, and then there was a slight change for the worse. One
evening, Hurstwood, after thinking about a way to modify Carrie's desire
for clothes and the general strain upon his ability to provide, said:
"I don't think I'll ever be able to do much with Shaughnessy."
"What's the matter?" said Carrie.
"Oh, he's a slow, greedy 'mick'! He won't agree to anything to improve
the place, and it won't ever pay without it."
"Can't you make him?" said Carrie.
"No; I've tried. The only thing I can see, if I want to improve, is to
get hold of a place of my own."
"Why don't you?" said Carrie.
"Well, all I have is tied up in there just now. If I had a chance to
save a while I think I could open a place that would give us plenty of
money."
"Can't we save?" said Carrie.
"We might try it," he suggested. "I've been thinking that if we'd take
a smaller flat down town and live economically for a year, I would have
enough, with what I have invested, to open a good place. Then we could
arrange to live as you want to."
"It would suit me all right," said Carrie, who, nevertheless, felt
badly to think it had come to this. Talk of a smaller flat sounded like
poverty.
"There are lots of nice little flats down around Sixth Avenue, below
Fourteenth Street. We might get one down there."
"I'll look at them if you say so," said Carrie.
"I think I could break away from this fellow inside of a year," said
Hurstwood. "Nothing will ever come of this arrangement as it's going on
now."
"I'll look around," said Carrie, observing that the proposed change
seemed to be a serious thing with him.
The upshot of this was that the change was eventually effected; not
without great gloom on the part of Carrie. It really affected her more
seriously than anything that had yet happened. She began to look upon
Hurstwood wholly as a man, and not as a lover or husband. She felt
thoroughly bound to him as a wife, and that her lot was cast with
his, whatever it might be; but she began to see that he was gloomy and
taciturn, not a young, strong, and buoyant man. He looked a little bit
old to her about the eyes and mouth now, and there were other things
which placed him in his true rank, so far as her estimation was
concerned. She began to feel that she had made a mistake. Incidentally,
she also began to recall the fact that he had practically forced her to
flee with him.
The new flat was located in Thirteenth Street, a half block west of
Sixth Avenue, and contained only four rooms. The new neighbourhood did
not appeal to Carrie as much. There were no trees here, no west view of
the river. The street was solidly built up. There were twelve families
here, respectable enough, but nothing like the Vances. Richer people
required more space.
Being left alone in this little place, Carrie did without a girl. She
made it charming enough, but could not make it delight her. Hurstwood
was not inwardly pleased to think that they should have to modify their
state, but he argued that he could do nothing. He must put the best face
on it, and let it go at that.
He tried to show Carrie that there was no cause for financial alarm, but
only congratulation over the chance he would have at the end of the year
by taking her rather more frequently to the theatre and by providing a
liberal table. This was for the time only. He was getting in the frame
of mind where he wanted principally to be alone and to be allowed to
think. The disease of brooding was beginning to claim him as a victim.
Only the newspapers and his own thoughts were worth while. The delight
of love had again slipped away. It was a case of live, now, making the
best you can out of a very commonplace station in life.
The road downward has but few landings and level places. The very state
of his mind, superinduced by his condition, caused the breach to widen
between him and his partner. At last that individual began to wish that
Hurstwood was out of it. It so happened, however, that a real estate
deal on the part of the owner of the land arranged things even more
effectually than ill-will could have schemed.
"Did you see that?" said Shaughnessy one morning to Hurstwood, pointing
to the real estate column in a copy of the "Herald," which he held.
"No, what is it?" said Hurstwood, looking down the items of news.
"The man who owns this ground has sold it."
"You don't say so?" said Hurstwood.
He looked, and there was the notice. Mr. August Viele had yesterday
registered the transfer of the lot, 25 x 75 feet, at the corner of
Warren and Hudson Streets, to J. F. Slawson for the sum of $57,000.
"Our lease expires when?" asked Hurstwood, thinking. "Next February,
isn't it?"
"That's right," said Shaughnessy.
"It doesn't say what the new man's going to do with it," remarked
Hurstwood, looking back to the paper.
"We'll hear, I guess, soon enough," said Shaughnessy.
Sure enough, it did develop. Mr. Slawson owned the property adjoining,
and was going to put up a modern office building. The present one was to
be torn down. It would take probably a year and a half to complete the
other one.
All these things developed by degrees, and Hurstwood began to ponder
over what would become of the saloon. One day he spoke about it to his
partner.
"Do you think it would be worth while to open up somewhere else in the
neighbourhood?"
"What would be the use?" said Shaughnessy. "We couldn't get another
corner around here."
"It wouldn't pay anywhere else, do you think?"
"I wouldn't try it," said the other. The approaching change now took on
a most serious aspect to Hurstwood. Dissolution meant the loss of his
thousand dollars, and he could not save another thousand in the time.
He understood that Shaughnessy was merely tired of the arrangement, and
would probably lease the new corner, when completed, alone. He began
to worry about the necessity of a new connection and to see impending
serious financial straits unless something turned up. This left him in
no mood to enjoy his flat or Carrie, and consequently the depression
invaded that quarter.
Meanwhile, he took such time as he could to look about, but
opportunities were not numerous. More, he had not the same impressive
personality which he had when he first came to New York. Bad thoughts
had put a shade into his eyes which did not impress others favourably.
Neither had he thirteen hundred dollars in hand to talk with. About
a month later, finding that he had not made any progress, Shaughnessy
reported definitely that Slawson would not extend the lease.
"I guess this thing's got to come to an end," he said, affecting an air
of concern.
"Well, if it has, it has," answered Hurstwood, grimly. He would not give
the other a key to his opinions, whatever they were. He should not have
the satisfaction.
A day or two later he saw that he must say something to Carrie.
"You know," he said, "I think I'm going to get the worst of my deal down
there."
"How is that?" asked Carrie in astonishment.
"Well, the man who owns the ground has sold it, and the new owner won't
release it to us. The business may come to an end."
"Can't you start somewhere else?"
"There doesn't seem to be any place. Shaughnessy doesn't want to."
"Do you lose what you put in?"
"Yes," said Hurstwood, whose face was a study.
"Oh, isn't that too bad?" said Carrie.
"It's a trick," said Hurstwood. "That's all. They'll start another place
there all right."
Carrie looked at him, and gathered from his whole demeanour what it
meant. It was serious, very serious.
"Do you think you can get something else?" she ventured, timidly.
Hurstwood thought a while. It was all up with the bluff about money and
investment. She could see now that he was "broke."
"I don't know," he said solemnly; "I can try."
Carrie pondered over this situation as consistently as Hurstwood, once
she got the facts adjusted in her mind. It took several days for her
to fully realise that the approach of the dissolution of her husband's
business meant commonplace struggle and privation. Her mind went back to
her early venture in Chicago, the Hansons and their flat, and her heart
revolted. That was terrible! Everything about poverty was terrible. She
wished she knew a way out. Her recent experiences with the Vances had
wholly unfitted her to view her own state with complacence. The glamour
of the high life of the city had, in the few experiences afforded her by
the former, seized her completely. She had been taught how to dress
and where to go without having ample means to do either. Now, these
things--ever-present realities as they were--filled her eyes and mind.
The more circumscribed became her state, the more entrancing seemed this
other. And now poverty threatened to seize her entirely and to remove
this other world far upward like a heaven to which any Lazarus might
extend, appealingly, his hands.
So, too, the ideal brought into her life by Ames remained. He had gone,
but here was his word that riches were not everything; that there was a
great deal more in the world than she knew; that the stage was good, and
the literature she read poor. He was a strong man and clean--how much
stronger and better than Hurstwood and Drouet she only half formulated
to herself, but the difference was painful. It was something to which
she voluntarily closed her eyes.
During the last three months of the Warren Street connection, Hurstwood
took parts of days off and hunted, tracking the business advertisements.
It was a more or less depressing business, wholly because of the thought
that he must soon get something or he would begin to live on the
few hundred dollars he was saving, and then he would have nothing to
invest--he would have to hire out as a clerk.
Everything he discovered in his line advertised as an opportunity,
was either too expensive or too wretched for him. Besides, winter was
coming, the papers were announcing hardships, and there was a general
feeling of hard times in the air, or, at least, he thought so. In his
worry, other people's worries became apparent. No item about a firm
failing, a family starving, or a man dying upon the streets, supposedly
of starvation, but arrested his eye as he scanned the morning papers.
Once the "World" came out with a flaring announcement about "80,000
people out of employment in New York this winter," which struck as a
knife at his heart.
"Eighty thousand!" he thought. "What an awful thing that is."
This was new reasoning for Hurstwood. In the old days the world had
seemed to be getting along well enough. He had been wont to see similar
things in the "Daily News," in Chicago, but they did not hold his
attention. Now, these things were like grey clouds hovering along the
horizon of a clear day. They threatened to cover and obscure his life
with chilly greyness. He tried to shake them off, to forget and brace
up. Sometimes he said to himself, mentally:
"What's the use worrying? I'm not out yet. I've got six weeks more. Even
if worst comes to worst, I've got enough to live on for six months."
Curiously, as he troubled over his future, his thoughts occasionally
reverted to his wife and family. He had avoided such thoughts for the
first three years as much as possible. He hated her, and he could get
along without her. Let her go. He would do well enough. Now, however,
when he was not doing well enough, he began to wonder what she was
doing, how his children were getting along. He could see them living as
nicely as ever, occupying the comfortable house and using his property.
"By George! it's a shame they should have it all," he vaguely thought to
himself on several occasions. "I didn't do anything."
As he looked back now and analysed the situation which led up to his
taking the money, he began mildly to justify himself. What had he
done--what in the world--that should bar him out this way and heap such
difficulties upon him? It seemed only yesterday to him since he was
comfortable and well-to-do. But now it was all wrested from him.
"She didn't deserve what she got out of me, that is sure. I didn't do so
much, if everybody could just know."
There was no thought that the facts ought to be advertised. It was only
a mental justification he was seeking from himself--something that would
enable him to bear his state as a righteous man.
One afternoon, five weeks before the Warren Street place closed up, he
left the saloon to visit three or four places he saw advertised in the
"Herald." One was down in Gold Street, and he visited that, but did not
enter. It was such a cheap looking place he felt that he could not
abide it. Another was on the Bowery, which he knew contained many showy
resorts. It was near Grand Street, and turned out to be very handsomely
fitted up. He talked around about investments for fully three-quarters
of an hour with the proprietor, who maintained that his health was poor,
and that was the reason he wished a partner.
"Well, now, just how much money would it take to buy a half interest
here?" said Hurstwood, who saw seven hundred dollars as his limit.
"Three thousand," said the man.
Hurstwood's jaw fell.
"Cash?" he said.
"Cash."
He tried to put on an air of deliberation, as one who might really buy;
but his eyes showed gloom. He wound up by saying he would think it over,
and came away. The man he had been talking to sensed his condition in a
vague way.
"I don't think he wants to buy," he said to himself. "He doesn't talk
right."
The afternoon was as grey as lead and cold. It was blowing up a
disagreeable winter wind. He visited a place far up on the east side,
near Sixty-ninth Street, and it was five o'clock, and growing dim, when
he reached there. A portly German kept this place.
"How about this ad of yours?" asked Hurstwood, who rather objected to
the looks of the place.
"Oh, dat iss all over," said the German. "I vill not sell now."
"Oh, is that so?"
"Yes; dere is nothing to dat. It iss all over."
"Very well," said Hurstwood, turning around.
The German paid no more attention to him, and it made him angry.
"The crazy ass!" he said to himself. "What does he want to advertise
for?"
Wholly depressed, he started for Thirteenth Street. The flat had only a
light in the kitchen, where Carrie was working. He struck a match and,
lighting the gas, sat down in the dining-room without even greeting her.
She came to the door and looked in.
"It's you, is it?" she said, and went back.
"Yes," he said, without even looking up from the evening paper he had
bought.
Carrie saw things were wrong with him. He was not so handsome when
gloomy. The lines at the sides of the eyes were deepened. Naturally
dark of skin, gloom made him look slightly sinister. He was quite a
disagreeable figure.
Carrie set the table and brought in the meal.
"Dinner's ready," she said, passing him for something.
He did not answer, reading on.
She came in and sat down at her place, feeling exceedingly wretched.
"Won't you eat now?" she asked.
He folded his paper and drew near, silence holding for a time, except
for the "Pass me's."
"It's been gloomy to-day, hasn't it?" ventured Carrie, after a time.
"Yes," he said.
He only picked at his food.
"Are you still sure to close up?" said Carrie, venturing to take up the
subject which they had discussed often enough.
"Of course we are," he said, with the slightest modification of
sharpness.
This retort angered Carrie. She had had a dreary day of it herself.
"You needn't talk like that," she said.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, pushing back from the table, as if to say more,
but letting it go at that. Then he picked up his paper. Carrie left her
seat, containing herself with difficulty. He saw she was hurt.
"Don't go 'way," he said, as she started back into the kitchen. "Eat
your dinner."
She passed, not answering.
He looked at the paper a few moments, and then rose up and put on his
coat.
"I'm going downtown, Carrie," he said, coming out. "I'm out of sorts
to-night."
She did not answer.
"Don't be angry," he said. "It will be all right to morrow."
He looked at her, but she paid no attention to him, working at her
dishes.
"Good-bye!" he said finally, and went out.
This was the first strong result of the situation between them, but with
the nearing of the last day of the business the gloom became almost
a permanent thing. Hurstwood could not conceal his feelings about the
matter. Carrie could not help wondering where she was drifting. It got
so that they talked even less than usual, and yet it was not Hurstwood
who felt any objection to Carrie. It was Carrie who shied away from him.
This he noticed. It aroused an objection to her becoming indifferent
to him. He made the possibility of friendly intercourse almost a giant
task, and then noticed with discontent that Carrie added to it by her
manner and made it more impossible.
At last the final day came. When it actually arrived, Hurstwood, who
had got his mind into such a state where a thunderclap and raging storm
would have seemed highly appropriate, was rather relieved to find
that it was a plain, ordinary day. The sun shone, the temperature was
pleasant. He felt, as he came to the breakfast table, that it wasn't so
terrible, after all.
"Well," he said to Carrie, "to-day's my last day on earth."
Carrie smiled in answer to his humour.
Hurstwood glanced over his paper rather gayly. He seemed to have lost a
load.
"I'll go down for a little while," he said after breakfast, "and then
I'll look around. To-morrow I'll spend the whole day looking about. I
think I can get something, now this thing's off my hands."
He went out smiling and visited the place. Shaughnessy was there. They
had made all arrangements to share according to their interests. When,
however, he had been there several hours, gone out three more, and
returned, his elation had departed. As much as he had objected to the
place, now that it was no longer to exist, he felt sorry. He wished that
things were different.
Shaughnessy was coolly businesslike.
"Well," he said at five o'clock, "we might as well count the change and
divide."
They did so. The fixtures had already been sold and the sum divided.
"Good-night," said Hurstwood at the final moment, in a last effort to be
genial.
"So long," said Shaughnessy, scarcely deigning a notice.
Thus the Warren Street arrangement was permanently concluded.
Carrie had prepared a good dinner at the flat, but after his ride up,
Hurstwood was in a solemn and reflective mood.
"Well?" said Carrie, inquisitively.
"I'm out of that," he answered, taking off his coat.
As she looked at him, she wondered what his financial state was now.
They ate and talked a little.
"Will you have enough to buy in anywhere else?" asked Carrie.
"No," he said. "I'll have to get something else and save up."
"It would be nice if you could get some place," said Carrie, prompted by
anxiety and hope.
"I guess I will," he said reflectively.
For some days thereafter he put on his overcoat regularly in the morning
and sallied forth. On these ventures he first consoled himself with the
thought that with the seven hundred dollars he had he could still make
some advantageous arrangement. He thought about going to some brewery,
which, as he knew, frequently controlled saloons which they leased, and
get them to help him. Then he remembered that he would have to pay out
several hundred any way for fixtures and that he would have nothing left
for his monthly expenses. It was costing him nearly eighty dollars a
month to live.
"No," he said, in his sanest moments, "I can't do it. I'll get something
else and save up."
This getting-something proposition complicated itself the moment he
began to think of what it was he wanted to do. Manage a place? Where
should he get such a position? The papers contained no requests for
managers. Such positions, he knew well enough, were either secured by
long years of service or were bought with a half or third interest. Into
a place important enough to need such a manager he had not money enough
to buy.
Nevertheless, he started out. His clothes were very good and his
appearance still excellent, but it involved the trouble of deluding.
People, looking at him, imagined instantly that a man of his age, stout
and well dressed, must be well off. He appeared a comfortable owner of
something, a man from whom the common run of mortals could well expect
gratuities. Being now forty-three years of age, and comfortably built,
walking was not easy. He had not been used to exercise for many years.
His legs tired, his shoulders ached, and his feet pained him at
the close of the day, even when he took street cars in almost every
direction. The mere getting up and down, if long continued, produced
this result.
The fact that people took him to be better off than he was, he well
understood. It was so painfully clear to him that it retarded his
search. Not that he wished to be less well-appearing, but that he was
ashamed to belie his appearance by incongruous appeals. So he hesitated,
wondering what to do.
He thought of the hotels, but instantly he remembered that he had had no
experience as a clerk, and, what was more important, no acquaintances or
friends in that line to whom he could go. He did know some hotel owners
in several cities, including New York, but they knew of his dealings
with Fitzgerald and Moy. He could not apply to them. He thought of
other lines suggested by large buildings or businesses which he knew
of--wholesale groceries, hardware, insurance concerns, and the like--but
he had had no experience.
How to go about getting anything was a bitter thought. Would he have
to go personally and ask; wait outside an office door, and, then,
distinguished and affluent looking, announce that he was looking for
something to do? He strained painfully at the thought. No, he could not
do that.
He really strolled about, thinking, and then, the weather being cold,
stepped into a hotel. He knew hotels well enough to know that any decent
individual was welcome to a chair in the lobby. This was in the Broadway
Central, which was then one of the most important hotels in the city.
Taking a chair here was a painful thing to him. To think he should come
to this! He had heard loungers about hotels called chairwarmers. He
had called them that himself in his day. But here he was, despite the
possibility of meeting some one who knew him, shielding himself from
cold and the weariness of the streets in a hotel lobby.
"I can't do this way," he said to himself. "There's no use of my
starting out mornings without first thinking up some place to go. I'll
think of some places and then look them up."
It occurred to him that the positions of bartenders were sometimes open,
but he put this out of his mind. Bartender--he, the ex-manager!
It grew awfully dull sitting in the hotel lobby, and so at four he went
home. He tried to put on a business air as he went in, but it was a
feeble imitation. The rocking chair in the dining-room was comfortable.
He sank into it gladly, with several papers he had bought, and began to
read.
As she was going through the room to begin preparing dinner, Carrie
said:
"The man was here for the rent to-day."
"Oh, was he?" said Hurstwood.
The least wrinkle crept into his brow as he remembered that this was
February 2d, the time the man always called. He fished down in his
pocket for his purse, getting the first taste of paying out when nothing
is coming in. He looked at the fat, green roll as a sick man looks at
the one possible saving cure. Then he counted off twenty-eight dollars.
"Here you are," he said to Carrie, when she came through again.
He buried himself in his papers and read. Oh, the rest of it--the relief
from walking and thinking! What Lethean waters were these floods of
telegraphed intelligence! He forgot his troubles, in part. Here was a
young, handsome woman, if you might believe the newspaper drawing, suing
a rich, fat, candy-making husband in Brooklyn for divorce. Here was
another item detailing the wrecking of a vessel in ice and snow off
Prince's Bay on Staten Island. A long, bright column told of the doings
in the theatrical world--the plays produced, the actors appearing, the
managers making announcements. Fannie Davenport was just opening at
the Fifth Avenue. Daly was producing "King Lear." He read of the early
departure for the season of a party composed of the Vanderbilts and
their friends for Florida. An interesting shooting affray was on in the
mountains of Kentucky. So he read, read, read, rocking in the warm room
near the radiator and waiting for dinner to be served.
The next morning he looked over the papers and waded through a long
list of advertisements, making a few notes. Then he turned to the
male-help-wanted column, but with disagreeable feelings. The day was
before him--a long day in which to discover something--and this was
how he must begin to discover. He scanned the long column, which mostly
concerned bakers, bushelmen, cooks, compositors, drivers, and the like,
finding two things only which arrested his eye. One was a cashier wanted
in a wholesale furniture house, and the other a salesman for a whiskey
house. He had never thought of the latter. At once he decided to look
that up.
The firm in question was Alsbery & Co., whiskey brokers.
He was admitted almost at once to the manager on his appearance.
"Good-morning, sir," said the latter, thinking at first that he was
encountering one of his out-of-town customers.
"Good-morning," said Hurstwood. "You advertised, I believe, for a
salesman?"
"Oh," said the man, showing plainly the enlightenment which had come to
him. "Yes. Yes, I did."
"I thought I'd drop in," said Hurstwood, with dignity. "I've had some
experience in that line myself."
"Oh, have you?" said the man. "What experience have you had?"
"Well, I've managed several liquor houses in my time. Recently I owned a
third-interest in a saloon at Warren and Hudson streets."
"I see," said the man.
Hurstwood ceased, waiting for some suggestion.
"We did want a salesman," said the man. "I don't know as it's anything
you'd care to take hold of, though."
"I see," said Hurstwood. "Well, I'm in no position to choose, just at
present. If it were open, I should be glad to get it."
The man did not take kindly at all to his "No position to choose." He
wanted some one who wasn't thinking of a choice or something better.
Especially not an old man. He wanted some one young, active, and glad to
work actively for a moderate sum. Hurstwood did not please him at all.
He had more of an air than his employers.
"Well," he said in answer, "we'd be glad to consider your application.
We shan't decide for a few days yet. Suppose you send us your
references."
"I will," said Hurstwood.
He nodded good-morning and came away. At the corner he looked at the
furniture company's address, and saw that it was in West Twenty-third
Street. Accordingly, he went up there. The place was not large enough,
however. It looked moderate, the men in it idle and small salaried. He
walked by, glancing in, and then decided not to go in there.
"They want a girl, probably, at ten a week," he said.
At one o'clock he thought of eating, and went to a restaurant in Madison
Square. There he pondered over places which he might look up. He was
tired. It was blowing up grey again. Across the way, through Madison
Square Park, stood the great hotels, looking down upon a busy scene. He
decided to go over to the lobby of one and sit a while. It was warm in
there and bright. He had seen no one he knew at the Broadway Central. In
all likelihood he would encounter no one here. Finding a seat on one
of the red plush divans close to the great windows which look out on
Broadway's busy rout, he sat musing. His state did not seem so bad
in here. Sitting still and looking out, he could take some slight
consolation in the few hundred dollars he had in his purse. He could
forget, in a measure, the weariness of the street and his tiresome
searches. Still, it was only escape from a severe to a less severe
state. He was still gloomy and disheartened. There, minutes seemed to go
very slowly. An hour was a long, long time in passing. It was filled for
him with observations and mental comments concerning the actual
guests of the hotel, who passed in and out, and those more prosperous
pedestrians whose good fortune showed in their clothes and spirits as
they passed along Broadway, outside. It was nearly the first time
since he had arrived in the city that his leisure afforded him ample
opportunity to contemplate this spectacle. Now, being, perforce, idle
himself, he wondered at the activity of others. How gay were the youths
he saw, how pretty the women. Such fine clothes they all wore. They
were so intent upon getting somewhere. He saw coquettish glances cast
by magnificent girls. Ah, the money it required to train with such--how
well he knew! How long it had been since he had had the opportunity to
do so!
The clock outside registered four. It was a little early, but he thought
he would go back to the flat.
This going back to the flat was coupled with the thought that Carrie
would think he was sitting around too much if he came home early. He
hoped he wouldn't have to, but the day hung heavily on his hands. Over
there he was on his own ground. He could sit in his rocking-chair and
read. This busy, distracting, suggestive scene was shut out. He could
read his papers. Accordingly, he went home. Carrie was reading, quite
alone. It was rather dark in the flat, shut in as it was.
"You'll hurt your eyes," he said when he saw her.
After taking off his coat, he felt it incumbent upon him to make some
little report of his day.
"I've been talking with a wholesale liquor company," he said. "I may go
on the road."
"Wouldn't that be nice!" said Carrie. "It wouldn't be such a bad thing,"
he answered.
Always from the man at the corner now he bought two papers--the "Evening
World" and "Evening Sun." So now he merely picked his papers up, as he
came by, without stopping.
He drew up his chair near the radiator and lighted the gas. Then it was
as the evening before. His difficulties vanished in the items he so well
loved to read.
The next day was even worse than the one before, because now he could
not think of where to go. Nothing he saw in the papers he studied--till
ten o'clock--appealed to him. He felt that he ought to go out, and yet
he sickened at the thought. Where to, where to?
"You mustn't forget to leave me my money for this week," said Carrie,
quietly.
They had an arrangement by which he placed twelve dollars a week in her
hands, out of which to pay current expenses. He heaved a little sigh as
she said this, and drew out his purse. Again he felt the dread of the
thing. Here he was taking off, taking off, and nothing coming in.
"Lord!" he said, in his own thoughts, "this can't go on."
To Carrie he said nothing whatsoever. She could feel that her request
disturbed him. To pay her would soon become a distressing thing.
"Yet, what have I got to do with it?" she thought. "Oh, why should I be
made to worry?"
Hurstwood went out and made for Broadway. He wanted to think up some
place. Before long, though, he reached the Grand Hotel at Thirty-first
Street. He knew of its comfortable lobby. He was cold after his twenty
blocks' walk.
"I'll go in their barber shop and get a shave," he thought.
Thus he justified himself in sitting down in here after his tonsorial
treatment.
Again, time hanging heavily on his hands, he went home early, and this
continued for several days, each day the need to hunt paining him, and
each day disgust, depression, shamefacedness driving him into lobby
idleness.
At last three days came in which a storm prevailed, and he did not go
out at all. The snow began to fall late one afternoon. It was a regular
flurry of large, soft, white flakes. In the morning it was still coming
down with a high wind, and the papers announced a blizzard. From out the
front windows one could see a deep, soft bedding.
"I guess I'll not try to go out to-day," he said to Carrie at breakfast.
"It's going to be awful bad, so the papers say."
"The man hasn't brought my coal, either," said Carrie, who ordered by
the bushel.
"I'll go over and see about it," said Hurstwood. This was the first time
he had ever suggested doing an errand, but, somehow, the wish to sit
about the house prompted it as a sort of compensation for the privilege.
All day and all night it snowed, and the city began to suffer from a
general blockade of traffic. Great attention was given to the details of
the storm by the newspapers, which played up the distress of the poor in
large type.
Hurstwood sat and read by his radiator in the corner. He did not try to
think about his need of work. This storm being so terrific, and tying up
all things, robbed him of the need. He made himself wholly comfortable
and toasted his feet.
Carrie observed his ease with some misgiving. For all the fury of
the storm she doubted his comfort. He took his situation too
philosophically.
Hurstwood, however, read on and on. He did not pay much attention to
Carrie. She fulfilled her household duties and said little to disturb
him.
The next day it was still snowing, and the next, bitter cold. Hurstwood
took the alarm of the paper and sat still. Now he volunteered to do a
few other little things. One was to go to the butcher, another to
the grocery. He really thought nothing of these little services in
connection with their true significance. He felt as if he were not
wholly useless--indeed, in such a stress of weather, quite worth while
about the house.
On the fourth day, however, it cleared, and he read that the storm was
over. Now, however, he idled, thinking how sloppy the streets would be.
It was noon before he finally abandoned his papers and got under way.
Owing to the slightly warmer temperature the streets were bad. He
went across Fourteenth Street on the car and got a transfer south on
Broadway. One little advertisement he had, relating to a saloon down in
Pearl Street. When he reached the Broadway Central, however, he changed
his mind.
"What's the use?" he thought, looking out upon the slop and snow. "I
couldn't buy into it. It's a thousand to one nothing comes of it. I
guess I'll get off," and off he got. In the lobby he took a seat and
waited again, wondering what he could do.
While he was idly pondering, satisfied to be inside, a well-dressed
man passed up the lobby, stopped, looked sharply, as if not sure of his
memory, and then approached. Hurstwood recognised Cargill, the owner of
the large stables in Chicago of the same name, whom he had last seen at
Avery Hall, the night Carrie appeared there. The remembrance of how this
individual brought up his wife to shake hands on that occasion was also
on the instant clear.
Hurstwood was greatly abashed. His eyes expressed the difficulty he
felt.
"Why, it's Hurstwood!" said Cargill, remembering now, and sorry that he
had not recognised him quickly enough in the beginning to have avoided
this meeting.
"Yes," said Hurstwood. "How are you?"
"Very well," said Cargill, troubled for something to talk about.
"Stopping here?"
"No," said Hurstwood, "just keeping an appointment." "I knew you had
left Chicago. I was wondering what had become of you."
"Oh, I'm here now," answered Hurstwood, anxious to get away.
"Doing well, I suppose?"
"Excellent."
"Glad to hear it."
They looked at one another, rather embarrassed.
"Well, I have an engagement with a friend upstairs. I'll leave you. So
long."
Hurstwood nodded his head.
"Damn it all," he murmured, turning toward the door. "I knew that would
happen."
He walked several blocks up the street. His watch only registered 1.30.
He tried to think of some place to go or something to do. The day was so
bad he wanted only to be inside. Finally his feet began to feel wet and
cold, and he boarded a car. This took him to Fifty-ninth Street, which
was as good as anywhere else. Landed here, he turned to walk back along
Seventh Avenue, but the slush was too much. The misery of lounging about
with nowhere to go became intolerable. He felt as if he were catching
cold.
Stopping at a corner, he waited for a car south bound. This was no day
to be out; he would go home.
Carrie was surprised to see him at a quarter of three.
"It's a miserable day out," was all he said. Then he took off his coat
and changed his shoes.
That night he felt a cold coming on and took quinine. He was feverish
until morning, and sat about the next day while Carrie waited on him.
He was a helpless creature in sickness, not very handsome in a
dull-coloured bath gown and his hair uncombed. He looked haggard about
the eyes and quite old. Carrie noticed this, and it did not appeal to
her. She wanted to be good-natured and sympathetic, but something about
the man held her aloof.
Toward evening he looked so badly in the weak light that she suggested
he go to bed.
"You'd better sleep alone," she said, "you'll feel better. I'll open
your bed for you now."
"All right," he said.
As she did all these things, she was in a most despondent state.
"What a life! What a life!" was her one thought.
Once during the day, when he sat near the radiator, hunched up and
reading, she passed through, and seeing him, wrinkled her brows. In the
front room, where it was not so warm, she sat by the window and cried.
This was the life cut out for her, was it? To live cooped up in a small
flat with some one who was out of work, idle, and indifferent to her.
She was merely a servant to him now, nothing more.
This crying made her eyes red, and when, in preparing his bed, she
lighted the gas, and, having prepared it, called him in, he noticed the
fact.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked, looking into her face. His voice
was hoarse and his unkempt head only added to its grewsome quality.
"Nothing," said Carrie, weakly.
"You've been crying," he said.
"I haven't, either," she answered.
It was not for love of him, that he knew.
"You needn't cry," he said, getting into bed. "Things will come out all
right."
In a day or two he was up again, but rough weather holding, he stayed
in. The Italian newsdealer now delivered the morning papers, and these
he read assiduously. A few times after that he ventured out, but meeting
another of his old-time friends, he began to feel uneasy sitting about
hotel corridors.
Every day he came home early, and at last made no pretence of going
anywhere. Winter was no time to look for anything.
Naturally, being about the house, he noticed the way Carrie did things.
She was far from perfect in household methods and economy, and her
little deviations on this score first caught his eye. Not, however,
before her regular demand for her allowance became a grievous thing.
Sitting around as he did, the weeks seemed to pass very quickly. Every
Tuesday Carrie asked for her money.
"Do you think we live as cheaply as we might?" he asked one Tuesday
morning.
"I do the best I can," said Carrie.
Nothing was added to this at the moment, but the next day he said:
"Do you ever go to the Gansevoort Market over here?"
"I didn't know there was such a market," said Carrie.
"They say you can get things lots cheaper there."
Carrie was very indifferent to the suggestion. These were things which
she did not like at all.
"How much do you pay for a pound of meat?" he asked one day.
"Oh, there are different prices," said Carrie. "Sirloin steak is
twenty-two cents."
"That's steep, isn't it?" he answered.
So he asked about other things, until finally, with the passing days, it
seemed to become a mania with him. He learned the prices and remembered
them. His errand-running capacity also improved. It began in a small
way, of course. Carrie, going to get her hat one morning, was stopped by
him.
"Where are you going, Carrie?" he asked.
"Over to the baker's," she answered.
"I'd just as leave go for you," he said.
She acquiesced, and he went. Each afternoon he would go to the corner
for the papers.
"Is there anything you want?" he would say.
By degrees she began to use him. Doing this, however, she lost the
weekly payment of twelve dollars.
"You want to pay me to-day," she said one Tuesday, about this time.
"How much?" he asked.
She understood well enough what it meant.
"Well, about five dollars," she answered. "I owe the coal man."
The same day he said:
"I think this Italian up here on the corner sells coal at twenty-five
cents a bushel. I'll trade with him."
Carrie heard this with indifference.
"All right," she said.
Then it came to be:
"George, I must have some coal to-day," or, "You must get some meat of
some kind for dinner."
He would find out what she needed and order.
Accompanying this plan came skimpiness.
"I only got a half-pound of steak," he said, coming in one afternoon
with his papers. "We never seem to eat very much."
These miserable details ate the heart out of Carrie. They blackened her
days and grieved her soul. Oh, how this man had changed! All day and
all day, here he sat, reading his papers. The world seemed to have no
attraction. Once in a while he would go out, in fine weather, it might
be four or five hours, between eleven and four. She could do nothing but
view him with gnawing contempt.
It was apathy with Hurstwood, resulting from his inability to see his
way out. Each month drew from his small store. Now, he had only five
hundred dollars left, and this he hugged, half feeling as if he could
stave off absolute necessity for an indefinite period. Sitting around
the house, he decided to wear some old clothes he had. This came first
with the bad days. Only once he apologised in the very beginning:
"It's so bad to-day, I'll just wear these around." Eventually these
became the permanent thing.
Also, he had been wont to pay fifteen cents for a shave, and a tip of
ten cents. In his first distress, he cut down the tip to five, then to
nothing. Later, he tried a ten-cent barber shop, and, finding that the
shave was satisfactory, patronised regularly. Later still, he put off
shaving to every other day, then to every third, and so on, until once a
week became the rule. On Saturday he was a sight to see.
Of course, as his own self-respect vanished, it perished for him in
Carrie. She could not understand what had gotten into the man. He had
some money, he had a decent suit remaining, he was not bad looking when
dressed up. She did not forget her own difficult struggle in Chicago,
but she did not forget either that she had never ceased trying. He never
tried. He did not even consult the ads in the papers any more.
Finally, a distinct impression escaped from her.
"What makes you put so much butter on the steak?" he asked her one
evening, standing around in the kitchen.
"To make it good, of course," she answered.
"Butter is awful dear these days," he suggested.
"You wouldn't mind it if you were working," she answered.
He shut up after this, and went in to his paper, but the retort rankled
in his mind. It was the first cutting remark that had come from her.
That same evening, Carrie, after reading, went off to the front room
to bed. This was unusual. When Hurstwood decided to go, he retired, as
usual, without a light. It was then that he discovered Carrie's absence.
"That's funny," he said; "maybe she's sitting up."
He gave the matter no more thought, but slept. In the morning she was
not beside him. Strange to say, this passed without comment.
Night approaching, and a slightly more conversational feeling
prevailing, Carrie said:
"I think I'll sleep alone to-night. I have a headache."
"All right," said Hurstwood.
The third night she went to her front bed without apologies.
This was a grim blow to Hurstwood, but he never mentioned it.
"All right," he said to himself, with an irrepressible frown, "let her
sleep alone." | Even though she does not see Ames again for some time, Carrie thinks of him as an ideal to contrast other men by. Compared to the youthful Ames, Hurstwood seems old and uninteresting, while Drouet seems foolish and shallow. Hurstwood himself is sliding past the prime of life, and largely because of that, he begins to lose the decisiveness that had once made him prosperous and successful. For a time this is not apparent even to him, but gradually he begins to see himself outside "the walled city" of youth and easy money and fine clothes. The narrator postulates that this change for the worse is the result of "certain poisons in the blood, called katastates." The poisons arising from remorse work against the system and finally produce "marked physical deterioration." Subject to these, Hurstwood becomes a brooder. Reading the daily newspaper reports of the celebrities with whom he used to associate, Hurstwood becomes even more depressed with his own lowly state. In an effort to avert disaster, Hurstwood decides that he and Carrie should move into a smaller apartment and dismiss the maid. Carrie is very gloomily affected by the change, "more seriously than anything that had yet happened." She begins to recall that Hurstwood "had practically forced her to flee with him." As Hurstwood continues to brood, only the newspapers and his own thoughts seem of any importance to him. "The delight of love had again slipped away." To make matters worse, the lease on the Warren Street establishment expires and Hurstwood finds himself facing the coming winter without any income. He begins to search halfheartedly for a new position. He visits a few saloons but realizes that his meager $700 is not nearly enough for a substantial investment. Hurstwood's appearance is still excellent, however; he continues to dress well and looks prosperous. Now forty-three years old and "comfortably built" he finds walking about the city makes his legs tired, his shoulders ache, and his feet hurt. It makes him bitter to have to enter business places announcing that he was looking for "something to do." His days are largely spent lounging in the lobbies of the larger New York hotels watching the world pass before him. At night he returns home to read the papers and lose himself in the "Lethean waters . . . of telegraphed intelligence." So he reads and rocks himself in the warm room near the radiator. The routine he falls into consists of reading the morning newspapers, leaving the house in search of work only to rest in a hotel lobby, and returning home to read the evening papers. As winter sets in he leaves the house even less, except to go on household errands as a means of justifying his presence. He deteriorates quickly, wearing his worst clothes, and shaving only once a week. His very appearance becomes revolting to Carrie, and she begins to sleep alone. By doing all the daily errands, Hurstwood cuts household expenses to a minimum and never gives any money to Carrie. When he is not out buying food or coal, he sits by the radiator, reading and rereading his newspaper. |
Cyrano, Roxane.
CYRANO:
Blessed be the moment when you condescend--
Remembering that humbly I exist--
To come to meet me, and to say. . .to tell?. . .
ROXANE (who has unmasked):
To thank you first of all. That dandy count,
Whom you checkmated in brave sword-play
Last night,. . .he is the man whom a great lord,
Desirous of my favor. . .
CYRANO:
Ha, De Guiche?
ROXANE (casting down her eyes):
Sought to impose on me. . .for husband. . .
CYRANO:
Ay! Husband!--dupe-husband!. . .Husband a la mode!
(Bowing):
Then I fought, happy chance! sweet lady, not
For my ill favor--but your favors fair!
ROXANE:
Confession next!. . .But, ere I make my shrift,
You must be once again that brother-friend
With whom I used to play by the lake-side!. . .
CYRANO:
Ay, you would come each spring to Bergerac!
ROXANE:
Mind you the reeds you cut to make your swords?. . .
CYRANO:
While you wove corn-straw plaits for your dolls' hair!
ROXANE:
Those were the days of games!. . .
CYRANO:
And blackberries!. . .
ROXANE:
In those days you did everything I bid!. . .
CYRANO:
Roxane, in her short frock, was Madeleine. . .
ROXANE:
Was I fair then?
CYRANO:
You were not ill to see!
ROXANE:
Ofttimes, with hands all bloody from a fall,
You'd run to me! Then--aping mother-ways--
I, in a voice would-be severe, would chide,--
(She takes his hand):
'What is this scratch, again, that I see here?'
(She starts, surprised):
Oh! 'Tis too much! What's this?
(Cyrano tries to draw away his hand):
No, let me see!
At your age, fie! Where did you get that scratch?
CYRANO:
I got it--playing at the Porte de Nesle.
ROXANE (seating herself by the table, and dipping her handkerchief in a glass
of water):
Give here!
CYRANO (sitting by her):
So soft! so gay maternal-sweet!
ROXANE:
And tell me, while I wipe away the blood,
How many 'gainst you?
CYRANO:
Oh! A hundred--near.
ROXANE:
Come, tell me!
CYRANO:
No, let be. But you, come tell
The thing, just now, you dared not. . .
ROXANE (keeping his hand):
Now, I dare!
The scent of those old days emboldens me!
Yes, now I dare. Listen. I am in love.
CYRANO:
Ah!. . .
ROXANE:
But with one who knows not.
CYRANO:
Ah!. . .
ROXANE:
Not yet.
CYRANO:
Ah!. . .
ROXANE:
But who, if he knows not, soon shall learn.
CYRANO:
Ah!. . .
ROXANE:
A poor youth who all this time has loved
Timidly, from afar, and dares not speak. . .
CYRANO:
Ah!. . .
ROXANE:
Leave your hand; why, it is fever-hot!--
But I have seen love trembling on his lips.
CYRANO:
Ah!. . .
ROXANE (bandaging his hand with her handkerchief):
And to think of it! that he by chance--
Yes, cousin, he is of your regiment!
CYRANO:
Ah!. . .
ROXANE (laughing):
--Is cadet in your own company!
CYRANO:
Ah!. . .
ROXANE:
On his brow he bears the genius-stamp;
He is proud, noble, young, intrepid, fair. . .
CYRANO (rising suddenly, very pale):
Fair!
ROXANE:
Why, what ails you?
CYRANO:
Nothing; 'tis. . .
(He shows his hand, smiling):
This scratch!
ROXANE:
I love him; all is said. But you must know
I have only seen him at the Comedy. . .
CYRANO:
How? You have never spoken?
ROXANE:
Eyes can speak.
CYRANO:
How know you then that he. . .?
ROXANE:
Oh! people talk
'Neath the limes in the Place Royale. . .
Gossip's chat
Has let me know. . .
CYRANO:
He is cadet?
ROXANE:
In the Guards.
CYRANO:
His name?
ROXANE:
Baron Christian de Neuvillette.
CYRANO:
How now?. . .He is not of the Guards!
ROXANE:
To-day
He is not join your ranks, under Captain
Carbon de Castel-Jaloux.
CYRANO:
Ah, how quick,
How quick the heart has flown!. . .But, my poor child. . .
THE DUENNA (opening the door):
The cakes are eaten, Monsieur Bergerac!
CYRANO:
Then read the verses printed on the bags!
(She goes out):
. . .My poor child, you who love but flowing words,
Bright wit,--what if he be a lout unskilled?
ROXANE:
No, his bright locks, like D'Urfe's heroes. . .
CYRANO:
Ah!
A well-curled pate, and witless tongue, perchance!
ROXANE:
Ah no! I guess--I feel--his words are fair!
CYRANO:
All words are fair that lurk 'neath fair mustache!
--Suppose he were a fool!. . .
ROXANE (stamping her foot):
Then bury me!
CYRANO (after a pause):
Was it to tell me this you brought me here?
I fail to see what use this serves, Madame.
ROXANE:
Nay, but I felt a terror, here, in the heart,
On learning yesterday you were Gascons
All of your company. . .
CYRANO:
And we provoke
All beardless sprigs that favor dares admit
'Midst us pure Gascons--(pure! Heaven save the mark!
They told you that as well?
ROXANE:
Ah! Think how I
Trembled for him!
CYRANO (between his teeth):
Not causelessly!
ROXANE:
But when
Last night I saw you,--brave, invincible,--
Punish that dandy, fearless hold your own
Against those brutes, I thought--I thought, if he
Whom all fear, all--if he would only. . .
CYRANO:
Good.
I will befriend your little Baron.
ROXANE:
Ah!
You'll promise me you will do this for me?
I've always held you as a tender friend.
CYRANO:
Ay, ay.
ROXANE:
Then you will be his friend?
CYRANO:
I swear!
ROXANE:
And he shall fight no duels, promise!
CYRANO:
None.
ROXANE:
You are kind, cousin! Now I must be gone.
(She puts on her mask and veil quickly; then, absently):
You have not told me of your last night's fray.
Ah, but it must have been a hero-fight!. . .
--Bid him to write.
(She sends him a kiss with her fingers):
How good you are!
CYRANO:
Ay! Ay!
ROXANE:
A hundred men against you? Now, farewell.--
We are great friends?
CYRANO:
Ay, ay!
ROXANE:
Oh, bid him write!
You'll tell me all one day--A hundred men!--
Ah, brave!. . .How brave!
CYRANO (bowing to her):
I have fought better since.
(She goes out. Cyrano stands motionless, with eyes on the ground. A silence.
The door (right) opens. Ragueneau looks in.) | Cyrano and Roxane begin to talk alone. Cyrano anxiously asks Roxane to state why she has come to talk to him. She shrugs off his insistence, and they reminisce about the childhood summers they spent together. She tends to his wounded hand, and Cyrano tells her he injured it in a fight the night before in which he defeated a hundred men. Roxane confesses to Cyrano that she is in love with someone, a man who does not know she loves him. Cyrano thinks she means him, but when she describes the man as "handsome," he knows that she means someone else. She tells him that she is in love with Christian, the new member of Cyrano's company of guards. She says that she is afraid for Christian because Cyrano's company is composed of hot-blooded Gascons who pick fights with anyone foreign. Christian is not a Gascon. Roxane asks Cyrano to protect him, and Cyrano agrees. She also asks Cyrano to have Christian write to her. Professing friendly love and admiration for Cyrano, she leaves. |
THE whole population of the valley seemed to be gathered within the
precincts of the grove. In the distance could be seen the long front of
the Ti, its immense piazza swarming with men, arrayed in every variety
of fantastic costume, and all vociferating with animated gestures; while
the whole interval between it and the place where I stood was enlivened
by groups of females fancifully decorated, dancing, capering, and
uttering wild exclamations. As soon as they descried me they set up a
shout of welcome; and a band of them came dancing towards me, chanting
as they approached some wild recitative. The change in my garb seemed to
transport them with delight, and clustering about me on all sides, they
accompanied me towards the Ti. When however we drew near it these joyous
nymphs paused in their career, and parting on either side, permitted me
to pass on to the now densely thronged building.
So soon as I mounted to the pi-pi I saw at a glance that the revels were
fairly under way.
What lavish plenty reigned around?--Warwick feasting his retainers with
beef and ale, was a niggard to the noble Mehevi!--All along the piazza
of the Ti were arranged elaborately carved canoe-shaped vessels, some
twenty feet in length, tied with newly made poee-poee, and sheltered
from the sun by the broad leaves of the banana. At intervals were heaps
of green bread-fruit, raised in pyramidical stacks, resembling the
regular piles of heavy shot to be seen in the yard of an arsenal.
Inserted into the interstices of the huge stones which formed the pi-pi
were large boughs of trees; hanging from the branches of which, and
screened from the sun by their foliage, were innumerable little packages
with leafy coverings, containing the meat of the numerous hogs which
had been slain, done up in this manner to make it more accessible to the
crowd. Leaning against the railing on the piazza were an immense
number of long, heavy bamboos, plugged at the lower end, and with their
projecting muzzles stuffed with a wad of leaves. These were filled with
water from the stream, and each of them might hold from four to five
gallons.
The banquet being thus spread, naught remained but for everyone to
help himself at his pleasure. Accordingly not a moment passed but the
transplanted boughs I have mentioned were rifled by the throng of the
fruit they certainly had never borne before. Calabashes of poee-poee
were continually being replenished from the extensive receptacle in
which that article was stored, and multitudes of little fires were
kindled about the Ti for the purpose of roasting the bread-fruit.
Within the building itself was presented a most extraordinary scene. The
immense lounge of mats lying between the parallel rows of the trunks of
cocoanut trees, and extending the entire length of the house, at least
two hundred feet, was covered by the reclining forms of a host of chiefs
and warriors who were eating at a great rate, or soothing the cares of
Polynesian life in the sedative fumes of tobacco. The smoke was inhaled
from large pipes, the bowls of which, made out of small cocoanut shells,
were curiously carved in strange heathenish devices. These were passed
from mouth to mouth by the recumbent smokers, each of whom, taking two
or three prodigious whiffs, handed the pipe to his neighbour; sometimes
for that purpose stretching indolently across the body of some dozing
individual whose exertions at the dinner-table had already induced
sleep.
The tobacco used among the Typees was of a very mild and pleasing
flavour, and as I always saw it in leaves, and the natives appeared
pretty well supplied with it, I was led to believe that it must have
been the growth of the valley. Indeed Kory-Kory gave me to understand
that this was the case; but I never saw a single plant growing on the
island. At Nukuheva, and, I believe, in all the other valleys, the weed
is very scarce, being only obtained in small quantities from foreigners,
and smoking is consequently with the inhabitants of these places a very
great luxury. How it was that the Typees were so well furnished with
it I cannot divine. I should think them too indolent to devote any
attention to its culture; and, indeed, as far as my observation
extended, not a single atom of the soil was under any other cultivation
than that of shower and sunshine. The tobacco-plant, however, like the
sugar-cane, may grow wild in some remote part of the vale.
There were many in the Ti for whom the tobacco did not furnish a
sufficient stimulus, and who accordingly had recourse to 'arva', as a
more powerful agent in producing the desired effect.
'Arva' is a root very generally dispersed over the South Seas, and from
it is extracted a juice, the effects of which upon the system are at
first stimulating in a moderate degree; but it soon relaxes the muscles,
and exerting a narcotic influence produces a luxurious sleep. In
the valley this beverage was universally prepared in the following
way:--Some half-dozen young boys seated themselves in a circle around
an empty wooden vessel, each one of them being supplied with a certain
quantity of the roots of the 'arva', broken into small bits and laid
by his side. A cocoanut goblet of water was passed around the juvenile
company, who rinsing their mouths with its contents, proceeded to the
business before them. This merely consisted in thoroughly masticating
the 'arva', and throwing it mouthful after mouthful into the receptacle
provided. When a sufficient quantity had been thus obtained water was
poured upon the mass, and being stirred about with the forefinger of the
right hand, the preparation was soon in readiness for use. The 'arva'
has medicinal qualities.
Upon the Sandwich Islands it has been employed with no small success in
the treatment of scrofulous affections, and in combating the ravages
of a disease for whose frightful inroads the ill-starred inhabitants of
that group are indebted to their foreign benefactors. But the tenants of
the Typee valley, as yet exempt from these inflictions, generally employ
the 'arva' as a minister to social enjoyment, and a calabash of the
liquid circulates among them as the bottle with us.
Mehevi, who was greatly delighted with the change in my costume, gave
me a cordial welcome. He had reserved for me a most delectable mess
of 'cokoo', well knowing my partiality for that dish; and had likewise
selected three or four young cocoanuts, several roasted bread-fruit,
and a magnificent bunch of bananas, for my especial comfort and
gratification. These various matters were at once placed before me; but
Kory-Kory deemed the banquet entirely insufficient for my wants until
he had supplied me with one of the leafy packages of pork, which,
notwithstanding the somewhat hasty manner in which it had been prepared,
possessed a most excellent flavour, and was surprisingly sweet and
tender.
Pork is not a staple article of food among the people of the Marquesas;
consequently they pay little attention to the BREEDING of the swine. The
hogs are permitted to roam at large on the groves, where they obtain
no small part of their nourishment from the cocoanuts which continually
fall from the trees. But it is only after infinite labour and
difficulty, that the hungry animal can pierce the husk and shell so as
to get at the meat. I have frequently been amused at seeing one of
them, after crunching the obstinate nut with his teeth for a long time
unsuccessfully, get into a violent passion with it. He would then root
furiously under the cocoanut, and, with a fling of his snout, toss it
before him on the ground. Following it up, he would crunch at it again
savagely for a moment, and then next knock it on one side, pausing
immediately after, as if wondering how it could so suddenly have
disappeared. In this way the persecuted cocoanuts were often chased half
across the valley.
The second day of the Feast of Calabashes was ushered in by still more
uproarious noises than the first. The skins of innumerable sheep seemed
to be resounding to the blows of an army of drummers. Startled from my
slumbers by the din, I leaped up, and found the whole household engaged
in making preparations for immediate departure. Curious to discover of
what strange events these novel sounds might be the precursors, and not
a little desirous to catch a sight of the instruments which produced
the terrific noise, I accompanied the natives as soon as they were in
readiness to depart for the Taboo Groves.
The comparatively open space that extended from the Ti toward the rock,
to which I have before alluded as forming the ascent to the place, was,
with the building itself, now altogether deserted by the men; the whole
distance being filled by bands of females, shouting and dancing under
the influence of some strange excitement.
I was amused at the appearance of four or five old women who, in a state
of utter nudity, with their arms extended flatly down their sides, and
holding themselves perfectly erect, were leaping stiffly into the
air, like so many sticks bobbing to the surface, after being pressed
perpendicularly into the water. They preserved the utmost gravity of
countenance, and continued their extraordinary movements without
a single moment's cessation. They did not appear to attract the
observation of the crowd around them, but I must candidly confess that
for my own part, I stared at them most pertinaciously.
Desirous of being enlightened in regard to the meaning of this peculiar
diversion, I turned, inquiringly to Kory-Kory; that learned Typee
immediately proceeded to explain the whole matter thoroughly. But all
that I could comprehend from what he said was, that the leaping figures
before me were bereaved widows, whose partners had been slain in battle
many moons previously; and who, at every festival, gave public evidence
in this manner of their calamities. It was evident that Kory-Kory
considered this an all-sufficient reason for so indecorous a custom; but
I must say that it did not satisfy me as to its propriety.
Leaving these afflicted females, we passed on to the Hoolah Hoolah
ground. Within the spacious quadrangle, the whole population of the
valley seemed to be assembled, and the sight presented was truly
remarkable. Beneath the sheds of bamboo which opened towards the
interior of the square reclined the principal chiefs and warriors, while
a miscellaneous throng lay at their ease under the enormous trees which
spread a majestic canopy overhead. Upon the terraces of the gigantic
altars, at each end, were deposited green bread-fruit in baskets of
cocoanut leaves, large rolls of tappa, bunches of ripe bananas, clusters
of mammee-apples, the golden-hued fruit of the artu-tree, and baked
hogs, laid out in large wooden trenchers, fancifully decorated with
freshly plucked leaves, whilst a variety of rude implements of war were
piled in confused heaps before the ranks of hideous idols. Fruits of
various kinds were likewise suspended in leafen baskets, from the tops
of poles planted uprightly, and at regular intervals, along the lower
terraces of both altars. At their base were arranged two parallel rows
of cumbersome drums, standing at least fifteen feet in height, and
formed from the hollow trunks of large trees. Their heads were covered
with shark skins, and their barrels were elaborately carved with various
quaint figures and devices. At regular intervals they were bound round
by a species of sinnate of various colours, and strips of native cloth
flattened upon them here and there. Behind these instruments were built
slight platforms, upon which stood a number of young men who, beating
violently with the palms of their hands upon the drum-heads, produced
those outrageous sounds which had awakened me in the morning. Every few
minutes these musical performers hopped down from their elevation into
the crowd below, and their places were immediately supplied by fresh
recruits. Thus an incessant din was kept up that might have startled
Pandemonium.
Precisely in the middle of the quadrangle were placed perpendicularly
in the ground, a hundred or more slender, fresh-cut poles, stripped of
their bark, and decorated at the end with a floating pennon of white
tappa; the whole being fenced about with a little picket of canes. For
what purpose these angular ornaments were intended I in vain endeavoured
to discover.
Another most striking feature of the performance was exhibited by a
score of old men, who sat cross-legged in the little pulpits, which
encircled the trunks of the immense trees growing in the middle of the
enclosure. These venerable gentlemen, who I presume were the priests,
kept up an uninterrupted monotonous chant, which was partly drowned in
the roar of drums. In the right hand they held a finely woven grass fan,
with a heavy black wooden handle curiously chased: these fans they kept
in continual motion.
But no attention whatever seemed to be paid to the drummers or to the
old priests; the individuals who composed the vast crowd present being
entirely taken up in chanting and laughing with one another, smoking,
drinking 'arva', and eating. For all the observation it attracted,
or the good it achieved, the whole savage orchestra might with great
advantage to its own members and the company in general, have ceased the
prodigious uproar they were making.
In vain I questioned Kory-Kory and others of the natives, as to the
meaning of the strange things that were going on; all their explanations
were conveyed in such a mass of outlandish gibberish and gesticulation
that I gave up the attempt in despair. All that day the drums resounded,
the priests chanted, and the multitude feasted and roared till sunset,
when the throng dispersed, and the Taboo Groves were again abandoned to
quiet and repose. The next day the same scene was repeated until night,
when this singular festival terminated. | The whole population of the valley has gathered at Ti for the celebration. Poee- poee, green breadfruit, cooked pork, and fresh bananas abound and everyone eats their fill while smoking and drinking "arva," a local intoxicating brew. On the second day of the Feast, Tommo sees some wailing women and learns that they are mourning the loss of their husbands who have been slain in battle. Drumming takes place all day while priests chant monotonously over religious idols in the Hoolah Hoolah ground. The Feast continues the next day as well and ends at sunset. Tommo decides that European and American feasts pale in comparison to the Feast of the Calabashes. |
ACT III
(SCENE.—The editorial office of the "People's Messenger." The entrance
door is on the left-hand side of the back wall; on the right-hand side
is another door with glass panels through which the printing room can
be seen. Another door in the right-hand wall. In the middle of the room
is a large table covered with papers, newspapers and books. In the
foreground on the left a window, before which stands a desk and a high
stool. There are a couple of easy chairs by the table, and other chairs
standing along the wall. The room is dingy and uncomfortable; the
furniture is old, the chairs stained and torn. In the printing room the
compositors are seen at work, and a printer is working a handpress.
HOVSTAD is sitting at the desk, writing. BILLING comes in from the
right with DR. STOCKMANN'S manuscript in his hand.)
Billing. Well, I must say!
Hovstad (still writing). Have you read it through?
Billing (laying the MS. on the desk). Yes, indeed I have.
Hovstad. Don't you think the Doctor hits them pretty hard?
Billing. Hard? Bless my soul, he's crushing! Every word falls like—how
shall I put it?—like the blow of a sledgehammer.
Hovstad. Yes, but they are not the people to throw up the sponge at the
first blow.
Billing. That is true; and for that reason we must strike blow upon
blow until the whole of this aristocracy tumbles to pieces. As I sat in
there reading this, I almost seemed to see a revolution in being.
Hovstad (turning round). Hush!—Speak so that Aslaksen cannot hear you.
Billing (lowering his voice). Aslaksen is a chicken-hearted chap, a
coward; there is nothing of the man in him. But this time you will
insist on your own way, won't you? You will put the Doctor's article in?
Hovstad. Yes, and if the Mayor doesn't like it—
Billing. That will be the devil of a nuisance.
Hovstad. Well, fortunately we can turn the situation to good account,
whatever happens. If the Mayor will not fall in with the Doctor's
project, he will have all the small tradesmen down on him—the whole of
the Householders' Association and the rest of them. And if he does fall
in with it, he will fall out with the whole crowd of large shareholders
in the Baths, who up to now have been his most valuable supporters—
Billing. Yes, because they will certainly have to fork out a pretty
penny—
Hovstad. Yes, you may be sure they will. And in this way the ring will
be broken up, you see, and then in every issue of the paper we will
enlighten the public on the Mayor's incapability on one point and
another, and make it clear that all the positions of trust in the town,
the whole control of municipal affairs, ought to be put in the hands of
the Liberals.
Billing. That is perfectly true! I see it coming—I see it coming; we
are on the threshold of a revolution!
(A knock is heard at the door.)
Hovstad. Hush! (Calls out.) Come in! (DR. STOCKMANN comes in by the
street door. HOVSTAD goes to meet him.) Ah, it is you, Doctor! Well?
Dr. Stockmann. You may set to work and print it, Mr. Hovstad!
Hovstad. Has it come to that, then?
Billing. Hurrah!
Dr. Stockmann. Yes, print away. Undoubtedly it has come to that. Now
they must take what they get. There is going to be a fight in the town,
Mr. Billing!
Billing. War to the knife, I hope! We will get our knives to their
throats, Doctor!
Dr. Stockmann. This article is only a beginning. I have already got
four or five more sketched out in my head. Where is Aslaksen?
Billing (calls into the printing-room). Aslaksen, just come here for a
minute!
Hovstad. Four or five more articles, did you say? On the same subject?
Dr. Stockmann. No—far from it, my dear fellow. No, they are about
quite another matter. But they all spring from the question of the
water supply and the drainage. One thing leads to another, you know. It
is like beginning to pull down an old house, exactly.
Billing. Upon my soul, it's true; you find you are not done till you
have pulled all the old rubbish down.
Aslaksen (coming in). Pulled down? You are not thinking of pulling down
the Baths surely, Doctor?
Hovstad. Far from it, don't be afraid.
Dr. Stockmann. No, we meant something quite different. Well, what do
you think of my article, Mr. Hovstad?
Hovstad. I think it is simply a masterpiece.
Dr. Stockmann. Do you really think so? Well, I am very pleased, very
pleased.
Hovstad. It is so clear and intelligible. One need have no special
knowledge to understand the bearing of it. You will have every
enlightened man on your side.
Aslaksen. And every prudent man too, I hope?
Billing. The prudent and the imprudent—almost the whole town.
Aslaksen. In that case we may venture to print it.
Dr. Stockmann. I should think so!
Hovstad. We will put it in tomorrow morning.
Dr. Stockmann. Of course—you must not lose a single day. What I wanted
to ask you, Mr. Aslaksen, was if you would supervise the printing of it
yourself.
Aslaksen. With pleasure.
Dr. Stockmann. Take care of it as if it were a treasure! No
misprints—every word is important. I will look in again a little
later; perhaps you will be able to let me see a proof. I can't tell you
how eager I am to see it in print, and see it burst upon the public—
Billing. Burst upon them—yes, like a flash of lightning!
Dr. Stockmann. —and to have it submitted to the judgment of my
intelligent fellow townsmen. You cannot imagine what I have gone
through today. I have been threatened first with one thing and then
with another; they have tried to rob me of my most elementary rights as
a man—
Billing. What! Your rights as a man!
Dr. Stockmann. —they have tried to degrade me, to make a coward of me,
to force me to put personal interests before my most sacred convictions.
Billing. That is too much—I'm damned if it isn't.
Hovstad. Oh, you mustn't be surprised at anything from that quarter.
Dr. Stockmann. Well, they will get the worst of it with me; they may
assure themselves of that. I shall consider the "People's Messenger" my
sheet-anchor now, and every single day I will bombard them with one
article after another, like bombshells—
Aslaksen. Yes, but
Billing. Hurrah!—it is war, it is war!
Dr. Stockmann. I shall smite them to the ground—I shall crush them—I
shall break down all their defenses, before the eyes of the honest
public! That is what I shall do!
Aslaksen, Yes, but in moderation, Doctor—proceed with moderation.
Billing. Not a bit of it, not a bit of it! Don't spare the dynamite!
Dr. Stockmann. Because it is not merely a question of water-supply and
drains now, you know. No—it is the whole of our social life that we
have got to purify and disinfect—
Billing. Spoken like a deliverer!
Dr. Stockmann. All the incapables must be turned out, you
understand—and that in every walk of life! Endless vistas have opened
themselves to my mind's eye today. I cannot see it all quite clearly
yet, but I shall in time. Young and vigorous standard-bearers—those
are what we need and must seek, my friends; we must have new men in
command at all our outposts.
Billing. Hear hear!
Dr. Stockmann. We only need to stand by one another, and it will all be
perfectly easy. The revolution will be launched like a ship that runs
smoothly off the stocks. Don't you think so?
Hovstad. For my part I think we have now a prospect of getting the
municipal authority into the hands where it should lie.
Aslaksen. And if only we proceed with moderation, I cannot imagine that
there will be any risk.
Dr. Stockmann. Who the devil cares whether there is any risk or not!
What I am doing, I am doing in the name of truth and for the sake of my
conscience.
Hovstad. You are a man who deserves to be supported, Doctor.
Aslaksen. Yes, there is no denying that the Doctor is a true friend to
the town—a real friend to the community, that he is.
Billing. Take my word for it, Aslaksen, Dr. Stockmann is a friend of
the people.
Aslaksen. I fancy the Householders' Association will make use of that
expression before long.
Dr. Stockmann (affected, grasps their hands). Thank you, thank you, my
dear staunch friends. It is very refreshing to me to hear you say that;
my brother called me something quite different. By Jove, he shall have
it back, with interest! But now I must be off to see a poor devil—I
will come back, as I said. Keep a very careful eye on the manuscript,
Aslaksen, and don't for worlds leave out any of my notes of
exclamation! Rather put one or two more in! Capital, capital! Well,
good-bye for the present—goodbye, goodbye! (They show him to the door,
and bow him out.)
Hovstad. He may prove an invaluably useful man to us.
Aslaksen. Yes, so long as he confines himself to this matter of the
Baths. But if he goes farther afield, I don't think it would be
advisable to follow him.
Hovstad. Hm!—that all depends—
Billing. You are so infernally timid, Aslaksen!
Aslaksen. Timid? Yes, when it is a question of the local authorities, I
am timid, Mr. Billing; it is a lesson I have learned in the school of
experience, let me tell you. But try me in higher politics, in matters
that concern the government itself, and then see if I am timid.
Billing. No, you aren't, I admit. But this is simply contradicting
yourself.
Aslaksen. I am a man with a conscience, and that is the whole matter.
If you attack the government, you don't do the community any harm,
anyway; those fellows pay no attention to attacks, you see—they go on
just as they are, in spite of them. But local authorities are
different; they can be turned out, and then perhaps you may get an
ignorant lot into office who may do irreparable harm to the
householders and everybody else.
Hovstad. But what of the education of citizens by self
government—don't you attach any importance to that?
Aslaksen. When a man has interests of his own to protect, he cannot
think of everything, Mr. Hovstad.
Hovstad. Then I hope I shall never have interests of my own to protect!
Billing. Hear, hear!
Aslaksen (with a smile). Hm! (Points to the desk.) Mr. Sheriff
Stensgaard was your predecessor at that editorial desk.
Billing (spitting). Bah! That turncoat.
Hovstad. I am not a weathercock—and never will be.
Aslaksen. A politician should never be too certain of anything, Mr.
Hovstad. And as for you, Mr. Billing, I should think it is time for you
to be taking in a reef or two in your sails, seeing that you are
applying for the post of secretary to the Bench.
Billing. I—!
Hovstad. Are you, Billing?
Billing. Well, yes—but you must clearly understand I am only doing it
to annoy the bigwigs.
Aslaksen. Anyhow, it is no business of mine. But if I am to be accused
of timidity and of inconsistency in my principles, this is what I want
to point out: my political past is an open book. I have never changed,
except perhaps to become a little more moderate, you see. My heart is
still with the people; but I don't deny that my reason has a certain
bias towards the authorities—the local ones, I mean. (Goes into the
printing room.)
Billing. Oughtn't we to try and get rid of him, Hovstad?
Hovstad. Do you know anyone else who will advance the money for our
paper and printing bill?
Billing. It is an infernal nuisance that we don't possess some capital
to trade on.
Hovstad (sitting down at his desk). Yes, if we only had that, then—
Billing. Suppose you were to apply to Dr. Stockmann?
Hovstad (turning over some papers). What is the use? He has got nothing.
Billing. No, but he has got a warm man in the background, old Morten
Kiil—"the Badger," as they call him.
Hovstad (writing). Are you so sure he has got anything?
Billing. Good Lord, of course he has! And some of it must come to the
Stockmanns. Most probably he will do something for the children, at all
events.
Hovstad (turning half round). Are you counting on that?
Billing. Counting on it? Of course I am not counting on anything.
Hovstad. That is right. And I should not count on the secretaryship to
the Bench either, if I were you; for I can assure you—you won't get it.
Billing. Do you think I am not quite aware of that? My object is
precisely not to get it. A slight of that kind stimulates a man's
fighting power—it is like getting a supply of fresh bile—and I am
sure one needs that badly enough in a hole-and-corner place like this,
where it is so seldom anything happens to stir one up.
Hovstad (writing). Quite so, quite so.
Billing. Ah, I shall be heard of yet!—Now I shall go and write the
appeal to the Householders' Association. (Goes into the room on the
right.)
Hovstad (sitting al his desk, biting his penholder, says slowly).
Hm!—that's it, is it. (A knock is heard.) Come in! (PETRA comes in by
the outer door. HOVSTAD gets up.) What, you!—here?
Petra. Yes, you must forgive me—
Hovstad (pulling a chair forward). Won't you sit down?
Petra. No, thank you; I must go again in a moment.
Hovstad. Have you come with a message from your father, by any chance?
Petra. No, I have come on my own account. (Takes a book out of her coat
pocket.) Here is the English story.
Hovstad. Why have you brought it back?
Petra. Because I am not going to translate it.
Hovstad. But you promised me faithfully.
Petra. Yes, but then I had not read it, I don't suppose you have read
it either?
Hovstad. No, you know quite well I don't understand English; but—
Petra. Quite so. That is why I wanted to tell you that you must find
something else. (Lays the book on the table.) You can't use this for
the "People's Messenger."
Hovstad. Why not?
Petra. Because it conflicts with all your opinions.
Hovstad. Oh, for that matter—
Petra. You don't understand me. The burden of this story is that there
is a supernatural power that looks after the so-called good people in
this world and makes everything happen for the best in their
case—while all the so-called bad people are punished.
Hovstad. Well, but that is all right. That is just what our readers
want.
Petra. And are you going to be the one to give it to them? For myself,
I do not believe a word of it. You know quite well that things do not
happen so in reality.
Hovstad. You are perfectly right; but an editor cannot always act as he
would prefer. He is often obliged to bow to the wishes of the public in
unimportant matters. Politics are the most important thing in life—for
a newspaper, anyway; and if I want to carry my public with me on the
path that leads to liberty and progress, I must not frighten them away.
If they find a moral tale of this sort in the serial at the bottom of
the page, they will be all the more ready to read what is printed above
it; they feel more secure, as it were.
Petra. For shame! You would never go and set a snare like that for your
readers; you are not a spider!
Hovstad (smiling). Thank you for having such a good opinion of me. No;
as a matter of fact that is Billing's idea and not mine.
Petra. Billing's!
Hovstad. Yes; anyway, he propounded that theory here one day. And it is
Billing who is so anxious to have that story in the paper; I don't know
anything about the book.
Petra. But how can Billing, with his emancipated views—
Hovstad. Oh, Billing is a many-sided man. He is applying for the post
of secretary to the Bench, too, I hear.
Petra. I don't believe it, Mr. Hovstad. How could he possibly bring
himself to do such a thing?
Hovstad. Ah, you must ask him that.
Petra. I should never have thought it of him.
Hovstad (looking more closely at her). No? Does it really surprise you
so much?
Petra. Yes. Or perhaps not altogether. Really, I don't quite know
Hovstad. We journalists are not much worth, Miss Stockmann.
Petra. Do you really mean that?
Hovstad. I think so sometimes.
Petra. Yes, in the ordinary affairs of everyday life, perhaps; I can
understand that. But now, when you have taken a weighty matter in hand—
Hovstad. This matter of your father's, you mean?
Petra. Exactly. It seems to me that now you must feel you are a man
worth more than most.
Hovstad. Yes, today I do feel something of that sort.
Petra. Of course you do, don't you? It is a splendid vocation you have
chosen—to smooth the way for the march of unappreciated truths, and
new and courageous lines of thought. If it were nothing more than
because you stand fearlessly in the open and take up the cause of an
injured man—
Hovstad. Especially when that injured man is—ahem!—I don't rightly
know how to—
Petra. When that man is so upright and so honest, you mean?
Hovstad (more gently). Especially when he is your father I meant.
Petra (suddenly checked). That?
Hovstad. Yes, Petra—Miss Petra.
Petra. Is it that, that is first and foremost with you? Not the matter
itself? Not the truth?—not my father's big generous heart?
Hovstad. Certainly—of course—that too.
Petra. No, thank you; you have betrayed yourself, Mr. Hovstad, and now
I shall never trust you again in anything.
Hovstad. Can you really take it so amiss in me that it is mostly for
your sake—?
Petra. What I am angry with you for, is for not having been honest with
my father. You talked to him as if the truth and the good of the
community were what lay nearest to your heart. You have made fools of
both my father and me. You are not the man you made yourself out to be.
And that I shall never forgive you-never!
Hovstad. You ought not to speak so bitterly, Miss Petra—least of all
now.
Petra. Why not now, especially?
Hovstad. Because your father cannot do without my help.
Petra (looking him up and down). Are you that sort of man too? For
shame!
Hovstad. No, no, I am not. This came upon me so unexpectedly—you must
believe that.
Petra. I know what to believe. Goodbye.
Aslaksen (coming from the printing room, hurriedly and with an air of
mystery). Damnation, Hovstad!—(Sees PETRA.) Oh, this is awkward—
Petra. There is the book; you must give it to some one else. (Goes
towards the door.)
Hovstad (following her). But, Miss Stockmann—
Petra. Goodbye. (Goes out.)
Aslaksen. I say—Mr. Hovstad—
Hovstad. Well well!—what is it?
Aslaksen. The Mayor is outside in the printing room.
Hovstad. The Mayor, did you say?
Aslaksen. Yes he wants to speak to you. He came in by the back
door—didn't want to be seen, you understand.
Hovstad. What can he want? Wait a bit—I will go myself. (Goes to the
door of the printing room, opens it, bows and invites PETER STOCKMANN
in.) Just see, Aslaksen, that no one—
Aslaksen. Quite so. (Goes into the printing-room.)
Peter Stockmann. You did not expect to see me here, Mr. Hovstad?
Hovstad. No, I confess I did not.
Peter Stockmann (looking round). You are very snug in here—very nice
indeed.
Hovstad. Oh—
Peter Stockmann. And here I come, without any notice, to take up your
time!
Hovstad. By all means, Mr. Mayor. I am at your service. But let me
relieve you of your—(takes STOCKMANN's hat and stick and puts them on
a chair). Won't you sit down?
Peter Stockmann (sitting down by the table). Thank you. (HOVSTAD sits
down.) I have had an extremely annoying experience to-day, Mr. Hovstad.
Hovstad. Really? Ah well, I expect with all the various business you
have to attend to—
Peter Stockmann. The Medical Officer of the Baths is responsible for
what happened today.
Hovstad. Indeed? The Doctor?
Peter Stockmann. He has addressed a kind of report to the Baths
Committee on the subject of certain supposed defects in the Baths.
Hovstad. Has he indeed?
Peter Stockmann. Yes—has he not told you? I thought he said—
Hovstad. Ah, yes—it is true he did mention something about—
Aslaksen (coming from the printing-room). I ought to have that copy.
Hovstad (angrily). Ahem!—there it is on the desk.
Aslaksen (taking it). Right.
Peter Stockmann. But look there—that is the thing I was speaking of!
Aslaksen. Yes, that is the Doctor's article, Mr. Mayor.
Hovstad. Oh, is THAT what you were speaking about?
Peter Stockmann. Yes, that is it. What do you think of it?
Hovstad. Oh, I am only a layman—and I have only taken a very cursory
glance at it.
Peter Stockmann. But you are going to print it?
Hovstad. I cannot very well refuse a distinguished man.
Aslaksen. I have nothing to do with editing the paper, Mr. Mayor—
Peter Stockmann. I understand.
Aslaksen. I merely print what is put into my hands.
Peter Stockmann. Quite so.
Aslaksen. And so I must— (moves off towards the printing-room).
Peter Stockmann. No, but wait a moment, Mr. Aslaksen. You will allow
me, Mr. Hovstad?
Hovstad. If you please, Mr. Mayor.
Peter Stockmann. You are a discreet and thoughtful man, Mr. Aslaksen.
Aslaksen. I am delighted to hear you think so, sir.
Peter Stockmann. And a man of very considerable influence.
Aslaksen. Chiefly among the small tradesmen, sir.
Peter Stockmann. The small tax-payers are the majority—here as
everywhere else.
Aslaksen. That is true.
Peter Stockmann. And I have no doubt you know the general trend of
opinion among them, don't you?
Aslaksen. Yes I think I may say I do, Mr. Mayor.
Peter Stockmann. Yes. Well, since there is such a praiseworthy spirit
of self-sacrifice among the less wealthy citizens of our town—
Aslaksen. What?
Hovstad. Self-sacrifice?
Peter Stockmann. It is pleasing evidence of a public-spirited feeling,
extremely pleasing evidence. I might almost say I hardly expected it.
But you have a closer knowledge of public opinion than I.
Aslaksen. But, Mr. Mayor—
Peter Stockmann. And indeed it is no small sacrifice that the town is
going to make.
Hovstad. The town?
Aslaksen. But I don't understand. Is it the Baths—?
Peter Stockmann. At a provisional estimate, the alterations that the
Medical Officer asserts to be desirable will cost somewhere about
twenty thousand pounds.
Aslaksen. That is a lot of money, but—
Peter Stockmann. Of course it will be necessary to raise a municipal
loan.
Hovstad (getting up). Surely you never mean that the town must pay—?
Aslaksen. Do you mean that it must come out of the municipal
funds?—out of the ill-filled pockets of the small tradesmen?
Peter Stockmann. Well, my dear Mr. Aslaksen, where else is the money to
come from?
Aslaksen. The gentlemen who own the Baths ought to provide that.
Peter Stockmann. The proprietors of the Baths are not in a position to
incur any further expense.
Aslaksen. Is that absolutely certain, Mr. Mayor?
Peter Stockmann. I have satisfied myself that it is so. If the town
wants these very extensive alterations, it will have to pay for them.
Aslaksen. But, damn it all—I beg your pardon—this is quite another
matter, Mr. Hovstad!
Hovstad. It is, indeed.
Peter Stockmann. The most fatal part of it is that we shall be obliged
to shut the Baths for a couple of years.
Hovstad. Shut them? Shut them altogether?
Aslaksen. For two years?
Peter Stockmann. Yes, the work will take as long as that—at least.
Aslaksen. I'm damned if we will stand that, Mr. Mayor! What are we
householders to live upon in the meantime?
Peter Stockmann. Unfortunately, that is an extremely difficult question
to answer, Mr. Aslaksen. But what would you have us do? Do you suppose
we shall have a single visitor in the town, if we go about proclaiming
that our water is polluted, that we are living over a plague spot, that
the entire town—
Aslaksen. And the whole thing is merely imagination?
Peter Stockmann. With the best will in the world, I have not been able
to come to any other conclusion.
Aslaksen. Well then I must say it is absolutely unjustifiable of Dr.
Stockmann—I beg your pardon, Mr. Mayor.
Peter Stockmann. What you say is lamentably true, Mr. Aslaksen. My
brother has unfortunately always been a headstrong man.
Aslaksen. After this, do you mean to give him your support, Mr. Hovstad?
Hovstad. Can you suppose for a moment that I—?
Peter Stockmann. I have drawn up a short resume of the situation as it
appears from a reasonable man's point of view. In it I have indicated
how certain possible defects might suitably be remedied without
outrunning the resources of the Baths Committee.
Hovstad. Have you got it with you, Mr. Mayor?
Peter Stockmann (fumbling in his pocket). Yes, I brought it with me in
case you should—
Aslaksen. Good Lord, there he is!
Peter Stockmann. Who? My brother?
Hovstad. Where? Where?
Aslaksen. He has just gone through the printing room.
Peter Stockmann. How unlucky! I don't want to meet him here, and I had
still several things to speak to you about.
Hovstad (pointing to the door on the right). Go in there for the
present.
Peter Stockmann. But—?
Hovstad. You will only find Billing in there.
Aslaksen. Quick, quick, Mr. Mayor—he is just coming.
Peter Stockmann. Yes, very well; but see that you get rid of him
quickly. (Goes out through the door on the right, which ASLAKSEN opens
for him and shuts after him.)
Hovstad. Pretend to be doing something, Aslaksen. (Sits down and
writes. ASLAKSEN begins foraging among a heap of newspapers that are
lying on a chair.)
Dr. Stockmann (coming in from the printing room). Here I am again.
(Puts down his hat and stick.)
Hovstad (writing). Already, Doctor? Hurry up with what we were speaking
about, Aslaksen. We are very pressed for time today.
Dr. Stockmann (to ASLAKSEN). No proof for me to see yet, I hear.
Aslaksen (without turning round). You couldn't expect it yet, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann. No, no; but I am impatient, as you can understand. I
shall not know a moment's peace of mind until I see it in print.
Hovstad. Hm!—It will take a good while yet, won't it, Aslaksen?
Aslaksen. Yes, I am almost afraid it will.
Dr. Stockmann. All right, my dear friends; I will come back. I do not
mind coming back twice if necessary. A matter of such great
importance—the welfare of the town at stake—it is no time to shirk
trouble, (is just going, but stops and comes back.) Look here—there is
one thing more I want to speak to you about.
Hovstad. Excuse me, but could it not wait till some other time?
Dr. Stockmann. I can tell you in half a dozen words. It is only this.
When my article is read tomorrow and it is realised that I have been
quietly working the whole winter for the welfare of the town—
Hovstad. Yes but, Doctor—
Dr. Stockmann. I know what you are going to say. You don't see how on
earth it was any more than my duty—my obvious duty as a citizen. Of
course it wasn't; I know that as well as you. But my fellow citizens,
you know—! Good Lord, think of all the good souls who think so highly
of me—!
Aslaksen. Yes, our townsfolk have had a very high opinion of you so
far, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann. Yes, and that is just why I am afraid they—. Well, this
is the point; when this reaches them, especially the poorer classes,
and sounds in their ears like a summons to take the town's affairs into
their own hands for the future...
Hovstad (getting up). Ahem! Doctor, I won't conceal from you the fact—
Dr. Stockmann. Ah I—I knew there was something in the wind! But I
won't hear a word of it. If anything of that sort is being set on foot—
Hovstad. Of what sort?
Dr. Stockmann. Well, whatever it is—whether it is a demonstration in
my honour, or a banquet, or a subscription list for some presentation
to me—whatever it is, you most promise me solemnly and faithfully to
put a stop to it. You too, Mr. Aslaksen; do you understand?
Hovstad. You must forgive me, Doctor, but sooner or later we must tell
you the plain truth—
(He is interrupted by the entrance Of MRS. STOCKMANN, who comes in from
the street door.)
Mrs. Stockmann (seeing her husband). Just as I thought!
Hovstad (going towards her). You too, Mrs. Stockmann?
Dr. Stockmann. What on earth do you want here, Katherine?
Mrs. Stockmann. I should think you know very well what I want.
Hovstad, Won't you sit down? Or perhaps—
Mrs. Stockmann. No, thank you; don't trouble. And you must not be
offended at my coming to fetch my husband; I am the mother of three
children, you know.
Dr. Stockmann. Nonsense!—we know all about that.
Mrs. Stockmann. Well, one would not give you credit for much thought
for your wife and children today; if you had had that, you would not
have gone and dragged us all into misfortune.
Dr. Stockmann. Are you out of your senses, Katherine! Because a man has
a wife and children, is he not to be allowed to proclaim the truth-is
he not to be allowed to be an actively useful citizen—is he not to be
allowed to do a service to his native town!
Mrs. Stockmann. Yes, Thomas—in reason.
Aslaksen. Just what I say. Moderation in everything.
Mrs. Stockmann. And that is why you wrong us, Mr. Hovstad, in enticing
my husband away from his home and making a dupe of him in all this.
Hovstad. I certainly am making a dupe of no one—
Dr. Stockmann. Making a dupe of me! Do you suppose I should allow
myself to be duped!
Mrs. Stockmann. It is just what you do. I know quite well you have more
brains than anyone in the town, but you are extremely easily duped,
Thomas. (To Hovstad.) Please do realise that he loses his post at the
Baths if you print what he has written.
Aslaksen. What!
Hovstad. Look here, Doctor!
Dr. Stockmann (laughing). Ha-ha!—just let them try! No, no—they will
take good care not to. I have got the compact majority behind me, let
me tell you!
Mrs. Stockmann. Yes, that is just the worst of it—your having any such
horrid thing behind you.
Dr. Stockmann. Rubbish, Katherine!—Go home and look after your house
and leave me to look after the community. How can you be so afraid,
when I am so confident and happy? (Walks up and down, rubbing his
hands.) Truth and the People will win the fight, you may be certain! I
see the whole of the broad-minded middle class marching like a
victorious army—! (Stops beside a chair.) What the deuce is that lying
there?
Aslaksen Good Lord!
Hovstad. Ahem!
Dr. Stockmann. Here we have the topmost pinnacle of authority! (Takes
the Mayor's official hat carefully between his finger-tips and holds it
up in the air.)
Mrs. Stockmann. The Mayor's hat!
Dr. Stockmann. And here is the staff of office too. How in the name of
all that's wonderful—?
Hovstad. Well, you see—
Dr. Stockmann. Oh, I understand. He has been here trying to talk you
over. Ha-ha!—he made rather a mistake there! And as soon as he caught
sight of me in the printing room. (Bursts out laughing.) Did he run
away, Mr. Aslaksen?
Aslaksen (hurriedly). Yes, he ran away, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann. Ran away without his stick or his—. Fiddlesticks! Peter
doesn't run away and leave his belongings behind him. But what the
deuce have you done with him? Ah!—in there, of course. Now you shall
see, Katherine!
Mrs. Stockmann. Thomas—please don't—!
Aslaksen. Don't be rash, Doctor.
(DR. STOCKMANN has put on the Mayor's hat and taken his stick in his
hand. He goes up to the door, opens it, and stands with his hand to his
hat at the salute. PETER STOCKMANN comes in, red with anger. BILLING
follows him.)
Peter Stockmann. What does this tomfoolery mean?
Dr. Stockmann. Be respectful, my good Peter. I am the chief authority
in the town now. (Walks up and down.)
Mrs. Stockmann (almost in tears). Really, Thomas!
Peter Stockmann (following him about). Give me my hat and stick.
Dr. Stockmann (in the same tone as before). If you are chief constable,
let me tell you that I am the Mayor—I am the master of the whole town,
please understand!
Peter Stockmann. Take off my hat, I tell you. Remember it is part of an
official uniform.
Dr. Stockmann. Pooh! Do you think the newly awakened lionhearted people
are going to be frightened by an official hat? There is going to be a
revolution in the town tomorrow, let me tell you. You thought you could
turn me out; but now I shall turn you out—turn you out of all your
various offices. Do you think I cannot? Listen to me. I have triumphant
social forces behind me. Hovstad and Billing will thunder in the
"People's Messenger," and Aslaksen will take the field at the head of
the whole Householders' Association—
Aslaksen. That I won't, Doctor.
Dr. Stockmann. Of course you will—
Peter Stockmann. Ah!—may I ask then if Mr. Hovstad intends to join
this agitation?
Hovstad. No, Mr. Mayor.
Aslaksen. No, Mr. Hovstad is not such a fool as to go and ruin his
paper and himself for the sake of an imaginary grievance.
Dr. Stockmann (looking round him). What does this mean?
Hovstad. You have represented your case in a false light, Doctor, and
therefore I am unable to give you my support.
Billing. And after what the Mayor was so kind as to tell me just now,
I—
Dr. Stockmann. A false light! Leave that part of it to me. Only print
my article; I am quite capable of defending it.
Hovstad. I am not going to print it. I cannot and will not and dare not
print it.
Dr. Stockmann. You dare not? What nonsense!—you are the editor; and an
editor controls his paper, I suppose!
Aslaksen. No, it is the subscribers, Doctor.
Peter Stockmann. Fortunately, yes.
Aslaksen. It is public opinion—the enlightened public—householders
and people of that kind; they control the newspapers.
Dr. Stockmann (composedly). And I have all these influences against me?
Aslaksen. Yes, you have. It would mean the absolute ruin of the
community if your article were to appear.
Dr. Stockmann. Indeed.
Peter Stockmann. My hat and stick, if you please. (DR. STOCKMANN takes
off the hat and lays it on the table with the stick. PETER STOCKMANN
takes them up.) Your authority as mayor has come to an untimely end.
Dr. Stockmann. We have not got to the end yet. (To HOVSTAD.) Then it is
quite impossible for you to print my article in the "People's
Messenger"?
Hovstad. Quite impossible—out of regard for your family as well.
Mrs. Stockmann. You need not concern yourself about his family, thank
you, Mr. Hovstad.
Peter Stockmann (taking a paper from his pocket). It will be
sufficient, for the guidance of the public, if this appears. It is an
official statement. May I trouble you?
Hovstad (taking the paper). Certainly; I will see that it is printed.
Dr. Stockmann. But not mine. Do you imagine that you can silence me and
stifle the truth! You will not find it so easy as you suppose. Mr.
Aslaksen, kindly take my manuscript at once and print it as a
pamphlet—at my expense. I will have four hundred copies—no, five or
six hundred.
Aslaksen. If you offered me its weight in gold, I could not lend my
press for any such purpose, Doctor. It would be flying in the face of
public opinion. You will not get it printed anywhere in the town.
Dr. Stockmann. Then give it me back.
Hovstad (giving him the MS.). Here it is.
Dr. Stockmann (taking his hat and stick). It shall be made public all
the same. I will read it out at a mass meeting of the townspeople. All
my fellow-citizens shall hear the voice of truth!
Peter Stockmann. You will not find any public body in the town that
will give you the use of their hall for such a purpose.
Aslaksen. Not a single one, I am certain.
Billing. No, I'm damned if you will find one.
Mrs. Stockmann. But this is too shameful! Why should every one turn
against you like that?
Dr. Stockmann (angrily). I will tell you why. It is because all the men
in this town are old women—like you; they all think of nothing but
their families, and never of the community.
Mrs. Stockmann (putting her arm into his). Then I will show them that
an old woman can be a man for once. I am going to stand by you, Thomas!
Dr. Stockmann. Bravely said, Katherine! It shall be made public—as I
am a living soul! If I can't hire a hall, I shall hire a drum, and
parade the town with it and read it at every street-corner.
Peter Stockmann. You are surely not such an errant fool as that!
Dr. Stockmann. Yes, I am.
Aslaksen. You won't find a single man in the whole town to go with you.
Billing. No, I'm damned if you will.
Mrs. Stockmann. Don't give in, Thomas. I will tell the boys to go with
you.
Dr. Stockmann. That is a splendid idea!
Mrs. Stockmann. Morten will be delighted; and Ejlif will do whatever he
does.
Dr. Stockmann. Yes, and Petra!—and you too, Katherine!
Mrs. Stockmann. No, I won't do that; but I will stand at the window and
watch you, that's what I will do.
Dr. Stockmann (puts his arms round her and kisses her). Thank you, my
dear! Now you and I are going to try a fall, my fine gentlemen! I am
going to see whether a pack of cowards can succeed in gagging a patriot
who wants to purify society! (He and his wife go out by the street
door.)
Peter Stockmann (shaking his head seriously). Now he has sent her out
of her senses, too. | In the editor's room of the "People's Messenger," Hovstad and his assistant, Billing, are discussing Dr. Stockmann's article. They feel that now the Burgomaster is in trouble and they will use this trouble to hound him out of office. They hope to replace him with men of more "liberal ideas." Dr. Stockmann arrives and tells the men to go ahead with the publication of his article. They call Aslaksen who wants to know if the article will offend people. He is assured that all intelligent and prudent men will support the article. Dr. Stockmann believes that his article will send all the old bunglers packing, and the town will have a new regime. Aslaksen insists that they proceed with moderation. He explains that he has learned caution when attacking local authorities. If it is a subject of attacking the national government, he is not timid, but with local authorities, one must proceed with caution. Billing maintains that Dr. Stockmann will be declared "a Friend of the People." After Dr. Stockmann and Aslaksen leave, Hovstad wishes that they could get some financial backing from someone else so that they wouldn't have to rely on Aslaksen. They think about old Morton Kiil who is bound to have some money and the money will go to Dr. Stockmann's family. At this time, Petra comes in to explain that she refuses to translate a certain English novel because it does not conform with Hovstad's liberal ideas. The novel is unrealistic and false to life. Hovstad explains that the paper must print something to attract the attention of the reader so as to trap him into reading the more important liberal ideas. Petra feels this is not honorable and is somewhat disgusted. In further discussions, Petra sees that Hovstad is "not the man" he pretended to be, and she tells him that she will never trust him again. As Petra leaves, Aslaksen comes in to tell Hovstad that the Burgomaster is in the printing office. After some small talk, the Burgomaster sees Dr. Stockmann's article. He wants to know if the paper is going to print and support Dr. Stockmann's position. He inquires about the compact majority and pretends to be surprised that so many of the "poorer class appear to be so heroically eager to make sacrifices." Aslaksen and Hovstad are confused. The Burgomaster explains that it will require this huge sum of money, which will have to come from the town, and the project will take two years to complete. In the meantime, other towns will take over the business and when the news reaches other places, no one will ever come to their town. Hovstad and Aslaksen now see that Dr. Stockmann was not informed of all the facts. The Burgomaster explains that he is not convinced that there is anything wrong with the water supply. He has brought with him a short statement of what should be done about the baths and wonders if the paper will care to print it. Just as Hovstad is accepting the paper, they see Dr. Stockmann approaching. The Burgomaster hides in the next room. Dr. Stockmann asks if the first proofs on his article are ready. He is told it will be quite some time. He warns his friends not to get up any type of testimonial for him because it would be too embarrassing. Mrs. Stockmann comes in and warns her husband of the trouble he is getting the entire family into. At this time, Dr. Stockmann notices the Burgomaster's hat and cane. He routs his brother out of hiding and tells him that the power has now changed hands. But Aslaksen and Hovstad take the Burgomaster's side. Both explain that Dr. Stockmann's plan will ruin the town. Dr. Stockmann refuses to budge from his position. He maintains that the truth cannot be killed by a "conspiracy of silence." He promises that his report will be made public in spite of all threats. As the men turn against Dr. Stockmann, his wife comes to his side and promises to stand by him always. He is told he can have no hall to speak in and no society will listen to him. He threatens to stand on the street corner and read his paper to the people. |
It had been a miserable party, each of the three believing themselves
most miserable. Mrs. Norris, however, as most attached to Maria, was
really the greatest sufferer. Maria was her first favourite, the dearest
of all; the match had been her own contriving, as she had been wont with
such pride of heart to feel and say, and this conclusion of it almost
overpowered her.
She was an altered creature, quieted, stupefied, indifferent to
everything that passed. The being left with her sister and nephew, and
all the house under her care, had been an advantage entirely thrown
away; she had been unable to direct or dictate, or even fancy herself
useful. When really touched by affliction, her active powers had been
all benumbed; and neither Lady Bertram nor Tom had received from her the
smallest support or attempt at support. She had done no more for them
than they had done for each other. They had been all solitary, helpless,
and forlorn alike; and now the arrival of the others only established
her superiority in wretchedness. Her companions were relieved, but there
was no good for _her_. Edmund was almost as welcome to his brother
as Fanny to her aunt; but Mrs. Norris, instead of having comfort from
either, was but the more irritated by the sight of the person whom, in
the blindness of her anger, she could have charged as the daemon of the
piece. Had Fanny accepted Mr. Crawford this could not have happened.
Susan too was a grievance. She had not spirits to notice her in more
than a few repulsive looks, but she felt her as a spy, and an intruder,
and an indigent niece, and everything most odious. By her other aunt,
Susan was received with quiet kindness. Lady Bertram could not give her
much time, or many words, but she felt her, as Fanny's sister, to have
a claim at Mansfield, and was ready to kiss and like her; and Susan
was more than satisfied, for she came perfectly aware that nothing but
ill-humour was to be expected from aunt Norris; and was so provided
with happiness, so strong in that best of blessings, an escape from
many certain evils, that she could have stood against a great deal more
indifference than she met with from the others.
She was now left a good deal to herself, to get acquainted with the
house and grounds as she could, and spent her days very happily in so
doing, while those who might otherwise have attended to her were shut
up, or wholly occupied each with the person quite dependent on them, at
this time, for everything like comfort; Edmund trying to bury his own
feelings in exertions for the relief of his brother's, and Fanny devoted
to her aunt Bertram, returning to every former office with more than
former zeal, and thinking she could never do enough for one who seemed
so much to want her.
To talk over the dreadful business with Fanny, talk and lament, was all
Lady Bertram's consolation. To be listened to and borne with, and hear
the voice of kindness and sympathy in return, was everything that could
be done for her. To be otherwise comforted was out of the question. The
case admitted of no comfort. Lady Bertram did not think deeply, but,
guided by Sir Thomas, she thought justly on all important points; and
she saw, therefore, in all its enormity, what had happened, and neither
endeavoured herself, nor required Fanny to advise her, to think little
of guilt and infamy.
Her affections were not acute, nor was her mind tenacious. After a time,
Fanny found it not impossible to direct her thoughts to other subjects,
and revive some interest in the usual occupations; but whenever Lady
Bertram _was_ fixed on the event, she could see it only in one light, as
comprehending the loss of a daughter, and a disgrace never to be wiped
off.
Fanny learnt from her all the particulars which had yet transpired. Her
aunt was no very methodical narrator, but with the help of some letters
to and from Sir Thomas, and what she already knew herself, and could
reasonably combine, she was soon able to understand quite as much as she
wished of the circumstances attending the story.
Mrs. Rushworth had gone, for the Easter holidays, to Twickenham, with
a family whom she had just grown intimate with: a family of lively,
agreeable manners, and probably of morals and discretion to suit, for to
_their_ house Mr. Crawford had constant access at all times. His having
been in the same neighbourhood Fanny already knew. Mr. Rushworth had
been gone at this time to Bath, to pass a few days with his mother, and
bring her back to town, and Maria was with these friends without any
restraint, without even Julia; for Julia had removed from Wimpole Street
two or three weeks before, on a visit to some relations of Sir Thomas;
a removal which her father and mother were now disposed to attribute
to some view of convenience on Mr. Yates's account. Very soon after the
Rushworths' return to Wimpole Street, Sir Thomas had received a letter
from an old and most particular friend in London, who hearing and
witnessing a good deal to alarm him in that quarter, wrote to recommend
Sir Thomas's coming to London himself, and using his influence with his
daughter to put an end to the intimacy which was already exposing her to
unpleasant remarks, and evidently making Mr. Rushworth uneasy.
Sir Thomas was preparing to act upon this letter, without communicating
its contents to any creature at Mansfield, when it was followed by
another, sent express from the same friend, to break to him the almost
desperate situation in which affairs then stood with the young people.
Mrs. Rushworth had left her husband's house: Mr. Rushworth had been
in great anger and distress to _him_ (Mr. Harding) for his advice; Mr.
Harding feared there had been _at_ _least_ very flagrant indiscretion.
The maidservant of Mrs. Rushworth, senior, threatened alarmingly. He
was doing all in his power to quiet everything, with the hope of Mrs.
Rushworth's return, but was so much counteracted in Wimpole Street by
the influence of Mr. Rushworth's mother, that the worst consequences
might be apprehended.
This dreadful communication could not be kept from the rest of the
family. Sir Thomas set off, Edmund would go with him, and the others had
been left in a state of wretchedness, inferior only to what followed
the receipt of the next letters from London. Everything was by that time
public beyond a hope. The servant of Mrs. Rushworth, the mother, had
exposure in her power, and supported by her mistress, was not to be
silenced. The two ladies, even in the short time they had been
together, had disagreed; and the bitterness of the elder against her
daughter-in-law might perhaps arise almost as much from the personal
disrespect with which she had herself been treated as from sensibility
for her son.
However that might be, she was unmanageable. But had she been less
obstinate, or of less weight with her son, who was always guided by the
last speaker, by the person who could get hold of and shut him up, the
case would still have been hopeless, for Mrs. Rushworth did not appear
again, and there was every reason to conclude her to be concealed
somewhere with Mr. Crawford, who had quitted his uncle's house, as for a
journey, on the very day of her absenting herself.
Sir Thomas, however, remained yet a little longer in town, in the hope
of discovering and snatching her from farther vice, though all was lost
on the side of character.
_His_ present state Fanny could hardly bear to think of. There was but
one of his children who was not at this time a source of misery to
him. Tom's complaints had been greatly heightened by the shock of his
sister's conduct, and his recovery so much thrown back by it, that even
Lady Bertram had been struck by the difference, and all her alarms were
regularly sent off to her husband; and Julia's elopement, the additional
blow which had met him on his arrival in London, though its force had
been deadened at the moment, must, she knew, be sorely felt. She saw
that it was. His letters expressed how much he deplored it. Under any
circumstances it would have been an unwelcome alliance; but to have it
so clandestinely formed, and such a period chosen for its completion,
placed Julia's feelings in a most unfavourable light, and severely
aggravated the folly of her choice. He called it a bad thing, done in
the worst manner, and at the worst time; and though Julia was yet as
more pardonable than Maria as folly than vice, he could not but
regard the step she had taken as opening the worst probabilities of a
conclusion hereafter like her sister's. Such was his opinion of the set
into which she had thrown herself.
Fanny felt for him most acutely. He could have no comfort but in Edmund.
Every other child must be racking his heart. His displeasure against
herself she trusted, reasoning differently from Mrs. Norris, would now
be done away. _She_ should be justified. Mr. Crawford would have fully
acquitted her conduct in refusing him; but this, though most material
to herself, would be poor consolation to Sir Thomas. Her uncle's
displeasure was terrible to her; but what could her justification or her
gratitude and attachment do for him? His stay must be on Edmund alone.
She was mistaken, however, in supposing that Edmund gave his father no
present pain. It was of a much less poignant nature than what the others
excited; but Sir Thomas was considering his happiness as very deeply
involved in the offence of his sister and friend; cut off by it, as
he must be, from the woman whom he had been pursuing with undoubted
attachment and strong probability of success; and who, in everything but
this despicable brother, would have been so eligible a connexion. He was
aware of what Edmund must be suffering on his own behalf, in addition
to all the rest, when they were in town: he had seen or conjectured
his feelings; and, having reason to think that one interview with Miss
Crawford had taken place, from which Edmund derived only increased
distress, had been as anxious on that account as on others to get him
out of town, and had engaged him in taking Fanny home to her aunt, with
a view to his relief and benefit, no less than theirs. Fanny was not in
the secret of her uncle's feelings, Sir Thomas not in the secret of Miss
Crawford's character. Had he been privy to her conversation with his
son, he would not have wished her to belong to him, though her twenty
thousand pounds had been forty.
That Edmund must be for ever divided from Miss Crawford did not admit
of a doubt with Fanny; and yet, till she knew that he felt the same, her
own conviction was insufficient. She thought he did, but she wanted to
be assured of it. If he would now speak to her with the unreserve which
had sometimes been too much for her before, it would be most consoling;
but _that_ she found was not to be. She seldom saw him: never alone. He
probably avoided being alone with her. What was to be inferred? That
his judgment submitted to all his own peculiar and bitter share of this
family affliction, but that it was too keenly felt to be a subject of
the slightest communication. This must be his state. He yielded, but it
was with agonies which did not admit of speech. Long, long would it be
ere Miss Crawford's name passed his lips again, or she could hope for a
renewal of such confidential intercourse as had been.
It _was_ long. They reached Mansfield on Thursday, and it was not till
Sunday evening that Edmund began to talk to her on the subject. Sitting
with her on Sunday evening--a wet Sunday evening--the very time of
all others when, if a friend is at hand, the heart must be opened, and
everything told; no one else in the room, except his mother, who,
after hearing an affecting sermon, had cried herself to sleep, it was
impossible not to speak; and so, with the usual beginnings, hardly to
be traced as to what came first, and the usual declaration that if she
would listen to him for a few minutes, he should be very brief, and
certainly never tax her kindness in the same way again; she need not
fear a repetition; it would be a subject prohibited entirely: he entered
upon the luxury of relating circumstances and sensations of the first
interest to himself, to one of whose affectionate sympathy he was quite
convinced.
How Fanny listened, with what curiosity and concern, what pain and what
delight, how the agitation of his voice was watched, and how carefully
her own eyes were fixed on any object but himself, may be imagined. The
opening was alarming. He had seen Miss Crawford. He had been invited to
see her. He had received a note from Lady Stornaway to beg him to call;
and regarding it as what was meant to be the last, last interview
of friendship, and investing her with all the feelings of shame and
wretchedness which Crawford's sister ought to have known, he had gone to
her in such a state of mind, so softened, so devoted, as made it for a
few moments impossible to Fanny's fears that it should be the last. But
as he proceeded in his story, these fears were over. She had met him,
he said, with a serious--certainly a serious--even an agitated air;
but before he had been able to speak one intelligible sentence, she had
introduced the subject in a manner which he owned had shocked him. "'I
heard you were in town,' said she; 'I wanted to see you. Let us talk
over this sad business. What can equal the folly of our two relations?'
I could not answer, but I believe my looks spoke. She felt reproved.
Sometimes how quick to feel! With a graver look and voice she then
added, 'I do not mean to defend Henry at your sister's expense.' So
she began, but how she went on, Fanny, is not fit, is hardly fit to be
repeated to you. I cannot recall all her words. I would not dwell upon
them if I could. Their substance was great anger at the _folly_ of each.
She reprobated her brother's folly in being drawn on by a woman whom he
had never cared for, to do what must lose him the woman he adored; but
still more the folly of poor Maria, in sacrificing such a situation,
plunging into such difficulties, under the idea of being really loved
by a man who had long ago made his indifference clear. Guess what I must
have felt. To hear the woman whom--no harsher name than folly given!
So voluntarily, so freely, so coolly to canvass it! No reluctance, no
horror, no feminine, shall I say, no modest loathings? This is what the
world does. For where, Fanny, shall we find a woman whom nature had so
richly endowed? Spoilt, spoilt!"
After a little reflection, he went on with a sort of desperate calmness.
"I will tell you everything, and then have done for ever. She saw it
only as folly, and that folly stamped only by exposure. The want of
common discretion, of caution: his going down to Richmond for the whole
time of her being at Twickenham; her putting herself in the power of
a servant; it was the detection, in short--oh, Fanny! it was the
detection, not the offence, which she reprobated. It was the imprudence
which had brought things to extremity, and obliged her brother to give
up every dearer plan in order to fly with her."
He stopt. "And what," said Fanny (believing herself required to speak),
"what could you say?"
"Nothing, nothing to be understood. I was like a man stunned. She
went on, began to talk of you; yes, then she began to talk of you,
regretting, as well she might, the loss of such a--. There she spoke
very rationally. But she has always done justice to you. 'He has thrown
away,' said she, 'such a woman as he will never see again. She would
have fixed him; she would have made him happy for ever.' My dearest
Fanny, I am giving you, I hope, more pleasure than pain by this
retrospect of what might have been--but what never can be now. You do
not wish me to be silent? If you do, give me but a look, a word, and I
have done."
No look or word was given.
"Thank God," said he. "We were all disposed to wonder, but it seems to
have been the merciful appointment of Providence that the heart which
knew no guile should not suffer. She spoke of you with high praise and
warm affection; yet, even here, there was alloy, a dash of evil; for in
the midst of it she could exclaim, 'Why would not she have him? It is
all her fault. Simple girl! I shall never forgive her. Had she accepted
him as she ought, they might now have been on the point of marriage, and
Henry would have been too happy and too busy to want any other object.
He would have taken no pains to be on terms with Mrs. Rushworth again.
It would have all ended in a regular standing flirtation, in yearly
meetings at Sotherton and Everingham.' Could you have believed it
possible? But the charm is broken. My eyes are opened."
"Cruel!" said Fanny, "quite cruel. At such a moment to give way to
gaiety, to speak with lightness, and to you! Absolute cruelty."
"Cruelty, do you call it? We differ there. No, hers is not a cruel
nature. I do not consider her as meaning to wound my feelings. The evil
lies yet deeper: in her total ignorance, unsuspiciousness of there being
such feelings; in a perversion of mind which made it natural to her to
treat the subject as she did. She was speaking only as she had been used
to hear others speak, as she imagined everybody else would speak. Hers
are not faults of temper. She would not voluntarily give unnecessary
pain to any one, and though I may deceive myself, I cannot but think
that for me, for my feelings, she would--Hers are faults of principle,
Fanny; of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, vitiated mind. Perhaps it
is best for me, since it leaves me so little to regret. Not so, however.
Gladly would I submit to all the increased pain of losing her, rather
than have to think of her as I do. I told her so."
"Did you?"
"Yes; when I left her I told her so."
"How long were you together?"
"Five-and-twenty minutes. Well, she went on to say that what remained
now to be done was to bring about a marriage between them. She spoke of
it, Fanny, with a steadier voice than I can." He was obliged to pause
more than once as he continued. "'We must persuade Henry to marry
her,' said she; 'and what with honour, and the certainty of having shut
himself out for ever from Fanny, I do not despair of it. Fanny he must
give up. I do not think that even _he_ could now hope to succeed with
one of her stamp, and therefore I hope we may find no insuperable
difficulty. My influence, which is not small shall all go that way; and
when once married, and properly supported by her own family, people of
respectability as they are, she may recover her footing in society to a
certain degree. In some circles, we know, she would never be admitted,
but with good dinners, and large parties, there will always be those
who will be glad of her acquaintance; and there is, undoubtedly, more
liberality and candour on those points than formerly. What I advise
is, that your father be quiet. Do not let him injure his own cause by
interference. Persuade him to let things take their course. If by any
officious exertions of his, she is induced to leave Henry's protection,
there will be much less chance of his marrying her than if she remain
with him. I know how he is likely to be influenced. Let Sir Thomas trust
to his honour and compassion, and it may all end well; but if he get his
daughter away, it will be destroying the chief hold.'"
After repeating this, Edmund was so much affected that Fanny, watching
him with silent, but most tender concern, was almost sorry that the
subject had been entered on at all. It was long before he could speak
again. At last, "Now, Fanny," said he, "I shall soon have done. I have
told you the substance of all that she said. As soon as I could speak,
I replied that I had not supposed it possible, coming in such a state of
mind into that house as I had done, that anything could occur to make
me suffer more, but that she had been inflicting deeper wounds in almost
every sentence. That though I had, in the course of our acquaintance,
been often sensible of some difference in our opinions, on points,
too, of some moment, it had not entered my imagination to conceive the
difference could be such as she had now proved it. That the manner in
which she treated the dreadful crime committed by her brother and my
sister (with whom lay the greater seduction I pretended not to say),
but the manner in which she spoke of the crime itself, giving it every
reproach but the right; considering its ill consequences only as they
were to be braved or overborne by a defiance of decency and impudence in
wrong; and last of all, and above all, recommending to us a compliance,
a compromise, an acquiescence in the continuance of the sin, on the
chance of a marriage which, thinking as I now thought of her brother,
should rather be prevented than sought; all this together most
grievously convinced me that I had never understood her before, and
that, as far as related to mind, it had been the creature of my own
imagination, not Miss Crawford, that I had been too apt to dwell on
for many months past. That, perhaps, it was best for me; I had less to
regret in sacrificing a friendship, feelings, hopes which must, at any
rate, have been torn from me now. And yet, that I must and would confess
that, could I have restored her to what she had appeared to me before,
I would infinitely prefer any increase of the pain of parting, for the
sake of carrying with me the right of tenderness and esteem. This is
what I said, the purport of it; but, as you may imagine, not spoken
so collectedly or methodically as I have repeated it to you. She was
astonished, exceedingly astonished--more than astonished. I saw her
change countenance. She turned extremely red. I imagined I saw a
mixture of many feelings: a great, though short struggle; half a wish of
yielding to truths, half a sense of shame, but habit, habit carried
it. She would have laughed if she could. It was a sort of laugh, as she
answered, 'A pretty good lecture, upon my word. Was it part of your last
sermon? At this rate you will soon reform everybody at Mansfield and
Thornton Lacey; and when I hear of you next, it may be as a celebrated
preacher in some great society of Methodists, or as a missionary into
foreign parts.' She tried to speak carelessly, but she was not so
careless as she wanted to appear. I only said in reply, that from my
heart I wished her well, and earnestly hoped that she might soon learn
to think more justly, and not owe the most valuable knowledge we could
any of us acquire, the knowledge of ourselves and of our duty, to the
lessons of affliction, and immediately left the room. I had gone a few
steps, Fanny, when I heard the door open behind me. 'Mr. Bertram,' said
she. I looked back. 'Mr. Bertram,' said she, with a smile; but it was
a smile ill-suited to the conversation that had passed, a saucy playful
smile, seeming to invite in order to subdue me; at least it appeared so
to me. I resisted; it was the impulse of the moment to resist, and still
walked on. I have since, sometimes, for a moment, regretted that I did
not go back, but I know I was right, and such has been the end of our
acquaintance. And what an acquaintance has it been! How have I been
deceived! Equally in brother and sister deceived! I thank you for your
patience, Fanny. This has been the greatest relief, and now we will have
done."
And such was Fanny's dependence on his words, that for five minutes
she thought they _had_ done. Then, however, it all came on again, or
something very like it, and nothing less than Lady Bertram's rousing
thoroughly up could really close such a conversation. Till that
happened, they continued to talk of Miss Crawford alone, and how she had
attached him, and how delightful nature had made her, and how excellent
she would have been, had she fallen into good hands earlier. Fanny, now
at liberty to speak openly, felt more than justified in adding to
his knowledge of her real character, by some hint of what share his
brother's state of health might be supposed to have in her wish for a
complete reconciliation. This was not an agreeable intimation. Nature
resisted it for a while. It would have been a vast deal pleasanter to
have had her more disinterested in her attachment; but his vanity was
not of a strength to fight long against reason. He submitted to believe
that Tom's illness had influenced her, only reserving for himself this
consoling thought, that considering the many counteractions of opposing
habits, she had certainly been _more_ attached to him than could have
been expected, and for his sake been more near doing right. Fanny
thought exactly the same; and they were also quite agreed in their
opinion of the lasting effect, the indelible impression, which such
a disappointment must make on his mind. Time would undoubtedly abate
somewhat of his sufferings, but still it was a sort of thing which he
never could get entirely the better of; and as to his ever meeting with
any other woman who could--it was too impossible to be named but with
indignation. Fanny's friendship was all that he had to cling to. | Mrs. Norris is totally changed - she's crushed over what happened with Maria, who was always her favorite. Mrs. Norris is noticeably much quieter now, with it all. Everyone at Mansfield Park has been suffering alone. Mrs. Norris is furious with Fanny, though - she blames her niece for everything. If Fanny had married Henry when he first asked, none of this would have happened! Mrs. Norris isn't happy that Susan is there either, though the rest don't seem to have much of an opinion either way. Luckily Susan is just fine exploring by herself and is much more confident and self-sufficient than Fanny. Fanny learns that Maria met up with Henry at the country house she visited over Easter. The two ran off together from there. Sir Thomas tried to keep a lid on things but Mrs. Rushworth Senior was so mad at Maria that she and her servant spilled the beans and ruined Maria's reputation. Maria's reputation was done for anyway, since she had no intention of going back to her husband and now hopes to marry Henry. The two are off together still. Sir Thomas is devastated and feels that he's totally failed as a father. But he also blames Mrs. Norris for how his daughters turned out, and admits that there was something lacking in his daughter's characters. Days later, Edmund finally fills Fanny in on what happened with Mary. He's heartbroken. Basically, Edmund and Mary were talking about the scandal but had completely different opinions on the matter. Mary was upset because Henry and Maria behaved like idiots and got caught having an affair. She said that perhaps they could convince the two to get married and so save some face. Maria would eventually be re-accepted back into society since she'd have money with Henry. Edmund was appalled by this and said that Mary had no morals. He thought she should be upset by the fact that Maria and Henry did what they did at all, not just that they got caught. So Edmund gave Mary a piece of his mind about morality and Mary was pretty much broken-hearted by his attitude. Edmund laments that Mary didn't have a stronger upbringing and better principles. |
ACT V. SCENE 1.
A room in the Garter Inn.
[Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
FALSTAFF.
Prithee, no more prattling; go: I'll hold. This is the third time;
I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away! go. They say there is
divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!
QUICKLY.
I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I can to get you a pair
of horns.
FALSTAFF.
Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, and mince.
[Exit MRS. QUICKLY.]
[Enter FORD.]
How now, Master Brook! Master Brook, the matter will be known
tonight, or never. Be you in the Park about midnight, at Herne's
oak, and you shall see wonders.
FORD.
Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?
FALSTAFF.
I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a poor old man; but
I came from her, Master Brook, like a poor old woman. That same
knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy
in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you:
he beat me grievously in the shape of a woman; for in the shape
of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam,
because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along
with me; I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese,
played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what 'twas to be beaten
till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave
Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his
wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brook!
Follow.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 2.
Windsor Park.
[Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.]
PAGE.
Come, come; we'll couch i' the castle-ditch till we see the light
of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.
SLENDER.
Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word how
to know one another. I come to her in white and cry 'mum'; she
cries 'budget,' and by that we know one another.
SHALLOW.
That's good too; but what needs either your 'mum' or her 'budget'?
The white will decipher her well enough. It hath struck ten o'clock.
PAGE.
The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well. Heaven
prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall
know him by his horns. Let's away; follow me.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 3.
The street in Windsor.
[Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS.]
MRS. PAGE.
Master Doctor, my daughter is in green; when you see your time,
take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch
it quickly. Go before into the Park; we two must go together.
CAIUS.
I know vat I have to do; adieu.
MRS. PAGE.
Fare you well, sir. [Exit CAIUS.] My husband will not rejoice so
much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor's
marrying my daughter; but 'tis no matter; better a little chiding
than a great deal of heart break.
MRS. FORD.
Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil,
Hugh?
MRS. PAGE.
They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured
lights; which, at the very instant of Falstaff's and our meeting,
they will at once display to the night.
MRS. FORD.
That cannot choose but amaze him.
MRS. PAGE.
If he be not amazed, he will be mocked; if he be amazed, he will
every way be mocked.
MRS. FORD.
We'll betray him finely.
MRS. PAGE.
Against such lewdsters and their lechery,
Those that betray them do no treachery.
MRS. FORD.
The hour draws on: to the oak, to the oak!
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 4.
Windsor Park
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS, disguised, with others as Fairies.]
EVANS.
Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts. Be pold,
I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-ords,
do as I pid you. Come, come; trib, trib.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 5.
Another part of the Park.
[Enter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE with a buck's head on.]
FALSTAFF.
The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now the
hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for
thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! that in some
respects, makes a beast a man; in some other a man a beast. You
were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love!
how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done
first in the form of a beast; O Jove, a beastly fault! and then
another fault in the semblance of a fowl: think on't, Jove, a foul
fault! When gods have hot backs what shall poor men do? For me,
I am here a Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the forest.
Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?
Who comes here? my doe?
[Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE.]
MRS. FORD.
Sir John! Art thou there, my deer? my male deer?
FALSTAFF.
My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes; let it
thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves'; hail kissing-comfits and
snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will
shelter me here.
[Embracing her.]
MRS. FORD.
Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
FALSTAFF.
Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch; I will keep my sides
to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns
I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne
the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes
restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome!
[Noise within.]
MRS. PAGE.
Alas! what noise?
MRS. FORD.
Heaven forgive our sins!
FALSTAFF.
What should this be?
MRS. FORD.
Away, away!
MRS. PAGE.
Away, away!
[They run off.]
FALSTAFF.
I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's
in me should set hell on fire; he would never else cross me thus.
[Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a Satyr, PISTOL as a Hobgoblin, ANNE
PAGE as the the Fairy Queen, attended by her Brothers and Others,
as fairies, with waxen tapers on their heads.]
ANNE.
Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
PISTOL.
Elves, list your names: silence, you airy toys!
Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:
Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.
FALSTAFF.
They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
[Lies down upon his face.]
EVANS.
Where's Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Rein up the organs of her fantasy,
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
But those as sleep and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.
ANNE.
About, about!
Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room,
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,
Worthy the owner and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee.
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away! disperse! But, till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of custom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter let us not forget.
EVANS.
Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.
FALSTAFF.
Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me
to a piece of cheese!
PISTOL.
Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.
ANNE.
With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
PISTOL.
A trial! come.
EVANS.
Come, will this wood take fire?
[They burn him with their tapers.]
FALSTAFF.
Oh, oh, oh!
ANNE.
Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
SONG.
Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,
As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villany;
Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,
Till candles and star-light and moonshine be out.
[During this song the Fairies pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR CAIUS comes
one way, and steals away a fairy in green; SLENDER another way,
and takes off a fairy in white; and FENTON comes, and steals away
ANNE PAGE. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the fairies
run away. FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises.]
[Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD. They lay hold on
FALSTAFF.]
PAGE.
Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now:
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?
MRS. PAGE.
I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.
Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes
Become the forest better than the town?
FORD.
Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff's a knave,
a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook; and, Master
Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket,
his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to
Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook.
MRS. FORD.
Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never
take you for my love again; but I will always count you my deer.
FALSTAFF.
I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
FORD.
Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.
FALSTAFF.
And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought
they were not fairies; and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the
sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery
into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and
reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a
Jack-a-Lent when 'tis upon ill employment!
EVANS.
Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies
will not pinse you.
FORD.
Well said, fairy Hugh.
EVANS.
And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
FORD.
I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able to woo her
in good English.
FALSTAFF.
Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter
to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh
goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb of frieze? 'Tis time I were
choked with a piece of toasted cheese.
EVANS.
Seese is not good to give putter: your belly is all putter.
FALSTAFF.
'Seese' and 'putter'! Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one
that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay
of lust and late-walking through the realm.
MRS. PAGE.
Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue
out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given
ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could
have made you our delight?
FORD.
What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
MRS. PAGE.
A puffed man?
PAGE.
Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?
FORD.
And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
PAGE.
And as poor as Job?
FORD.
And as wicked as his wife?
EVANS.
And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack and wine, and
metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles
and prabbles?
FALSTAFF.
Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me; I am dejected;
I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel. Ignorance itself is
a plummet o'er me; use me as you will.
FORD.
Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that
you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander:
over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money
will be a biting affliction.
MRS. FORD.
Nay, husband, let that go to make amends;
Forget that sum, so we'll all be friends.
FORD.
Well, here's my hand: all is forgiven at last.
PAGE.
Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset tonight at my
house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now
laughs at thee. Tell her, Master Slender hath married her daughter.
MRS. PAGE.
[Aside] Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be my daughter, she is,
by this, Doctor Caius' wife.
[Enter SLENDER.]
SLENDER.
Whoa, ho! ho! father Page!
PAGE.
Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?
SLENDER.
Dispatched! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire know on't;
would I were hanged, la, else!
PAGE.
Of what, son?
SLENDER.
I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she's a
great lubberly boy: if it had not been i' the church, I would
have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not
think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir! and 'tis
a postmaster's boy.
PAGE.
Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
SLENDER.
What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a
girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman's
apparel, I would not have had him.
PAGE.
Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should
know my daughter by her garments?
SLENDER.
I went to her in white and cried 'mum' and she cried 'budget'
as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a
postmaster's boy.
EVANS.
Jeshu! Master Slender, cannot you see put marry poys?
PAGE.
O I am vexed at heart: what shall I do?
MRS. PAGE.
Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my
daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at
the deanery, and there married.
[Enter DOCTOR CAIUS.]
CAIUS.
Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha' married un
garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page;
by gar, I am cozened.
MRS. PAGE.
Why, did you take her in green?
CAIUS.
Ay, by gar, and 'tis a boy: by gar, I'll raise all Windsor.
[Exit.]
FORD.
This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
PAGE.
My heart misgives me; here comes Master Fenton.
[Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE.]
How now, Master Fenton!
ANNE.
Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!
PAGE.
Now, Mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?
MRS. PAGE.
Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?
FENTON.
You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy that she hath committed,
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
FORD.
Stand not amaz'd: here is no remedy:
In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state:
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
FALSTAFF.
I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand
to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.
PAGE.
Well, what remedy?--Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd.
FALSTAFF.
When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.
MRS. PAGE.
Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.
FORD.
Let it be so. Sir John,
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
For he, to-night, shall lie with Mistress Ford.
[Exeunt.] | Falstaff promises Master Brook some "wonders" at midnight by Herne's oak; Page reminds Slender that his daughter will be waiting; and Mrs. Page reassures Caius that Anne Page is ready to be swept away "to the deanery" ; Hugh Evans, disguised as a satyr, calls "Trib, trib , fairies" and leads a troop of revelers to their rendezvous in Windsor Park. So much for the first four scenes of the final act of The Merry Wives of Windsor. Scene 5 is the climax of the play. Horns on his head, Falstaff calls on "the hot-blooded gods" to assist him. He is virtually licking his lips in anticipation when the two women appear. He "magnanimously" proposes to both of them: "Divide me like a bribed buck, each a haunch." Immediately the general hubub of the assembled "fairies" is heard, and the two women run off, leaving Falstaff believing that hell itself has had a hand in preventing his sexual mischief these three times: "I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire. He would never else cross me thus." Falstaff throws himself down but is discovered by the satyr and the Fairy Queen . They put him to the test of chastity: touching his "finger end" with fire. When he cries out in pain, the lecher is denounced: Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire! About him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme; And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time. When all decide to end the jest, Falstaff is nonplussed: "I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass." Both Slender and Doctor Caius arrive before long and announce that they have been tricked into running off with boys, whom they mistook for Anne Page. To end the play, the newly married couple, Master Fenton and Anne Page, explain themselves: The truth is, she and I, long since contracted, are now so Sure that nothing can dissolve us. All present cheer the outcome and follow Mrs. Page: Heaven give you many, many merry days! Good husband, let us every one go home, And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all. |
All this led her on, but it brought on her fate as well, the day when
her mother would be at the door in the carriage in which Maisie now rode
on no occasions but these. There was no question at present of Miss
Overmore's going back with her: it was universally recognised that her
quarrel with Mrs. Farange was much too acute. The child felt it from
the first; there was no hugging nor exclaiming as that lady drove her
away--there was only a frightening silence, unenlivened even by the
invidious enquiries of former years, which culminated, according to its
stern nature, in a still more frightening old woman, a figure awaiting
her on the very doorstep. "You're to be under this lady's care," said
her mother. "Take her, Mrs. Wix," she added, addressing the figure
impatiently and giving the child a push from which Maisie gathered that
she wished to set Mrs. Wix an example of energy. Mrs. Wix took her and,
Maisie felt the next day, would never let her go. She had struck her at
first, just after Miss Overmore, as terrible; but something in her voice
at the end of an hour touched the little girl in a spot that had never
even yet been reached. Maisie knew later what it was, though doubtless
she couldn't have made a statement of it: these were things that a few
days' talk with Mrs. Wix quite lighted up. The principal one was a
matter Mrs. Wix herself always immediately mentioned: she had had a
little girl quite of her own, and the little girl had been killed on
the spot. She had had absolutely nothing else in all the world, and her
affliction had broken her heart. It was comfortably established between
them that Mrs. Wix's heart was broken. What Maisie felt was that she had
been, with passion and anguish, a mother, and that this was something
Miss Overmore was not, something (strangely, confusingly) that mamma was
even less.
So it was that in the course of an extraordinarily short time she
found herself as deeply absorbed in the image of the little dead
Clara Matilda, who, on a crossing in the Harrow Road, had been knocked
down and crushed by the cruellest of hansoms, as she had ever found
herself in the family group made vivid by one of seven. "She's your
little dead sister," Mrs. Wix ended by saying, and Maisie, all in
a tremor of curiosity and compassion, addressed from that moment a
particular piety to the small accepted acquisition. Somehow she wasn't
a real sister, but that only made her the more romantic. It contributed
to this view of her that she was never to be spoken of in that character
to any one else--least of all to Mrs. Farange, who wouldn't care for
her nor recognise the relationship: it was to be just an unutterable and
inexhaustible little secret with Mrs. Wix. Maisie knew everything about
her that could be known, everything she had said or done in her little
mutilated life, exactly how lovely she was, exactly how her hair was
curled and her frocks were trimmed. Her hair came down far below her
waist--it was of the most wonderful golden brightness, just as Mrs.
Wix's own had been a long time before. Mrs. Wix's own was indeed very
remarkable still, and Maisie had felt at first that she should never get
on with it. It played a large part in the sad and strange appearance,
the appearance as of a kind of greasy greyness, which Mrs. Wix had
presented on the child's arrival. It had originally been yellow, but
time had turned that elegance to ashes, to a turbid sallow unvenerable
white. Still excessively abundant, it was dressed in a manner of which
the poor lady appeared not yet to have recognised the supersession, with
a glossy braid, like a large diadem, on the top of the head, and behind,
at the nape of the neck, a dingy rosette like a large button. She wore
glasses which, in humble reference to a divergent obliquity of vision,
she called her straighteners, and a little ugly snuff-coloured dress
trimmed with satin bands in the form of scallops and glazed with
antiquity. The straighteners, she explained to Maisie, were put on for
the sake of others, whom, as she believed, they helped to recognise the
bearing, otherwise doubtful, of her regard; the rest of the melancholy
garb could only have been put on for herself. With the added suggestion
of her goggles it reminded her pupil of the polished shell or corslet
of a horrid beetle. At first she had looked cross and almost cruel; but
this impression passed away with the child's increased perception of
her being in the eyes of the world a figure mainly to laugh at. She
was as droll as a charade or an animal toward the end of the "natural
history"--a person whom people, to make talk lively, described to each
other and imitated. Every one knew the straighteners; every one knew the
diadem and the button, the scallops and satin bands; every one, though
Maisie had never betrayed her, knew even Clara Matilda.
It was on account of these things that mamma got her for such low pay,
really for nothing: so much, one day when Mrs. Wix had accompanied her
into the drawing-room and left her, the child heard one of the ladies
she found there--a lady with eyebrows arched like skipping-ropes and
thick black stitching, like ruled lines for musical notes on beautiful
white gloves--announce to another. She knew governesses were poor; Miss
Overmore was unmentionably and Mrs. Wix ever so publicly so. Neither
this, however, nor the old brown frock nor the diadem nor the button,
made a difference for Maisie in the charm put forth through everything,
the charm of Mrs. Wix's conveying that somehow, in her ugliness and her
poverty, she was peculiarly and soothingly safe; safer than any one
in the world, than papa, than mamma, than the lady with the arched
eyebrows; safer even, though so much less beautiful, than Miss Overmore,
on whose loveliness, as she supposed it, the little girl was faintly
conscious that one couldn't rest with quite the same tucked-in and
kissed-for-good-night feeling. Mrs. Wix was as safe as Clara Matilda,
who was in heaven and yet, embarrassingly, also in Kensal Green, where
they had been together to see her little huddled grave. It was from
something in Mrs. Wix's tone, which in spite of caricature remained
indescribable and inimitable, that Maisie, before her term with her
mother was over, drew this sense of a support, like a breast-high
banister in a place of "drops," that would never give way. If she knew
her instructress was poor and queer she also knew she was not nearly so
"qualified" as Miss Overmore, who could say lots of dates straight off
(letting you hold the book yourself), state the position of Malabar, play
six pieces without notes and, in a sketch, put in beautifully the trees
and houses and difficult parts. Maisie herself could play more pieces
than Mrs. Wix, who was moreover visibly ashamed of her houses and trees
and could only, with the help of a smutty forefinger, of doubtful
legitimacy in the field of art, do the smoke coming out of the chimneys.
They dealt, the governess and her pupil, in "subjects," but there were
many the governess put off from week to week and that they never got to
at all: she only used to say "We'll take that in its proper order." Her
order was a circle as vast as the untravelled globe. She had not the
spirit of adventure--the child could perfectly see how many subjects she
was afraid of. She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through
which indeed there curled the blue river of truth. She knew swarms of
stories, mostly those of the novels she had read; relating them with
a memory that never faltered and a wealth of detail that was Maisie's
delight. They were all about love and beauty and countesses and
wickedness. Her conversation was practically an endless narrative,
a great garden of romance, with sudden vistas into her own life and
gushing fountains of homeliness. These were the parts where they most
lingered; she made the child take with her again every step of her long,
lame course and think it beyond magic or monsters. Her pupil acquired a
vivid vision of every one who had ever, in her phrase, knocked against
her--some of them oh so hard!--every one literally but Mr. Wix, her
husband, as to whom nothing was mentioned save that he had been dead for
ages. He had been rather remarkably absent from his wife's career, and
Maisie was never taken to see his grave. | Maisie heads back to her mother's. Enter Mrs. Wix, the governess who's now to be responsible for Maisie when she is with her mother. Mrs. Wix is off-putting to Maisie at first but soon wins her over. We learn that Mrs. Wix had a young daughter, Clara Matilda, who died, and Maisie can tell by Mrs. Wix's voice that she "had been ... a mother, and that this was something Miss Overmore was not, something, strangely, confusingly that mamma was even less" . So Maisie has her first experience of mother love from Mrs. Wix--more foreshadowing. Mrs. Wix is described as both poor and ugly but "peculiarly and soothingly safe," which in James-speak means super-protective of Maisie . Maisie and Mrs. Wix visit Clara Matilda's grave. It turns out that Mrs. Wix is less accomplished than Miss Overmore as well as less elegant. Instead of learning school subjects from Mrs. Wix, Maisie listens to stories--lots and lots of them. The only thing that Mrs. Wix reveals about her late husband is that he has been dead for a long time. She and Maisie never go to visit his grave. |
Rome. A Room in CAESAR'S House.
[Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS.]
CAESAR.
Contemning Rome, he has done all this, and more,
In Alexandria. Here's the manner of't:--
I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,
Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
Were publicly enthron'd: at the feet sat
Caesarion, whom they call my father's son,
And all the unlawful issue that their lust
Since then hath made between them. Unto her
He gave the 'stablishment of Egypt; made her
Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
Absolute queen.
MAECENAS.
This in the public eye?
CAESAR.
I' the common show-place, where they exercise.
His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:
Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia,
He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd
Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia: she
In the habiliments of the goddess Isis
That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,
As 'tis reported, so.
MAECENAS.
Let Rome be thus
Inform'd.
AGRIPPA.
Who, queasy with his insolence
Already, will their good thoughts call from him.
CAESAR.
The people knows it: and have now receiv'd
His accusations.
AGRIPPA.
Who does he accuse?
CAESAR.
Caesar: and that, having in Sicily
Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him
His part o' the isle: then does he say he lent me
Some shipping, unrestor'd: lastly, he frets
That Lepidus of the triumvirate
Should be depos'd; and, being, that we detain
All his revenue.
AGRIPPA.
Sir, this should be answer'd.
CAESAR.
'Tis done already, and messenger gone.
I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel;
That he his high authority abus'd,
And did deserve his change: for what I have conquer'd
I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia
And other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I
Demand the like.
MAECENAS.
He'll never yield to that.
CAESAR.
Nor must not then be yielded to in this.
[Enter OCTAVIA, with her train.]
OCTAVIA.
Hail, Caesar, and my lord! hail, most dear Caesar!
CAESAR.
That ever I should call thee castaway!
OCTAVIA.
You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.
CAESAR.
Why have you stol'n upon us thus? You come not
Like Caesar's sister: the wife of Antony
Should have an army for an usher, and
The neighs of horse to tell of her approach
Long ere she did appear; the trees by the way
Should have borne men; and expectation fainted,
Longing for what it had not; nay, the dust
Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
Rais'd by your populous troops: but you are come
A market-maid to Rome; and have prevented
The ostentation of our love, which left unshown
Is often left unlov'd; we should have met you
By sea and land; supplying every stage
With an augmented greeting.
OCTAVIA.
Good my lord,
To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it
On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony,
Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted
My grieved ear withal: whereon I begg'd
His pardon for return.
CAESAR.
Which soon he granted,
Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.
OCTAVIA.
Do not say so, my lord.
CAESAR.
I have eyes upon him,
And his affairs come to me on the wind.
Where is he now?
OCTAVIA.
My lord, in Athens.
CAESAR.
No, my most wronged sister; Cleopatra
Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire
Up to a whore; who now are levying
The kings o' theearth for war: he hath assembled
Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus
Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king
Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;
King Manchus of Arabia; King of Pont;
Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king
Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,
The kings of Mede and Lycaonia, with
More larger list of sceptres.
OCTAVIA.
Ay me, most wretched,
That have my heart parted betwixt two friends,
That do afflict each other!
CAESAR.
Welcome hither:
Your letters did withhold our breaking forth,
Till we perceiv'd both how you were wrong led
And we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart:
Be you not troubled with the time, which drives
O'er your content these strong necessities;
But let determin'd things to destiny
Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome;
Nothing more dear to me. You are abus'd
Beyond the mark of thought: and the high gods,
To do you justice, make their ministers
Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort;
And ever welcome to us.
AGRIPPA.
Welcome, lady.
MAECENAS.
Welcome, dear madam.
Each heart in Rome does love and pity you:
Only theadulterous Antony, most large
In his abominations, turns you off,
And gives his potent regiment to a trull
That noises it against us.
OCTAVIA.
Is it so, sir?
CAESAR.
Most certain. Sister, welcome: pray you
Be ever known to patience: my dear'st sister!
[Exeunt.] | Caesar and Agrippa share news that Antony has gone to Cleopatra in Egypt and ascended the thrown with her. Octavia enters and Caesar is delighted to see her though he had no advance warning of her coming. He is outraged at Antony's public adultery against her, but realizes that his sister does not know her husband went to Egypt. He informs her but pledges to take care of her, and is honored she is home with him |
Some two weeks later, Newland Archer, sitting in abstracted idleness in
his private compartment of the office of Letterblair, Lamson and Low,
attorneys at law, was summoned by the head of the firm.
Old Mr. Letterblair, the accredited legal adviser of three generations
of New York gentility, throned behind his mahogany desk in evident
perplexity. As he stroked his closeclipped white whiskers and ran his
hand through the rumpled grey locks above his jutting brows, his
disrespectful junior partner thought how much he looked like the Family
Physician annoyed with a patient whose symptoms refuse to be classified.
"My dear sir--" he always addressed Archer as "sir"--"I have sent for
you to go into a little matter; a matter which, for the moment, I
prefer not to mention either to Mr. Skipworth or Mr. Redwood." The
gentlemen he spoke of were the other senior partners of the firm; for,
as was always the case with legal associations of old standing in New
York, all the partners named on the office letter-head were long since
dead; and Mr. Letterblair, for example, was, professionally speaking,
his own grandson.
He leaned back in his chair with a furrowed brow. "For family
reasons--" he continued.
Archer looked up.
"The Mingott family," said Mr. Letterblair with an explanatory smile
and bow. "Mrs. Manson Mingott sent for me yesterday. Her
grand-daughter the Countess Olenska wishes to sue her husband for
divorce. Certain papers have been placed in my hands." He paused and
drummed on his desk. "In view of your prospective alliance with the
family I should like to consult you--to consider the case with
you--before taking any farther steps."
Archer felt the blood in his temples. He had seen the Countess Olenska
only once since his visit to her, and then at the Opera, in the Mingott
box. During this interval she had become a less vivid and importunate
image, receding from his foreground as May Welland resumed her rightful
place in it. He had not heard her divorce spoken of since Janey's
first random allusion to it, and had dismissed the tale as unfounded
gossip. Theoretically, the idea of divorce was almost as distasteful
to him as to his mother; and he was annoyed that Mr. Letterblair (no
doubt prompted by old Catherine Mingott) should be so evidently
planning to draw him into the affair. After all, there were plenty of
Mingott men for such jobs, and as yet he was not even a Mingott by
marriage.
He waited for the senior partner to continue. Mr. Letterblair unlocked
a drawer and drew out a packet. "If you will run your eye over these
papers--"
Archer frowned. "I beg your pardon, sir; but just because of the
prospective relationship, I should prefer your consulting Mr. Skipworth
or Mr. Redwood."
Mr. Letterblair looked surprised and slightly offended. It was unusual
for a junior to reject such an opening.
He bowed. "I respect your scruple, sir; but in this case I believe
true delicacy requires you to do as I ask. Indeed, the suggestion is
not mine but Mrs. Manson Mingott's and her son's. I have seen Lovell
Mingott; and also Mr. Welland. They all named you."
Archer felt his temper rising. He had been somewhat languidly drifting
with events for the last fortnight, and letting May's fair looks and
radiant nature obliterate the rather importunate pressure of the
Mingott claims. But this behest of old Mrs. Mingott's roused him to a
sense of what the clan thought they had the right to exact from a
prospective son-in-law; and he chafed at the role.
"Her uncles ought to deal with this," he said.
"They have. The matter has been gone into by the family. They are
opposed to the Countess's idea; but she is firm, and insists on a legal
opinion."
The young man was silent: he had not opened the packet in his hand.
"Does she want to marry again?"
"I believe it is suggested; but she denies it."
"Then--"
"Will you oblige me, Mr. Archer, by first looking through these papers?
Afterward, when we have talked the case over, I will give you my
opinion."
Archer withdrew reluctantly with the unwelcome documents. Since their
last meeting he had half-unconsciously collaborated with events in
ridding himself of the burden of Madame Olenska. His hour alone with
her by the firelight had drawn them into a momentary intimacy on which
the Duke of St. Austrey's intrusion with Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, and the
Countess's joyous greeting of them, had rather providentially broken.
Two days later Archer had assisted at the comedy of her reinstatement
in the van der Luydens' favour, and had said to himself, with a touch
of tartness, that a lady who knew how to thank all-powerful elderly
gentlemen to such good purpose for a bunch of flowers did not need
either the private consolations or the public championship of a young
man of his small compass. To look at the matter in this light
simplified his own case and surprisingly furbished up all the dim
domestic virtues. He could not picture May Welland, in whatever
conceivable emergency, hawking about her private difficulties and
lavishing her confidences on strange men; and she had never seemed to
him finer or fairer than in the week that followed. He had even
yielded to her wish for a long engagement, since she had found the one
disarming answer to his plea for haste.
"You know, when it comes to the point, your parents have always let you
have your way ever since you were a little girl," he argued; and she
had answered, with her clearest look: "Yes; and that's what makes it
so hard to refuse the very last thing they'll ever ask of me as a
little girl."
That was the old New York note; that was the kind of answer he would
like always to be sure of his wife's making. If one had habitually
breathed the New York air there were times when anything less
crystalline seemed stifling.
The papers he had retired to read did not tell him much in fact; but
they plunged him into an atmosphere in which he choked and spluttered.
They consisted mainly of an exchange of letters between Count Olenski's
solicitors and a French legal firm to whom the Countess had applied for
the settlement of her financial situation. There was also a short
letter from the Count to his wife: after reading it, Newland Archer
rose, jammed the papers back into their envelope, and reentered Mr.
Letterblair's office.
"Here are the letters, sir. If you wish, I'll see Madame Olenska," he
said in a constrained voice.
"Thank you--thank you, Mr. Archer. Come and dine with me tonight if
you're free, and we'll go into the matter afterward: in case you wish
to call on our client tomorrow."
Newland Archer walked straight home again that afternoon. It was a
winter evening of transparent clearness, with an innocent young moon
above the house-tops; and he wanted to fill his soul's lungs with the
pure radiance, and not exchange a word with any one till he and Mr.
Letterblair were closeted together after dinner. It was impossible to
decide otherwise than he had done: he must see Madame Olenska himself
rather than let her secrets be bared to other eyes. A great wave of
compassion had swept away his indifference and impatience: she stood
before him as an exposed and pitiful figure, to be saved at all costs
from farther wounding herself in her mad plunges against fate.
He remembered what she had told him of Mrs. Welland's request to be
spared whatever was "unpleasant" in her history, and winced at the
thought that it was perhaps this attitude of mind which kept the New
York air so pure. "Are we only Pharisees after all?" he wondered,
puzzled by the effort to reconcile his instinctive disgust at human
vileness with his equally instinctive pity for human frailty.
For the first time he perceived how elementary his own principles had
always been. He passed for a young man who had not been afraid of
risks, and he knew that his secret love-affair with poor silly Mrs.
Thorley Rushworth had not been too secret to invest him with a becoming
air of adventure. But Mrs. Rushworth was "that kind of woman";
foolish, vain, clandestine by nature, and far more attracted by the
secrecy and peril of the affair than by such charms and qualities as he
possessed. When the fact dawned on him it nearly broke his heart, but
now it seemed the redeeming feature of the case. The affair, in short,
had been of the kind that most of the young men of his age had been
through, and emerged from with calm consciences and an undisturbed
belief in the abysmal distinction between the women one loved and
respected and those one enjoyed--and pitied. In this view they were
sedulously abetted by their mothers, aunts and other elderly female
relatives, who all shared Mrs. Archer's belief that when "such things
happened" it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always
criminal of the woman. All the elderly ladies whom Archer knew
regarded any woman who loved imprudently as necessarily unscrupulous
and designing, and mere simple-minded man as powerless in her clutches.
The only thing to do was to persuade him, as early as possible, to
marry a nice girl, and then trust to her to look after him.
In the complicated old European communities, Archer began to guess,
love-problems might be less simple and less easily classified. Rich
and idle and ornamental societies must produce many more such
situations; and there might even be one in which a woman naturally
sensitive and aloof would yet, from the force of circumstances, from
sheer defencelessness and loneliness, be drawn into a tie inexcusable
by conventional standards.
On reaching home he wrote a line to the Countess Olenska, asking at
what hour of the next day she could receive him, and despatched it by a
messenger-boy, who returned presently with a word to the effect that
she was going to Skuytercliff the next morning to stay over Sunday with
the van der Luydens, but that he would find her alone that evening
after dinner. The note was written on a rather untidy half-sheet,
without date or address, but her hand was firm and free. He was amused
at the idea of her week-ending in the stately solitude of Skuytercliff,
but immediately afterward felt that there, of all places, she would
most feel the chill of minds rigorously averted from the "unpleasant."
He was at Mr. Letterblair's punctually at seven, glad of the pretext
for excusing himself soon after dinner. He had formed his own opinion
from the papers entrusted to him, and did not especially want to go
into the matter with his senior partner. Mr. Letterblair was a
widower, and they dined alone, copiously and slowly, in a dark shabby
room hung with yellowing prints of "The Death of Chatham" and "The
Coronation of Napoleon." On the sideboard, between fluted Sheraton
knife-cases, stood a decanter of Haut Brion, and another of the old
Lanning port (the gift of a client), which the wastrel Tom Lanning had
sold off a year or two before his mysterious and discreditable death in
San Francisco--an incident less publicly humiliating to the family than
the sale of the cellar.
After a velvety oyster soup came shad and cucumbers, then a young
broiled turkey with corn fritters, followed by a canvas-back with
currant jelly and a celery mayonnaise. Mr. Letterblair, who lunched on
a sandwich and tea, dined deliberately and deeply, and insisted on his
guest's doing the same. Finally, when the closing rites had been
accomplished, the cloth was removed, cigars were lit, and Mr.
Letterblair, leaning back in his chair and pushing the port westward,
said, spreading his back agreeably to the coal fire behind him: "The
whole family are against a divorce. And I think rightly."
Archer instantly felt himself on the other side of the argument. "But
why, sir? If there ever was a case--"
"Well--what's the use? SHE'S here--he's there; the Atlantic's between
them. She'll never get back a dollar more of her money than what he's
voluntarily returned to her: their damned heathen marriage settlements
take precious good care of that. As things go over there, Olenski's
acted generously: he might have turned her out without a penny."
The young man knew this and was silent.
"I understand, though," Mr. Letterblair continued, "that she attaches
no importance to the money. Therefore, as the family say, why not let
well enough alone?"
Archer had gone to the house an hour earlier in full agreement with Mr.
Letterblair's view; but put into words by this selfish, well-fed and
supremely indifferent old man it suddenly became the Pharisaic voice of
a society wholly absorbed in barricading itself against the unpleasant.
"I think that's for her to decide."
"H'm--have you considered the consequences if she decides for divorce?"
"You mean the threat in her husband's letter? What weight would that
carry? It's no more than the vague charge of an angry blackguard."
"Yes; but it might make some unpleasant talk if he really defends the
suit."
"Unpleasant--!" said Archer explosively.
Mr. Letterblair looked at him from under enquiring eyebrows, and the
young man, aware of the uselessness of trying to explain what was in
his mind, bowed acquiescently while his senior continued: "Divorce is
always unpleasant."
"You agree with me?" Mr. Letterblair resumed, after a waiting silence.
"Naturally," said Archer.
"Well, then, I may count on you; the Mingotts may count on you; to use
your influence against the idea?"
Archer hesitated. "I can't pledge myself till I've seen the Countess
Olenska," he said at length.
"Mr. Archer, I don't understand you. Do you want to marry into a
family with a scandalous divorce-suit hanging over it?"
"I don't think that has anything to do with the case."
Mr. Letterblair put down his glass of port and fixed on his young
partner a cautious and apprehensive gaze.
Archer understood that he ran the risk of having his mandate withdrawn,
and for some obscure reason he disliked the prospect. Now that the job
had been thrust on him he did not propose to relinquish it; and, to
guard against the possibility, he saw that he must reassure the
unimaginative old man who was the legal conscience of the Mingotts.
"You may be sure, sir, that I shan't commit myself till I've reported
to you; what I meant was that I'd rather not give an opinion till I've
heard what Madame Olenska has to say."
Mr. Letterblair nodded approvingly at an excess of caution worthy of
the best New York tradition, and the young man, glancing at his watch,
pleaded an engagement and took leave. | Newland is a junior lawyer and is asked by one of the senior partners, Mr. Letterblair, to advise Ellen Olenska in her divorce. Archer reads the papers and decides that Ellen should not divorce; but when he listens to Mr. Letterblair argue that she should not divorce, he realizes how self-righteous he sounds and believes the best thing would be to talk to Ellen first before he unilaterally condemns her decision. |
ACT II. SCENE I.
Padua. BAPTISTA'S house
Enter KATHERINA and BIANCA
BIANCA. Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me-
That I disdain; but for these other gawds,
Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders.
KATHERINA. Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell
Whom thou lov'st best. See thou dissemble not.
BIANCA. Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face
Which I could fancy more than any other.
KATHERINA. Minion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?
BIANCA. If you affect him, sister, here I swear
I'll plead for you myself but you shall have him.
KATHERINA. O then, belike, you fancy riches more:
You will have Gremio to keep you fair.
BIANCA. Is it for him you do envy me so?
Nay, then you jest; and now I well perceive
You have but jested with me all this while.
I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.
KATHERINA. [Strikes her] If that be jest, then an the rest was
so.
Enter BAPTISTA
BAPTISTA. Why, how now, dame! Whence grows this insolence?
Bianca, stand aside- poor girl! she weeps.
[He unbinds her]
Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.
For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit,
Why dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?
When did she cross thee with a bitter word?
KATHERINA. Her silence flouts me, and I'll be reveng'd.
[Flies after BIANCA]
BAPTISTA. What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.
Exit BIANCA
KATHERINA. What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see
She is your treasure, she must have a husband;
I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,
And for your love to her lead apes in hell.
Talk not to me; I will go sit and weep,
Till I can find occasion of revenge. Exit KATHERINA
BAPTISTA. Was ever gentleman thus griev'd as I?
But who comes here?
Enter GREMIO, with LUCENTIO in the habit of a mean man;
PETRUCHIO, with HORTENSIO as a musician; and TRANIO,
as LUCENTIO, with his boy, BIONDELLO, bearing a lute and
books
GREMIO. Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.
BAPTISTA. Good morrow, neighbour Gremio.
God save you, gentlemen!
PETRUCHIO. And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter
Call'd Katherina, fair and virtuous?
BAPTISTA. I have a daughter, sir, call'd Katherina.
GREMIO. You are too blunt; go to it orderly.
PETRUCHIO. You wrong me, Signior Gremio; give me leave.
I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,
That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,
Her affability and bashful modesty,
Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour,
Am bold to show myself a forward guest
Within your house, to make mine eye the witness
Of that report which I so oft have heard.
And, for an entrance to my entertainment,
I do present you with a man of mine,
[Presenting HORTENSIO]
Cunning in music and the mathematics,
To instruct her fully in those sciences,
Whereof I know she is not ignorant.
Accept of him, or else you do me wrong-
His name is Licio, born in Mantua.
BAPTISTA. Y'are welcome, sir, and he for your good sake;
But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,
She is not for your turn, the more my grief.
PETRUCHIO. I see you do not mean to part with her;
Or else you like not of my company.
BAPTISTA. Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.
Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?
PETRUCHIO. Petruchio is my name, Antonio's son,
A man well known throughout all Italy.
BAPTISTA. I know him well; you are welcome for his sake.
GREMIO. Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,
Let us that are poor petitioners speak too.
Bacare! you are marvellous forward.
PETRUCHIO. O, pardon me, Signior Gremio! I would fain be doing.
GREMIO. I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your wooing.
Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am sure of it. To
express the like kindness, myself, that have been more kindly
beholding to you than any, freely give unto you this young
scholar [Presenting LUCENTIO] that hath been long studying
at
Rheims; as cunning in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as
the
other in music and mathematics. His name is Cambio. Pray
accept
his service.
BAPTISTA. A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio. Welcome, good
Cambio.
[To TRANIO] But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a
stranger.
May I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?
TRANIO. Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own
That, being a stranger in this city here,
Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,
Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.
Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me
In the preferment of the eldest sister.
This liberty is all that I request-
That, upon knowledge of my parentage,
I may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo,
And free access and favour as the rest.
And toward the education of your daughters
I here bestow a simple instrument,
And this small packet of Greek and Latin books.
If you accept them, then their worth is great.
BAPTISTA. Lucentio is your name? Of whence, I pray?
TRANIO. Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.
BAPTISTA. A mighty man of Pisa. By report
I know him well. You are very welcome, sir.
Take you the lute, and you the set of books;
You shall go see your pupils presently.
Holla, within!
Enter a SERVANT
Sirrah, lead these gentlemen
To my daughters; and tell them both
These are their tutors. Bid them use them well.
Exit SERVANT leading HORTENSIO carrying the lute
and LUCENTIO with the books
We will go walk a little in the orchard,
And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,
And so I pray you all to think yourselves.
PETRUCHIO. Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,
And every day I cannot come to woo.
You knew my father well, and in him me,
Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,
Which I have bettered rather than decreas'd.
Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,
What dowry shall I have with her to wife?
BAPTISTA. After my death, the one half of my lands
And, in possession, twenty thousand crowns.
PETRUCHIO. And for that dowry, I'll assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever.
Let specialities be therefore drawn between us,
That covenants may be kept on either hand.
BAPTISTA. Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd,
That is, her love; for that is all in all.
PETRUCHIO. Why, that is nothing; for I tell you, father,
I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;
And where two raging fires meet together,
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all.
So I to her, and so she yields to me;
For I am rough, and woo not like a babe.
BAPTISTA. Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed
But be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.
PETRUCHIO. Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds,
That shake not though they blow perpetually.
Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke
BAPTISTA. How now, my friend! Why dost thou look so pale?
HORTENSIO. For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.
BAPTISTA. What, will my daughter prove a good musician?
HORTENSIO. I think she'll sooner prove a soldier:
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.
BAPTISTA. Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?
HORTENSIO. Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.
I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering,
When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,
'Frets, call you these?' quoth she 'I'll fume with them.'
And with that word she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute,
While she did call me rascal fiddler
And twangling Jack, with twenty such vile terms,
As she had studied to misuse me so.
PETRUCHIO. Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench;
I love her ten times more than e'er I did.
O, how I long to have some chat with her!
BAPTISTA. Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited;
Proceed in practice with my younger daughter;
She's apt to learn, and thankful for good turns.
Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,
Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?
PETRUCHIO. I pray you do. Exeunt all but PETRUCHIO
I'll attend her here,
And woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Say that she rail; why, then I'll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.
Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly wash'd with dew.
Say she be mute, and will not speak a word;
Then I'll commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.
If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,
As though she bid me stay by her a week;
If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day
When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.
But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.
Enter KATHERINA
Good morrow, Kate- for that's your name, I hear.
KATHERINA. Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katherine that do talk of me.
PETRUCHIO. You lie, in faith, for you are call'd plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;
But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation-
Hearing thy mildness prais'd in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am mov'd to woo thee for my wife.
KATHERINA. Mov'd! in good time! Let him that mov'd you hither
Remove you hence. I knew you at the first
You were a moveable.
PETRUCHIO. Why, what's a moveable?
KATHERINA. A join'd-stool.
PETRUCHIO. Thou hast hit it. Come, sit on me.
KATHERINA. Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
PETRUCHIO. Women are made to bear, and so are you.
KATHERINA. No such jade as you, if me you mean.
PETRUCHIO. Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee!
For, knowing thee to be but young and light-
KATHERINA. Too light for such a swain as you to catch;
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.
PETRUCHIO. Should be! should- buzz!
KATHERINA. Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.
PETRUCHIO. O, slow-wing'd turtle, shall a buzzard take thee?
KATHERINA. Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.
PETRUCHIO. Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.
KATHERINA. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
PETRUCHIO. My remedy is then to pluck it out.
KATHERINA. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
PETRUCHIO. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.
KATHERINA. In his tongue.
PETRUCHIO. Whose tongue?
KATHERINA. Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.
PETRUCHIO. What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman.
KATHERINA. That I'll try. [She strikes him]
PETRUCHIO. I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.
KATHERINA. So may you lose your arms.
If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.
PETRUCHIO. A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!
KATHERINA. What is your crest- a coxcomb?
PETRUCHIO. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.
KATHERINA. No cock of mine: you crow too like a craven.
PETRUCHIO. Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.
KATHERINA. It is my fashion, when I see a crab.
PETRUCHIO. Why, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.
KATHERINA. There is, there is.
PETRUCHIO. Then show it me.
KATHERINA. Had I a glass I would.
PETRUCHIO. What, you mean my face?
KATHERINA. Well aim'd of such a young one.
PETRUCHIO. Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.
KATHERINA. Yet you are wither'd.
PETRUCHIO. 'Tis with cares.
KATHERINA. I care not.
PETRUCHIO. Nay, hear you, Kate- in sooth, you scape not so.
KATHERINA. I chafe you, if I tarry; let me go.
PETRUCHIO. No, not a whit; I find you passing gentle.
'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,
And now I find report a very liar;
For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers.
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,
Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk;
But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers;
With gentle conference, soft and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
O sland'rous world! Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.
O, let me see thee walk. Thou dost not halt.
KATHERINA. Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.
PETRUCHIO. Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;
And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful!
KATHERINA. Where did you study all this goodly speech?
PETRUCHIO. It is extempore, from my mother wit.
KATHERINA. A witty mother! witless else her son.
PETRUCHIO. Am I not wise?
KATHERINA. Yes, keep you warm.
PETRUCHIO. Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed.
And therefore, setting all this chat aside,
Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife your dowry greed on;
And will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;
For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,
Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,
Thou must be married to no man but me;
For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.
Re-enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and TRANIO
Here comes your father. Never make denial;
I must and will have Katherine to my wife.
BAPTISTA. Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my
daughter?
PETRUCHIO. How but well, sir? how but well?
It were impossible I should speed amiss.
BAPTISTA. Why, how now, daughter Katherine, in your dumps?
KATHERINA. Call you me daughter? Now I promise you
You have show'd a tender fatherly regard
To wish me wed to one half lunatic,
A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.
PETRUCHIO. Father, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world
That talk'd of her have talk'd amiss of her.
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For,she's not froward, but modest as the dove;
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;
For patience she will prove a second Grissel,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity.
And, to conclude, we have 'greed so well together
That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.
KATHERINA. I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.
GREMIO. Hark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee hang'd first.
TRANIO. Is this your speeding? Nay, then good-night our part!
PETRUCHIO. Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself;
If she and I be pleas'd, what's that to you?
'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone,
That she shall still be curst in company.
I tell you 'tis incredible to believe.
How much she loves me- O, the kindest Kate!
She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss
She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,
That in a twink she won me to her love.
O, you are novices! 'Tis a world to see,
How tame, when men and women are alone,
A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.
Give me thy hand, Kate; I will unto Venice,
To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.
Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;
I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.
BAPTISTA. I know not what to say; but give me your hands.
God send you joy, Petruchio! 'Tis a match.
GREMIO, TRANIO. Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.
PETRUCHIO. Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace;
We will have rings and things, and fine array;
And kiss me, Kate; we will be married a Sunday.
Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA severally
GREMIO. Was ever match clapp'd up so suddenly?
BAPTISTA. Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part,
And venture madly on a desperate mart.
TRANIO. 'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;
'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.
BAPTISTA. The gain I seek is quiet in the match.
GREMIO. No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.
But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter:
Now is the day we long have looked for;
I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.
TRANIO. And I am one that love Bianca more
Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.
GREMIO. Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.
TRANIO. Greybeard, thy love doth freeze.
GREMIO. But thine doth fry.
Skipper, stand back; 'tis age that nourisheth.
TRANIO. But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.
BAPTISTA. Content you, gentlemen; I will compound this strife.
'Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca's love.
Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?
GREMIO. First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold,
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needle-work;
Pewter and brass, and all things that belongs
To house or housekeeping. Then at my farm
I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,
Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,
And all things answerable to this portion.
Myself am struck in years, I must confess;
And if I die to-morrow this is hers,
If whilst I live she will be only mine.
TRANIO. That 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me:
I am my father's heir and only son;
If I may have your daughter to my wife,
I'll leave her houses three or four as good
Within rich Pisa's walls as any one
Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;
Besides two thousand ducats by the year
Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.
What, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?
GREMIO. Two thousand ducats by the year of land!
[Aside] My land amounts not to so much in all.-
That she shall have, besides an argosy
That now is lying in Marseilles road.
What, have I chok'd you with an argosy?
TRANIO. Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less
Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses,
And twelve tight galleys. These I will assure her,
And twice as much whate'er thou off'rest next.
GREMIO. Nay, I have off'red all; I have no more;
And she can have no more than all I have;
If you like me, she shall have me and mine.
TRANIO. Why, then the maid is mine from all the world
By your firm promise; Gremio is out-vied.
BAPTISTA. I must confess your offer is the best;
And let your father make her the assurance,
She is your own. Else, you must pardon me;
If you should die before him, where's her dower?
TRANIO. That's but a cavil; he is old, I young.
GREMIO. And may not young men die as well as old?
BAPTISTA. Well, gentlemen,
I am thus resolv'd: on Sunday next you know
My daughter Katherine is to be married;
Now, on the Sunday following shall Bianca
Be bride to you, if you make this assurance;
If not, to Signior Gremio.
And so I take my leave, and thank you both.
GREMIO. Adieu, good neighbour. Exit BAPTISTA
Now, I fear thee not.
Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool
To give thee all, and in his waning age
Set foot under thy table. Tut, a toy!
An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy. Exit
TRANIO. A vengeance on your crafty withered hide!
Yet I have fac'd it with a card of ten.
'Tis in my head to do my master good:
I see no reason but suppos'd Lucentio
Must get a father, call'd suppos'd Vincentio;
And that's a wonder- fathers commonly
Do get their children; but in this case of wooing
A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.
Exit | At Baptista's house, Kate has tied up Bianca, who begs her sister to let her go. Bianca says she'll do whatever Kate wants because she knows how to be obedient to her "elders." Translation: "You're an old maid." When Kate demands that Bianca tell her about her favorite boyfriend, Bianca doesn't answer the question. Instead, she tells Kate that she can have all of her suitors, if that will make her happy. Kate slaps Bianca. Baptista walks in and scolds Kate for being so mean to her little sis. Kate complains that Bianca refuses to dish about her boyfriends and she runs after Bianca to slap her around some more and pull out all her hair. When Baptista steps in to protect Bianca, Kate complains that her dad loves Bianca more than her and she runs off crying. Gremio, Lucentio , Petruchio, Hortensio , Tranio , and Biondello enter Baptista's house. Petruchio the smart alec steps up and lays out his plan to Baptista. He wants to marry Kate, who he hears is a delightful young lady. He presents Licio the tutor as a gift to Baptista. Baptista accepts the bribe, welcomes Petruchio, and then warns him that his eldest daughter is a total pain, but he's welcome to woo her if that's what he really wants. Gremio butts in and says he has a present for Baptista too--a schoolteacher named Cambio . Tranio says he wants in on the action also and he too has a gift for Baptista--a lute and a little bundle of books for Baptista's daughters. Baptista thanks the guys for the great presents and lets the "tutors" into his house. That being settled, Petruchio says he's a busy man and wants to get down to business with Baptista. "OK," says Baptista, "Kate comes with twenty thousand crowns, plus she gets half my lands and money when I die." Sounds good to Petruchio, who promises Baptista that if he dies before Kate does, she gets a widow's share of his estate. Petruchio is ready to draw up the contract but Baptista says Kate needs to agree first. Just then, Hortensio runs into the room crying about how Kate broke a lute over his head when he was only trying to teach her how to play. Petruchio is really turned on by this and says Kate sounds hotter than ever--he can't wait to talk to her. Left alone, Petruchio tells us how he plans to deal with Kate--he'll contradict everything she says. If she says something snobby, he'll say she sings like a bird. If she refuses to speak to him, he'll say she speaks eloquently. When our girl enters the room and Petruchio greets her as "Kate," she insists that her name is "Katherine." Petruchio retorts that her name is "plain Kate" or "bonny Kate" or "Kate the curst" and so on. Kate and Petruchio go at it for a few rounds. Here's how it works: Kate insults Petruchio, then Petruchio contradicts her and twists her words, then she twists his words around, and then he twists her words around again until they become a dirty joke. At one point, Kate smacks Petruchio after he makes a reference to his "tongue" in her "tail" . Petruchio threatens to beat her if she slaps him again. They continue on this way until Petruchio decides they've had enough chit-chat. He informs Kate that Baptista has agreed to a marriage, the dowry has been set, and whether Kate likes it or not, he will have her as his wife. He's also going to whip her into shape because her whole shrew bit isn't going to fly when they're married. Baptista enters to ask how things are going, and Kate yells at her dad for agreeing to let her marry a maniac. Petruchio lies and tells everyone that Kate is as gentle as a pussycat, loves him, and has agreed to marry him on Sunday. Kate grumbles that she'd sooner see him hanged. The others are skeptical of Petruchio's claims, but he tells them that it's true: they're in love. They've just decided it's best if she pretends to hate him in public. But when they were alone? Kate was all over him. Kate says nothing in response to this. Petruchio announces that he's off to Venice, but will be back in Padua to marry Kate on Sunday. Petruchio skips out of the room and Kate storms out separately. Baptista turns his attention to the business of marrying off Bianca and compares himself to a merchant who is embarking on a precarious venture. Gremio and Tranio try to outbid each other and Tranio wins because he's the richest. There's a catch though: Tranio has to get his father to vouch for his wealth. Gremio thinks he's golden since he can't imagine Lucentio's dad has really given him his inheritance already. When he leaves, Tranio gets an idea. Since he's posing as Lucentio, all he has to do now is find someone to pose as Vincentio . Problem solved. Baptista makes Tranio promise that his father will vouch for him and verify his cash flow. |
When Miss Gostrey arrived, at the end of a week, she made him a sign;
he went immediately to see her, and it wasn't till then that he could
again close his grasp on the idea of a corrective. This idea however
was luckily all before him again from the moment he crossed the
threshold of the little entresol of the Quartier Marboeuf into which
she had gathered, as she said, picking them up in a thousand flights
and funny little passionate pounces, the makings of a final nest. He
recognised in an instant that there really, there only, he should find
the boon with the vision of which he had first mounted Chad's stairs.
He might have been a little scared at the picture of how much more, in
this place, he should know himself "in" hadn't his friend been on the
spot to measure the amount to his appetite. Her compact and crowded
little chambers, almost dusky, as they at first struck him, with
accumulations, represented a supreme general adjustment to
opportunities and conditions. Wherever he looked he saw an old ivory
or an old brocade, and he scarce knew where to sit for fear of a
misappliance. The life of the occupant struck him of a sudden as more
charged with possession even than Chad's or than Miss Barrace's; wide
as his glimpse had lately become of the empire of "things," what was
before him still enlarged it; the lust of the eyes and the pride of
life had indeed thus their temple. It was the innermost nook of the
shrine--as brown as a pirate's cave. In the brownness were glints of
gold; patches of purple were in the gloom; objects all that caught,
through the muslin, with their high rarity, the light of the low
windows. Nothing was clear about them but that they were precious, and
they brushed his ignorance with their contempt as a flower, in a
liberty taken with him, might have been whisked under his nose. But
after a full look at his hostess he knew none the less what most
concerned him. The circle in which they stood together was warm with
life, and every question between them would live there as nowhere else.
A question came up as soon as they had spoken, for his answer, with a
laugh, was quickly: "Well, they've got hold of me!" Much of their
talk on this first occasion was his development of that truth. He was
extraordinarily glad to see her, expressing to her frankly what she
most showed him, that one might live for years without a blessing
unsuspected, but that to know it at last for no more than three days
was to need it or miss it for ever. She was the blessing that had now
become his need, and what could prove it better than that without her
he had lost himself?
"What do you mean?" she asked with an absence of alarm that, correcting
him as if he had mistaken the "period" of one of her pieces, gave him
afresh a sense of her easy movement through the maze he had but begun
to tread. "What in the name of all the Pococks have you managed to do?"
"Why exactly the wrong thing. I've made a frantic friend of little
Bilham."
"Ah that sort of thing was of the essence of your case and to have been
allowed for from the first." And it was only after this that, quite as
a minor matter, she asked who in the world little Bilham might be. When
she learned that he was a friend of Chad's and living for the time in
Chad's rooms in Chad's absence, quite as if acting in Chad's spirit and
serving Chad's cause, she showed, however, more interest. "Should you
mind my seeing him? Only once, you know," she added.
"Oh the oftener the better: he's amusing--he's original."
"He doesn't shock you?" Miss Gostrey threw out.
"Never in the world! We escape that with a perfection--! I feel it to
be largely, no doubt, because I don't half-understand him; but our
modus vivendi isn't spoiled even by that. You must dine with me to
meet him," Strether went on. "Then you'll see.'
"Are you giving dinners?"
"Yes--there I am. That's what I mean."
All her kindness wondered. "That you're spending too much money?"
"Dear no--they seem to cost so little. But that I do it to THEM. I
ought to hold off."
She thought again--she laughed. "The money you must be spending to
think it cheap! But I must be out of it--to the naked eye."
He looked for a moment as if she were really failing him. "Then you
won't meet them?" It was almost as if she had developed an unexpected
personal prudence.
She hesitated. "Who are they--first?"
"Why little Bilham to begin with." He kept back for the moment Miss
Barrace. "And Chad--when he comes--you must absolutely see."
"When then does he come?"
"When Bilham has had time to write him, and hear from him about me.
Bilham, however," he pursued, "will report favourably--favourably for
Chad. That will make him not afraid to come. I want you the more
therefore, you see, for my bluff."
"Oh you'll do yourself for your bluff." She was perfectly easy. "At
the rate you've gone I'm quiet."
"Ah but I haven't," said Strether, "made one protest."
She turned it over. "Haven't you been seeing what there's to protest
about?"
He let her, with this, however ruefully, have the whole truth. "I
haven't yet found a single thing."
"Isn't there any one WITH him then?"
"Of the sort I came out about?" Strether took a moment. "How do I
know? And what do I care?"
"Oh oh!"--and her laughter spread. He was struck in fact by the effect
on her of his joke. He saw now how he meant it as a joke. SHE saw,
however, still other things, though in an instant she had hidden them.
"You've got at no facts at all?"
He tried to muster them. "Well, he has a lovely home."
"Ah that, in Paris," she quickly returned, "proves nothing. That is
rather it DISproves nothing. They may very well, you see, the people
your mission is concerned with, have done it FOR him."
"Exactly. And it was on the scene of their doings then that Waymarsh
and I sat guzzling."
"Oh if you forbore to guzzle here on scenes of doings," she replied,
"you might easily die of starvation." With which she smiled at him.
"You've worse before you."
"Ah I've EVERYTHING before me. But on our hypothesis, you know, they
must be wonderful."
"They ARE!" said Miss Gostrey. "You're not therefore, you see," she
added, "wholly without facts. They've BEEN, in effect, wonderful."
To have got at something comparatively definite appeared at last a
little to help--a wave by which moreover, the next moment, recollection
was washed. "My young man does admit furthermore that they're our
friend's great interest."
"Is that the expression he uses?"
Strether more exactly recalled. "No--not quite."
"Something more vivid? Less?"
He had bent, with neared glasses, over a group of articles on a small
stand; and at this he came up. "It was a mere allusion, but, on the
lookout as I was, it struck me. 'Awful, you know, as Chad is'--those
were Bilham's words."
"'Awful, you know'--? Oh!"--and Miss Gostrey turned them over. She
seemed, however, satisfied. "Well, what more do you want?"
He glanced once more at a bibelot or two, and everything sent him back.
"But it is all the same as if they wished to let me have it between the
eyes."
She wondered. "Quoi donc?"
"Why what I speak of. The amenity. They can stun you with that as
well as with anything else."
"Oh," she answered, "you'll come round! I must see them each," she went
on, "for myself. I mean Mr. Bilham and Mr. Newsome--Mr. Bilham
naturally first. Once only--once for each; that will do. But face to
face--for half an hour. What's Mr. Chad," she immediately pursued,
"doing at Cannes? Decent men don't go to Cannes with the--well, with
the kind of ladies you mean."
"Don't they?" Strether asked with an interest in decent men that
amused her.
"No, elsewhere, but not to Cannes. Cannes is different. Cannes is
better. Cannes is best. I mean it's all people you know--when you do
know them. And if HE does, why that's different too. He must have
gone alone. She can't be with him."
"I haven't," Strether confessed in his weakness, "the least idea."
There seemed much in what she said, but he was able after a little to
help her to a nearer impression. The meeting with little Bilham took
place, by easy arrangement, in the great gallery of the Louvre; and
when, standing with his fellow visitor before one of the splendid
Titians--the overwhelming portrait of the young man with the
strangely-shaped glove and the blue-grey eyes--he turned to see the
third member of their party advance from the end of the waxed and
gilded vista, he had a sense of having at last taken hold. He had
agreed with Miss Gostrey--it dated even from Chester--for a morning at
the Louvre, and he had embraced independently the same idea as thrown
out by little Bilham, whom he had already accompanied to the museum of
the Luxembourg. The fusion of these schemes presented no difficulty,
and it was to strike him again that in little Bilham's company
contrarieties in general dropped.
"Oh he's all right--he's one of US!" Miss Gostrey, after the first
exchange, soon found a chance to murmur to her companion; and Strether,
as they proceeded and paused and while a quick unanimity between the
two appeared to have phrased itself in half a dozen remarks--Strether
knew that he knew almost immediately what she meant, and took it as
still another sign that he had got his job in hand. This was the more
grateful to him that he could think of the intelligence now serving him
as an acquisition positively new. He wouldn't have known even the day
before what she meant--that is if she meant, what he assumed, that they
were intense Americans together. He had just worked round--and with a
sharper turn of the screw than any yet--to the conception of an
American intense as little Bilham was intense. The young man was his
first specimen; the specimen had profoundly perplexed him; at present
however there was light. It was by little Bilham's amazing serenity
that he had at first been affected, but he had inevitably, in his
circumspection, felt it as the trail of the serpent, the corruption, as
he might conveniently have said, of Europe; whereas the promptness with
which it came up for Miss Gostrey but as a special little form of the
oldest thing they knew justified it at once to his own vision as well.
He wanted to be able to like his specimen with a clear good conscience,
and this fully permitted it. What had muddled him was precisely the
small artist-man's way--it was so complete--of being more American than
anybody. But it now for the time put Strether vastly at his ease to
have this view of a new way.
The amiable youth then looked out, as it had first struck Strether, at
a world in respect to which he hadn't a prejudice. The one our friend
most instantly missed was the usual one in favour of an occupation
accepted. Little Bilham had an occupation, but it was only an
occupation declined; and it was by his general exemption from alarm,
anxiety or remorse on this score that the impression of his serenity
was made. He had come out to Paris to paint--to fathom, that is, at
large, that mystery; but study had been fatal to him so far as anything
COULD be fatal, and his productive power faltered in proportion as his
knowledge grew. Strether had gathered from him that at the moment of
his finding him in Chad's rooms he hadn't saved from his shipwreck a
scrap of anything but his beautiful intelligence and his confirmed
habit of Paris. He referred to these things with an equal fond
familiarity, and it was sufficiently clear that, as an outfit, they
still served him. They were charming to Strether through the hour
spent at the Louvre, where indeed they figured for him as an
unseparated part of the charged iridescent air, the glamour of the
name, the splendour of the space, the colour of the masters. Yet they
were present too wherever the young man led, and the day after the
visit to the Louvre they hung, in a different walk, about the steps of
our party. He had invited his companions to cross the river with him,
offering to show them his own poor place; and his own poor place, which
was very poor, gave to his idiosyncrasies, for Strether--the small
sublime indifference and independences that had struck the latter as
fresh--an odd and engaging dignity. He lived at the end of an alley
that went out of an old short cobbled street, a street that went in
turn out of a new long smooth avenue--street and avenue and alley
having, however, in common a sort of social shabbiness; and he
introduced them to the rather cold and blank little studio which he had
lent to a comrade for the term of his elegant absence. The comrade was
another ingenuous compatriot, to whom he had wired that tea was to
await them "regardless," and this reckless repast, and the second
ingenuous compatriot, and the faraway makeshift life, with its jokes
and its gaps, its delicate daubs and its three or four chairs, its
overflow of taste and conviction and its lack of nearly all else--these
things wove round the occasion a spell to which our hero unreservedly
surrendered.
He liked the ingenuous compatriots--for two or three others soon
gathered; he liked the delicate daubs and the free
discriminations--involving references indeed, involving enthusiasms and
execrations that made him, as they said, sit up; he liked above all the
legend of good-humoured poverty, of mutual accommodation fairly raised
to the romantic, that he soon read into the scene. The ingenuous
compatriots showed a candour, he thought, surpassing even the candour
of Woollett; they were red-haired and long-legged, they were quaint and
queer and dear and droll; they made the place resound with the
vernacular, which he had never known so marked as when figuring for the
chosen language, he must suppose, of contemporary art. They twanged
with a vengeance the aesthetic lyre--they drew from it wonderful airs.
This aspect of their life had an admirable innocence; and he looked on
occasion at Maria Gostrey to see to what extent that element reached
her. She gave him however for the hour, as she had given him the
previous day, no further sign than to show how she dealt with boys;
meeting them with the air of old Parisian practice that she had for
every one, for everything, in turn. Wonderful about the delicate daubs,
masterful about the way to make tea, trustful about the legs of chairs
and familiarly reminiscent of those, in the other time, the named, the
numbered or the caricatured, who had flourished or failed, disappeared
or arrived, she had accepted with the best grace her second course of
little Bilham, and had said to Strether, the previous afternoon on his
leaving them, that, since her impression was to be renewed, she would
reserve judgement till after the new evidence.
The new evidence was to come, as it proved, in a day or two. He soon
had from Maria a message to the effect that an excellent box at the
Francais had been lent her for the following night; it seeming on such
occasions not the least of her merits that she was subject to such
approaches. The sense of how she was always paying for something in
advance was equalled on Strether's part only by the sense of how she
was always being paid; all of which made for his consciousness, in the
larger air, of a lively bustling traffic, the exchange of such values
as were not for him to handle. She hated, he knew, at the French play,
anything but a box--just as she hated at the English anything but a
stall; and a box was what he was already in this phase girding himself
to press upon her. But she had for that matter her community with
little Bilham: she too always, on the great issues, showed as having
known in time. It made her constantly beforehand with him and gave him
mainly the chance to ask himself how on the day of their settlement
their account would stand. He endeavoured even now to keep it a little
straight by arranging that if he accepted her invitation she should
dine with him first; but the upshot of this scruple was that at eight
o'clock on the morrow he awaited her with Waymarsh under the pillared
portico. She hadn't dined with him, and it was characteristic of their
relation that she had made him embrace her refusal without in the least
understanding it. She ever caused her rearrangements to affect him as
her tenderest touches. It was on that principle for instance that,
giving him the opportunity to be amiable again to little Bilham, she
had suggested his offering the young man a seat in their box. Strether
had dispatched for this purpose a small blue missive to the Boulevard
Malesherbes, but up to the moment of their passing into the theatre he
had received no response to his message. He held, however, even after
they had been for some time conveniently seated, that their friend, who
knew his way about, would come in at his own right moment. His
temporary absence moreover seemed, as never yet, to make the right
moment for Miss Gostrey. Strether had been waiting till tonight to get
back from her in some mirrored form her impressions and conclusions.
She had elected, as they said, to see little Bilham once; but now she
had seen him twice and had nevertheless not said more than a word.
Waymarsh meanwhile sat opposite him with their hostess between; and
Miss Gostrey spoke of herself as an instructor of youth introducing her
little charges to a work that was one of the glories of literature. The
glory was happily unobjectionable, and the little charges were candid;
for herself she had travelled that road and she merely waited on their
innocence. But she referred in due time to their absent friend, whom
it was clear they should have to give up. "He either won't have got
your note," she said, "or you won't have got his: he has had some kind
of hindrance, and, of course, for that matter, you know, a man never
writes about coming to a box." She spoke as if, with her look, it
might have been Waymarsh who had written to the youth, and the latter's
face showed a mixture of austerity and anguish. She went on however as
if to meet this. "He's far and away, you know, the best of them."
"The best of whom, ma'am?"
"Why of all the long procession--the boys, the girls, or the old men
and old women as they sometimes really are; the hope, as one may say,
of our country. They've all passed, year after year; but there has
been no one in particular I've ever wanted to stop. I feel--don't
YOU?--that I want to stop little Bilham; he's so exactly right as he
is." She continued to talk to Waymarsh. "He's too delightful. If
he'll only not spoil it! But they always WILL; they always do; they
always have."
"I don't think Waymarsh knows," Strether said after a moment, "quite
what it's open to Bilham to spoil."
"It can't be a good American," Waymarsh lucidly enough replied; "for it
didn't strike me the young man had developed much in THAT shape."
"Ah," Miss Gostrey sighed, "the name of the good American is as easily
given as taken away! What IS it, to begin with, to BE one, and what's
the extraordinary hurry? Surely nothing that's so pressing was ever so
little defined. It's such an order, really, that before we cook you
the dish we must at least have your receipt. Besides the poor chicks
have time! What I've seen so often spoiled," she pursued, "is the happy
attitude itself, the state of faith and--what shall I call it?--the
sense of beauty. You're right about him"--she now took in Strether;
"little Bilham has them to a charm, we must keep little Bilham along."
Then she was all again for Waymarsh. "The others have all wanted so
dreadfully to do something, and they've gone and done it in too many
cases indeed. It leaves them never the same afterwards; the charm's
always somehow broken. Now HE, I think, you know, really won't. He
won't do the least dreadful little thing. We shall continue to enjoy
him just as he is. No--he's quite beautiful. He sees everything. He
isn't a bit ashamed. He has every scrap of the courage of it that one
could ask. Only think what he MIGHT do. One wants really--for fear of
some accident--to keep him in view. At this very moment perhaps what
mayn't he be up to? I've had my disappointments--the poor things are
never really safe; or only at least when you have them under your eye.
One can never completely trust them. One's uneasy, and I think that's
why I most miss him now."
She had wound up with a laugh of enjoyment over her embroidery of her
idea--an enjoyment that her face communicated to Strether, who almost
wished none the less at this moment that she would let poor Waymarsh
alone. HE knew more or less what she meant; but the fact wasn't a
reason for her not pretending to Waymarsh that he didn't. It was
craven of him perhaps, but he would, for the high amenity of the
occasion, have liked Waymarsh not to be so sure of his wit. Her
recognition of it gave him away and, before she had done with him or
with that article, would give him worse. What was he, all the same, to
do? He looked across the box at his friend; their eyes met; something
queer and stiff, something that bore on the situation but that it was
better not to touch, passed in silence between them. Well, the effect
of it for Strether was an abrupt reaction, a final impatience of his
own tendency to temporise. Where was that taking him anyway? It was
one of the quiet instants that sometimes settle more matters than the
outbreaks dear to the historic muse. The only qualification of the
quietness was the synthetic "Oh hang it!" into which Strether's share
of the silence soundlessly flowered. It represented, this mute
ejaculation, a final impulse to burn his ships. These ships, to the
historic muse, may seem of course mere cockles, but when he presently
spoke to Miss Gostrey it was with the sense at least of applying the
torch. "Is it then a conspiracy?"
"Between the two young men? Well, I don't pretend to be a seer or a
prophetess," she presently replied; "but if I'm simply a woman of sense
he's working for you to-night. I don't quite know how--but it's in my
bones." And she looked at him at last as if, little material as she
yet gave him, he'd really understand. "For an opinion THAT'S my
opinion. He makes you out too well not to."
"Not to work for me to-night?" Strether wondered. "Then I hope he
isn't doing anything very bad."
"They've got you," she portentously answered.
"Do you mean he IS--?"
"They've got you," she merely repeated. Though she disclaimed the
prophetic vision she was at this instant the nearest approach he had
ever met to the priestess of the oracle. The light was in her eyes.
"You must face it now."
He faced it on the spot. "They HAD arranged--?"
"Every move in the game. And they've been arranging ever since. He
has had every day his little telegram from Cannes."
It made Strether open his eyes. "Do you KNOW that?"
"I do better. I see it. This was, before I met him, what I wondered
whether I WAS to see. But as soon as I met him I ceased to wonder, and
our second meeting made me sure. I took him all in. He was acting--he
is still--on his daily instructions."
"So that Chad has done the whole thing?"
"Oh no--not the whole. WE'VE done some of it. You and I and 'Europe.'"
"Europe--yes," Strether mused.
"Dear old Paris," she seemed to explain. But there was more, and, with
one of her turns, she risked it. "And dear old Waymarsh. You," she
declared, "have been a good bit of it."
He sat massive. "A good bit of what, ma'am?"
"Why of the wonderful consciousness of our friend here. You've helped
too in your way to float him to where he is."
"And where the devil IS he?"
She passed it on with a laugh. "Where the devil, Strether, are you?"
He spoke as if he had just been thinking it out. "Well, quite already
in Chad's hands, it would seem." And he had had with this another
thought. "Will that be--just all through Bilham--the way he's going to
work it? It would be, for him, you know, an idea. And Chad with an
idea--!"
"Well?" she asked while the image held him.
"Well, is Chad--what shall I say?--monstrous?"
"Oh as much as you like! But the idea you speak of," she said, "won't
have been his best. He'll have a better. It won't be all through
little Bilham that he'll work it."
This already sounded almost like a hope destroyed. "Through whom else
then?"
"That's what we shall see!" But quite as she spoke she turned, and
Strether turned; for the door of the box had opened, with the click of
the ouvreuse, from the lobby, and a gentleman, a stranger to them, had
come in with a quick step. The door closed behind him, and, though
their faces showed him his mistake, his air, which was striking, was
all good confidence. The curtain had just again arisen, and, in the
hush of the general attention, Strether's challenge was tacit, as was
also the greeting, with a quickly deprecating hand and smile, of the
unannounced visitor. He discreetly signed that he would wait, would
stand, and these things and his face, one look from which she had
caught, had suddenly worked for Miss Gostrey. She fitted to them all
an answer for Strether's last question. The solid stranger was simply
the answer--as she now, turning to her friend, indicated. She brought
it straight out for him--it presented the intruder. "Why, through this
gentleman!" The gentleman indeed, at the same time, though sounding
for Strether a very short name, did practically as much to explain.
Strether gasped the name back--then only had he seen Miss Gostrey had
said more than she knew. They were in presence of Chad himself.
Our friend was to go over it afterwards again and again--he was going
over it much of the time that they were together, and they were
together constantly for three or four days: the note had been so
strongly struck during that first half-hour that everything happening
since was comparatively a minor development. The fact was that his
perception of the young man's identity--so absolutely checked for a
minute--had been quite one of the sensations that count in life; he
certainly had never known one that had acted, as he might have said,
with more of a crowded rush. And the rush though both vague and
multitudinous, had lasted a long time, protected, as it were, yet at
the same time aggravated, by the circumstance of its coinciding with a
stretch of decorous silence. They couldn't talk without disturbing the
spectators in the part of the balcony just below them; and it, for that
matter, came to Strether--being a thing of the sort that did come to
him--that these were the accidents of a high civilisation; the imposed
tribute to propriety, the frequent exposure to conditions, usually
brilliant, in which relief has to await its time. Relief was never
quite near at hand for kings, queens, comedians and other such people,
and though you might be yourself not exactly one of those, you could
yet, in leading the life of high pressure, guess a little how they
sometimes felt. It was truly the life of high pressure that Strether
had seemed to feel himself lead while he sat there, close to Chad,
during the long tension of the act. He was in presence of a fact that
occupied his whole mind, that occupied for the half-hour his senses
themselves all together; but he couldn't without inconvenience show
anything--which moreover might count really as luck. What he might
have shown, had he shown at all, was exactly the kind of emotion--the
emotion of bewilderment--that he had proposed to himself from the
first, whatever should occur, to show least. The phenomenon that had
suddenly sat down there with him was a phenomenon of change so complete
that his imagination, which had worked so beforehand, felt itself, in
the connexion, without margin or allowance. It had faced every
contingency but that Chad should not BE Chad, and this was what it now
had to face with a mere strained smile and an uncomfortable flush.
He asked himself if, by any chance, before he should have in some way
to commit himself, he might feel his mind settled to the new vision,
might habituate it, so to speak, to the remarkable truth. But oh it was
too remarkable, the truth; for what could be more remarkable than this
sharp rupture of an identity? You could deal with a man as
himself--you couldn't deal with him as somebody else. It was a small
source of peace moreover to be reduced to wondering how little he might
know in such an event what a sum he was setting you. He couldn't
absolutely not know, for you couldn't absolutely not let him. It was a
CASE then simply, a strong case, as people nowadays called such
things,' a case of transformation unsurpassed, and the hope was but in
the general law that strong cases were liable to control from without.
Perhaps he, Strether himself, was the only person after all aware of
it. Even Miss Gostrey, with all her science, wouldn't be, would
she?--and he had never seen any one less aware of anything than
Waymarsh as he glowered at Chad. The social sightlessness of his old
friend's survey marked for him afresh, and almost in an humiliating
way, the inevitable limits of direct aid from this source. He was not
certain, however, of not drawing a shade of compensation from the
privilege, as yet untasted, of knowing more about something in
particular than Miss Gostrey did. His situation too was a case, for
that matter, and he was now so interested, quite so privately agog,
about it, that he had already an eye to the fun it would be to open up
to her afterwards. He derived during his half-hour no assistance from
her, and just this fact of her not meeting his eyes played a little, it
must be confessed, into his predicament.
He had introduced Chad, in the first minutes, under his breath, and
there was never the primness in her of the person unacquainted; but she
had none the less betrayed at first no vision but of the stage, where
she occasionally found a pretext for an appreciative moment that she
invited Waymarsh to share. The latter's faculty of participation had
never had, all round, such an assault to meet; the pressure on him
being the sharper for this chosen attitude in her, as Strether judged
it, of isolating, for their natural intercourse, Chad and himself. This
intercourse was meanwhile restricted to a frank friendly look from the
young man, something markedly like a smile, but falling far short of a
grin, and to the vivacity of Strether's private speculation as to
whether HE carried himself like a fool. He didn't quite see how he
could so feel as one without somehow showing as one. The worst of that
question moreover was that he knew it as a symptom the sense of which
annoyed him. "If I'm going to be odiously conscious of how I may
strike the fellow," he reflected, "it was so little what I came out for
that I may as well stop before I begin." This sage consideration too,
distinctly, seemed to leave untouched the fact that he WAS going to be
conscious. He was conscious of everything but of what would have
served him.
He was to know afterwards, in the watches of the night, that nothing
would have been more open to him than after a minute or two to propose
to Chad to seek with him the refuge of the lobby. He hadn't only not
proposed it, but had lacked even the presence of mind to see it as
possible. He had stuck there like a schoolboy wishing not to miss a
minute of the show; though for that portion of the show then presented
he hadn't had an instant's real attention. He couldn't when the
curtain fell have given the slightest account of what had happened. He
had therefore, further, not at that moment acknowledged the amenity
added by this acceptance of his awkwardness to Chad's general patience.
Hadn't he none the less known at the very time--known it stupidly and
without reaction--that the boy was accepting something? He was
modestly benevolent, the boy--that was at least what he had been
capable of the superiority of making out his chance to be; and one had
one's self literally not had the gumption to get in ahead of him. If
we should go into all that occupied our friend in the watches of the
night we should have to mend our pen; but an instance or two may mark
for us the vividness with which he could remember. He remembered the
two absurdities that, if his presence of mind HAD failed, were the
things that had had most to do with it. He had never in his life seen
a young man come into a box at ten o'clock at night, and would, if
challenged on the question in advance, have scarce been ready to
pronounce as to different ways of doing so. But it was in spite of
this definite to him that Chad had had a way that was wonderful: a
fact carrying with it an implication that, as one might imagine it, he
knew, he had learned, how.
Here already then were abounding results; he had on the spot and
without the least trouble of intention taught Strether that even in so
small a thing as that there were different ways. He had done in the
same line still more than this; had by a mere shake or two of the head
made his old friend observe that the change in him was perhaps more
than anything else, for the eye, a matter of the marked streaks of
grey, extraordinary at his age, in his thick black hair; as well as
that this new feature was curiously becoming to him, did something for
him, as characterisation, also even--of all things in the world--as
refinement, that had been a good deal wanted. Strether felt, however,
he would have had to confess, that it wouldn't have been easy just now,
on this and other counts, in the presence of what had been supplied, to
be quite clear as to what had been missed. A reflexion a candid critic
might have made of old, for instance, was that it would have been
happier for the son to look more like the mother; but this was a
reflexion that at present would never occur. The ground had quite
fallen away from it, yet no resemblance whatever to the mother had
supervened. It would have been hard for a young man's face and air to
disconnect themselves more completely than Chad's at this juncture from
any discerned, from any imaginable aspect of a New England female
parent. That of course was no more than had been on the cards; but it
produced in Strether none the less one of those frequent phenomena of
mental reference with which all judgement in him was actually beset.
Again and again as the days passed he had had a sense of the pertinence
of communicating quickly with Woollett--communicating with a quickness
with which telegraphy alone would rhyme; the fruit really of a fine
fancy in him for keeping things straight, for the happy forestalment of
error. No one could explain better when needful, nor put more
conscience into an account or a report; which burden of conscience is
perhaps exactly the reason why his heart always sank when the clouds of
explanation gathered. His highest ingenuity was in keeping the sky of
life clear of them. Whether or no he had a grand idea of the lucid, he
held that nothing ever was in fact--for any one else--explained. One
went through the vain motions, but it was mostly a waste of life. A
personal relation was a relation only so long as people either
perfectly understood or, better still, didn't care if they didn't. From
the moment they cared if they didn't it was living by the sweat of
one's brow; and the sweat of one's brow was just what one might buy
one's self off from by keeping the ground free of the wild weed of
delusion. It easily grew too fast, and the Atlantic cable now alone
could race with it. That agency would each day have testified for him
to something that was not what Woollett had argued. He was not at this
moment absolutely sure that the effect of the morrow's--or rather of
the night's--appreciation of the crisis wouldn't be to determine some
brief missive. "Have at last seen him, but oh dear!"--some temporary
relief of that sort seemed to hover before him. It hovered somehow as
preparing them all--yet preparing them for what? If he might do so
more luminously and cheaply he would tick out in four words: "Awfully
old--grey hair." To this particular item in Chad's appearance he
constantly, during their mute half-hour, reverted; as if so very much
more than he could have said had been involved in it. The most he
could have said would have been: "If he's going to make me feel
young--!" which indeed, however, carried with it quite enough. If
Strether was to feel young, that is, it would be because Chad was to
feel old; and an aged and hoary sinner had been no part of the scheme.
The question of Chadwick's true time of life was, doubtless, what came
up quickest after the adjournment of the two, when the play was over,
to a cafe in the Avenue de l'Opera. Miss Gostrey had in due course
been perfect for such a step; she had known exactly what they
wanted--to go straight somewhere and talk; and Strether had even felt
she had known what he wished to say and that he was arranging
immediately to begin. She hadn't pretended this, as she HAD pretended
on the other hand, to have divined Waymarsh's wish to extend to her an
independent protection homeward; but Strether nevertheless found how,
after he had Chad opposite to him at a small table in the brilliant
halls that his companion straightway selected, sharply and easily
discriminated from others, it was quite, to his mind, as if she heard
him speak; as if, sitting up, a mile away, in the little apartment he
knew, she would listen hard enough to catch. He found too that he
liked that idea, and he wished that, by the same token, Mrs. Newsome
might have caught as well. For what had above all been determined in
him as a necessity of the first order was not to lose another hour, nor
a fraction of one; was to advance, to overwhelm, with a rush. This was
how he would anticipate--by a night-attack, as might be--any forced
maturity that a crammed consciousness of Paris was likely to take upon
itself to assert on behalf of the boy. He knew to the full, on what he
had just extracted from Miss Gostrey, Chad's marks of alertness; but
they were a reason the more for not dawdling. If he was himself
moreover to be treated as young he wouldn't at all events be so treated
before he should have struck out at least once. His arms might be
pinioned afterwards, but it would have been left on record that he was
fifty. The importance of this he had indeed begun to feel before they
left the theatre; it had become a wild unrest, urging him to seize his
chance. He could scarcely wait for it as they went; he was on the
verge of the indecency of bringing up the question in the street; he
fairly caught himself going on--so he afterwards invidiously named
it--as if there would be for him no second chance should the present be
lost. Not till, on the purple divan before the perfunctory bock, he
had brought out the words themselves, was he sure, for that matter,
that the present would be saved.
Book Fourth | Miss Maria Gostrey arrives in Paris a week after Strether and Waymarsh have gotten there. Again, coincidence? We think, um, maybe. Strether wastes no time in going to pay a call. There's no denying that Strether feels a deep intimacy with Maria: "The circle in which they stood together was warm with life, and every question between them would live there as nowhere else" . That's deep stuff, yo! Strether confesses to Maria that he's done something terrible: he's become friends with the little artist named Bilham. He's consorting with the enemy! Miss Gostrey says she'd like to meet Bilham, and Strether thinks this is a great idea. He also admits that since arriving in Paris, he hasn't found out a single thing about Chad's life that deserves criticism. That could also be just lack of 411, since he still doesn't know if Chad's living with a woman. Fast forward to when Maria first meets Bilham. She leans into Strether and says not to worry; Bilham is "one of us." Strether doesn't totally understand what Maria means by this, but it's pretty obvious that she's including him in the same category as her and Bilham: they're all people who seek something more in life than the prudes back in America. Strether's pretty keen on this whole belonging idea, and once more, he gets sucked a little deeper into the world of Paris and its amusements. Strether suddenly realizes what makes the artist Bilham such a cool guy: he looks at the world without any kind of prejudice. Americans like Waymarsh and the Newsomes are always judging everything they encounter to see whether they're good or bad. The idea of being unprejudiced and of judging things fairly is a totally new idea to Strether. A few days later, Strether gets a letter from Maria saying that she has box seats to the Paris theatre. Lucky for him, his only job is to hang out in Paris until Chad shows up, so he goes with her. Of course, Waymarsh is going to tag along, too. At the theatre, the three of them discuss Bilham. Strether talks him up, but Waymarsh says that the kid is an unmanned and uncivilized brute. Ouch. Strether is pained by this judgment because it shows him just how far apart he and Waymarsh have grown since coming to Europe. What happened to the whole not-judging-folks thing? Maria suddenly suggests to Strether that Chad might intentionally be out of town in order to let Strether spend some time wandering around Paris. Chad and Bilham might have a conspiracy to turn Strether into one of them. In which case, Maria adds, it totally seems to be working. Conspiracy theorists are pretty much applauding in their chairs at this point. Before they can get too deep into the theorizing, the door of their box opens and a gentleman walks in. This is what the lit industry calls uncannily perfect timing. Plus, the play is just starting up again, so none of them can say anything to the intruder. Oh, the suspense! In case it wasn't totally obvious, Strether realizes with a gasp that their visitor is actually Chad Newsome. Surprise! Simply put, Strether is won over even more based on Chad's impressive and shockingly sophisticated appearance. The guy who Strether still thinks of as a cocky young boy now has some grey streaks in his hair and carries himself like a very dignified theatre-goer. Think high school guys and nerd-pot Strether just spotted the jockiest of jocks. His buddy Waymarsh, though, isn't impressed, and he just glowers at Chad from his seat. Waymarsh be darned, Strether suddenly become self-conscious about how he must look to Chad. After all, Strether wants to be a cool guy too. Strether spends the rest of the play obsessing over everything he now knows about Chad and his super cool Paris life. And better yet, there seems to be nothing in Chad's life that is morally questionable. There's no sign of any "evil" woman in his life, and all of his friends are cool artists. There's a lot of assumption going on here. Strether knows that he needs to write a letter back to Mrs. Newsome in Woollett. But he has no clue what to say. He knows that he better not write back bragging about how much Chad has flourished since leaving his boring family behind. What to do? Strether scribbles home a few sparse details and keeps his gushing to himself. "Chad has grey hair now," is about as descriptive as he gets. Just what an anxious sugar mama wants to hear. |
I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the moon was
just rising from the sea; I had not sufficient light for my employment,
and I remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should
leave my labour for the night, or hasten its conclusion by an
unremitting attention to it. As I sat, a train of reflection occurred to
me, which led me to consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three
years before I was engaged in the same manner, and had created a fiend
whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart, and filled it for
ever with the bitterest remorse. I was now about to form another being,
of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten
thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own
sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood
of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she had not; and she, who in
all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might
refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might
even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own
deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorence for it when it
came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with
disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and
he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being
deserted by one of his own species.
Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the new
world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the
daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be
propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the
species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I a right,
for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations?
I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had created; I
had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats: but now, for the
first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to
think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness
had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price perhaps of the
existence of the whole human race.
I trembled, and my heart failed within me; when, on looking up, I saw,
by the light of the moon, the daemon at the casement. A ghastly grin
wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task
which he had allotted to me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he
had loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide
and desert heaths; and he now came to mark my progress, and claim the
fulfilment of my promise.
As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of
malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my
promise of creating another like to him, and, trembling with passion,
tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me
destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for
happiness, and, with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew.
I left the room, and, locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own
heart never to resume my labours; and then, with trembling steps, I
sought my own apartment. I was alone; none were near me to dissipate the
gloom, and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most terrible
reveries.
Several hours past, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea; it
was almost motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature reposed
under the eye of the quiet moon. A few fishing vessels alone specked the
water, and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound of voices, as
the fishermen called to one another. I felt the silence, although I was
hardly conscious of its extreme profundity until my ear was suddenly
arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore, and a person landed
close to my house.
In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as if some one
endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from head to foot; I felt a
presentiment of who it was, and wished to rouse one of the peasants who
dwelt in a cottage not far from mine; but I was overcome by the
sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams, when you
in vain endeavour to fly from an impending danger, and was rooted to the
spot.
Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the passage; the door
opened, and the wretch whom I dreaded appeared. Shutting the door, he
approached me, and said, in a smothered voice--
"You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you
intend? Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and
misery: I left Switzerland with you; I crept along the shores of the
Rhine, among its willow islands, and over the summits of its hills. I
have dwelt many months in the heaths of England, and among the deserts
of Scotland. I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger;
do you dare destroy my hopes?"
"Begone! I do break my promise; never will I create another like
yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness."
"Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself
unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe
yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day
will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your
master;--obey!"
"The hour of my weakness is past, and the period of your power is
arrived. Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but
they confirm me in a resolution of not creating you a companion in vice.
Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a daemon, whose delight
is in death and wretchedness. Begone! I am firm, and your words will
only exasperate my rage."
The monster saw my determination in my face, and gnashed his teeth in
the impotence of anger. "Shall each man," cried he, "find a wife for his
bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of
affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn. Man, you may
hate; but beware! Your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the
bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever. Are
you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? You
can blast my other passions; but revenge remains--revenge, henceforth
dearer than light or food! I may die; but first you, my tyrant and
tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware; for I
am fearless, and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a
snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the
injuries you inflict."
"Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice. I
have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend beneath
words. Leave me; I am inexorable."
"It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your
wedding-night."
I started forward, and exclaimed, "Villain! before you sign my
death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe."
I would have seized him; but he eluded me, and quitted the house with
precipitation: in a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot across
the waters with an arrowy swiftness, and was soon lost amidst the waves.
All was again silent; but his words rung in my ears. I burned with rage
to pursue the murderer of my peace, and precipitate him into the ocean.
I walked up and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination
conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I not
followed him, and closed with him in mortal strife? But I had suffered
him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the main land. I
shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his
insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words--"_I will be
with you on your wedding-night._" That then was the period fixed for the
fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die, and at once satisfy
and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move me to fear; yet
when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth,--of her tears and endless
sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from
her,--tears, the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my
eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter
struggle.
The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings
became calmer, if it may be called calmness, when the violence of rage
sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of
the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I
almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my
fellow-creatures; nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole
across me. I desired that I might pass my life on that barren rock,
wearily it is true, but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of misery. If
I returned, it was to be sacrificed, or to see those whom I most loved
die under the grasp of a daemon whom I had myself created.
I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all it
loved, and miserable in the separation. When it became noon, and the sun
rose higher, I lay down on the grass, and was overpowered by a deep
sleep. I had been awake the whole of the preceding night, my nerves were
agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery. The sleep into
which I now sunk refreshed me; and when I awoke, I again felt as if I
belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to reflect
upon what had passed with greater composure; yet still the words of the
fiend rung in my ears like a death-knell, they appeared like a dream,
yet distinct and oppressive as a reality.
The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore, satisfying my
appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten cake, when I saw a
fishing-boat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a packet;
it contained letters from Geneva, and one from Clerval, entreating me to
join him. He said that nearly a year had elapsed since we had quitted
Switzerland, and France was yet unvisited. He entreated me, therefore,
to leave my solitary isle, and meet him at Perth, in a week from that
time, when we might arrange the plan of our future proceedings. This
letter in a degree recalled me to life, and I determined to quit my
island at the expiration of two days.
Yet, before I departed, there was a task to perform, on which I
shuddered to reflect: I must pack my chemical instruments; and for that
purpose I must enter the room which had been the scene of my odious
work, and I must handle those utensils, the sight of which was sickening
to me. The next morning, at day-break, I summoned sufficient courage,
and unlocked the door of my laboratory. The remains of the half-finished
creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost
felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being. I paused to
collect myself, and then entered the chamber. With trembling hand I
conveyed the instruments out of the room; but I reflected that I ought
not to leave the relics of my work to excite the horror and suspicion of
the peasants, and I accordingly put them into a basket, with a great
quantity of stones, and laying them up, determined to throw them into
the sea that very night; and in the mean time I sat upon the beach,
employed in cleaning and arranging my chemical apparatus.
Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken place
in my feelings since the night of the appearance of the daemon. I had
before regarded my promise with a gloomy despair, as a thing that, with
whatever consequences, must be fulfilled; but I now felt as if a film
had been taken from before my eyes, and that I, for the first time, saw
clearly. The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur
to me; the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not
reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it. I had resolved in
my own mind, that to create another like the fiend I had first made
would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness; and I
banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different
conclusion.
Between two and three in the morning the moon rose; and I then, putting
my basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out about four miles from the
shore. The scene was perfectly solitary: a few boats were returning
towards land, but I sailed away from them. I felt as if I was about the
commission of a dreadful crime, and avoided with shuddering anxiety any
encounter with my fellow-creatures. At one time the moon, which had
before been clear, was suddenly overspread by a thick cloud, and I took
advantage of the moment of darkness, and cast my basket into the sea; I
listened to the gurgling sound as it sunk, and then sailed away from the
spot. The sky became clouded; but the air was pure, although chilled by
the north-east breeze that was then rising. But it refreshed me, and
filled me with such agreeable sensations, that I resolved to prolong my
stay on the water, and fixing the rudder in a direct position, stretched
myself at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the moon, every thing was
obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat, as its keel cut through
the waves; the murmur lulled me, and in a short time I slept soundly.
I do not know how long I remained in this situation, but when I awoke I
found that the sun had already mounted considerably. The wind was high,
and the waves continually threatened the safety of my little skiff. I
found that the wind was north-east, and must have driven me far from the
coast from which I had embarked. I endeavoured to change my course, but
quickly found that if I again made the attempt the boat would be
instantly filled with water. Thus situated, my only resource was to
drive before the wind. I confess that I felt a few sensations of terror.
I had no compass with me, and was so little acquainted with the
geography of this part of the world that the sun was of little benefit
to me. I might be driven into the wide Atlantic, and feel all the
tortures of starvation, or be swallowed up in the immeasurable waters
that roared and buffeted around me. I had already been out many hours,
and felt the torment of a burning thirst, a prelude to my other
sufferings. I looked on the heavens, which were covered by clouds that
flew before the wind only to be replaced by others: I looked upon the
sea, it was to be my grave. "Fiend," I exclaimed, "your task is already
fulfilled!" I thought of Elizabeth, of my father, and of Clerval; and
sunk into a reverie, so despairing and frightful, that even now, when
the scene is on the point of closing before me for ever, I shudder to
reflect on it.
Some hours passed thus; but by degrees, as the sun declined towards the
horizon, the wind died away into a gentle breeze, and the sea became
free from breakers. But these gave place to a heavy swell; I felt sick,
and hardly able to hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw a line of high
land towards the south.
Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue, and the dreadful suspense I endured
for several hours, this sudden certainty of life rushed like a flood of
warm joy to my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes.
How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we
have of life even in the excess of misery! I constructed another sail
with a part of my dress, and eagerly steered my course towards the land.
It had a wild and rocky appearance; but as I approached nearer, I easily
perceived the traces of cultivation. I saw vessels near the shore, and
found myself suddenly transported back to the neighbourhood of civilized
man. I eagerly traced the windings of the land, and hailed a steeple
which I at length saw issuing from behind a small promontory. As I was
in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the
town as a place where I could most easily procure nourishment.
Fortunately I had money with me. As I turned the promontory, I perceived
a small neat town and a good harbour, which I entered, my heart bounding
with joy at my unexpected escape.
As I was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the sails, several
people crowded towards the spot. They seemed very much surprised at my
appearance; but, instead of offering me any assistance, whispered
together with gestures that at any other time might have produced in me
a slight sensation of alarm. As it was, I merely remarked that they
spoke English; and I therefore addressed them in that language: "My good
friends," said I, "will you be so kind as to tell me the name of this
town, and inform me where I am?"
"You will know that soon enough," replied a man with a gruff voice. "May
be you are come to a place that will not prove much to your taste; but
you will not be consulted as to your quarters, I promise you."
I was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an answer from a
stranger; and I was also disconcerted on perceiving the frowning and
angry countenances of his companions. "Why do you answer me so roughly?"
I replied: "surely it is not the custom of Englishmen to receive
strangers so inhospitably."
"I do not know," said the man, "what the custom of the English may be;
but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains."
While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly
increase. Their faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger, which
annoyed, and in some degree alarmed me. I inquired the way to the inn;
but no one replied. I then moved forward, and a murmuring sound arose
from the crowd as they followed and surrounded me; when an ill-looking
man approaching, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Come, Sir, you
must follow me to Mr. Kirwin's, to give an account of yourself."
"Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of myself? Is not this a
free country?"
"Aye, Sir, free enough for honest folks. Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate; and
you are to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was found
murdered here last night."
This answer startled me; but I presently recovered myself. I was
innocent; that could easily be proved: accordingly I followed my
conductor in silence, and was led to one of the best houses in the town.
I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger; but, being surrounded by a
crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical
debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt. Little
did I then expect the calamity that was in a few moments to overwhelm
me, and extinguish in horror and despair all fear of ignominy or death.
I must pause here; for it requires all my fortitude to recall the memory
of the frightful events which I am about to relate, in proper detail, to
my recollection. | At last Victor sets about creating the second monster. As he suspected, the monster had trailed Victor and Henry's tour through Europe into England. He is anxious to see his mate and he approaches Victor's workshop on the remote island in the Orkneys. With mixed feelings of guilt and temper Victor destroys the half-finished creature in front of the monster, saying that he will not continue. The monster says, Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and misery '''. I have dwelt many months in the heaths of England and among the deserts of Scotland. I have endured incalculable fatigue and cold and hunger. Do you dare destroy my hopes?" Victor responds, Begone! I do break my promise; never will I create another like yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness." The monster disappears into the night and Victor worries who the next victim of the creature's evil will be next. Victor prepares to return home, but he must first destroy his laboratory, and dispose of the body parts he has accumulated. He sets out in a boat in order to dispose of the body parts, but a storm pushes him out to sea and eventually he is cast ashore in Ireland and he is unceremoniously taken to the local magistrate, Mr. Kirwin, accused of murder. |
We have not written for thirty days. For thirty days we have not
been here, in our tunnel. We had been caught.
It happened on that night when we wrote last. We forgot, that
night, to watch the sand in the glass which tells us when three
hours have passed and it is time to return to the City Theatre.
When we [-remembered
it,-] {+remembered,+} the sand had run out.
We hastened to the Theatre. But the big tent stood grey and
silent against the sky. The streets of the City lay before us,
dark and empty. If we went back to hide in our tunnel, we would
be found and our light
[-found-] with us. So we walked to the Home of the
Street Sweepers.
When the Council of the Home questioned us, we looked upon the
faces of the Council, but there was no curiosity in those faces,
and no anger, and no mercy. So when the oldest of them asked us:
"Where have you been?" we thought of our glass box and of our
light, and we forgot all else. And we answered:
"We will not tell you."
The oldest did not question us further. They turned to the two
youngest, and said, and their voice was bored:
"Take our brother Equality 7-2521 to the Palace of Corrective
Detention. Lash them until they tell."
So we were taken to the Stone Room under the Palace of Corrective
Detention. This room has no windows and it is empty save for an
iron post. Two men stood by the post, naked but for leather
aprons and leather hoods over their faces. Those who had brought
us departed, leaving us to the two Judges who stood in a corner
of the room. The [-Judges-] {+judges+} were small, thin men, grey and bent.
They gave the signal to the two strong hooded ones.
They tore [-the-] {+our+} clothes from our body, they threw us down upon our
knees and they tied our hands to the iron post.
The first blow of the lash felt as if our spine had been cut in
two. The second blow stopped the first, and for a second we felt
nothing, then [-the-] pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our
lungs without air. But we did not cry out.
The lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to count the
blows, but we lost count. We knew that the blows were falling
upon our [-back.-] {+back+} Only we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A
flaming grill kept dancing before our eyes, and we thought of
nothing save that grill, a grill, a grill of red squares, and
then we knew that we were looking at the squares of the iron
grill in the door, and there were also the squares of stone on
the walls, and the squares which the lash was cutting upon our
back, crossing and re-crossing itself in our flesh.
Then we saw a fist before us. It knocked our chin up, and we saw
the red froth of our mouth on the withered fingers, and the Judge
asked:
"Where have you been?"
But we jerked our head away, hid our face upon our tied hands,
and bit our lips.
The lash whistled again. We wondered who was sprinkling burning
coal dust upon the floor, for we saw drops of red twinkling on
the stones around us.
Then we knew nothing, save two voices snarling steadily, one
after the other, even though we knew they were speaking many
minutes apart:
"Where have you been where have you been where have you been
where have you been? . . ."
And our lips moved, but the sound trickled back into our throat,
and the sound was only:
"The light . . . The light . . . The light. . . ."
Then we knew nothing.
We opened our eyes, lying on our stomach on the brick floor of a
cell. We looked upon two hands [-lying-] {+flying+} far before us on the
bricks, and we moved them, and we knew that they were our hands.
But we could not move our body. Then we smiled, for we thought of
the light and that we had not betrayed it.
We lay in our cell for many days. The door opened twice each day,
once for the men who brought us bread and water, and once for the Judges.
Many Judges came to our cell, first the humblest and then the most
honored Judges of the City. They stood before us in their white togas,
and they asked:
"Are you ready to speak?"
But we shook our head, lying before them on the floor. And they departed.
We counted each day and each night as it passed. Then, tonight,
we knew that we must escape. For tomorrow the World Council of
Scholars is to meet in our City.
It was easy to escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention.
The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about.
There is no reason to have guards, for men have never defied the
Councils so far as to escape from whatever place they were
ordered to be. Our body is healthy and strength returns to it
speedily. We [-lunged
against the door and it gave way. We-] stole through the dark passages, and through the
dark streets, and down into our tunnel.
We lit the candle and we saw that our place had not been found
and nothing had been touched. And our glass box stood before us
on the cold oven, as we had left it. What matter they now, the
scars upon our back!
Tomorrow, in the full light of day, we shall take our box, and
leave our tunnel open, and walk through the streets to the Home
of the Scholars. We shall put before them the greatest gift ever
offered to men. We shall tell them the truth. We shall hand to
them, as our confession, these pages we have written. We shall
join our hands to theirs, and we shall work together, with the
power of the sky, for the glory of mankind. Our blessing upon
you, [-or-] {+our+} brothers! Tomorrow, you will take us back into your
fold and we shall be an outcast no longer. Tomorrow we shall be
one of you again. Tomorrow . . . | Equality 7-2521 tells us that he hasn't written for thirty days, because he hasn't been in the tunnel for 30 days. He was caught. It happened the very night he wrote last, when he had produced the light. It's time for another flashback sequence... That night, Equality 7-2521 notices that he's forgotten to keep track of the time . Three hours have already passed. Equality 7-2521 he runs back to the Theatre, only to find it empty. He returns to the Home of the Street Sweepers. The Council of Home quickly demands to know where he's been. Equality 7-2521 refuses to tell them. Equality 7-2521 is taken to the Palace of Corrective Detention to encourage him to cooperate by whipping him. Equality 7-2521 is stripped and then lashed for what seems like ages, but he doesn't say a word. He doesn't even cry out. The beating continues until Equality 7-2521 goes practically unconscious. When he's asked repeatedly where he's been, all he can say is "The light...the light!". Equality 7-2521 then falls unconscious. When he wakes up, Equality 7-2521 finds himself in a cell. He lies there for many days. Regularly, Judges come to his cell to ask if he's ready to speak. He shakes his head each time. Equality 7-2521 counts the days as they pass until he realizes one night that the next day is the World Council of Scholars. He's got to escape. Fortunately, this is not very hard. The locks are old and there are no guards around, so all it takes is a lunge at the door. Apparently Equality 7-2521 was lucky enough to be placed in the most worthless jail ever devised by the hand of man. So Equality 7-2521 heads back to his tunnel, and writes what we've just been reading. Tomorrow, he announces, he will tell the Scholars the truth, and present them with his great gift. |
As soon as I could recover my presence of mind, which quite deserted me
in the first overpowering shock of my aunt's intelligence, I proposed
to Mr. Dick to come round to the chandler's shop, and take possession of
the bed which Mr. Peggotty had lately vacated. The chandler's shop being
in Hungerford Market, and Hungerford Market being a very different place
in those days, there was a low wooden colonnade before the door (not
very unlike that before the house where the little man and woman used
to live, in the old weather-glass), which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. The
glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated him, I dare
say, for many inconveniences; but, as there were really few to bear,
beyond the compound of flavours I have already mentioned, and perhaps
the want of a little more elbow-room, he was perfectly charmed with his
accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn't
room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed to me,
sitting down on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, 'You know,
Trotwood, I don't want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat.
Therefore, what does that signify to ME!'
I tried to ascertain whether Mr. Dick had any understanding of the
causes of this sudden and great change in my aunt's affairs. As I might
have expected, he had none at all. The only account he could give of it
was, that my aunt had said to him, the day before yesterday, 'Now, Dick,
are you really and truly the philosopher I take you for?' That then
he had said, Yes, he hoped so. That then my aunt had said, 'Dick, I
am ruined.' That then he had said, 'Oh, indeed!' That then my aunt had
praised him highly, which he was glad of. And that then they had come to
me, and had had bottled porter and sandwiches on the road.
Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing
his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised
smile, that I am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him
that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; but I was soon bitterly
reproved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears
course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such
unutterable woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than
mine. I took infinitely greater pains to cheer him up again than I had
taken to depress him; and I soon understood (as I ought to have known at
first) that he had been so confident, merely because of his faith in
the wisest and most wonderful of women, and his unbounded reliance on my
intellectual resources. The latter, I believe, he considered a match for
any kind of disaster not absolutely mortal.
'What can we do, Trotwood?' said Mr. Dick. 'There's the Memorial-'
'To be sure there is,' said I. 'But all we can do just now, Mr. Dick,
is to keep a cheerful countenance, and not let my aunt see that we are
thinking about it.'
He assented to this in the most earnest manner; and implored me, if I
should see him wandering an inch out of the right course, to recall him
by some of those superior methods which were always at my command. But I
regret to state that the fright I had given him proved too much for his
best attempts at concealment. All the evening his eyes wandered to my
aunt's face, with an expression of the most dismal apprehension, as if
he saw her growing thin on the spot. He was conscious of this, and put
a constraint upon his head; but his keeping that immovable, and sitting
rolling his eyes like a piece of machinery, did not mend the matter at
all. I saw him look at the loaf at supper (which happened to be a small
one), as if nothing else stood between us and famine; and when my aunt
insisted on his making his customary repast, I detected him in the act
of pocketing fragments of his bread and cheese; I have no doubt for the
purpose of reviving us with those savings, when we should have reached
an advanced stage of attenuation.
My aunt, on the other hand, was in a composed frame of mind, which was
a lesson to all of us--to me, I am sure. She was extremely gracious
to Peggotty, except when I inadvertently called her by that name; and,
strange as I knew she felt in London, appeared quite at home. She was
to have my bed, and I was to lie in the sitting-room, to keep guard over
her. She made a great point of being so near the river, in case of a
conflagration; and I suppose really did find some satisfaction in that
circumstance.
'Trot, my dear,' said my aunt, when she saw me making preparations for
compounding her usual night-draught, 'No!'
'Nothing, aunt?'
'Not wine, my dear. Ale.'
'But there is wine here, aunt. And you always have it made of wine.'
'Keep that, in case of sickness,' said my aunt. 'We mustn't use it
carelessly, Trot. Ale for me. Half a pint.'
I thought Mr. Dick would have fallen, insensible. My aunt being
resolute, I went out and got the ale myself. As it was growing late,
Peggotty and Mr. Dick took that opportunity of repairing to the
chandler's shop together. I parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner
of the street, with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human
misery.
My aunt was walking up and down the room when I returned, crimping the
borders of her nightcap with her fingers. I warmed the ale and made the
toast on the usual infallible principles. When it was ready for her, she
was ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her gown turned
back on her knees.
'My dear,' said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; 'it's a great
deal better than wine. Not half so bilious.'
I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added:
'Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are well
off.'
'I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure,' said I.
'Well, then, why DON'T you think so?' said my aunt.
'Because you and I are very different people,' I returned.
'Stuff and nonsense, Trot!' replied my aunt.
My aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little
affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a tea-spoon, and soaking
her strips of toast in it.
'Trot,' said she, 'I don't care for strange faces in general, but I
rather like that Barkis of yours, do you know!'
'It's better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so!' said I.
'It's a most extraordinary world,' observed my aunt, rubbing her nose;
'how that woman ever got into it with that name, is unaccountable to me.
It would be much more easy to be born a Jackson, or something of that
sort, one would think.'
'Perhaps she thinks so, too; it's not her fault,' said I.
'I suppose not,' returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission; 'but
it's very aggravating. However, she's Barkis now. That's some comfort.
Barkis is uncommonly fond of you, Trot.'
'There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it,' said I.
'Nothing, I believe,' returned my aunt. 'Here, the poor fool has been
begging and praying about handing over some of her money--because she
has got too much of it. A simpleton!'
My aunt's tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the warm
ale.
'She's the most ridiculous creature that ever was born,' said my aunt.
'I knew, from the first moment when I saw her with that poor dear
blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most ridiculous of
mortals. But there are good points in Barkis!'
Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to
her eyes. Having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and her
discourse together.
'Ah! Mercy upon us!' sighed my aunt. 'I know all about it, Trot! Barkis
and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with Dick. I know all
about it. I don't know where these wretched girls expect to go to, for
my part. I wonder they don't knock out their brains against--against
mantelpieces,' said my aunt; an idea which was probably suggested to her
by her contemplation of mine.
'Poor Emily!' said I.
'Oh, don't talk to me about poor,' returned my aunt. 'She should have
thought of that, before she caused so much misery! Give me a kiss, Trot.
I am sorry for your early experience.'
As I bent forward, she put her tumbler on my knee to detain me, and
said:
'Oh, Trot, Trot! And so you fancy yourself in love! Do you?'
'Fancy, aunt!' I exclaimed, as red as I could be. 'I adore her with my
whole soul!'
'Dora, indeed!' returned my aunt. 'And you mean to say the little thing
is very fascinating, I suppose?'
'My dear aunt,' I replied, 'no one can form the least idea what she is!'
'Ah! And not silly?' said my aunt.
'Silly, aunt!'
I seriously believe it had never once entered my head for a single
moment, to consider whether she was or not. I resented the idea, of
course; but I was in a manner struck by it, as a new one altogether.
'Not light-headed?' said my aunt.
'Light-headed, aunt!' I could only repeat this daring speculation
with the same kind of feeling with which I had repeated the preceding
question.
'Well, well!' said my aunt. 'I only ask. I don't depreciate her. Poor
little couple! And so you think you were formed for one another, and are
to go through a party-supper-table kind of life, like two pretty pieces
of confectionery, do you, Trot?'
She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half playful
and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched.
'We are young and inexperienced, aunt, I know,' I replied; 'and I dare
say we say and think a good deal that is rather foolish. But we love
one another truly, I am sure. If I thought Dora could ever love anybody
else, or cease to love me; or that I could ever love anybody else, or
cease to love her; I don't know what I should do--go out of my mind, I
think!'
'Ah, Trot!' said my aunt, shaking her head, and smiling gravely; 'blind,
blind, blind!'
'Someone that I know, Trot,' my aunt pursued, after a pause, 'though of
a very pliant disposition, has an earnestness of affection in him that
reminds me of poor Baby. Earnestness is what that Somebody must look
for, to sustain him and improve him, Trot. Deep, downright, faithful
earnestness.'
'If you only knew the earnestness of Dora, aunt!' I cried.
'Oh, Trot!' she said again; 'blind, blind!' and without knowing why,
I felt a vague unhappy loss or want of something overshadow me like a
cloud.
'However,' said my aunt, 'I don't want to put two young creatures out
of conceit with themselves, or to make them unhappy; so, though it is a
girl and boy attachment, and girl and boy attachments very often--mind!
I don't say always!--come to nothing, still we'll be serious about it,
and hope for a prosperous issue one of these days. There's time enough
for it to come to anything!'
This was not upon the whole very comforting to a rapturous lover; but
I was glad to have my aunt in my confidence, and I was mindful of
her being fatigued. So I thanked her ardently for this mark of her
affection, and for all her other kindnesses towards me; and after a
tender good night, she took her nightcap into my bedroom.
How miserable I was, when I lay down! How I thought and thought about my
being poor, in Mr. Spenlow's eyes; about my not being what I thought I
was, when I proposed to Dora; about the chivalrous necessity of
telling Dora what my worldly condition was, and releasing her from her
engagement if she thought fit; about how I should contrive to live,
during the long term of my articles, when I was earning nothing; about
doing something to assist my aunt, and seeing no way of doing anything;
about coming down to have no money in my pocket, and to wear a shabby
coat, and to be able to carry Dora no little presents, and to ride no
gallant greys, and to show myself in no agreeable light! Sordid and
selfish as I knew it was, and as I tortured myself by knowing that it
was, to let my mind run on my own distress so much, I was so devoted
to Dora that I could not help it. I knew that it was base in me not to
think more of my aunt, and less of myself; but, so far, selfishness
was inseparable from Dora, and I could not put Dora on one side for any
mortal creature. How exceedingly miserable I was, that night!
As to sleep, I had dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, but I
seemed to dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. Now I
was ragged, wanting to sell Dora matches, six bundles for a halfpenny;
now I was at the office in a nightgown and boots, remonstrated with by
Mr. Spenlow on appearing before the clients in that airy attire; now
I was hungrily picking up the crumbs that fell from old Tiffey's
daily biscuit, regularly eaten when St. Paul's struck one; now I was
hopelessly endeavouring to get a licence to marry Dora, having nothing
but one of Uriah Heep's gloves to offer in exchange, which the whole
Commons rejected; and still, more or less conscious of my own room, I
was always tossing about like a distressed ship in a sea of bed-clothes.
My aunt was restless, too, for I frequently heard her walking to and
fro. Two or three times in the course of the night, attired in a long
flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like
a disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which
I lay. On the first occasion I started up in alarm, to learn that she
inferred from a particular light in the sky, that Westminster Abbey
was on fire; and to be consulted in reference to the probability of its
igniting Buckingham Street, in case the wind changed. Lying still, after
that, I found that she sat down near me, whispering to herself 'Poor
boy!' And then it made me twenty times more wretched, to know how
unselfishly mindful she was of me, and how selfishly mindful I was of
myself.
It was difficult to believe that a night so long to me, could be short
to anybody else. This consideration set me thinking and thinking of an
imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away, until that
became a dream too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune,
and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance, without taking the least
notice of me. The man who had been playing the harp all night, was
trying in vain to cover it with an ordinary-sized nightcap, when I
awoke; or I should rather say, when I left off trying to go to sleep,
and saw the sun shining in through the window at last.
There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the
streets out of the Strand--it may be there still--in which I have had
many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quietly as I could, and leaving
Peggotty to look after my aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it,
and then went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk
treatment might freshen my wits a little; and I think it did them good,
for I soon came to the conclusion that the first step I ought to take
was, to try if my articles could be cancelled and the premium recovered.
I got some breakfast on the Heath, and walked back to Doctors' Commons,
along the watered roads and through a pleasant smell of summer flowers,
growing in gardens and carried into town on hucksters' heads, intent on
this first effort to meet our altered circumstances.
I arrived at the office so soon, after all, that I had half an hour's
loitering about the Commons, before old Tiffey, who was always first,
appeared with his key. Then I sat down in my shady corner, looking up
at the sunlight on the opposite chimney-pots, and thinking about Dora;
until Mr. Spenlow came in, crisp and curly.
'How are you, Copperfield?' said he. 'Fine morning!'
'Beautiful morning, sir,' said I. 'Could I say a word to you before you
go into Court?'
'By all means,' said he. 'Come into my room.'
I followed him into his room, and he began putting on his gown, and
touching himself up before a little glass he had, hanging inside a
closet door.
'I am sorry to say,' said I, 'that I have some rather disheartening
intelligence from my aunt.'
'No!' said he. 'Dear me! Not paralysis, I hope?'
'It has no reference to her health, sir,' I replied. 'She has met with
some large losses. In fact, she has very little left, indeed.'
'You as-tound me, Copperfield!' cried Mr. Spenlow.
I shook my head. 'Indeed, sir,' said I, 'her affairs are so changed,
that I wished to ask you whether it would be possible--at a sacrifice on
our part of some portion of the premium, of course,' I put in this, on
the spur of the moment, warned by the blank expression of his face--'to
cancel my articles?'
What it cost me to make this proposal, nobody knows. It was like asking,
as a favour, to be sentenced to transportation from Dora.
'To cancel your articles, Copperfield? Cancel?'
I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where
my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them for
myself. I had no fear for the future, I said--and I laid great emphasis
on that, as if to imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a
son-in-law one of these days--but, for the present, I was thrown upon
my own resources. 'I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield,' said
Mr. Spenlow. 'Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for
any such reason. It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is
not a convenient precedent at all. Far from it. At the same time--'
'You are very good, sir,' I murmured, anticipating a concession.
'Not at all. Don't mention it,' said Mr. Spenlow. 'At the same time, I
was going to say, if it had been my lot to have my hands unfettered--if
I had not a partner--Mr. Jorkins--'
My hopes were dashed in a moment, but I made another effort.
'Do you think, sir,' said I, 'if I were to mention it to Mr. Jorkins--'
Mr. Spenlow shook his head discouragingly. 'Heaven forbid, Copperfield,'
he replied, 'that I should do any man an injustice: still less, Mr.
Jorkins. But I know my partner, Copperfield. Mr. Jorkins is not a man
to respond to a proposition of this peculiar nature. Mr. Jorkins is very
difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he is!'
I am sure I knew nothing about him, except that he had originally been
alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house near Montagu
Square, which was fearfully in want of painting; that he came very
late of a day, and went away very early; that he never appeared to be
consulted about anything; and that he had a dingy little black-hole of
his own upstairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was
a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink, and
reported to be twenty years of age.
'Would you object to my mentioning it to him, sir?' I asked.
'By no means,' said Mr. Spenlow. 'But I have some experience of Mr.
Jorkins, Copperfield. I wish it were otherwise, for I should be happy
to meet your views in any respect. I cannot have the objection to your
mentioning it to Mr. Jorkins, Copperfield, if you think it worth while.'
Availing myself of this permission, which was given with a warm shake
of the hand, I sat thinking about Dora, and looking at the sunlight
stealing from the chimney-pots down the wall of the opposite house,
until Mr. Jorkins came. I then went up to Mr. Jorkins's room, and
evidently astonished Mr. Jorkins very much by making my appearance
there.
'Come in, Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. Jorkins. 'Come in!'
I went in, and sat down; and stated my case to Mr. Jorkins pretty much
as I had stated it to Mr. Spenlow. Mr. Jorkins was not by any means the
awful creature one might have expected, but a large, mild, smooth-faced
man of sixty, who took so much snuff that there was a tradition in the
Commons that he lived principally on that stimulant, having little room
in his system for any other article of diet.
'You have mentioned this to Mr. Spenlow, I suppose?' said Mr. Jorkins;
when he had heard me, very restlessly, to an end.
I answered Yes, and told him that Mr. Spenlow had introduced his name.
'He said I should object?' asked Mr. Jorkins.
I was obliged to admit that Mr. Spenlow had considered it probable.
'I am sorry to say, Mr. Copperfield, I can't advance your object,' said
Mr. Jorkins, nervously. 'The fact is--but I have an appointment at the
Bank, if you'll have the goodness to excuse me.'
With that he rose in a great hurry, and was going out of the room, when
I made bold to say that I feared, then, there was no way of arranging
the matter?
'No!' said Mr. Jorkins, stopping at the door to shake his head. 'Oh, no!
I object, you know,' which he said very rapidly, and went out. 'You must
be aware, Mr. Copperfield,' he added, looking restlessly in at the door
again, 'if Mr. Spenlow objects--'
'Personally, he does not object, sir,' said I.
'Oh! Personally!' repeated Mr. Jorkins, in an impatient manner. 'I
assure you there's an objection, Mr. Copperfield. Hopeless! What you
wish to be done, can't be done. I--I really have got an appointment
at the Bank.' With that he fairly ran away; and to the best of my
knowledge, it was three days before he showed himself in the Commons
again.
Being very anxious to leave no stone unturned, I waited until Mr.
Spenlow came in, and then described what had passed; giving him to
understand that I was not hopeless of his being able to soften the
adamantine Jorkins, if he would undertake the task.
'Copperfield,' returned Mr. Spenlow, with a gracious smile, 'you have
not known my partner, Mr. Jorkins, as long as I have. Nothing is
farther from my thoughts than to attribute any degree of artifice to Mr.
Jorkins. But Mr. Jorkins has a way of stating his objections which often
deceives people. No, Copperfield!' shaking his head. 'Mr. Jorkins is not
to be moved, believe me!'
I was completely bewildered between Mr. Spenlow and Mr. Jorkins, as
to which of them really was the objecting partner; but I saw with
sufficient clearness that there was obduracy somewhere in the firm, and
that the recovery of my aunt's thousand pounds was out of the
question. In a state of despondency, which I remember with anything
but satisfaction, for I know it still had too much reference to myself
(though always in connexion with Dora), I left the office, and went
homeward.
I was trying to familiarize my mind with the worst, and to present to
myself the arrangements we should have to make for the future in their
sternest aspect, when a hackney-chariot coming after me, and stopping at
my very feet, occasioned me to look up. A fair hand was stretched forth
to me from the window; and the face I had never seen without a feeling
of serenity and happiness, from the moment when it first turned back
on the old oak staircase with the great broad balustrade, and when I
associated its softened beauty with the stained-glass window in the
church, was smiling on me.
'Agnes!' I joyfully exclaimed. 'Oh, my dear Agnes, of all people in the
world, what a pleasure to see you!'
'Is it, indeed?' she said, in her cordial voice.
'I want to talk to you so much!' said I. 'It's such a lightening of my
heart, only to look at you! If I had had a conjuror's cap, there is no
one I should have wished for but you!'
'What?' returned Agnes.
'Well! perhaps Dora first,' I admitted, with a blush.
'Certainly, Dora first, I hope,' said Agnes, laughing.
'But you next!' said I. 'Where are you going?'
She was going to my rooms to see my aunt. The day being very fine, she
was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it
all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame. I dismissed the
coachman, and she took my arm, and we walked on together. She was like
Hope embodied, to me. How different I felt in one short minute, having
Agnes at my side!
My aunt had written her one of the odd, abrupt notes--very little longer
than a Bank note--to which her epistolary efforts were usually limited.
She had stated therein that she had fallen into adversity, and was
leaving Dover for good, but had quite made up her mind to it, and was
so well that nobody need be uncomfortable about her. Agnes had come to
London to see my aunt, between whom and herself there had been a mutual
liking these many years: indeed, it dated from the time of my taking up
my residence in Mr. Wickfield's house. She was not alone, she said. Her
papa was with her--and Uriah Heep.
'And now they are partners,' said I. 'Confound him!'
'Yes,' said Agnes. 'They have some business here; and I took advantage
of their coming, to come too. You must not think my visit all friendly
and disinterested, Trotwood, for--I am afraid I may be cruelly
prejudiced--I do not like to let papa go away alone, with him.' 'Does he
exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, Agnes?'
Agnes shook her head. 'There is such a change at home,' said she, 'that
you would scarcely know the dear old house. They live with us now.'
'They?' said I.
'Mr. Heep and his mother. He sleeps in your old room,' said Agnes,
looking up into my face.
'I wish I had the ordering of his dreams,' said I. 'He wouldn't sleep
there long.'
'I keep my own little room,' said Agnes, 'where I used to learn my
lessons. How the time goes! You remember? The little panelled room that
opens from the drawing-room?'
'Remember, Agnes? When I saw you, for the first time, coming out at the
door, with your quaint little basket of keys hanging at your side?'
'It is just the same,' said Agnes, smiling. 'I am glad you think of it
so pleasantly. We were very happy.'
'We were, indeed,' said I.
'I keep that room to myself still; but I cannot always desert Mrs. Heep,
you know. And so,' said Agnes, quietly, 'I feel obliged to bear her
company, when I might prefer to be alone. But I have no other reason to
complain of her. If she tires me, sometimes, by her praises of her son,
it is only natural in a mother. He is a very good son to her.'
I looked at Agnes when she said these words, without detecting in her
any consciousness of Uriah's design. Her mild but earnest eyes met
mine with their own beautiful frankness, and there was no change in her
gentle face.
'The chief evil of their presence in the house,' said Agnes, 'is that I
cannot be as near papa as I could wish--Uriah Heep being so much between
us--and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a thing to say,
as closely as I would. But if any fraud or treachery is practising
against him, I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the
end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any
evil or misfortune in the world.'
A certain bright smile, which I never saw on any other face, died away,
even while I thought how good it was, and how familiar it had once been
to me; and she asked me, with a quick change of expression (we were
drawing very near my street), if I knew how the reverse in my aunt's
circumstances had been brought about. On my replying no, she had not
told me yet, Agnes became thoughtful, and I fancied I felt her arm
tremble in mine.
We found my aunt alone, in a state of some excitement. A difference
of opinion had arisen between herself and Mrs. Crupp, on an abstract
question (the propriety of chambers being inhabited by the gentler sex);
and my aunt, utterly indifferent to spasms on the part of Mrs. Crupp,
had cut the dispute short, by informing that lady that she smelt of
my brandy, and that she would trouble her to walk out. Both of these
expressions Mrs. Crupp considered actionable, and had expressed her
intention of bringing before a 'British Judy'--meaning, it was supposed,
the bulwark of our national liberties.
My aunt, however, having had time to cool, while Peggotty was out
showing Mr. Dick the soldiers at the Horse Guards--and being, besides,
greatly pleased to see Agnes--rather plumed herself on the affair than
otherwise, and received us with unimpaired good humour. When Agnes laid
her bonnet on the table, and sat down beside her, I could not but think,
looking on her mild eyes and her radiant forehead, how natural it
seemed to have her there; how trustfully, although she was so young and
inexperienced, my aunt confided in her; how strong she was, indeed, in
simple love and truth.
We began to talk about my aunt's losses, and I told them what I had
tried to do that morning.
'Which was injudicious, Trot,' said my aunt, 'but well meant. You are
a generous boy--I suppose I must say, young man, now--and I am proud of
you, my dear. So far, so good. Now, Trot and Agnes, let us look the case
of Betsey Trotwood in the face, and see how it stands.'
I observed Agnes turn pale, as she looked very attentively at my aunt.
My aunt, patting her cat, looked very attentively at Agnes.
'Betsey Trotwood,' said my aunt, who had always kept her money matters
to herself. '--I don't mean your sister, Trot, my dear, but myself--had
a certain property. It don't matter how much; enough to live on. More;
for she had saved a little, and added to it. Betsey funded her property
for some time, and then, by the advice of her man of business, laid
it out on landed security. That did very well, and returned very good
interest, till Betsey was paid off. I am talking of Betsey as if she
was a man-of-war. Well! Then, Betsey had to look about her, for a new
investment. She thought she was wiser, now, than her man of business,
who was not such a good man of business by this time, as he used to
be--I am alluding to your father, Agnes--and she took it into her head
to lay it out for herself. So she took her pigs,' said my aunt, 'to a
foreign market; and a very bad market it turned out to be. First, she
lost in the mining way, and then she lost in the diving way--fishing up
treasure, or some such Tom Tiddler nonsense,' explained my aunt, rubbing
her nose; 'and then she lost in the mining way again, and, last of all,
to set the thing entirely to rights, she lost in the banking way. I
don't know what the Bank shares were worth for a little while,' said my
aunt; 'cent per cent was the lowest of it, I believe; but the Bank was
at the other end of the world, and tumbled into space, for what I know;
anyhow, it fell to pieces, and never will and never can pay sixpence;
and Betsey's sixpences were all there, and there's an end of them. Least
said, soonest mended!'
My aunt concluded this philosophical summary, by fixing her eyes with a
kind of triumph on Agnes, whose colour was gradually returning.
'Dear Miss Trotwood, is that all the history?' said Agnes.
'I hope it's enough, child,' said my aunt. 'If there had been more
money to lose, it wouldn't have been all, I dare say. Betsey would have
contrived to throw that after the rest, and make another chapter, I have
little doubt. But there was no more money, and there's no more story.'
Agnes had listened at first with suspended breath. Her colour still came
and went, but she breathed more freely. I thought I knew why. I thought
she had had some fear that her unhappy father might be in some way to
blame for what had happened. My aunt took her hand in hers, and laughed.
'Is that all?' repeated my aunt. 'Why, yes, that's all, except, "And she
lived happy ever afterwards." Perhaps I may add that of Betsey yet, one
of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So have you, Trot, in
some things, though I can't compliment you always'; and here my aunt
shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to herself. 'What's to be
done? Here's the cottage, taking one time with another, will produce
say seventy pounds a year. I think we may safely put it down at
that. Well!--That's all we've got,' said my aunt; with whom it was an
idiosyncrasy, as it is with some horses, to stop very short when she
appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a long while.
'Then,' said my aunt, after a rest, 'there's Dick. He's good for a
hundred a-year, but of course that must be expended on himself. I would
sooner send him away, though I know I am the only person who appreciates
him, than have him, and not spend his money on himself. How can Trot and
I do best, upon our means? What do you say, Agnes?'
'I say, aunt,' I interposed, 'that I must do something!'
'Go for a soldier, do you mean?' returned my aunt, alarmed; 'or go to
sea? I won't hear of it. You are to be a proctor. We're not going to
have any knockings on the head in THIS family, if you please, sir.'
I was about to explain that I was not desirous of introducing that mode
of provision into the family, when Agnes inquired if my rooms were held
for any long term?
'You come to the point, my dear,' said my aunt. 'They are not to be got
rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be underlet, and that
I don't believe. The last man died here. Five people out of six would
die--of course--of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat. I
have a little ready money; and I agree with you, the best thing we can
do, is, to live the term out here, and get a bedroom hard by.'
I thought it my duty to hint at the discomfort my aunt would sustain,
from living in a continual state of guerilla warfare with Mrs. Crupp;
but she disposed of that objection summarily by declaring that, on the
first demonstration of hostilities, she was prepared to astonish Mrs.
Crupp for the whole remainder of her natural life.
'I have been thinking, Trotwood,' said Agnes, diffidently, 'that if you
had time--'
'I have a good deal of time, Agnes. I am always disengaged after four
or five o'clock, and I have time early in the morning. In one way and
another,' said I, conscious of reddening a little as I thought of the
hours and hours I had devoted to fagging about town, and to and fro upon
the Norwood Road, 'I have abundance of time.'
'I know you would not mind,' said Agnes, coming to me, and speaking in
a low voice, so full of sweet and hopeful consideration that I hear it
now, 'the duties of a secretary.'
'Mind, my dear Agnes?'
'Because,' continued Agnes, 'Doctor Strong has acted on his intention of
retiring, and has come to live in London; and he asked papa, I know,
if he could recommend him one. Don't you think he would rather have his
favourite old pupil near him, than anybody else?'
'Dear Agnes!' said I. 'What should I do without you! You are always my
good angel. I told you so. I never think of you in any other light.'
Agnes answered with her pleasant laugh, that one good Angel (meaning
Dora) was enough; and went on to remind me that the Doctor had been
used to occupy himself in his study, early in the morning, and in the
evening--and that probably my leisure would suit his requirements very
well. I was scarcely more delighted with the prospect of earning my own
bread, than with the hope of earning it under my old master; in short,
acting on the advice of Agnes, I sat down and wrote a letter to the
Doctor, stating my object, and appointing to call on him next day at
ten in the forenoon. This I addressed to Highgate--for in that place, so
memorable to me, he lived--and went and posted, myself, without losing a
minute.
Wherever Agnes was, some agreeable token of her noiseless presence
seemed inseparable from the place. When I came back, I found my aunt's
birds hanging, just as they had hung so long in the parlour window of
the cottage; and my easy-chair imitating my aunt's much easier chair in
its position at the open window; and even the round green fan, which my
aunt had brought away with her, screwed on to the window-sill. I knew
who had done all this, by its seeming to have quietly done itself; and I
should have known in a moment who had arranged my neglected books in the
old order of my school days, even if I had supposed Agnes to be miles
away, instead of seeing her busy with them, and smiling at the disorder
into which they had fallen.
My aunt was quite gracious on the subject of the Thames (it really did
look very well with the sun upon it, though not like the sea before the
cottage), but she could not relent towards the London smoke, which, she
said, 'peppered everything'. A complete revolution, in which Peggotty
bore a prominent part, was being effected in every corner of my rooms,
in regard of this pepper; and I was looking on, thinking how little even
Peggotty seemed to do with a good deal of bustle, and how much Agnes did
without any bustle at all, when a knock came at the door.
'I think,' said Agnes, turning pale, 'it's papa. He promised me that he
would come.'
I opened the door, and admitted, not only Mr. Wickfield, but Uriah Heep.
I had not seen Mr. Wickfield for some time. I was prepared for a great
change in him, after what I had heard from Agnes, but his appearance
shocked me.
It was not that he looked many years older, though still dressed
with the old scrupulous cleanliness; or that there was an unwholesome
ruddiness upon his face; or that his eyes were full and bloodshot; or
that there was a nervous trembling in his hand, the cause of which I
knew, and had for some years seen at work. It was not that he had lost
his good looks, or his old bearing of a gentleman--for that he had
not--but the thing that struck me most, was, that with the evidences of
his native superiority still upon him, he should submit himself to that
crawling impersonation of meanness, Uriah Heep. The reversal of the
two natures, in their relative positions, Uriah's of power and Mr.
Wickfield's of dependence, was a sight more painful to me than I can
express. If I had seen an Ape taking command of a Man, I should hardly
have thought it a more degrading spectacle.
He appeared to be only too conscious of it himself. When he came in, he
stood still; and with his head bowed, as if he felt it. This was
only for a moment; for Agnes softly said to him, 'Papa! Here is Miss
Trotwood--and Trotwood, whom you have not seen for a long while!' and
then he approached, and constrainedly gave my aunt his hand, and shook
hands more cordially with me. In the moment's pause I speak of, I saw
Uriah's countenance form itself into a most ill-favoured smile. Agnes
saw it too, I think, for she shrank from him.
What my aunt saw, or did not see, I defy the science of physiognomy
to have made out, without her own consent. I believe there never was
anybody with such an imperturbable countenance when she chose. Her face
might have been a dead-wall on the occasion in question, for any light
it threw upon her thoughts; until she broke silence with her usual
abruptness.
'Well, Wickfield!' said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the first
time. 'I have been telling your daughter how well I have been disposing
of my money for myself, because I couldn't trust it to you, as you were
growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking counsel together,
and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is worth the
whole firm, in my opinion.'
'If I may umbly make the remark,' said Uriah Heep, with a writhe, 'I
fully agree with Miss Betsey Trotwood, and should be only too appy if
Miss Agnes was a partner.'
'You're a partner yourself, you know,' returned my aunt, 'and that's
about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, sir?'
In acknowledgement of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary
curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried,
replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was
the same.
'And you, Master--I should say, Mister Copperfield,' pursued Uriah. 'I
hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, even
under present circumstances.' I believed that; for he seemed to relish
them very much. 'Present circumstances is not what your friends would
wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn't money makes the man:
it's--I am really unequal with my umble powers to express what it is,'
said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, 'but it isn't money!'
Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at
a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump
handle, that he was a little afraid of.
'And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield,--I should
say, Mister?' fawned Uriah. 'Don't you find Mr. Wickfield blooming, sir?
Years don't tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in raising
up the umble, namely, mother and self--and in developing,' he added, as
an afterthought, 'the beautiful, namely, Miss Agnes.'
He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable
manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all
patience.
'Deuce take the man!' said my aunt, sternly, 'what's he about? Don't be
galvanic, sir!'
'I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,' returned Uriah; 'I'm aware you're
nervous.'
'Go along with you, sir!' said my aunt, anything but appeased. 'Don't
presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you're an eel, sir,
conduct yourself like one. If you're a man, control your limbs, sir!
Good God!' said my aunt, with great indignation, 'I am not going to be
serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!'
Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this
explosion; which derived great additional force from the indignant
manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her
head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. But he said to me
aside in a meek voice:
'I am well aware, Master Copperfield, that Miss Trotwood, though an
excellent lady, has a quick temper (indeed I think I had the pleasure
of knowing her, when I was a numble clerk, before you did, Master
Copperfield), and it's only natural, I am sure, that it should be made
quicker by present circumstances. The wonder is, that it isn't much
worse! I only called to say that if there was anything we could do, in
present circumstances, mother or self, or Wickfield and Heep,--we should
be really glad. I may go so far?' said Uriah, with a sickly smile at his
partner.
'Uriah Heep,' said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, 'is active
in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. You know
I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite
concur in!'
'Oh, what a reward it is,' said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk
of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, 'to be so
trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from the
fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!'
'Uriah Heep is a great relief to me,' said Mr. Wickfield, in the same
dull voice. 'It's a load off my mind, Trotwood, to have such a partner.'
The red fox made him say all this, I knew, to exhibit him to me in the
light he had indicated on the night when he poisoned my rest. I saw the
same ill-favoured smile upon his face again, and saw how he watched me.
'You are not going, papa?' said Agnes, anxiously. 'Will you not walk
back with Trotwood and me?'
He would have looked to Uriah, I believe, before replying, if that
worthy had not anticipated him.
'I am bespoke myself,' said Uriah, 'on business; otherwise I should
have been appy to have kept with my friends. But I leave my partner to
represent the firm. Miss Agnes, ever yours! I wish you good-day, Master
Copperfield, and leave my umble respects for Miss Betsey Trotwood.'
With those words, he retired, kissing his great hand, and leering at us
like a mask.
We sat there, talking about our pleasant old Canterbury days, an hour
or two. Mr. Wickfield, left to Agnes, soon became more like his former
self; though there was a settled depression upon him, which he never
shook off. For all that, he brightened; and had an evident pleasure in
hearing us recall the little incidents of our old life, many of which he
remembered very well. He said it was like those times, to be alone with
Agnes and me again; and he wished to Heaven they had never changed. I am
sure there was an influence in the placid face of Agnes, and in the very
touch of her hand upon his arm, that did wonders for him.
My aunt (who was busy nearly all this while with Peggotty, in the inner
room) would not accompany us to the place where they were staying, but
insisted on my going; and I went. We dined together. After dinner, Agnes
sat beside him, as of old, and poured out his wine. He took what she
gave him, and no more--like a child--and we all three sat together at a
window as the evening gathered in. When it was almost dark, he lay down
on a sofa, Agnes pillowing his head and bending over him a little while;
and when she came back to the window, it was not so dark but I could see
tears glittering in her eyes.
I pray Heaven that I never may forget the dear girl in her love and
truth, at that time of my life; for if I should, I must be drawing near
the end, and then I would desire to remember her best! She filled my
heart with such good resolutions, strengthened my weakness so, by her
example, so directed--I know not how, she was too modest and gentle
to advise me in many words--the wandering ardour and unsettled purpose
within me, that all the little good I have done, and all the harm I have
forborne, I solemnly believe I may refer to her.
And how she spoke to me of Dora, sitting at the window in the dark;
listened to my praises of her; praised again; and round the little
fairy-figure shed some glimpses of her own pure light, that made it yet
more precious and more innocent to me! Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood,
if I had known then, what I knew long afterwards--!
There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; and as I turned my
head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me
start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning: 'Blind! Blind!
Blind!' | Depression. Talking with David, Betsey berates Little Em'ly for her foolishness and for causing misery to her family. Betsey asks David whether Dora is not silly and light-headed, and whether David expects their marriage to provide a "party-supper-table kind of life, like two pretty pieces of confectionary. She warns David that he is being "blind, blind, blind. David goes to bed depressed about his sudden poverty. He wonders how Mr. Spenlow will view his intention to marry Dora, and feels that he must offer Dora the chance to be released from their engagement. He worries too about Dora's having to go without things she wants. David tells Mr. Spenlow that due to Betsey's losses, he must cancel his training to be a proctor. Mr. Spenlow refuses to give David a refund for any part of the thousand pounds that Betsey paid for the apprenticeship, blaming Mr. Jorkins's obstinacy. On his way home, David meets Agnes, and tells her that she is the person he most wants to see. Agnes protests that Dora should occupy this place in David's life. On being with Agnes, David immediately feels better. Agnes tells David that Uriah and her father are now partners, that her father's house is completely changed, and that Uriah and his mother now live with them. Agnes and David visit Betsey, who tells them about her financial situation. Her old advisor, Mr. Wickfield, became increasingly unreliable, and so she made some investments of her own, which failed. Agnes tells David that Dr. Strong needs a secretary. She suggests that David apply for the job. Mr. Wickfield and Uriah arrive at David's apartment. David is shocked by the change in Mr. Wickfield, who has the red face, bloodshot eyes, and trembling hands of the habitual drinker. He appears to have given up all authority to Uriah. Betsey berates Uriah and bluntly tells Mr. Wickfield that he has grown unreliable in business matters. Uriah gloats over the reversal of fortune between himself and David, as he is now successful, whereas David is poor |
Well, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on
account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only
cleaned off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I
would behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the
closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every
day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I
tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to
me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but
somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss
Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me
why, and I couldn't make it out no way.
I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it.
I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't
Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow
get back her silver snuff-box that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson
fat up? No, says I to myself, there ain't nothing in it. I went and
told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by
praying for it was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but
she told me what she meant--I must help other people, and do
everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the
time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson, as
I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a
long time, but I couldn't see no advantage about it--except for the
other people; so at last I reckoned I wouldn't worry about it any
more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side
and talk about Providence in a way to make a body's mouth water; but
maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down
again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor
chap would stand considerable show with the widow's Providence, but if
Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help for him any more. I thought
it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow's if he wanted
me, though I couldn't make out how he was a-going to be any better off
then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of
low-down and ornery.
Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable
for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me
when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take
to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this
time he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town,
so people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man
was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which
was all like pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face,
because it had been in the water so long it warn't much like a face at
all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him
and buried him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I
happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded
man don't float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that
this warn't pap, but a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was
uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by and
by, though I wished he wouldn't.
We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All
the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but
only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging
down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market,
but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots,"
and he called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to the
cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had
killed and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom
sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a
slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he
said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel
of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow
with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a
thousand "sumter" mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they
didn't have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay
in ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things.
He said we must slick up our swords and guns, and get ready. He never
could go after even a turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns
all scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and
you might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a
mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn't believe we
could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see
the camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the
ambuscade; and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and
down the hill. But there warn't no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there
warn't no camels nor no elephants. It warn't anything but a
Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer class at that. We busted it
up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we never got anything
but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Joe
Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in,
and made us drop everything and cut. I didn't see no di'monds, and I
told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway; and
he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said,
why couldn't we see them, then? He said if I warn't so ignorant, but
had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He
said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of
soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had
enemies which he called magicians, and they had turned the whole thing
into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, all right;
then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer
said I was a numskull.
"Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they
would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson.
They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church."
"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help _us_--can't we lick
the other crowd then?"
"How you going to get them?"
"I don't know. How do _they_ get them?"
"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies
come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and
the smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do
it. They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots,
and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it--or
any other man."
"Who makes them tear around so?"
"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs
the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he
tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and
fill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an
emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do
it--and they've got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And
more: they've got to waltz that palace around over the country
wherever you want it, you understand."
"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flatheads for not keeping
the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And
what's more--if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before
I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin
lamp."
"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd _have_ to come when he rubbed it,
whether you wanted to or not."
"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right,
then; I _would_ come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest
tree there was in the country."
"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to
know anything, somehow--perfect saphead."
I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an
iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I
sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it
warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that
stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed
in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It
had all the marks of a Sunday-school. | After punishing Huck for dirtying his new clothes during his night out with Tom, Miss Watson tries to explain prayer to him. Huck gives up on it after some of his prayers are not answered. Miss Watson calls him a fool, and the Widow Douglas later explains that prayer bestows spiritual gifts, such as acting selflessly to help others. Huck, who cannot see any advantage in such gifts, resolves to forget the matter. The two women often take Huck aside for religious discussions, in which Widow Douglas describes a wonderful God, while Miss Watson describes a terrible one. Huck concludes there are two Gods and decides he would like to belong to Widow Douglas's, if He would take him. Huck considers this unlikely because of his bad qualities. Meanwhile, a rumor circulates that Huck's Pap, who has not been seen in a year, is dead. A corpse was found in the river, thought to be Pap because of its "ragged" appearance. The face, however, was unrecognizable. At first, Huck is relieved. His father had been a drunk who beat him when he was sober, although Huck stayed hidden from him most of the time. Upon hearing further description of the body found, however, Huck realizes that it is not his father but rather a woman dressed in men's clothes. Huck worries that his father will soon reappear. After a month in Tom's gang, Huck and the rest of the boys quit. With no actual robbing or killing going on, the gang's existence is pointless. Huck tells of one of Tom's more notable games, in which Tom pretended that a caravan of Arabs and Spaniards was going to camp nearby with hundreds of camels and elephants. It turned out to be a Sunday-school picnic, although Tom explained that it really was a caravan of Arabs and Spaniards--only they were enchanted, like in Don Quixote. The raid on the picnic netted the boys only a few doughnuts and jam but a fair amount of trouble. After testing another of Tom's theories by rubbing old lamps and rings but failing to summon a genie, Huck judges that most of Tom's stories have been "lies |
Actus Secundus. Scoena Prima.
Flourish.
Enter the King sicke, the Queene, Lord Marquesse Dorset, Riuers,
Hastings,
Catesby, Buckingham, Wooduill.
King. Why so: now haue I done a good daies work.
You Peeres, continue this vnited League:
I, euery day expect an Embassage
From my Redeemer, to redeeme me hence.
And more to peace my soule shall part to heauen,
Since I haue made my Friends at peace on earth.
Dorset and Riuers, take each others hand,
Dissemble not your hatred, Sweare your loue
Riu. By heauen, my soule is purg'd from grudging hate
And with my hand I seale my true hearts Loue
Hast. So thriue I, as I truly sweare the like
King. Take heed you dally not before your King,
Lest he that is the supreme King of Kings
Confound your hidden falshood, and award
Either of you to be the others end
Hast. So prosper I, as I sweare perfect loue
Ri. And I, as I loue Hastings with my heart,
King. Madam, your selfe is not exempt from this:
Nor you Sonne Dorset, Buckingham nor you;
You haue bene factious one against the other.
Wife, loue Lord Hastings, let him kisse your hand,
And what you do, do it vnfeignedly
Qu. There Hastings, I will neuer more remember
Our former hatred, so thriue I, and mine
King. Dorset, imbrace him:
Hastings, loue Lord Marquesse
Dor. This interchange of loue, I heere protest
Vpon my part, shall be inuiolable
Hast. And so sweare I
King. Now Princely Buckingham, seale y this league
With thy embracements to my wiues Allies,
And make me happy in your vnity
Buc. When euer Buckingham doth turne his hate
Vpon your Grace, but with all dutious loue,
Doth cherish you, and yours, God punish me
With hate in those where I expect most loue,
When I haue most need to imploy a Friend,
And most assured that he is a Friend,
Deepe, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
Be he vnto me: This do I begge of heauen,
When I am cold in loue, to you, or yours.
Embrace
King. A pleasing Cordiall, Princely Buckingham
Is this thy Vow, vnto my sickely heart:
There wanteth now our Brother Gloster heere,
To make the blessed period of this peace
Buc. And in good time,
Heere comes Sir Richard Ratcliffe, and the Duke.
Enter Ratcliffe, and Gloster.
Rich. Good morrow to my Soueraigne King & Queen
And Princely Peeres, a happy time of day
King. Happy indeed, as we haue spent the day:
Gloster, we haue done deeds of Charity,
Made peace of enmity, faire loue of hate,
Betweene these swelling wrong incensed Peeres
Rich. A blessed labour my most Soueraigne Lord:
Among this Princely heape, if any heere
By false intelligence, or wrong surmize
Hold me a Foe: If I vnwillingly, or in my rage,
Haue ought committed that is hardly borne,
To any in this presence, I desire
To reconcile me to his Friendly peace:
'Tis death to me to be at enmitie:
I hate it, and desire all good mens loue,
First Madam, I intreate true peace of you,
Which I will purchase with my dutious seruice.
Of you my Noble Cosin Buckingham,
If euer any grudge were lodg'd betweene vs.
Of you and you, Lord Riuers and of Dorset,
That all without desert haue frown'd on me:
Of you Lord Wooduill, and Lord Scales of you,
Dukes, Earles, Lords, Gentlemen, indeed of all.
I do not know that Englishman aliue,
With whom my soule is any iot at oddes,
More then the Infant that is borne to night:
I thanke my God for my Humility
Qu. A holy day shall this be kept heereafter:
I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
My Soueraigne Lord, I do beseech your Highnesse
To take our Brother Clarence to your Grace
Rich. Why Madam, haue I offred loue for this,
To be so flowted in this Royall presence?
Who knowes not that the gentle Duke is dead?
They all start.
You do him iniurie to scorne his Coarse
King. Who knowes not he is dead?
Who knowes he is?
Qu. All-seeing heauen, what a world is this?
Buc. Looke I so pale Lord Dorset, as the rest?
Dor. I my good Lord, and no man in the presence,
But his red colour hath forsooke his cheekes
King. Is Clarence dead? The Order was reuerst
Rich. But he (poore man) by your first order dyed,
And that a winged Mercurie did beare:
Some tardie Cripple bare the Countermand,
That came too lagge to see him buried.
God grant, that some lesse Noble, and lesse Loyall,
Neerer in bloody thoughts, and not in blood,
Deserue not worse then wretched Clarence did,
And yet go currant from Suspition.
Enter Earle of Derby.
Der. A boone my Soueraigne for my seruice done
King. I prethee peace, my soule is full of sorrow
Der. I will not rise, vnlesse your Highnes heare me
King. Then say at once, what is it thou requests
Der. The forfeit (Soueraigne) of my seruants life,
Who slew to day a Riotous Gentleman,
Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolke
King. Haue I a tongue to doome my Brothers death?
And shall that tongue giue pardon to a slaue?
My Brother kill'd no man, his fault was Thought,
And yet his punishment was bitter death.
Who sued to me for him? Who (in my wrath)
Kneel'd and my feet, and bid me be aduis'd?
Who spoke of Brother-hood? who spoke of loue?
Who told me how the poore soule did forsake
The mighty Warwicke, and did fight for me?
Who told me in the field at Tewkesbury,
When Oxford had me downe, he rescued me:
And said deare Brother liue, and be a King?
Who told me, when we both lay in the Field,
Frozen (almost) to death, how he did lap me
Euen in his Garments, and did giue himselfe
(All thin and naked) to the numbe cold night?
All this from my Remembrance, brutish wrath
Sinfully pluckt, and not a man of you
Had so much grace to put it in my minde.
But when your Carters, or your wayting Vassalls
Haue done a drunken Slaughter, and defac'd
The precious Image of our deere Redeemer,
You straight are on your knees for Pardon, pardon,
And I (vniustly too) must grant it you.
But for my Brother, not a man would speake,
Nor I (vngracious) speake vnto my selfe
For him poore Soule. The proudest of you all,
Haue bin beholding to him in his life:
Yet none of you, would once begge for his life.
O God! I feare thy iustice will take hold
On me, and you; and mine, and yours for this.
Come Hastings helpe me to my Closset.
Ah poore Clarence.
Exeunt. some with K[ing]. & Queen.
Rich. This is the fruits of rashnes: Markt you not,
How that the guilty Kindred of the Queene
Look'd pale, when they did heare of Clarence death.
O! they did vrge it still vnto the King,
God will reuenge it. Come Lords will you go,
To comfort Edward with our company
Buc. We wait vpon your Grace.
Exeunt.
Scena Secunda.
Enter the old Dutchesse of Yorke, with the two children of
Clarence.
Edw. Good Grandam tell vs, is our Father dead?
Dutch. No Boy
Daugh. Why do weepe so oft? And beate your Brest?
And cry, O Clarence, my vnhappy Sonne
Boy. Why do you looke on vs, and shake your head,
And call vs Orphans, Wretches, Castawayes,
If that our Noble Father were aliue?
Dut. My pretty Cosins, you mistake me both,
I do lament the sicknesse of the King,
As loath to lose him, not your Fathers death:
It were lost sorrow to waile one that's lost
Boy. Then you conclude, (my Grandam) he is dead:
The King mine Vnckle is too blame for it.
God will reuenge it, whom I will importune
With earnest prayers, all to that effect
Daugh. And so will I
Dut. Peace children peace, the King doth loue you wel.
Incapeable, and shallow Innocents,
You cannot guesse who caus'd your Fathers death
Boy. Grandam we can: for my good Vnkle Gloster
Told me, the King prouok'd to it by the Queene,
Deuis'd impeachments to imprison him;
And when my Vnckle told me so, he wept,
And pittied me, and kindly kist my cheeke:
Bad me rely on him, as on my Father,
And he would loue me deerely as a childe
Dut. Ah! that Deceit should steale such gentle shape,
And with a vertuous Vizor hide deepe vice.
He is my sonne, I, and therein my shame,
Yet from my dugges, he drew not this deceit
Boy. Thinke you my Vnkle did dissemble Grandam?
Dut. I Boy
Boy. I cannot thinke it. Hearke, what noise is this?
Enter the Queene with her haire about her ears, Riuers & Dorset
after
her.
Qu. Ah! who shall hinder me to waile and weepe?
To chide my Fortune, and torment my Selfe.
Ile ioyne with blacke dispaire against my Soule,
And to my selfe, become an enemie
Dut. What meanes this Scene of rude impatience?
Qu. To make an act of Tragicke violence.
Edward my Lord, thy Sonne, our King is dead.
Why grow the Branches, when the Roote is gone?
Why wither not the leaues that want their sap?
If you will liue, Lament: if dye, be breefe,
That our swift-winged Soules may catch the Kings,
Or like obedient Subiects follow him,
To his new Kingdome of nere-changing night
Dut. Ah so much interest haue in thy sorrow,
As I had Title in thy Noble Husband:
I haue bewept a worthy Husbands death,
And liu'd with looking on his Images:
But now two Mirrors of his Princely semblance,
Are crack'd in pieces, by malignant death,
And I for comfort, haue but one false Glasse,
That greeues me, when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a Widdow: yet thou art a Mother,
And hast the comfort of thy Children left,
But death hath snatch'd my Husband from mine Armes,
And pluckt two Crutches from my feeble hands,
Clarence, and Edward. O, what cause haue I,
(Thine being but a moity of my moane)
To ouer-go thy woes, and drowne thy cries
Boy. Ah Aunt! you wept not for our Fathers death:
How can we ayde you with our Kindred teares?
Daugh. Our fatherlesse distresse was left vnmoan'd,
Your widdow-dolour, likewise be vnwept
Qu. Giue me no helpe in Lamentation,
I am not barren to bring forth complaints:
All Springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I being gouern'd by the waterie Moone,
May send forth plenteous teares to drowne the World.
Ah, for my Husband, for my deere Lord Edward
Chil. Ah for our Father, for our deere Lord Clarence
Dut. Alas for both, both mine Edward and Clarence
Qu. What stay had I but Edward, and hee's gone?
Chil. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone
Dut. What stayes had I, but they? and they are gone
Qu. Was neuer widdow had so deere a losse
Chil. Were neuer Orphans had so deere a losse
Dut. Was neuer Mother had so deere a losse.
Alas! I am the Mother of these Greefes,
Their woes are parcell'd, mine is generall.
She for an Edward weepes, and so do I:
I for a Clarence weepes, so doth not shee:
These Babes for Clarence weepe, so do not they.
Alas! you three, on me threefold distrest:
Power all your teares, I am your sorrowes Nurse,
And I will pamper it with Lamentation
Dor. Comfort deere Mother, God is much displeas'd,
That you take with vnthankfulnesse his doing.
In common worldly things, 'tis call'd vngratefull,
With dull vnwillingnesse to repay a debt,
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent:
Much more to be thus opposite with heauen,
For it requires the Royall debt it lent you
Riuers. Madam, bethinke you like a carefull Mother
Of the young Prince your sonne: send straight for him,
Let him be Crown'd, in him your comfort liues.
Drowne desperate sorrow in dead Edwards graue,
And plant your ioyes in liuing Edwards Throne.
Enter Richard, Buckingham, Derbie, Hastings, and Ratcliffe.
Rich. Sister haue comfort, all of vs haue cause
To waile the dimming of our shining Starre:
But none can helpe our harmes by wayling them.
Madam, my Mother, I do cry you mercie,
I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee,
I craue your Blessing
Dut. God blesse thee, and put meeknes in thy breast,
Loue Charity, Obedience, and true Dutie
Rich. Amen, and make me die a good old man,
That is the butt-end of a Mothers blessing;
I maruell that her Grace did leaue it out
Buc. You clowdy-Princes, & hart-sorowing-Peeres,
That beare this heauie mutuall loade of Moane,
Now cheere each other, in each others Loue:
Though we haue spent our Haruest of this King,
We are to reape the Haruest of his Sonne.
The broken rancour of your high-swolne hates,
But lately splinter'd, knit, and ioyn'd together,
Must gently be preseru'd, cherisht, and kept:
Me seemeth good, that with some little Traine,
Forthwith from Ludlow, the young Prince be set
Hither to London, to be crown'd our King
Riuers. Why with some little Traine,
My Lord of Buckingham?
Buc. Marrie my Lord, least by a multitude,
The new-heal'd wound of Malice should breake out,
Which would be so much the more dangerous,
By how much the estate is greene, and yet vngouern'd.
Where euery Horse beares his commanding Reine,
And may direct his course as please himselfe,
As well the feare of harme, as harme apparant,
In my opinion, ought to be preuented
Rich. I hope the King made peace with all of vs,
And the compact is firme, and true in me
Riu. And so in me, and so (I thinke) in all.
Yet since it is but greene, it should be put
To no apparant likely-hood of breach,
Which haply by much company might be vrg'd:
Therefore I say with Noble Buckingham,
That it is meete so few should fetch the Prince
Hast. And so say I
Rich. Then be it so, and go we to determine
Who they shall be that strait shall poste to London.
Madam, and you my Sister, will you go
To giue your censures in this businesse.
Exeunt.
Manet Buckingham, and Richard.
Buc. My Lord, who euer iournies to the Prince,
For God sake let not vs two stay at home:
For by the way, Ile sort occasion,
As Index to the story we late talk'd of,
To part the Queenes proud Kindred from the Prince
Rich. My other selfe, my Counsailes Consistory,
My Oracle, My Prophet, my deere Cosin,
I, as a childe, will go by thy direction,
Toward London then, for wee'l not stay behinde.
Exeunt.
Scena Tertia.
Enter one Citizen at one doore, and another at the other.
1.Cit. Good morrow Neighbour, whether away so
fast?
2.Cit. I promise you, I scarsely know my selfe:
Heare you the newes abroad?
1. Yes, that the King is dead
2. Ill newes byrlady, seldome comes the better:
I feare, I feare, 'twill proue a giddy world.
Enter another Citizen.
3. Neighbours, God speed
1. Giue you good morrow sir
3. Doth the newes hold of good king Edwards death?
2. I sir, it is too true, God helpe the while
3. Then Masters looke to see a troublous world
1. No, no, by Gods good grace, his Son shall reigne
3. Woe to that Land that's gouern'd by a Childe
2. In him there is a hope of Gouernment,
Which in his nonage, counsell vnder him,
And in his full and ripened yeares, himselfe
No doubt shall then, and till then gouerne well
1. So stood the State, when Henry the sixt
Was crown'd in Paris, but at nine months old
3. Stood the State so? No, no, good friends, God wot
For then this Land was famously enrich'd
With politike graue Counsell; then the King
Had vertuous Vnkles to protect his Grace
1. Why so hath this, both by his Father and Mother
3. Better it were they all came by his Father:
Or by his Father there were none at all:
For emulation, who shall now be neerest,
Will touch vs all too neere, if God preuent not.
O full of danger is the Duke of Glouster,
And the Queenes Sons, and Brothers, haught and proud:
And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,
This sickly Land, might solace as before
1. Come, come, we feare the worst: all will be well
3. When Clouds are seen, wisemen put on their clokes;
When great leaues fall, then Winter is at hand;
When the Sun sets, who doth not looke for night?
Vntimely stormes, makes men expect a Dearth:
All may be well; but if God sort it so,
'Tis more then we deserue, or I expect
2. Truly, the hearts of men are full of feare:
You cannot reason (almost) with a man,
That lookes not heauily, and full of dread
3. Before the dayes of Change, still is it so,
By a diuine instinct, mens mindes mistrust
Pursuing danger: as by proofe we see
The Water swell before a boyst'rous storme:
But leaue it all to God. Whither away?
2 Marry we were sent for to the Iustices
3 And so was I: Ile beare you company.
Exeunt.
Scena Quarta.
Enter Arch-bishop, yong Yorke, the Queene, and the Dutchesse.
Arch. Last night I heard they lay at Stony Stratford,
And at Northampton they do rest to night:
To morrow, or next day, they will be heere
Dut. I long with all my heart to see the Prince:
I hope he is much growne since last I saw him
Qu. But I heare no, they say my sonne of Yorke
Ha's almost ouertane him in his growth
Yorke. I Mother, but I would not haue it so
Dut. Why my good Cosin, it is good to grow
Yor. Grandam, one night as we did sit at Supper,
My Vnkle Riuers talk'd how I did grow
More then my Brother. I, quoth my Vnkle Glouster,
Small Herbes haue grace, great Weeds do grow apace.
And since, me thinkes I would not grow so fast,
Because sweet Flowres are slow, and Weeds make hast
Dut. Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold
In him that did obiect the same to thee.
He was the wretched'st thing when he was yong,
So long a growing, and so leysurely,
That if his rule were true, he should be gracious
Yor. And so no doubt he is, my gracious Madam
Dut. I hope he is, but yet let Mothers doubt
Yor. Now by my troth, if I had beene remembred,
I could haue giuen my Vnkles Grace, a flout,
To touch his growth, neerer then he toucht mine
Dut. How my yong Yorke,
I prythee let me heare it
Yor. Marry (they say) my Vnkle grew so fast,
That he could gnaw a crust at two houres old,
'Twas full two yeares ere I could get a tooth.
Grandam, this would haue beene a byting Iest
Dut. I prythee pretty Yorke, who told thee this?
Yor. Grandam, his Nursse
Dut. His Nurse? why she was dead, ere y wast borne
Yor. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me
Qu. A parlous Boy: go too, you are too shrew'd
Dut. Good Madam, be not angry with the Childe
Qu. Pitchers haue eares.
Enter a Messenger.
Arch. Heere comes a Messenger: What Newes?
Mes. Such newes my Lord, as greeues me to report
Qu. How doth the Prince?
Mes. Well Madam, and in health
Dut. What is thy Newes?
Mess. Lord Riuers, and Lord Grey,
Are sent to Pomfret, and with them,
Sir Thomas Vaughan, Prisoners
Dut. Who hath committed them?
Mes. The mighty Dukes, Glouster and Buckingham
Arch. For what offence?
Mes. The summe of all I can, I haue disclos'd:
Why, or for what, the Nobles were committed,
Is all vnknowne to me, my gracious Lord
Qu. Aye me! I see the ruine of my House:
The Tyger now hath seiz'd the gentle Hinde,
Insulting Tiranny beginnes to Iutt
Vpon the innocent and awelesse Throne:
Welcome Destruction, Blood, and Massacre,
I see (as in a Map) the end of all
Dut. Accursed, and vnquiet wrangling dayes,
How many of you haue mine eyes beheld?
My Husband lost his life, to get the Crowne,
And often vp and downe my sonnes were tost
For me to ioy, and weepe, their gaine and losse.
And being seated, and Domesticke broyles
Cleane ouer-blowne, themselues the Conquerors,
Make warre vpon themselues, Brother to Brother;
Blood to blood, selfe against selfe: O prepostorous
And franticke outrage, end thy damned spleene,
Or let me dye, to looke on earth no more
Qu. Come, come my Boy, we will to Sanctuary.
Madam, farwell
Dut. Stay, I will go with you
Qu. You haue no cause
Arch. My gracious Lady go,
And thether beare your Treasure and your Goodes,
For my part, Ile resigne vnto your Grace
The Seale I keepe, and so betide to me,
As well I tender you, and all of yours.
Go, Ile conduct you to the Sanctuary.
Exeunt. | At the royal palace in London, King Edward, who is very sick, presides over a reconciliation between feuding factions. First, Hastings and Rivers, the Queen's brother, are reconciled. The Queen, her son Dorset, and Buckingham join in the general reconciliation. Richard enters and pledges friendship to all in the room. But then the Queen mentions Clarence's name, and Richard says Clarence is dead. This is news to everyone, and they are all shocked. The king says that the order to kill Clarence was revoked; Richard responds that the counter order came too late. Lord Stanley, also known as the Earl of Derby,enters. He asks the King if the life of a servant of his might be spared, even though he killed a man. The King responds by musing on the life of Clarence, regretting his death. He recalls how Clarence, after he forsook Warwick's cause, remained loyal to him. And yet, the King says, no one came to him to plead for Clarence's life, and now even a servant has someone pleading for his. He grants the favor to Stanley. The King and Queen and others exit, leaving Richard and Buckingham. Richard tries to blame the Queen's family for Clarence's death. |
One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of
these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who
were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance.
In this, no time was to be lost.
I took Mr. Micawber aside that same night, and confided to him the
task of standing between Mr. Peggotty and intelligence of the late
catastrophe. He zealously undertook to do so, and to intercept any
newspaper through which it might, without such precautions, reach him.
'If it penetrates to him, sir,' said Mr. Micawber, striking himself on
the breast, 'it shall first pass through this body!'
Mr. Micawber, I must observe, in his adaptation of himself to a new
state of society, had acquired a bold buccaneering air, not absolutely
lawless, but defensive and prompt. One might have supposed him a child
of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of
civilization, and about to return to his native wilds.
He had provided himself, among other things, with a complete suit of
oilskin, and a straw hat with a very low crown, pitched or caulked on
the outside. In this rough clothing, with a common mariner's telescope
under his arm, and a shrewd trick of casting up his eye at the sky
as looking out for dirty weather, he was far more nautical, after his
manner, than Mr. Peggotty. His whole family, if I may so express it,
were cleared for action. I found Mrs. Micawber in the closest and most
uncompromising of bonnets, made fast under the chin; and in a shawl
which tied her up (as I had been tied up, when my aunt first received
me) like a bundle, and was secured behind at the waist, in a strong
knot. Miss Micawber I found made snug for stormy weather, in the same
manner; with nothing superfluous about her. Master Micawber was hardly
visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever
saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious
cases. Both Mr. Micawber and his eldest son wore their sleeves loosely
turned back at the wrists, as being ready to lend a hand in any
direction, and to 'tumble up', or sing out, 'Yeo--Heave--Yeo!' on the
shortest notice.
Thus Traddles and I found them at nightfall, assembled on the wooden
steps, at that time known as Hungerford Stairs, watching the departure
of a boat with some of their property on board. I had told Traddles of
the terrible event, and it had greatly shocked him; but there could be
no doubt of the kindness of keeping it a secret, and he had come to help
me in this last service. It was here that I took Mr. Micawber aside, and
received his promise.
The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down
public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose
protruding wooden rooms overhung the river. The family, as emigrants,
being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so
many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was
one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath.
My aunt and Agnes were there, busily making some little extra comforts,
in the way of dress, for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting,
with the old insensible work-box, yard-measure, and bit of wax-candle
before her, that had now outlived so much.
It was not easy to answer her inquiries; still less to whisper Mr.
Peggotty, when Mr. Micawber brought him in, that I had given the letter,
and all was well. But I did both, and made them happy. If I showed any
trace of what I felt, my own sorrows were sufficient to account for it.
'And when does the ship sail, Mr. Micawber?' asked my aunt.
Mr. Micawber considered it necessary to prepare either my aunt or his
wife, by degrees, and said, sooner than he had expected yesterday.
'The boat brought you word, I suppose?' said my aunt.
'It did, ma'am,' he returned.
'Well?' said my aunt. 'And she sails--'
'Madam,' he replied, 'I am informed that we must positively be on board
before seven tomorrow morning.'
'Heyday!' said my aunt, 'that's soon. Is it a sea-going fact, Mr.
Peggotty?' ''Tis so, ma'am. She'll drop down the river with that theer
tide. If Mas'r Davy and my sister comes aboard at Gravesen', arternoon
o' next day, they'll see the last on us.'
'And that we shall do,' said I, 'be sure!'
'Until then, and until we are at sea,' observed Mr. Micawber, with a
glance of intelligence at me, 'Mr. Peggotty and myself will constantly
keep a double look-out together, on our goods and chattels. Emma, my
love,' said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat in his magnificent way,
'my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles is so obliging as to solicit, in my ear,
that he should have the privilege of ordering the ingredients necessary
to the composition of a moderate portion of that Beverage which is
peculiarly associated, in our minds, with the Roast Beef of Old England.
I allude to--in short, Punch. Under ordinary circumstances, I should
scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield,
but-'
'I can only say for myself,' said my aunt, 'that I will drink all
happiness and success to you, Mr. Micawber, with the utmost pleasure.'
'And I too!' said Agnes, with a smile.
Mr. Micawber immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be
quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug. I could
not but observe that he had been peeling the lemons with his own
clasp-knife, which, as became the knife of a practical settler, was
about a foot long; and which he wiped, not wholly without ostentation,
on the sleeve of his coat. Mrs. Micawber and the two elder members
of the family I now found to be provided with similar formidable
instruments, while every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its
body by a strong line. In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in
the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest
son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have
done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a
series of villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything
so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it
in his pocket at the close of the evening.
'The luxuries of the old country,' said Mr. Micawber, with an intense
satisfaction in their renouncement, 'we abandon. The denizens of the
forest cannot, of course, expect to participate in the refinements of
the land of the Free.'
Here, a boy came in to say that Mr. Micawber was wanted downstairs.
'I have a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, setting down her tin pot,
'that it is a member of my family!'
'If so, my dear,' observed Mr. Micawber, with his usual suddenness of
warmth on that subject, 'as the member of your family--whoever he, she,
or it, may be--has kept us waiting for a considerable period, perhaps
the Member may now wait MY convenience.'
'Micawber,' said his wife, in a low tone, 'at such a time as this--'
'"It is not meet,"' said Mr. Micawber, rising, '"that every nice offence
should bear its comment!" Emma, I stand reproved.'
'The loss, Micawber,' observed his wife, 'has been my family's, not
yours. If my family are at length sensible of the deprivation to which
their own conduct has, in the past, exposed them, and now desire to
extend the hand of fellowship, let it not be repulsed.'
'My dear,' he returned, 'so be it!'
'If not for their sakes; for mine, Micawber,' said his wife.
'Emma,' he returned, 'that view of the question is, at such a moment,
irresistible. I cannot, even now, distinctly pledge myself to fall
upon your family's neck; but the member of your family, who is now in
attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.'
Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of
which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words
might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy
reappeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed,
in a legal manner, 'Heep v. Micawber'. From this document, I learned
that Mr. Micawber being again arrested, 'Was in a final paroxysm of
despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by
bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of
his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship,
that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that
such a Being ever lived.
Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the
money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at
the Sheriff 's Officer who had effected the capture. On his release,
he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an entry of the
transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, I recollect,
about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the
total.
This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another
transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for
his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over
which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper,
folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. From
the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums
out of a school ciphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations of
compound interest on what he called 'the principal amount of forty-one,
ten, eleven and a half', for various periods. After a careful
consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources,
he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the
amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and
fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note-of-hand
with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot,
a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many
acknowledgements.
'I have still a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her
head, 'that my family will appear on board, before we finally depart.'
Mr. Micawber evidently had his presentiment on the subject too, but he
put it in his tin pot and swallowed it.
'If you have any opportunity of sending letters home, on your passage,
Mrs. Micawber,' said my aunt, 'you must let us hear from you, you know.'
'My dear Miss Trotwood,' she replied, 'I shall only be too happy
to think that anyone expects to hear from us. I shall not fail to
correspond. Mr. Copperfield, I trust, as an old and familiar friend,
will not object to receive occasional intelligence, himself, from one
who knew him when the twins were yet unconscious?'
I said that I should hope to hear, whenever she had an opportunity of
writing.
'Please Heaven, there will be many such opportunities,' said Mr.
Micawber. 'The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and
we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely
crossing,' said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, 'merely
crossing. The distance is quite imaginary.'
I think, now, how odd it was, but how wonderfully like Mr. Micawber,
that, when he went from London to Canterbury, he should have talked as
if he were going to the farthest limits of the earth; and, when he went
from England to Australia, as if he were going for a little trip across
the channel.
'On the voyage, I shall endeavour,' said Mr. Micawber, 'occasionally
to spin them a yarn; and the melody of my son Wilkins will, I trust,
be acceptable at the galley-fire. When Mrs. Micawber has her
sea-legs on--an expression in which I hope there is no conventional
impropriety--she will give them, I dare say, "Little Tafflin". Porpoises
and dolphins, I believe, will be frequently observed athwart our
Bows; and, either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of
interest will be continually descried. In short,' said Mr. Micawber,
with the old genteel air, 'the probability is, all will be found so
exciting, alow and aloft, that when the lookout, stationed in the
main-top, cries Land-oh! we shall be very considerably astonished!'
With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he
had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the
highest naval authorities.
'What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber,
'is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old
country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now refer to my own family,
but to our children's children. However vigorous the sapling,' said Mrs.
Micawber, shaking her head, 'I cannot forget the parent-tree; and when
our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that
fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia.'
'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'Britannia must take her chance. I am
bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have no
particular wish upon the subject.'
'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber, 'there, you are wrong. You are going
out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the
connexion between yourself and Albion.'
'The connexion in question, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'has not
laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that I am at
all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.'
'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'There, I again say, you are wrong.
You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will strengthen,
even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between yourself
and Albion.'
Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half
receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber's views as they were
stated, but very sensible of their foresight.
'My dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I wish Mr. Micawber to
feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. Micawber
should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old
knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I have
not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposition is, if I
may say so, eminently practical. I know that this is a long voyage. I
know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. I cannot
shut my eyes to those facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is.
I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it
vitally important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position.'
'My love,' he observed, 'perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is
barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present moment.'
'I think not, Micawber,' she rejoined. 'Not fully. My dear Mr.
Copperfield, Mr. Micawber's is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is going
to a distant country expressly in order that he may be fully understood
and appreciated for the first time. I wish Mr. Micawber to take his
stand upon that vessel's prow, and firmly say, "This country I am
come to conquer! Have you honours? Have you riches? Have you posts of
profitable pecuniary emolument? Let them be brought forward. They are
mine!"'
Mr. Micawber, glancing at us all, seemed to think there was a good deal
in this idea.
'I wish Mr. Micawber, if I make myself understood,' said Mrs. Micawber,
in her argumentative tone, 'to be the Caesar of his own fortunes. That,
my dear Mr. Copperfield, appears to me to be his true position. From
the first moment of this voyage, I wish Mr. Micawber to stand upon
that vessel's prow and say, "Enough of delay: enough of disappointment:
enough of limited means. That was in the old country. This is the new.
Produce your reparation. Bring it forward!"'
Mr. Micawber folded his arms in a resolute manner, as if he were then
stationed on the figure-head.
'And doing that,' said Mrs. Micawber, '--feeling his position--am I not
right in saying that Mr. Micawber will strengthen, and not weaken, his
connexion with Britain? An important public character arising in that
hemisphere, shall I be told that its influence will not be felt at home?
Can I be so weak as to imagine that Mr. Micawber, wielding the rod of
talent and of power in Australia, will be nothing in England? I am but
a woman; but I should be unworthy of myself and of my papa, if I were
guilty of such absurd weakness.'
Mrs. Micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, gave
a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard in it
before.
'And therefore it is,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'that I the more wish, that,
at a future period, we may live again on the parent soil. Mr. Micawber
may be--I cannot disguise from myself that the probability is, Mr.
Micawber will be--a page of History; and he ought then to be represented
in the country which gave him birth, and did NOT give him employment!'
'My love,' observed Mr. Micawber, 'it is impossible for me not to be
touched by your affection. I am always willing to defer to your good
sense. What will be--will be. Heaven forbid that I should grudge my
native country any portion of the wealth that may be accumulated by our
descendants!'
'That's well,' said my aunt, nodding towards Mr. Peggotty, 'and I drink
my love to you all, and every blessing and success attend you!'
Mr. Peggotty put down the two children he had been nursing, one on each
knee, to join Mr. and Mrs. Micawber in drinking to all of us in return;
and when he and the Micawbers cordially shook hands as comrades, and his
brown face brightened with a smile, I felt that he would make his way,
establish a good name, and be beloved, go where he would.
Even the children were instructed, each to dip a wooden spoon into Mr.
Micawber's pot, and pledge us in its contents. When this was done, my
aunt and Agnes rose, and parted from the emigrants. It was a sorrowful
farewell. They were all crying; the children hung about Agnes to the
last; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition,
sobbing and weeping by a dim candle, that must have made the room look,
from the river, like a miserable light-house.
I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had
departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a wonderful
instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my
association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden
stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now
that they were gone.
In the afternoon of the next day, my old nurse and I went down to
Gravesend. We found the ship in the river, surrounded by a crowd
of boats; a favourable wind blowing; the signal for sailing at her
mast-head. I hired a boat directly, and we put off to her; and getting
through the little vortex of confusion of which she was the centre, went
on board.
Mr. Peggotty was waiting for us on deck. He told me that Mr. Micawber
had just now been arrested again (and for the last time) at the suit of
Heep, and that, in compliance with a request I had made to him, he had
paid the money, which I repaid him. He then took us down between decks;
and there, any lingering fears I had of his having heard any rumours of
what had happened, were dispelled by Mr. Micawber's coming out of the
gloom, taking his arm with an air of friendship and protection, and
telling me that they had scarcely been asunder for a moment, since the
night before last.
It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that, at
first, I could make out hardly anything; but, by degrees, it cleared, as
my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in
a picture by OSTADE. Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the
ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and
heaps of miscellaneous baggage--'lighted up, here and there, by dangling
lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail
or a hatchway--were crowded groups of people, making new friendships,
taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and
drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their few
feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny children
established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others, despairing of
a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. From babies who had but a
week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed
to have but a week or two of life before them; and from ploughmen bodily
carrying out soil of England on their boots, to smiths taking away
samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins; every age and occupation
appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the 'tween decks.
As my eye glanced round this place, I thought I saw sitting, by an open
port, with one of the Micawber children near her, a figure like Emily's;
it first attracted my attention, by another figure parting from it with
a kiss; and as it glided calmly away through the disorder, reminding
me of--Agnes! But in the rapid motion and confusion, and in the
unsettlement of my own thoughts, I lost it again; and only knew that
the time was come when all visitors were being warned to leave the ship;
that my nurse was crying on a chest beside me; and that Mrs. Gummidge,
assisted by some younger stooping woman in black, was busily arranging
Mr. Peggotty's goods.
'Is there any last wured, Mas'r Davy?' said he. 'Is there any one
forgotten thing afore we parts?'
'One thing!' said I. 'Martha!'
He touched the younger woman I have mentioned on the shoulder, and
Martha stood before me.
'Heaven bless you, you good man!' cried I. 'You take her with you!'
She answered for him, with a burst of tears. I could speak no more at
that time, but I wrung his hand; and if ever I have loved and honoured
any man, I loved and honoured that man in my soul.
The ship was clearing fast of strangers. The greatest trial that I had,
remained. I told him what the noble spirit that was gone, had given me
in charge to say at parting. It moved him deeply. But when he charged
me, in return, with many messages of affection and regret for those deaf
ears, he moved me more.
The time was come. I embraced him, took my weeping nurse upon my arm,
and hurried away. On deck, I took leave of poor Mrs. Micawber. She was
looking distractedly about for her family, even then; and her last words
to me were, that she never would desert Mr. Micawber.
We went over the side into our boat, and lay at a little distance, to
see the ship wafted on her course. It was then calm, radiant sunset.
She lay between us, and the red light; and every taper line and spar was
visible against the glow. A sight at once so beautiful, so mournful, and
so hopeful, as the glorious ship, lying, still, on the flushed water,
with all the life on board her crowded at the bulwarks, and there
clustering, for a moment, bare-headed and silent, I never saw.
Silent, only for a moment. As the sails rose to the wind, and the ship
began to move, there broke from all the boats three resounding cheers,
which those on board took up, and echoed back, and which were echoed
and re-echoed. My heart burst out when I heard the sound, and beheld the
waving of the hats and handkerchiefs--and then I saw her!
Then I saw her, at her uncle's side, and trembling on his shoulder. He
pointed to us with an eager hand; and she saw us, and waved her last
good-bye to me. Aye, Emily, beautiful and drooping, cling to him with
the utmost trust of thy bruised heart; for he has clung to thee, with
all the might of his great love!
Surrounded by the rosy light, and standing high upon the deck, apart
together, she clinging to him, and he holding her, they solemnly passed
away. The night had fallen on the Kentish hills when we were rowed
ashore--and fallen darkly upon me. | The emigrants. David goes to visit the Micawbers and Mr. Peggotty, as they are preparing to leave for Australia. David and Mr. Micawber agree that the news of the deaths of Ham and Steerforth must be kept from Mr. Peggotty and Little Em'ly for the time being. Since Mr. Micawber's unmasking of Uriah, Uriah has several times had him arrested. Mr. Micawber had been obliged to obtain advances on his wages when he was employed by him, and Uriah is demanding repayment. One of these arrests takes place before the Micawbers embark on their ship, but Betsey has arranged to pay each of the debts as it becomes due, enabling Mr. Micawber to be released. David asks Mr. Peggotty what is to become of Martha. Mr. Peggotty indicates a woman who is helping Mrs. Gummidge with Mr. Peggotty's luggage; it is Martha, who is to accompany Mr. Peggotty and Little Em'ly to Australia. As the ship pulls away, David sees Little Em'ly at Mr. Peggotty's side |
LISBETH'S touch of rheumatism could not be made to appear serious enough
to detain Dinah another night from the Hall Farm, now she had made up
her mind to leave her aunt so soon, and at evening the friends must
part. "For a long while," Dinah had said, for she had told Lisbeth of
her resolve.
"Then it'll be for all my life, an' I shall ne'er see thee again," said
Lisbeth. "Long while! I'n got no long while t' live. An' I shall be
took bad an' die, an' thee canst ne'er come a-nigh me, an' I shall die
a-longing for thee."
That had been the key-note of her wailing talk all day; for Adam was not
in the house, and so she put no restraint on her complaining. She had
tried poor Dinah by returning again and again to the question, why
she must go away; and refusing to accept reasons, which seemed to her
nothing but whim and "contrairiness"; and still more, by regretting that
she "couldna' ha' one o' the lads" and be her daughter.
"Thee couldstna put up wi' Seth," she said. "He isna cliver enough for
thee, happen, but he'd ha' been very good t' thee--he's as handy as can
be at doin' things for me when I'm bad, an' he's as fond o' the Bible
an' chappellin' as thee art thysen. But happen, thee'dst like a husband
better as isna just the cut o' thysen: the runnin' brook isna athirst
for th' rain. Adam 'ud ha' done for thee--I know he would--an' he might
come t' like thee well enough, if thee'dst stop. But he's as stubborn
as th' iron bar--there's no bending him no way but's own. But he'd be
a fine husband for anybody, be they who they will, so looked-on an' so
cliver as he is. And he'd be rare an' lovin': it does me good on'y a
look o' the lad's eye when he means kind tow'rt me."
Dinah tried to escape from Lisbeth's closest looks and questions by
finding little tasks of housework that kept her moving about, and as
soon as Seth came home in the evening she put on her bonnet to go. It
touched Dinah keenly to say the last good-bye, and still more to look
round on her way across the fields and see the old woman still standing
at the door, gazing after her till she must have been the faintest speck
in the dim aged eyes. "The God of love and peace be with them,"
Dinah prayed, as she looked back from the last stile. "Make them glad
according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted them, and the years
wherein they have seen evil. It is thy will that I should part from
them; let me have no will but thine."
Lisbeth turned into the house at last and sat down in the workshop near
Seth, who was busying himself there with fitting some bits of turned
wood he had brought from the village into a small work-box, which he
meant to give to Dinah before she went away.
"Thee't see her again o' Sunday afore she goes," were her first words.
"If thee wast good for anything, thee'dst make her come in again o'
Sunday night wi' thee, and see me once more."
"Nay, Mother," said Seth. "Dinah 'ud be sure to come again if she saw
right to come. I should have no need to persuade her. She only thinks it
'ud be troubling thee for nought, just to come in to say good-bye over
again."
"She'd ne'er go away, I know, if Adam 'ud be fond on her an' marry her,
but everything's so contrairy," said Lisbeth, with a burst of vexation.
Seth paused a moment and looked up, with a slight blush, at his mother's
face. "What! Has she said anything o' that sort to thee, Mother?" he
said, in a lower tone.
"Said? Nay, she'll say nothin'. It's on'y the men as have to wait till
folks say things afore they find 'em out."
"Well, but what makes thee think so, Mother? What's put it into thy
head?"
"It's no matter what's put it into my head. My head's none so hollow as
it must get in, an' nought to put it there. I know she's fond on him, as
I know th' wind's comin' in at the door, an' that's anoof. An' he might
be willin' to marry her if he know'd she's fond on him, but he'll ne'er
think on't if somebody doesna put it into's head."
His mother's suggestion about Dinah's feeling towards Adam was not quite
a new thought to Seth, but her last words alarmed him, lest she should
herself undertake to open Adam's eyes. He was not sure about Dinah's
feeling, and he thought he was sure about Adam's.
"Nay, Mother, nay," he said, earnestly, "thee mustna think o' speaking
o' such things to Adam. Thee'st no right to say what Dinah's feelings
are if she hasna told thee, and it 'ud do nothing but mischief to say
such things to Adam. He feels very grateful and affectionate toward
Dinah, but he's no thoughts towards her that 'ud incline him to make her
his wife, and I don't believe Dinah 'ud marry him either. I don't think
she'll marry at all."
"Eh," said Lisbeth, impatiently. "Thee think'st so 'cause she wouldna
ha' thee. She'll ne'er marry thee; thee mightst as well like her t' ha'
thy brother."
Seth was hurt. "Mother," he said, in a remonstrating tone, "don't think
that of me. I should be as thankful t' have her for a sister as thee
wouldst t' have her for a daughter. I've no more thoughts about myself
in that thing, and I shall take it hard if ever thee say'st it again."
"Well, well, then thee shouldstna cross me wi' sayin' things arena as I
say they are."
"But, Mother," said Seth, "thee'dst be doing Dinah a wrong by telling
Adam what thee think'st about her. It 'ud do nothing but mischief,
for it 'ud make Adam uneasy if he doesna feel the same to her. And I'm
pretty sure he feels nothing o' the sort."
"Eh, donna tell me what thee't sure on; thee know'st nought about it.
What's he allays goin' to the Poysers' for, if he didna want t' see her?
He goes twice where he used t' go once. Happen he knowsna as he wants
t' see her; he knowsna as I put salt in's broth, but he'd miss it pretty
quick if it warna there. He'll ne'er think o' marrying if it isna put
into's head, an' if thee'dst any love for thy mother, thee'dst put him
up to't an' not let her go away out o' my sight, when I might ha' her to
make a bit o' comfort for me afore I go to bed to my old man under the
white thorn."
"Nay, Mother," said Seth, "thee mustna think me unkind, but I should
be going against my conscience if I took upon me to say what Dinah's
feelings are. And besides that, I think I should give offence to Adam by
speaking to him at all about marrying; and I counsel thee not to do't.
Thee may'st be quite deceived about Dinah. Nay, I'm pretty sure, by
words she said to me last Sabbath, as she's no mind to marry."
"Eh, thee't as contrairy as the rest on 'em. If it war summat I didna
want, it 'ud be done fast enough."
Lisbeth rose from the bench at this, and went out of the workshop,
leaving Seth in much anxiety lest she should disturb Adam's mind about
Dinah. He consoled himself after a time with reflecting that, since
Adam's trouble, Lisbeth had been very timid about speaking to him on
matters of feeling, and that she would hardly dare to approach this
tenderest of all subjects. Even if she did, he hoped Adam would not take
much notice of what she said.
Seth was right in believing that Lisbeth would be held in restraint by
timidity, and during the next three days, the intervals in which she had
an opportunity of speaking to Adam were too rare and short to cause her
any strong temptation. But in her long solitary hours she brooded over
her regretful thoughts about Dinah, till they had grown very near that
point of unmanageable strength when thoughts are apt to take wing out
of their secret nest in a startling manner. And on Sunday morning, when
Seth went away to chapel at Treddleston, the dangerous opportunity came.
Sunday morning was the happiest time in all the week to Lisbeth, for
as there was no service at Hayslope church till the afternoon, Adam was
always at home, doing nothing but reading, an occupation in which she
could venture to interrupt him. Moreover, she had always a better dinner
than usual to prepare for her sons--very frequently for Adam and herself
alone, Seth being often away the entire day--and the smell of the roast
meat before the clear fire in the clean kitchen, the clock ticking in
a peaceful Sunday manner, her darling Adam seated near her in his best
clothes, doing nothing very important, so that she could go and stroke
her hand across his hair if she liked, and see him look up at her and
smile, while Gyp, rather jealous, poked his muzzle up between them--all
these things made poor Lisbeth's earthly paradise.
The book Adam most often read on a Sunday morning was his large pictured
Bible, and this morning it lay open before him on the round white deal
table in the kitchen; for he sat there in spite of the fire, because he
knew his mother liked to have him with her, and it was the only day in
the week when he could indulge her in that way. You would have liked to
see Adam reading his Bible. He never opened it on a weekday, and so he
came to it as a holiday book, serving him for history, biography, and
poetry. He held one hand thrust between his waistcoat buttons, and the
other ready to turn the pages, and in the course of the morning you
would have seen many changes in his face. Sometimes his lips moved in
semi-articulation--it was when he came to a speech that he could fancy
himself uttering, such as Samuel's dying speech to the people; then his
eyebrows would be raised, and the corners of his mouth would quiver a
little with sad sympathy--something, perhaps old Isaac's meeting with
his son, touched him closely; at other times, over the New Testament,
a very solemn look would come upon his face, and he would every now and
then shake his head in serious assent, or just lift up his hand and let
it fall again. And on some mornings, when he read in the Apocrypha, of
which he was very fond, the son of Sirach's keen-edged words would bring
a delighted smile, though he also enjoyed the freedom of occasionally
differing from an Apocryphal writer. For Adam knew the Articles quite
well, as became a good churchman.
Lisbeth, in the pauses of attending to her dinner, always sat opposite
to him and watched him, till she could rest no longer without going
up to him and giving him a caress, to call his attention to her. This
morning he was reading the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and Lisbeth
had been standing close by him for some minutes, stroking his hair,
which was smoother than usual this morning, and looking down at the
large page with silent wonderment at the mystery of letters. She was
encouraged to continue this caress, because when she first went up
to him, he had thrown himself back in his chair to look at her
affectionately and say, "Why, Mother, thee look'st rare and hearty this
morning. Eh, Gyp wants me t' look at him. He can't abide to think I love
thee the best." Lisbeth said nothing, because she wanted to say so many
things. And now there was a new leaf to be turned over, and it was
a picture--that of the angel seated on the great stone that has been
rolled away from the sepulchre. This picture had one strong association
in Lisbeth's memory, for she had been reminded of it when she first
saw Dinah, and Adam had no sooner turned the page, and lifted the book
sideways that they might look at the angel, than she said, "That's
her--that's Dinah."
Adam smiled, and, looking more intently at the angel's face, said, "It
is a bit like her; but Dinah's prettier, I think."
"Well, then, if thee think'st her so pretty, why arn't fond on her?"
Adam looked up in surprise. "Why, Mother, dost think I don't set store
by Dinah?"
"Nay," said Lisbeth, frightened at her own courage, yet feeling that
she had broken the ice, and the waters must flow, whatever mischief they
might do. "What's th' use o' settin' store by things as are thirty mile
off? If thee wast fond enough on her, thee wouldstna let her go away."
"But I've no right t' hinder her, if she thinks well," said Adam,
looking at his book as if he wanted to go on reading. He foresaw a
series of complaints tending to nothing. Lisbeth sat down again in the
chair opposite to him, as she said:
"But she wouldna think well if thee wastna so contrairy." Lisbeth dared
not venture beyond a vague phrase yet.
"Contrairy, mother?" Adam said, looking up again in some anxiety. "What
have I done? What dost mean?"
"Why, thee't never look at nothin', nor think o' nothin', but thy
figurin, an' thy work," said Lisbeth, half-crying. "An' dost think thee
canst go on so all thy life, as if thee wast a man cut out o' timber?
An' what wut do when thy mother's gone, an' nobody to take care on thee
as thee gett'st a bit o' victual comfortable i' the mornin'?"
"What hast got i' thy mind, Mother?" said Adam, vexed at this
whimpering. "I canna see what thee't driving at. Is there anything I
could do for thee as I don't do?"
"Aye, an' that there is. Thee might'st do as I should ha' somebody wi'
me to comfort me a bit, an' wait on me when I'm bad, an' be good to me."
"Well, Mother, whose fault is it there isna some tidy body i' th' house
t' help thee? It isna by my wish as thee hast a stroke o' work to do. We
can afford it--I've told thee often enough. It 'ud be a deal better for
us."
"Eh, what's the use o' talking o' tidy bodies, when thee mean'st one o'
th' wenches out o' th' village, or somebody from Treddles'on as I ne'er
set eyes on i' my life? I'd sooner make a shift an' get into my own
coffin afore I die, nor ha' them folks to put me in."
Adam was silent, and tried to go on reading. That was the utmost
severity he could show towards his mother on a Sunday morning. But
Lisbeth had gone too far now to check herself, and after scarcely a
minute's quietness she began again.
"Thee mightst know well enough who 'tis I'd like t' ha' wi' me. It isna
many folks I send for t' come an' see me. I reckon. An' thee'st had the
fetchin' on her times enow."
"Thee mean'st Dinah, Mother, I know," said Adam. "But it's no use
setting thy mind on what can't be. If Dinah 'ud be willing to stay at
Hayslope, it isn't likely she can come away from her aunt's house, where
they hold her like a daughter, and where she's more bound than she is to
us. If it had been so that she could ha' married Seth, that 'ud ha' been
a great blessing to us, but we can't have things just as we like in this
life. Thee must try and make up thy mind to do without her."
"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'
nought shall ma' me believe as God didna make her an' send her there o'
purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her bein' a Methody! It 'ud
happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."
Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
understood now what she had been aiming at from the beginning of the
conversation. It was as unreasonable, impracticable a wish as she had
ever urged, but he could not help being moved by so entirely new an
idea. The chief point, however, was to chase away the notion from his
mother's mind as quickly as possible.
"Mother," he said, gravely, "thee't talking wild. Don't let me hear
thee say such things again. It's no good talking o' what can never be.
Dinah's not for marrying; she's fixed her heart on a different sort o'
life."
"Very like," said Lisbeth, impatiently, "very like she's none for
marr'ing, when them as she'd be willin' t' marry wonna ax her. I
shouldna ha' been for marr'ing thy feyther if he'd ne'er axed me; an'
she's as fond o' thee as e'er I war o' Thias, poor fellow."
The blood rushed to Adam's face, and for a few moments he was not quite
conscious where he was. His mother and the kitchen had vanished for him,
and he saw nothing but Dinah's face turned up towards his. It seemed
as if there were a resurrection of his dead joy. But he woke up very
speedily from that dream (the waking was chill and sad), for it would
have been very foolish in him to believe his mother's words--she could
have no ground for them. He was prompted to express his disbelief very
strongly--perhaps that he might call forth the proofs, if there were any
to be offered.
"What dost say such things for, Mother, when thee'st got no foundation
for 'em? Thee know'st nothing as gives thee a right to say that."
"Then I knowna nought as gi'es me a right to say as the year's turned,
for all I feel it fust thing when I get up i' th' morning. She isna fond
o' Seth, I reckon, is she? She doesna want to marry HIM? But I can see
as she doesna behave tow'rt thee as she daes tow'rt Seth. She makes no
more o' Seth's coming a-nigh her nor if he war Gyp, but she's all of a
tremble when thee't a-sittin' down by her at breakfast an' a-looking at
her. Thee think'st thy mother knows nought, but she war alive afore thee
wast born."
"But thee canstna be sure as the trembling means love?" said Adam
anxiously.
"Eh, what else should it mane? It isna hate, I reckon. An' what should
she do but love thee? Thee't made to be loved--for where's there a
straighter cliverer man? An' what's it sinnify her bein' a Methody? It's
on'y the marigold i' th' parridge."
Adam had thrust his hands in his pockets, and was looking down at the
book on the table, without seeing any of the letters. He was trembling
like a gold-seeker who sees the strong promise of gold but sees in the
same moment a sickening vision of disappointment. He could not trust his
mother's insight; she had seen what she wished to see. And yet--and yet,
now the suggestion had been made to him, he remembered so many things,
very slight things, like the stirring of the water by an imperceptible
breeze, which seemed to him some confirmation of his mother's words.
Lisbeth noticed that he was moved. She went on, "An' thee't find out
as thee't poorly aff when she's gone. Thee't fonder on her nor thee
know'st. Thy eyes follow her about, welly as Gyp's follow thee."
Adam could sit still no longer. He rose, took down his hat, and went out
into the fields.
The sunshine was on them: that early autumn sunshine which we should
know was not summer's, even if there were not the touches of yellow
on the lime and chestnut; the Sunday sunshine too, which has more than
autumnal calmness for the working man; the morning sunshine, which still
leaves the dew-crystals on the fine gossamer webs in the shadow of the
bushy hedgerows.
Adam needed the calm influence; he was amazed at the way in which
this new thought of Dinah's love had taken possession of him, with an
overmastering power that made all other feelings give way before the
impetuous desire to know that the thought was true. Strange, that till
that moment the possibility of their ever being lovers had never crossed
his mind, and yet now, all his longing suddenly went out towards that
possibility. He had no more doubt or hesitation as to his own wishes
than the bird that flies towards the opening through which the daylight
gleams and the breath of heaven enters.
The autumnal Sunday sunshine soothed him, but not by preparing him with
resignation to the disappointment if his mother--if he himself--proved
to be mistaken about Dinah. It soothed him by gentle encouragement of
his hopes. Her love was so like that calm sunshine that they seemed to
make one presence to him, and he believed in them both alike. And Dinah
was so bound up with the sad memories of his first passion that he was
not forsaking them, but rather giving them a new sacredness by loving
her. Nay, his love for her had grown out of that past: it was the noon
of that morning.
But Seth? Would the lad be hurt? Hardly; for he had seemed quite
contented of late, and there was no selfish jealousy in him; he had
never been jealous of his mother's fondness for Adam. But had he seen
anything of what their mother talked about? Adam longed to know this,
for he thought he could trust Seth's observation better than his
mother's. He must talk to Seth before he went to see Dinah, and, with
this intention in his mind, he walked back to the cottage and said to
his mother, "Did Seth say anything to thee about when he was coming
home? Will he be back to dinner?"
"Aye, lad, he'll be back for a wonder. He isna gone to Treddles'on. He's
gone somewhere else a-preachin' and a-prayin'."
"Hast any notion which way he's gone?" said Adam.
"Nay, but he aften goes to th' Common. Thee know'st more o's goings nor
I do."
Adam wanted to go and meet Seth, but he must content himself with
walking about the near fields and getting sight of him as soon as
possible. That would not be for more than an hour to come, for Seth
would scarcely be at home much before their dinner-time, which was
twelve o'clock. But Adam could not sit down to his reading again, and he
sauntered along by the brook and stood leaning against the stiles, with
eager intense eyes, which looked as if they saw something very vividly;
but it was not the brook or the willows, not the fields or the sky.
Again and again his vision was interrupted by wonder at the strength of
his own feeling, at the strength and sweetness of this new love--almost
like the wonder a man feels at the added power he finds in himself for
an art which he had laid aside for a space. How is it that the poets
have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our
later love? Are their first poems their best? Or are not those the best
which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their
deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flutelike voice has its own spring
charm; but the man should yield a richer deeper music.
At last, there was Seth, visible at the farthest stile, and Adam
hastened to meet him. Seth was surprised, and thought something unusual
must have happened, but when Adam came up, his face said plainly enough
that it was nothing alarming.
"Where hast been?" said Adam, when they were side by side.
"I've been to the Common," said Seth. "Dinah's been speaking the Word
to a little company of hearers at Brimstone's, as they call him. They're
folks as never go to church hardly--them on the Common--but they'll go
and hear Dinah a bit. She's been speaking with power this forenoon
from the words, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.' And there was a little thing happened as was pretty to see.
The women mostly bring their children with 'em, but to-day there was one
stout curly headed fellow about three or four year old, that I never saw
there before. He was as naughty as could be at the beginning while I was
praying, and while we was singing, but when we all sat down and Dinah
began to speak, th' young un stood stock still all at once, and began to
look at her with's mouth open, and presently he ran away from's mother
and went to Dinah, and pulled at her, like a little dog, for her to take
notice of him. So Dinah lifted him up and held th' lad on her lap, while
she went on speaking; and he was as good as could be till he went to
sleep--and the mother cried to see him."
"It's a pity she shouldna be a mother herself," said Adam, "so fond as
the children are of her. Dost think she's quite fixed against marrying,
Seth? Dost think nothing 'ud turn her?"
There was something peculiar in his brother's tone, which made Seth
steal a glance at his face before he answered.
"It 'ud be wrong of me to say nothing 'ud turn her," he answered. "But
if thee mean'st it about myself, I've given up all thoughts as she can
ever be my wife. She calls me her brother, and that's enough."
"But dost think she might ever get fond enough of anybody else to be
willing to marry 'em?" said Adam rather shyly.
"Well," said Seth, after some hesitation, "it's crossed my mind
sometimes o' late as she might; but Dinah 'ud let no fondness for the
creature draw her out o' the path as she believed God had marked out for
her. If she thought the leading was not from Him, she's not one to
be brought under the power of it. And she's allays seemed clear about
that--as her work was to minister t' others, and make no home for
herself i' this world."
"But suppose," said Adam, earnestly, "suppose there was a man as 'ud
let her do just the same and not interfere with her--she might do a good
deal o' what she does now, just as well when she was married as when
she was single. Other women of her sort have married--that's to say, not
just like her, but women as preached and attended on the sick and needy.
There's Mrs. Fletcher as she talks of."
A new light had broken in on Seth. He turned round, and laying his
hand on Adam's shoulder, said, "Why, wouldst like her to marry THEE,
Brother?"
Adam looked doubtfully at Seth's inquiring eyes and said, "Wouldst be
hurt if she was to be fonder o' me than o' thee?"
"Nay," said Seth warmly, "how canst think it? Have I felt thy trouble so
little that I shouldna feel thy joy?"
There was silence a few moments as they walked on, and then Seth said,
"I'd no notion as thee'dst ever think of her for a wife."
"But is it o' any use to think of her?" said Adam. "What dost say?
Mother's made me as I hardly know where I am, with what she's been
saying to me this forenoon. She says she's sure Dinah feels for me more
than common, and 'ud be willing t' have me. But I'm afraid she speaks
without book. I want to know if thee'st seen anything."
"It's a nice point to speak about," said Seth, "and I'm afraid o' being
wrong; besides, we've no right t' intermeddle with people's feelings
when they wouldn't tell 'em themselves."
Seth paused.
"But thee mightst ask her," he said presently. "She took no offence at
me for asking, and thee'st more right than I had, only thee't not in the
Society. But Dinah doesn't hold wi' them as are for keeping the Society
so strict to themselves. She doesn't mind about making folks enter the
Society, so as they're fit t' enter the kingdom o' God. Some o' the
brethren at Treddles'on are displeased with her for that."
"Where will she be the rest o' the day?" said Adam.
"She said she shouldn't leave the farm again to-day," said Seth,
"because it's her last Sabbath there, and she's going t' read out o' the
big Bible wi' the children."
Adam thought--but did not say--"Then I'll go this afternoon; for if I
go to church, my thoughts 'ull be with her all the while. They must sing
th' anthem without me to-day."
IT was about three o'clock when Adam entered the farmyard and roused
Alick and the dogs from their Sunday dozing. Alick said everybody was
gone to church "but th' young missis"--so he called Dinah--but this
did not disappoint Adam, although the "everybody" was so liberal as
to include Nancy the dairymaid, whose works of necessity were not
unfrequently incompatible with church-going.
There was perfect stillness about the house. The doors were all closed,
and the very stones and tubs seemed quieter than usual. Adam heard the
water gently dripping from the pump--that was the only sound--and
he knocked at the house door rather softly, as was suitable in that
stillness.
The door opened, and Dinah stood before him, colouring deeply with the
great surprise of seeing Adam at this hour, when she knew it was his
regular practice to be at church. Yesterday he would have said to her
without any difficulty, "I came to see you, Dinah: I knew the rest were
not at home." But to-day something prevented him from saying that, and
he put out his hand to her in silence. Neither of them spoke, and yet
both wished they could speak, as Adam entered, and they sat down. Dinah
took the chair she had just left; it was at the corner of the table
near the window, and there was a book lying on the table, but it was not
open. She had been sitting perfectly still, looking at the small bit
of clear fire in the bright grate. Adam sat down opposite her, in Mr.
Poyser's three-cornered chair.
"Your mother is not ill again, I hope, Adam?" Dinah said, recovering
herself. "Seth said she was well this morning."
"No, she's very hearty to-day," said Adam, happy in the signs of Dinah's
feeling at the sight of him, but shy.
"There's nobody at home, you see," Dinah said; "but you'll wait. You've
been hindered from going to church to-day, doubtless."
"Yes," Adam said, and then paused, before he added, "I was thinking
about you: that was the reason."
This confession was very awkward and sudden, Adam felt, for he thought
Dinah must understand all he meant. But the frankness of the words
caused her immediately to interpret them into a renewal of his brotherly
regrets that she was going away, and she answered calmly, "Do not be
careful and troubled for me, Adam. I have all things and abound at
Snowfield. And my mind is at rest, for I am not seeking my own will in
going."
"But if things were different, Dinah," said Adam, hesitatingly. "If you
knew things that perhaps you don't know now...."
Dinah looked at him inquiringly, but instead of going on, he reached a
chair and brought it near the corner of the table where she was sitting.
She wondered, and was afraid--and the next moment her thoughts flew to
the past: was it something about those distant unhappy ones that she
didn't know?
Adam looked at her. It was so sweet to look at her eyes, which had now
a self-forgetful questioning in them--for a moment he forgot that he
wanted to say anything, or that it was necessary to tell her what he
meant.
"Dinah," he said suddenly, taking both her hands between his, "I love
you with my whole heart and soul. I love you next to God who made me."
Dinah's lips became pale, like her cheeks, and she trembled violently
under the shock of painful joy. Her hands were cold as death between
Adam's. She could not draw them away, because he held them fast.
"Don't tell me you can't love me, Dinah. Don't tell me we must part and
pass our lives away from one another."
The tears were trembling in Dinah's eyes, and they fell before she could
answer. But she spoke in a quiet low voice.
"Yes, dear Adam, we must submit to another Will. We must part."
"Not if you love me, Dinah--not if you love me," Adam said passionately.
"Tell me--tell me if you can love me better than a brother?"
Dinah was too entirely reliant on the Supreme guidance to attempt to
achieve any end by a deceptive concealment. She was recovering now from
the first shock of emotion, and she looked at Adam with simple sincere
eyes as she said, "Yes, Adam, my heart is drawn strongly towards you;
and of my own will, if I had no clear showing to the contrary, I could
find my happiness in being near you and ministering to you continually.
I fear I should forget to rejoice and weep with others; nay, I fear I
should forget the Divine presence, and seek no love but yours."
Adam did not speak immediately. They sat looking at each other in
delicious silence--for the first sense of mutual love excludes other
feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.
"Then, Dinah," Adam said at last, "how can there be anything contrary
to what's right in our belonging to one another and spending our lives
together? Who put this great love into our hearts? Can anything be
holier than that? For we can help one another in everything as is good.
I'd never think o' putting myself between you and God, and saying you
oughtn't to do this and you oughtn't to do that. You'd follow your
conscience as much as you do now."
"Yes, Adam," Dinah said, "I know marriage is a holy state for those who
are truly called to it, and have no other drawing; but from my childhood
upwards I have been led towards another path; all my peace and my joy
have come from having no life of my own, no wants, no wishes for myself,
and living only in God and those of his creatures whose sorrows and joys
he has given me to know. Those have been very blessed years to me, and I
feel that if I was to listen to any voice that would draw me aside from
that path, I should be turning my back on the light that has shone upon
me, and darkness and doubt would take hold of me. We could not bless
each other, Adam, if there were doubts in my soul, and if I yearned,
when it was too late, after that better part which had once been given
me and I had put away from me."
"But if a new feeling has come into your mind, Dinah, and if you love me
so as to be willing to be nearer to me than to other people, isn't that
a sign that it's right for you to change your life? Doesn't the love
make it right when nothing else would?"
"Adam, my mind is full of questionings about that; for now, since you
tell me of your strong love towards me, what was clear to me has become
dark again. I felt before that my heart was too strongly drawn towards
you, and that your heart was not as mine; and the thought of you had
taken hold of me, so that my soul had lost its freedom, and was becoming
enslaved to an earthly affection, which made me anxious and careful
about what should befall myself. For in all other affection I had been
content with any small return, or with none; but my heart was beginning
to hunger after an equal love from you. And I had no doubt that I must
wrestle against that as a great temptation, and the command was clear
that I must go away."
"But now, dear, dear Dinah, now you know I love you better than you love
me...it's all different now. You won't think o' going. You'll stay, and
be my dear wife, and I shall thank God for giving me my life as I never
thanked him before."
"Adam, it's hard to me to turn a deaf ear...you know it's hard; but a
great fear is upon me. It seems to me as if you were stretching out your
arms to me, and beckoning me to come and take my ease and live for my
own delight, and Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, was standing looking towards
me, and pointing to the sinful, and suffering, and afflicted. I have
seen that again and again when I have been sitting in stillness and
darkness, and a great terror has come upon me lest I should become hard,
and a lover of self, and no more bear willingly the Redeemer's cross."
Dinah had closed her eyes, and a faint shudder went through her. "Adam,"
she went on, "you wouldn't desire that we should seek a good through
any unfaithfulness to the light that is in us; you wouldn't believe that
could be a good. We are of one mind in that."
"Yes, Dinah," said Adam sadly, "I'll never be the man t' urge you
against your conscience. But I can't give up the hope that you may come
to see different. I don't believe your loving me could shut up your
heart--it's only adding to what you've been before, not taking away from
it. For it seems to me it's the same with love and happiness as with
sorrow--the more we know of it the better we can feel what other
people's lives are or might be, and so we shall only be more tender to
'em, and wishful to help 'em. The more knowledge a man has, the better
he'll do's work; and feeling's a sort o' knowledge."
Dinah was silent; her eyes were fixed in contemplation of something
visible only to herself. Adam went on presently with his pleading, "And
you can do almost as much as you do now. I won't ask you to go to church
with me of a Sunday. You shall go where you like among the people, and
teach 'em; for though I like church best, I don't put my soul above
yours, as if my words was better for you to follow than your own
conscience. And you can help the sick just as much, and you'll have more
means o' making 'em a bit comfortable; and you'll be among all your
own friends as love you, and can help 'em and be a blessing to 'em till
their dying day. Surely, Dinah, you'd be as near to God as if you was
living lonely and away from me."
Dinah made no answer for some time. Adam was still holding her hands and
looking at her with almost trembling anxiety, when she turned her grave
loving eyes on his and said, in rather a sad voice, "Adam there is truth
in what you say, and there's many of the brethren and sisters who have
greater strength than I have, and find their hearts enlarged by the
cares of husband and kindred. But I have not faith that it would be so
with me, for since my affections have been set above measure on you, I
have had less peace and joy in God. I have felt as it were a division
in my heart. And think how it is with me, Adam. That life I have led is
like a land I have trodden in blessedness since my childhood; and if
I long for a moment to follow the voice which calls me to another land
that I know not, I cannot but fear that my soul might hereafter yearn
for that early blessedness which I had forsaken; and where doubt enters
there is not perfect love. I must wait for clearer guidance. I must go
from you, and we must submit ourselves entirely to the Divine Will.
We are sometimes required to lay our natural lawful affections on the
altar."
Adam dared not plead again, for Dinah's was not the voice of caprice or
insincerity. But it was very hard for him; his eyes got dim as he looked
at her.
"But you may come to feel satisfied...to feel that you may come to me
again, and we may never part, Dinah?"
"We must submit ourselves, Adam. With time, our duty will be made clear.
It may be when I have entered on my former life, I shall find all these
new thoughts and wishes vanish, and become as things that were not. Then
I shall know that my calling is not towards marriage. But we must wait."
"Dinah," said Adam mournfully, "you can't love me so well as I love you,
else you'd have no doubts. But it's natural you shouldn't, for I'm not
so good as you. I can't doubt it's right for me to love the best thing
God's ever given me to know."
"Nay, Adam. It seems to me that my love for you is not weak, for my
heart waits on your words and looks, almost as a little child waits on
the help and tenderness of the strong on whom it depends. If the thought
of you took slight hold of me, I should not fear that it would be an
idol in the temple. But you will strengthen me--you will not hinder me
in seeking to obey to the uttermost."
"Let us go out into the sunshine, Dinah, and walk together. I'll speak
no word to disturb you."
They went out and walked towards the fields, where they would meet the
family coming from church. Adam said, "Take my arm, Dinah," and she took
it. That was the only change in their manner to each other since they
were last walking together. But no sadness in the prospect of her going
away--in the uncertainty of the issue--could rob the sweetness from
Adam's sense that Dinah loved him. He thought he would stay at the Hall
Farm all that evening. He would be near her as long as he could.
"Hey-day! There's Adam along wi' Dinah," said Mr. Poyser, as he opened
the far gate into the Home Close. "I couldna think how he happened away
from church. Why," added good Martin, after a moment's pause, "what dost
think has just jumped into my head?"
"Summat as hadna far to jump, for it's just under our nose. You mean as
Adam's fond o' Dinah."
"Aye! hast ever had any notion of it before?"
"To be sure I have," said Mrs. Poyser, who always declined, if possible,
to be taken by surprise. "I'm not one o' those as can see the cat i' the
dairy an' wonder what she's come after."
"Thee never saidst a word to me about it."
"Well, I aren't like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the
wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there's no good i'
speaking."
"But Dinah 'll ha' none o' him. Dost think she will?"
"Nay," said Mrs. Poyser, not sufficiently on her guard against a
possible surprise, "she'll never marry anybody, if he isn't a Methodist
and a cripple."
"It 'ud ha' been a pretty thing though for 'em t' marry," said Martin,
turning his head on one side, as if in pleased contemplation of his new
idea. "Thee'dst ha' liked it too, wouldstna?"
"Ah! I should. I should ha' been sure of her then, as she wouldn't
go away from me to Snowfield, welly thirty mile off, and me not got a
creatur to look to, only neighbours, as are no kin to me, an' most of
'em women as I'd be ashamed to show my face, if my dairy things war like
their'n. There may well be streaky butter i' the market. An' I should be
glad to see the poor thing settled like a Christian woman, with a
house of her own over her head; and we'd stock her well wi' linen and
feathers, for I love her next to my own children. An' she makes one feel
safer when she's i' the house, for she's like the driven snow: anybody
might sin for two as had her at their elbow."
"Dinah," said Tommy, running forward to meet her, "mother says you'll
never marry anybody but a Methodist cripple. What a silly you must be!"
a comment which Tommy followed up by seizing Dinah with both arms, and
dancing along by her side with incommodious fondness.
"Why, Adam, we missed you i' the singing to-day," said Mr. Poyser. "How
was it?"
"I wanted to see Dinah--she's going away so soon," said Adam.
"Ah, lad! Can you persuade her to stop somehow? Find her a good husband
somewhere i' the parish. If you'll do that, we'll forgive you for
missing church. But, anyway, she isna going before the harvest supper
o' Wednesday, and you must come then. There's Bartle Massey comin', an'
happen Craig. You'll be sure an' come, now, at seven? The missis wunna
have it a bit later."
"Aye," said Adam, "I'll come if I can. But I can't often say what I'll
do beforehand, for the work often holds me longer than I expect. You'll
stay till the end o' the week, Dinah?"
"Yes, yes!" said Mr. Poyser. "We'll have no nay."
"She's no call to be in a hurry," observed Mrs. Poyser. "Scarceness
o' victual 'ull keep: there's no need to be hasty wi' the cooking. An'
scarceness is what there's the biggest stock of i' that country."
Dinah smiled, but gave no promise to stay, and they talked of other
things through the rest of the walk, lingering in the sunshine to look
at the great flock of geese grazing, at the new corn-ricks, and at the
surprising abundance of fruit on the old pear-tree; Nancy and Molly
having already hastened home, side by side, each holding, carefully
wrapped in her pocket-handkerchief, a prayer-book, in which she could
read little beyond the large letters and the Amens.
Surely all other leisure is hurry compared with a sunny walk through the
fields from "afternoon church"--as such walks used to be in those old
leisurely times, when the boat, gliding sleepily along the canal, was
the newest locomotive wonder; when Sunday books had most of them old
brown-leather covers, and opened with remarkable precision always in one
place. Leisure is gone--gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the
pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the pedlars, who brought bargains
to the door on sunny afternoons. Ingenious philosophers tell you,
perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create leisure
for mankind. Do not believe them: it only creates a vacuum for eager
thought to rush in. Even idleness is eager now--eager for amusement;
prone to excursion-trains, art museums, periodical literature, and
exciting novels; prone even to scientific theorizing and cursory peeps
through microscopes. Old Leisure was quite a different personage. He
only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from
that periodicity of sensations which we call post-time. He was a
contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent digestion; of quiet
perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis; happy in his inability to know
the causes of things, preferring the things themselves. He lived chiefly
in the country, among pleasant seats and homesteads, and was fond of
sauntering by the fruit-tree wall and scenting the apricots when they
were warmed by the morning sunshine, or of sheltering himself under
the orchard boughs at noon, when the summer pears were falling. He knew
nothing of weekday services, and thought none the worse of the Sunday
sermon if it allowed him to sleep from the text to the blessing; liking
the afternoon service best, because the prayers were the shortest,
and not ashamed to say so; for he had an easy, jolly conscience,
broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a great deal of beer or
port-wine, not being made squeamish by doubts and qualms and lofty
aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a sinecure. He fingered the
guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners, and slept the sleep of the
irresponsible, for had he not kept up his character by going to church
on the Sunday afternoons?
Fine old Leisure! Do not be severe upon him, and judge him by our modern
standard. He never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular preacher, or
read Tracts for the Times or Sartor Resartus. | Dinah goes back to the farm that evening, but not before Lisbeth has probed her with questions about Adam. Lisbeth tells Seth that she thinks Dinah loves Adam, but Seth tells her to forget about trying to bring them together; as far as he can see, Adam feels nothing but fraternal affection for Dinah. Lisbeth is not to be so easily discouraged, though; on Sunday morning, she tells Adam that Dinah would be his for the asking. He doubts the truth of her perception, but, at the same time, he recognizes his real love for Dinah and is filled with a new hope. He hesitates to abandon himself to his feelings, however: Seth might still have hopes of winning Dinah's hand, and Adam doesn't want to oppose his brother. But Seth assures him that he is resigned to the fact that Dinah will never accept him, and he encourages Adam to propose. Adam resolves to take the step that very afternoon. When Adam gets to the farm, Dinah is at home alone. After a few moments, Adam overcomes his shyness and declares that he loves her above any other creature. Dinah replies in kind; her main reason for deciding to go away, in fact, was her fear that her love for Adam would divert her from the performance of her duty among the poor. Adam tries to persuade her to stay but in vain: Dinah cannot be sure that giving in to him would not be giving in to temptation. She is afraid that she would be turning away from Christ for Adam's sake, and she is determined to be faithful to her calling as a preacher and consoler of the afflicted. But even though she won't change her mind about leaving, Dinah does hold out one hope: If she is discontented in her work at Snowfield, she says, then she will know that God intends her to return and marry Adam. Adam has no choice but to accept these conditions. The couple walk out into the fields and meet the rest of the family on their way back from church. Some light talk is exchanged, and the author ends the chapter with a panegyric on old-fashioned leisure. |
SCENE II.
A Camp near Forres.
[Alarum within. Enter King Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox,
with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Soldier.]
DUNCAN.
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.
MALCOLM.
This is the sergeant
Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
'Gainst my captivity.--Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.
SOLDIER.
Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald,--
Worthy to be a rebel,--for to that
The multiplying villainies of nature
Do swarm upon him,--from the Western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak;
For brave Macbeth,--well he deserves that name,--
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smok'd with bloody execution,
Like valor's minion,
Carv'd out his passag tTill he fac'd the slave;
And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.
DUNCAN.
O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!
SOLDIER.
As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break;
So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come
Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark:
No sooner justice had, with valor arm'd,
Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.
DUNCAN.
Dismay'd not this
Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
SOLDIER.
Yes;
As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks;
So they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell:--
But I am faint; my gashes cry for help.
DUNCAN.
So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
They smack of honor both.--Go, get him surgeons.
[Exit Soldier, attended.]
Who comes here?
MALCOLM.
The worthy Thane of Ross.
LENNOX.
What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
That seems to speak things strange.
[Enter Ross.]
ROSS.
God save the King!
DUNCAN.
Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?
ROSS.
From Fife, great king;
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold.
Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,
Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: and, to conclude,
The victory fell on us.
DUNCAN.
Great happiness!
ROSS.
That now
Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's-inch,
Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
DUNCAN.
No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
Our bosom interest:--go pronounce his present death,
And with his former title greet Macbeth.
ROSS.
I'll see it done.
DUNCAN.
What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
[Exeunt.] | This short scene is set in King Duncan's camp and further introduces the main character Macbeth. An unnamed sergeant, bleeding from battle wounds, comes into camp and reports on the progress of the fighting, mentioned earlier by the witches in Scene 1. The brave Macbeth has won the battle and killed the rebel Macdonwald and "fix'd his head upon our battlements." But as soon as this victory is won, Sweno, the Norwegian King, sees an advantage as the enemy celebrates and launches a fresh assault upon Macbeth and his army. Macbeth and Banquo withstand the attack and "redoubled strokes upon the foe" to win another victory. After completing this report to Duncan, the soldier departs to tend his wounds, and the Thane of Ross, a loyal Scottish nobleman, enters to greet the king. He comes from Fife and brings further news of the fighting. He reports that the Thane of Cawdor has become a traitor and joined forces with the King of Norway in the battle against Macbeth, but "the victory fell on us," and the Norwegian King was made to pay 10,000 dollars. King Duncan is furious at the news about the Thane of Cawdor and orders his execution. The title of Thane of Cawdor will be given to Macbeth as a reward for his heroism in battle. |
Jude returned to Melchester, which had the questionable
recommendation of being only a dozen and a half miles from his Sue's
now permanent residence. At first he felt that this nearness was a
distinct reason for not going southward at all; but Christminster
was too sad a place to bear, while the proximity of Shaston to
Melchester might afford him the glory of worsting the Enemy in a
close engagement, such as was deliberately sought by the priests and
virgins of the early Church, who, disdaining an ignominious flight
from temptation, became even chamber-partners with impunity.
Jude did not pause to remember that, in the laconic words of the
historian, "insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights" in such
circumstances.
He now returned with feverish desperation to his study for the
priesthood--in the recognition that the single-mindedness of his
aims, and his fidelity to the cause, had been more than questionable
of late. His passion for Sue troubled his soul; yet his lawful
abandonment to the society of Arabella for twelve hours seemed
instinctively a worse thing--even though she had not told him of her
Sydney husband till afterwards. He had, he verily believed, overcome
all tendency to fly to liquor--which, indeed, he had never done from
taste, but merely as an escape from intolerable misery of mind. Yet
he perceived with despondency that, taken all round, he was a man of
too many passions to make a good clergyman; the utmost he could hope
for was that in a life of constant internal warfare between flesh and
spirit the former might not always be victorious.
As a hobby, auxiliary to his readings in Divinity, he developed his
slight skill in church-music and thorough-bass, till he could join in
part-singing from notation with some accuracy. A mile or two from
Melchester there was a restored village church, to which Jude had
originally gone to fix the new columns and capitals. By this means
he had become acquainted with the organist, and the ultimate result
was that he joined the choir as a bass voice.
He walked out to this parish twice every Sunday, and sometimes in the
week. One evening about Easter the choir met for practice, and a new
hymn which Jude had heard of as being by a Wessex composer was to be
tried and prepared for the following week. It turned out to be a
strangely emotional composition. As they all sang it over and over
again its harmonies grew upon Jude, and moved him exceedingly.
When they had finished he went round to the organist to make
inquiries. The score was in manuscript, the name of the composer
being at the head, together with the title of the hymn: "The Foot
of the Cross."
"Yes," said the organist. "He is a local man. He is a professional
musician at Kennetbridge--between here and Christminster. The
vicar knows him. He was brought up and educated in Christminster
traditions, which accounts for the quality of the piece. I think he
plays in the large church there, and has a surpliced choir. He comes
to Melchester sometimes, and once tried to get the cathedral organ
when the post was vacant. The hymn is getting about everywhere this
Easter."
As he walked humming the air on his way home, Jude fell to musing
on its composer, and the reasons why he composed it. What a man of
sympathies he must be! Perplexed and harassed as he himself was
about Sue and Arabella, and troubled as was his conscience by the
complication of his position, how he would like to know that man!
"He of all men would understand my difficulties," said the impulsive
Jude. If there were any person in the world to choose as a
confidant, this composer would be the one, for he must have suffered,
and throbbed, and yearned.
In brief, ill as he could afford the time and money for the journey,
Fawley resolved, like the child that he was, to go to Kennetbridge
the very next Sunday. He duly started, early in the morning, for it
was only by a series of crooked railways that he could get to the
town. About mid-day he reached it, and crossing the bridge into the
quaint old borough he inquired for the house of the composer.
They told him it was a red brick building some little way further on.
Also that the gentleman himself had just passed along the street not
five minutes before.
"Which way?" asked Jude with alacrity.
"Straight along homeward from church."
Jude hastened on, and soon had the pleasure of observing a man in a
black coat and a black slouched felt hat no considerable distance
ahead. Stretching out his legs yet more widely, he stalked after.
"A hungry soul in pursuit of a full soul!" he said. "I must speak
to that man!"
He could not, however, overtake the musician before he had entered
his own house, and then arose the question if this were an expedient
time to call. Whether or not he decided to do so there and then, now
that he had got here, the distance home being too great for him to
wait till late in the afternoon. This man of soul would understand
scant ceremony, and might be quite a perfect adviser in a case in
which an earthly and illegitimate passion had cunningly obtained
entrance into his heart through the opening afforded for religion.
Jude accordingly rang the bell, and was admitted.
The musician came to him in a moment, and being respectably dressed,
good-looking, and frank in manner, Jude obtained a favourable
reception. He was nevertheless conscious that there would be a
certain awkwardness in explaining his errand.
"I have been singing in the choir of a little church near
Melchester," he said. "And we have this week practised 'The Foot
of the Cross,' which I understand, sir, that you composed?"
"I did--a year or so ago."
"I--like it. I think it supremely beautiful!"
"Ah well--other people have said so too. Yes, there's money in
it, if I could only see about getting it published. I have other
compositions to go with it, too; I wish I could bring them out; for
I haven't made a five-pound note out of any of them yet. These
publishing people--they want the copyright of an obscure composer's
work, such as mine is, for almost less than I should have to pay a
person for making a fair manuscript copy of the score. The one you
speak of I have lent to various friends about here and Melchester,
and so it has got to be sung a little. But music is a poor staff to
lean on--I am giving it up entirely. You must go into trade if you
want to make money nowadays. The wine business is what I am thinking
of. This is my forthcoming list--it is not issued yet--but you can
take one."
He handed Jude an advertisement list of several pages in booklet
shape, ornamentally margined with a red line, in which were set forth
the various clarets, champagnes, ports, sherries, and other wines
with which he purposed to initiate his new venture. It took Jude
more than by surprise that the man with the soul was thus and thus;
and he felt that he could not open up his confidences.
They talked a little longer, but constrainedly, for when the musician
found that Jude was a poor man his manner changed from what it had
been while Jude's appearance and address deceived him as to his
position and pursuits. Jude stammered out something about his
feelings in wishing to congratulate the author on such an exalted
composition, and took an embarrassed leave.
All the way home by the slow Sunday train, sitting in the fireless
waiting-rooms on this cold spring day, he was depressed enough at
his simplicity in taking such a journey. But no sooner did he reach
his Melchester lodging than he found awaiting him a letter which had
arrived that morning a few minutes after he had left the house. It
was a contrite little note from Sue, in which she said, with sweet
humility, that she felt she had been horrid in telling him he
was not to come to see her, that she despised herself for having
been so conventional; and that he was to be sure to come by the
eleven-forty-five train that very Sunday, and have dinner with them
at half-past one.
Jude almost tore his hair at having missed this letter till it was
too late to act upon its contents; but he had chastened himself
considerably of late, and at last his chimerical expedition
to Kennetbridge really did seem to have been another special
intervention of Providence to keep him away from temptation. But a
growing impatience of faith, which he had noticed in himself more
than once of late, made him pass over in ridicule the idea that God
sent people on fools' errands. He longed to see her; he was angry
at having missed her: and he wrote instantly, telling her what had
happened, and saying he had not enough patience to wait till the
following Sunday, but would come any day in the week that she liked
to name.
Since he wrote a little over-ardently, Sue, as her manner was,
delayed her reply till Thursday before Good Friday, when she said he
might come that afternoon if he wished, this being the earliest day
on which she could welcome him, for she was now assistant-teacher in
her husband's school. Jude therefore got leave from the cathedral
works at the trifling expense of a stoppage of pay, and went. | Back at Melchester, Jude tries to fight against the temptation to visit Sue at Shaston and tries desperately to pursue his study for the ministry. Enlarging his interest in sacred music and eventually joining a choir in a village church nearby, he is greatly moved by a new hymn and thinks that the composer of it must be the kind of man who would understand his own perplexing state of mind. Jude seeks out the composer but discovers he is interested only in money. Coming home from this trip, he discovers Sue has relented and asked him to visit on that very day. Abandoning his attempt to discipline his feelings for her, he writes to arrange to visit as soon as possible. |
A train of armed men, some noble dame
Escorting, (so their scatter'd words discover'd,
As unperceived I hung upon their rear,)
Are close at hand, and mean to pass the night
Within the castle.
--Orra, a Tragedy
The travellers had now reached the verge of the wooded country, and were
about to plunge into its recesses, held dangerous at that time from the
number of outlaws whom oppression and poverty had driven to despair,
and who occupied the forests in such large bands as could easily bid
defiance to the feeble police of the period. From these rovers, however,
notwithstanding the lateness of the hour Cedric and Athelstane accounted
themselves secure, as they had in attendance ten servants, besides Wamba
and Gurth, whose aid could not be counted upon, the one being a jester
and the other a captive. It may be added, that in travelling thus late
through the forest, Cedric and Athelstane relied on their descent and
character, as well as their courage. The outlaws, whom the severity of
the forest laws had reduced to this roving and desperate mode of life,
were chiefly peasants and yeomen of Saxon descent, and were generally
supposed to respect the persons and property of their countrymen.
As the travellers journeyed on their way, they were alarmed by repeated
cries for assistance; and when they rode up to the place from whence
they came, they were surprised to find a horse-litter placed upon the
ground, beside which sat a young woman, richly dressed in the Jewish
fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him to belong
to the same nation, walked up and down with gestures expressive of the
deepest despair, and wrung his hands, as if affected by some strange
disaster.
To the enquiries of Athelstane and Cedric, the old Jew could for some
time only answer by invoking the protection of all the patriarchs of the
Old Testament successively against the sons of Ishmael, who were coming
to smite them, hip and thigh, with the edge of the sword. When he began
to come to himself out of this agony of terror, Isaac of York (for it
was our old friend) was at length able to explain, that he had hired
a body-guard of six men at Ashby, together with mules for carrying the
litter of a sick friend. This party had undertaken to escort him as
far as Doncaster. They had come thus far in safety; but having received
information from a wood-cutter that there was a strong band of outlaws
lying in wait in the woods before them, Isaac's mercenaries had not only
taken flight, but had carried off with them the horses which bore the
litter and left the Jew and his daughter without the means either of
defence or of retreat, to be plundered, and probably murdered, by the
banditti, who they expected every moment would bring down upon them.
"Would it but please your valours," added Isaac, in a tone of deep
humiliation, "to permit the poor Jews to travel under your safeguard,
I swear by the tables of our law, that never has favour been conferred
upon a child of Israel since the days of our captivity, which shall be
more gratefully acknowledged."
"Dog of a Jew!" said Athelstane, whose memory was of that petty
kind which stores up trifles of all kinds, but particularly trifling
offences, "dost not remember how thou didst beard us in the gallery at
the tilt-yard? Fight or flee, or compound with the outlaws as thou dost
list, ask neither aid nor company from us; and if they rob only such
as thee, who rob all the world, I, for mine own share, shall hold them
right honest folk."
Cedric did not assent to the severe proposal of his companion. "We shall
do better," said he, "to leave them two of our attendants and two horses
to convey them back to the next village. It will diminish our strength
but little; and with your good sword, noble Athelstane, and the aid of
those who remain, it will be light work for us to face twenty of those
runagates."
Rowena, somewhat alarmed by the mention of outlaws in force, and so
near them, strongly seconded the proposal of her guardian. But Rebecca
suddenly quitting her dejected posture, and making her way through the
attendants to the palfrey of the Saxon lady, knelt down, and, after the
Oriental fashion in addressing superiors, kissed the hem of Rowena's
garment. Then rising, and throwing back her veil, she implored her
in the great name of the God whom they both worshipped, and by that
revelation of the Law upon Mount Sinai, in which they both believed,
that she would have compassion upon them, and suffer them to go forward
under their safeguard. "It is not for myself that I pray this favour,"
said Rebecca; "nor is it even for that poor old man. I know that to
wrong and to spoil our nation is a light fault, if not a merit, with the
Christians; and what is it to us whether it be done in the city, in the
desert, or in the field? But it is in the name of one dear to many,
and dear even to you, that I beseech you to let this sick person be
transported with care and tenderness under your protection. For, if evil
chance him, the last moment of your life would be embittered with regret
for denying that which I ask of you."
The noble and solemn air with which Rebecca made this appeal, gave it
double weight with the fair Saxon.
"The man is old and feeble," she said to her guardian, "the maiden young
and beautiful, their friend sick and in peril of his life--Jews though
they be, we cannot as Christians leave them in this extremity. Let them
unload two of the sumpter-mules, and put the baggage behind two of the
serfs. The mules may transport the litter, and we have led horses for
the old man and his daughter."
Cedric readily assented to what she proposed, and Athelstane only added
the condition, "that they should travel in the rear of the whole party,
where Wamba," he said, "might attend them with his shield of boar's
brawn."
"I have left my shield in the tilt-yard," answered the Jester, "as has
been the fate of many a better knight than myself."
Athelstane coloured deeply, for such had been his own fate on the
last day of the tournament; while Rowena, who was pleased in the same
proportion, as if to make amends for the brutal jest of her unfeeling
suitor, requested Rebecca to ride by her side.
"It were not fit I should do so," answered Rebecca, with proud humility,
"where my society might be held a disgrace to my protectress."
By this time the change of baggage was hastily achieved; for the single
word "outlaws" rendered every one sufficiently alert, and the approach
of twilight made the sound yet more impressive. Amid the bustle, Gurth
was taken from horseback, in the course of which removal he prevailed
upon the Jester to slack the cord with which his arms were bound. It was
so negligently refastened, perhaps intentionally, on the part of Wamba,
that Gurth found no difficulty in freeing his arms altogether from
bondage, and then, gliding into the thicket, he made his escape from the
party.
The bustle had been considerable, and it was some time before Gurth was
missed; for, as he was to be placed for the rest of the journey behind
a servant, every one supposed that some other of his companions had him
under his custody, and when it began to be whispered among them
that Gurth had actually disappeared, they were under such immediate
expectation of an attack from the outlaws, that it was not held
convenient to pay much attention to the circumstance.
The path upon which the party travelled was now so narrow, as not to
admit, with any sort of convenience, above two riders abreast, and began
to descend into a dingle, traversed by a brook whose banks were broken,
swampy, and overgrown with dwarf willows. Cedric and Athelstane, who
were at the head of their retinue, saw the risk of being attacked at
this pass; but neither of them having had much practice in war, no
better mode of preventing the danger occurred to them than that they
should hasten through the defile as fast as possible. Advancing,
therefore, without much order, they had just crossed the brook with a
part of their followers, when they were assailed in front, flank,
and rear at once, with an impetuosity to which, in their confused and
ill-prepared condition, it was impossible to offer effectual resistance.
The shout of "A white dragon!--a white dragon!--Saint George for merry
England!" war-cries adopted by the assailants, as belonging to their
assumed character of Saxon outlaws, was heard on every side, and on
every side enemies appeared with a rapidity of advance and attack which
seemed to multiply their numbers.
Both the Saxon chiefs were made prisoners at the same moment, and each
under circumstances expressive of his character. Cedric, the instant
that an enemy appeared, launched at him his remaining javelin, which,
taking better effect than that which he had hurled at Fangs, nailed the
man against an oak-tree that happened to be close behind him. Thus far
successful, Cedric spurred his horse against a second, drawing his sword
at the same time, and striking with such inconsiderate fury, that
his weapon encountered a thick branch which hung over him, and he
was disarmed by the violence of his own blow. He was instantly made
prisoner, and pulled from his horse by two or three of the banditti who
crowded around him. Athelstane shared his captivity, his bridle having
been seized, and he himself forcibly dismounted, long before he could
draw his weapon, or assume any posture of effectual defence.
The attendants, embarrassed with baggage, surprised and terrified at the
fate of their masters, fell an easy prey to the assailants; while
the Lady Rowena, in the centre of the cavalcade, and the Jew and his
daughter in the rear, experienced the same misfortune.
Of all the train none escaped except Wamba, who showed upon the
occasion much more courage than those who pretended to greater sense. He
possessed himself of a sword belonging to one of the domestics, who was
just drawing it with a tardy and irresolute hand, laid it about him like
a lion, drove back several who approached him, and made a brave though
ineffectual attempt to succour his master. Finding himself overpowered,
the Jester at length threw himself from his horse, plunged into the
thicket, and, favoured by the general confusion, escaped from the scene
of action. Yet the valiant Jester, as soon as he found himself safe,
hesitated more than once whether he should not turn back and share the
captivity of a master to whom he was sincerely attached.
"I have heard men talk of the blessings of freedom," he said to himself,
"but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that
I have it."
As he pronounced these words aloud, a voice very near him called out in
a low and cautious tone, "Wamba!" and, at the same time, a dog, which he
recognised to be Fangs, jumped up and fawned upon him. "Gurth!" answered
Wamba, with the same caution, and the swineherd immediately stood before
him.
"What is the matter?" said he eagerly; "what mean these cries, and that
clashing of swords?"
"Only a trick of the times," said Wamba; "they are all prisoners."
"Who are prisoners?" exclaimed Gurth, impatiently.
"My lord, and my lady, and Athelstane, and Hundibert, and Oswald."
"In the name of God!" said Gurth, "how came they prisoners?--and to
whom?"
"Our master was too ready to fight," said the Jester; "and Athelstane
was not ready enough, and no other person was ready at all. And they are
prisoners to green cassocks, and black visors. And they lie all tumbled
about on the green, like the crab-apples that you shake down to your
swine. And I would laugh at it," said the honest Jester, "if I could for
weeping." And he shed tears of unfeigned sorrow.
Gurth's countenance kindled--"Wamba," he said, "thou hast a weapon,
and thy heart was ever stronger than thy brain,--we are only two--but a
sudden attack from men of resolution will do much--follow me!"
"Whither?--and for what purpose?" said the Jester.
"To rescue Cedric."
"But you have renounced his service but now," said Wamba.
"That," said Gurth, "was but while he was fortunate--follow me!"
As the Jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his
appearance, and commanded them both to halt. From his dress and arms,
Wamba would have conjectured him to be one of those outlaws who had just
assailed his master; but, besides that he wore no mask, the glittering
baldric across his shoulder, with the rich bugle-horn which it
supported, as well as the calm and commanding expression of his voice
and manner, made him, notwithstanding the twilight, recognise Locksley
the yeoman, who had been victorious, under such disadvantageous
circumstances, in the contest for the prize of archery.
"What is the meaning of all this," said he, "or who is it that rifle,
and ransom, and make prisoners, in these forests?"
"You may look at their cassocks close by," said Wamba, "and see whether
they be thy children's coats or no--for they are as like thine own, as
one green pea-cod is to another."
"I will learn that presently," answered Locksley; "and I charge ye, on
peril of your lives, not to stir from the place where ye stand, until
I have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the better for you and your
masters.--Yet stay, I must render myself as like these men as possible."
So saying he unbuckled his baldric with the bugle, took a feather from
his cap, and gave them to Wamba; then drew a vizard from his pouch,
and, repeating his charges to them to stand fast, went to execute his
purposes of reconnoitring.
"Shall we stand fast, Gurth?" said Wamba; "or shall we e'en give him
leg-bail? In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a thief too
much in readiness, to be himself a true man."
"Let him be the devil," said Gurth, "an he will. We can be no worse of
waiting his return. If he belong to that party, he must already have
given them the alarm, and it will avail nothing either to fight or fly.
Besides, I have late experience, that errant thieves are not the worst
men in the world to have to deal with."
The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.
"Friend Gurth," he said, "I have mingled among yon men, and have learnt
to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There is, I think,
no chance that they will proceed to any actual violence against their
prisoners. For three men to attempt them at this moment, were little
else than madness; for they are good men of war, and have, as such,
placed sentinels to give the alarm when any one approaches. But I
trust soon to gather such a force, as may act in defiance of all their
precautions; you are both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants,
of Cedric the Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall
not want English hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me,
until I gather more aid."
So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the
jester and the swineherd. It was not consistent with Wamba's humour to
travel long in silence.
"I think," said he, looking at the baldric and bugle which he still
carried, "that I saw the arrow shot which won this gay prize, and that
not so long since as Christmas."
"And I," said Gurth, "could take it on my halidome, that I have heard
the voice of the good yeoman who won it, by night as well as by day, and
that the moon is not three days older since I did so."
"Mine honest friends," replied the yeoman, "who, or what I am, is little
to the present purpose; should I free your master, you will have reason
to think me the best friend you have ever had in your lives. And whether
I am known by one name or another--or whether I can draw a bow as well
or better than a cow-keeper, or whether it is my pleasure to walk in
sunshine or by moonlight, are matters, which, as they do not concern
you, so neither need ye busy yourselves respecting them."
"Our heads are in the lion's mouth," said Wamba, in a whisper to Gurth,
"get them out how we can."
"Hush--be silent," said Gurth. "Offend him not by thy folly, and I trust
sincerely that all will go well." | As twilight descends, Cedric and his party enter the forest on their way home, hoping they will be safe from outlaws. They come upon Isaac and Rebecca, as well as a sick man who is being transported on a horse-litter. They are stranded. It turns out that the six bodyguards Isaac hired to accompany them had deserted them. Isaac asks if he can travel with Cedric and his party. Cedric is unwilling, but Rowena persuades him. During this break, Gurth, with the assistance of Wamba, escapes. Within minutes, the travelers are set upon by De Bois-Guilbert and his men, disguised as outlaws. The Saxons are all taken prisoner, except for Wamba, who escapes. He comes upon Gurth, and they are about to go back to help Cedric when they are apprehended by Locksley, who tells them that he will raise up a force to free the Saxon prisoners |
ACT V SCENE I
HIPPOLYTUS, ARICIA
ARICIA
Can you keep silent in this mortal peril?
Your father loves you. Will you leave him thus
Deceived? If in your cruel heart you scorn
My tears, content to see me nevermore,
Go, part from poor Aricia; but at least,
Going, secure the safety of your life.
Defend your honor from a shameful stain,
And force your father to recall his pray'rs.
There yet is time. Why out of mere caprice
Leave the field free to Phaedra's calumnies?
Let Theseus know the truth.
HIPPOLYTUS
Could I say more,
Without exposing him to dire disgrace?
How should I venture, by revealing all,
To make a father's brow grow red with shame?
The odious mystery to you alone
Is known. My heart has been outpour'd to none
Save you and Heav'n. I could not hide from you
(Judge if I love you), all I fain would hide
E'en from myself. But think under what seal
I spoke. Forget my words, if that may be;
And never let so pure a mouth disclose
This dreadful secret. Let us trust to Heav'n
My vindication, for the gods are just;
For their own honour will they clear the guiltless;
Sooner or later punish'd for her crime,
Phaedra will not escape the shame she merits.
I ask no other favour than your silence;
In all besides I give my wrath free scope.
Make your escape from this captivity,
Be bold to bear me company in flight;
Linger not here on this accursed soil,
Where virtue breathes a pestilential air.
To cover your departure take advantage
Of this confusion, caused by my disgrace.
The means of flight are ready, be assured;
You have as yet no other guards than mine.
Pow'rful defenders will maintain our quarrel;
Argos spreads open arms, and Sparta calls us.
Let us appeal for justice to our friends,
Nor suffer Phaedra, in a common ruin
Joining us both, to hunt us from the throne,
And aggrandise her son by robbing us.
Embrace this happy opportunity:
What fear restrains? You seem to hesitate.
Your interest alone prompts me to urge
Boldness. When I am all on fire, how comes it
That you are ice? Fear you to follow then
A banish'd man?
ARICIA
Ah, dear to me would be
Such exile! With what joy, my fate to yours
United, could I live, by all the world
Forgotten! but not yet has that sweet tie
Bound us together. How then can I steal
Away with you? I know the strictest honour
Forbids me not out of your father's hands
To free myself; this is no parent's home,
And flight is lawful when one flies from tyrants.
But you, Sir, love me; and my virtue shrinks--
HIPPOLYTUS
No, no, your reputation is to me
As dear as to yourself. A nobler purpose
Brings me to you. Fly from your foes, and follow
A husband. Heav'n, that sends us these misfortunes,
Sets free from human instruments the pledge
Between us. Torches do not always light
The face of Hymen.
At the gates of Troezen,
'Mid ancient tombs where princes of my race
Lie buried, stands a temple, ne'er approach'd
By perjurers, where mortals dare not make
False oaths, for instant punishment befalls
The guilty. Falsehood knows no stronger check
Than what is present there--the fear of death
That cannot be avoided. Thither then
We'll go, if you consent, and swear to love
For ever, take the guardian god to witness
Our solemn vows, and his paternal care
Entreat. I will invoke the name of all
The holiest Pow'rs; chaste Dian, and the Queen
Of Heav'n, yea all the gods who know my heart
Will guarantee my sacred promises.
ARICIA
The King draws near. Depart,--make no delay.
To mask my flight, I linger yet one moment.
Go you; and leave with me some trusty guide,
To lead my timid footsteps to your side.
SCENE II
THESEUS, ARICIA, ISMENE
THESEUS
Ye gods, throw light upon my troubled mind,
Show me the truth which I am seeking here.
ARICIA (aside to ISMENE)
Get ready, dear Ismene, for our flight.
SCENE III
THESEUS, ARICIA
THESEUS
Your colour comes and goes, you seem confused,
Madame! What business had my son with you?
ARICIA
Sire, he was bidding me farewell for ever.
THESEUS
Your eyes, it seems, can tame that stubborn pride;
And the first sighs he breathes are paid to you.
ARICIA
I can't deny the truth; he has not, Sire,
Inherited your hatred and injustice;
He did not treat me like a criminal.
THESEUS
That is to say, he swore eternal love.
Do not rely on that inconstant heart;
To others has he sworn as much before.
ARICIA
He, Sire?
THESEUS
You ought to check his roving taste.
How could you bear a partnership so vile?
ARICIA
And how can you endure that vilest slanders
Should make a life so pure as black as pitch?
Have you so little knowledge of his heart?
Do you so ill distinguish between guilt
And innocence? What mist before your eyes
Blinds them to virtue so conspicuous?
Ah! 'tis too much to let false tongues defame him.
Repent; call back your murderous wishes, Sire;
Fear, fear lest Heav'n in its severity
Hate you enough to hear and grant your pray'rs.
Oft in their wrath the gods accept our victims,
And oftentimes chastise us with their gifts.
THESEUS
No, vainly would you cover up his guilt.
Your love is blind to his depravity.
But I have witness irreproachable:
Tears have I seen, true tears, that may be trusted.
ARICIA
Take heed, my lord. Your hands invincible
Have rid the world of monsters numberless;
But all are not destroy'd, one you have left
Alive--Your son forbids me to say more.
Knowing with what respect he still regards you,
I should too much distress him if I dared
Complete my sentence. I will imitate
His reverence, and, to keep silence, leave you. | Hippolytus is indeed saying farewell to Aricia, and she is protesting, but not against the separation. She fears the effect of Theseus' curse and urges her lover to tell his father the truth before he goes. But Hippolytus cannot speak; it is not a son's place to tell his father what sort of woman he has for a wife. He has told Aricia the truth, but under the seal of secrecy, and he depends upon the gods to make his innocence clear and to punish Phaedra. As for Aricia, he wants her to come into exile with him, away from this poisoned air. United, they may find powerful defenders for their cause in Argos and Sparta and be able to prevent Phaedra from taking over Troezen and Athens. Aricia is attracted by the idea; she owes Theseus no loyalty, but, princess as well as woman, she fears the dishonor which would be attached to such a secret flight with her lover. Hippolytus reassures her: Before they go, they will swear their marriage oaths at the temple of Hippolytus' ancestors at the gates of Troezen. Aricia, hearing Theseus approach, promises that if Hippolytus will leave her a guide she will follow him in his departure. He leaves. Theseus is still troubled by his recent decision, and demands of Aricia what Hippolytus was doing in her company. Is he in love with her? She confesses that he is, and Theseus says bitterly that she is not the only one. Aricia, affronted, asks how he can so misjudge his son and adjures him to fear that the heavens will grant his request for his son's death, but to his eternal regret. Theseus refuses to listen to her; he has seen the evidence of Hippolytus' crimes. Again Aricia warns him; Theseus has been a great slayer of monsters, but one is still alive. Hippolytus has forbidden her to speak further, and she will accordingly withdraw. |
ACT III. SCENE I.
Rome. A street
Cornets. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, all the GENTRY, COMINIUS,
TITUS LARTIUS, and other SENATORS
CORIOLANUS. Tullus Aufidius, then, had made new head?
LARTIUS. He had, my lord; and that it was which caus'd
Our swifter composition.
CORIOLANUS. So then the Volsces stand but as at first,
Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road
Upon's again.
COMINIUS. They are worn, Lord Consul, so
That we shall hardly in our ages see
Their banners wave again.
CORIOLANUS. Saw you Aufidius?
LARTIUS. On safeguard he came to me, and did curse
Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely
Yielded the town. He is retir'd to Antium.
CORIOLANUS. Spoke he of me?
LARTIUS. He did, my lord.
CORIOLANUS. How? What?
LARTIUS. How often he had met you, sword to sword;
That of all things upon the earth he hated
Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes
To hopeless restitution, so he might
Be call'd your vanquisher.
CORIOLANUS. At Antium lives he?
LARTIUS. At Antium.
CORIOLANUS. I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.
Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS
Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,
The tongues o' th' common mouth. I do despise them,
For they do prank them in authority,
Against all noble sufferance.
SICINIUS. Pass no further.
CORIOLANUS. Ha! What is that?
BRUTUS. It will be dangerous to go on- no further.
CORIOLANUS. What makes this change?
MENENIUS. The matter?
COMINIUS. Hath he not pass'd the noble and the common?
BRUTUS. Cominius, no.
CORIOLANUS. Have I had children's voices?
FIRST SENATOR. Tribunes, give way: he shall to th'
market-place.
BRUTUS. The people are incens'd against him.
SICINIUS. Stop,
Or all will fall in broil.
CORIOLANUS. Are these your herd?
Must these have voices, that can yield them now
And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your offices?
You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?
Have you not set them on?
MENENIUS. Be calm, be calm.
CORIOLANUS. It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot,
To curb the will of the nobility;
Suffer't, and live with such as cannot rule
Nor ever will be rul'd.
BRUTUS. Call't not a plot.
The people cry you mock'd them; and of late,
When corn was given them gratis, you repin'd;
Scandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them
Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
CORIOLANUS. Why, this was known before.
BRUTUS. Not to them all.
CORIOLANUS. Have you inform'd them sithence?
BRUTUS. How? I inform them!
COMINIUS. You are like to do such business.
BRUTUS. Not unlike
Each way to better yours.
CORIOLANUS. Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
Your fellow tribune.
SICINIUS. You show too much of that
For which the people stir; if you will pass
To where you are bound, you must enquire your way,
Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
Or never be so noble as a consul,
Nor yoke with him for tribune.
MENENIUS. Let's be calm.
COMINIUS. The people are abus'd; set on. This palt'ring
Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus
Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely
I' th' plain way of his merit.
CORIOLANUS. Tell me of corn!
This was my speech, and I will speak't again-
MENENIUS. Not now, not now.
FIRST SENATOR. Not in this heat, sir, now.
CORIOLANUS. Now, as I live, I will.
My nobler friends, I crave their pardons.
For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them
Regard me as I do not flatter, and
Therein behold themselves. I say again,
In soothing them we nourish 'gainst our Senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd, and scatter'd,
By mingling them with us, the honour'd number,
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.
MENENIUS. Well, no more.
FIRST SENATOR. No more words, we beseech you.
CORIOLANUS. How? no more!
As for my country I have shed my blood,
Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
Coin words till their decay against those measles
Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought
The very way to catch them.
BRUTUS. You speak o' th' people
As if you were a god, to punish; not
A man of their infirmity.
SICINIUS. 'Twere well
We let the people know't.
MENENIUS. What, what? his choler?
CORIOLANUS. Choler!
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
By Jove, 'twould be my mind!
SICINIUS. It is a mind
That shall remain a poison where it is,
Not poison any further.
CORIOLANUS. Shall remain!
Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you
His absolute 'shall'?
COMINIUS. 'Twas from the canon.
CORIOLANUS. 'Shall'!
O good but most unwise patricians! Why,
You grave but reckless senators, have you thus
Given Hydra leave to choose an officer
That with his peremptory 'shall,' being but
The horn and noise o' th' monster's, wants not spirit
To say he'll turn your current in a ditch,
And make your channel his? If he have power,
Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake
Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,
Be not as common fools; if you are not,
Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,
If they be senators; and they are no less,
When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste
Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate;
And such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'
His popular 'shall,' against a graver bench
Than ever frown'd in Greece. By Jove himself,
It makes the consuls base; and my soul aches
To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take
The one by th' other.
COMINIUS. Well, on to th' market-place.
CORIOLANUS. Whoever gave that counsel to give forth
The corn o' th' storehouse gratis, as 'twas us'd
Sometime in Greece-
MENENIUS. Well, well, no more of that.
CORIOLANUS. Though there the people had more absolute pow'r-
I say they nourish'd disobedience, fed
The ruin of the state.
BRUTUS. Why shall the people give
One that speaks thus their voice?
CORIOLANUS. I'll give my reasons,
More worthier than their voices. They know the corn
Was not our recompense, resting well assur'd
They ne'er did service for't; being press'd to th' war
Even when the navel of the state was touch'd,
They would not thread the gates. This kind of service
Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' th' war,
Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd
Most valour, spoke not for them. Th' accusation
Which they have often made against the Senate,
All cause unborn, could never be the motive
Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
How shall this bosom multiplied digest
The Senate's courtesy? Let deeds express
What's like to be their words: 'We did request it;
We are the greater poll, and in true fear
They gave us our demands.' Thus we debase
The nature of our seats, and make the rabble
Call our cares fears; which will in time
Break ope the locks o' th' Senate and bring in
The crows to peck the eagles.
MENENIUS. Come, enough.
BRUTUS. Enough, with over measure.
CORIOLANUS. No, take more.
What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
Seal what I end withal! This double worship,
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom,
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
Of general ignorance- it must omit
Real necessities, and give way the while
To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows
Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you-
You that will be less fearful than discreet;
That love the fundamental part of state
More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer
A noble life before a long, and wish
To jump a body with a dangerous physic
That's sure of death without it- at once pluck out
The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour
Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state
Of that integrity which should become't,
Not having the power to do the good it would,
For th' ill which doth control't.
BRUTUS. Has said enough.
SICINIUS. Has spoken like a traitor and shall answer
As traitors do.
CORIOLANUS. Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!
What should the people do with these bald tribunes,
On whom depending, their obedience fails
To the greater bench? In a rebellion,
When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,
Then were they chosen; in a better hour
Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
And throw their power i' th' dust.
BRUTUS. Manifest treason!
SICINIUS. This a consul? No.
BRUTUS. The aediles, ho!
Enter an AEDILE
Let him be apprehended.
SICINIUS. Go call the people, [Exit AEDILE] in whose name
myself
Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,
A foe to th' public weal. Obey, I charge thee,
And follow to thine answer.
CORIOLANUS. Hence, old goat!
PATRICIANS. We'll surety him.
COMINIUS. Ag'd sir, hands off.
CORIOLANUS. Hence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones
Out of thy garments.
SICINIUS. Help, ye citizens!
Enter a rabble of plebeians, with the AEDILES
MENENIUS. On both sides more respect.
SICINIUS. Here's he that would take from you all your power.
BRUTUS. Seize him, aediles.
PLEBEIANS. Down with him! down with him!
SECOND SENATOR. Weapons, weapons, weapons!
[They all bustle about CORIOLANUS]
ALL. Tribunes! patricians! citizens! What, ho! Sicinius!
Brutus! Coriolanus! Citizens!
PATRICIANS. Peace, peace, peace; stay, hold, peace!
MENENIUS. What is about to be? I am out of breath;
Confusion's near; I cannot speak. You tribunes
To th' people- Coriolanus, patience!
Speak, good Sicinius.
SICINIUS. Hear me, people; peace!
PLEBEIANS. Let's hear our tribune. Peace! Speak, speak, speak.
SICINIUS. You are at point to lose your liberties.
Marcius would have all from you; Marcius,
Whom late you have nam'd for consul.
MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!
This is the way to kindle, not to quench.
FIRST SENATOR. To unbuild the city, and to lay all flat.
SICINIUS. What is the city but the people?
PLEBEIANS. True,
The people are the city.
BRUTUS. By the consent of all we were establish'd
The people's magistrates.
PLEBEIANS. You so remain.
MENENIUS. And so are like to do.
COMINIUS. That is the way to lay the city flat,
To bring the roof to the foundation,
And bury all which yet distinctly ranges
In heaps and piles of ruin.
SICINIUS. This deserves death.
BRUTUS. Or let us stand to our authority
Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,
Upon the part o' th' people, in whose power
We were elected theirs: Marcius is worthy
Of present death.
SICINIUS. Therefore lay hold of him;
Bear him to th' rock Tarpeian, and from thence
Into destruction cast him.
BRUTUS. AEdiles, seize him.
PLEBEIANS. Yield, Marcius, yield.
MENENIUS. Hear me one word; beseech you, Tribunes,
Hear me but a word.
AEDILES. Peace, peace!
MENENIUS. Be that you seem, truly your country's friend,
And temp'rately proceed to what you would
Thus violently redress.
BRUTUS. Sir, those cold ways,
That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him
And bear him to the rock.
[CORIOLANUS draws his sword]
CORIOLANUS. No: I'll die here.
There's some among you have beheld me fighting;
Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.
MENENIUS. Down with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.
BRUTUS. Lay hands upon him.
MENENIUS. Help Marcius, help,
You that be noble; help him, young and old.
PLEBEIANS. Down with him, down with him!
[In this mutiny the TRIBUNES, the AEDILES,
and the people are beat in]
MENENIUS. Go, get you to your house; be gone, away.
All will be nought else.
SECOND SENATOR. Get you gone.
CORIOLANUS. Stand fast;
We have as many friends as enemies.
MENENIUS. Shall it be put to that?
FIRST SENATOR. The gods forbid!
I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;
Leave us to cure this cause.
MENENIUS. For 'tis a sore upon us
You cannot tent yourself; be gone, beseech you.
COMINIUS. Come, sir, along with us.
CORIOLANUS. I would they were barbarians, as they are,
Though in Rome litter'd; not Romans, as they are not,
Though calved i' th' porch o' th' Capitol.
MENENIUS. Be gone.
Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;
One time will owe another.
CORIOLANUS. On fair ground
I could beat forty of them.
MENENIUS. I could myself
Take up a brace o' th' best of them; yea, the two tribunes.
COMINIUS. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic,
And manhood is call'd foolery when it stands
Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,
Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend
Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear
What they are us'd to bear.
MENENIUS. Pray you be gone.
I'll try whether my old wit be in request
With those that have but little; this must be patch'd
With cloth of any colour.
COMINIUS. Nay, come away.
Exeunt CORIOLANUS and COMINIUS, with others
PATRICIANS. This man has marr'd his fortune.
MENENIUS. His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth;
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
And, being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death. [A noise within]
Here's goodly work!
PATRICIANS. I would they were a-bed.
MENENIUS. I would they were in Tiber.
What the vengeance, could he not speak 'em fair?
Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, the rabble again
SICINIUS. Where is this viper
That would depopulate the city and
Be every man himself?
MENENIUS. You worthy Tribunes-
SICINIUS. He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
With rigorous hands; he hath resisted law,
And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power,
Which he so sets at nought.
FIRST CITIZEN. He shall well know
The noble tribunes are the people's mouths,
And we their hands.
PLEBEIANS. He shall, sure on't.
MENENIUS. Sir, sir-
SICINIUS. Peace!
MENENIUS. Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt
With modest warrant.
SICINIUS. Sir, how comes't that you
Have holp to make this rescue?
MENENIUS. Hear me speak.
As I do know the consul's worthiness,
So can I name his faults.
SICINIUS. Consul! What consul?
MENENIUS. The consul Coriolanus.
BRUTUS. He consul!
PLEBEIANS. No, no, no, no, no.
MENENIUS. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,
I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;
The which shall turn you to no further harm
Than so much loss of time.
SICINIUS. Speak briefly, then,
For we are peremptory to dispatch
This viperous traitor; to eject him hence
Were but one danger, and to keep him here
Our certain death; therefore it is decreed
He dies to-night.
MENENIUS. Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!
SICINIUS. He's a disease that must be cut away.
MENENIUS. O, he's a limb that has but a disease-
Mortal, to cut it off: to cure it, easy.
What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?
Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost-
Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath
By many an ounce- he dropt it for his country;
And what is left, to lose it by his country
Were to us all that do't and suffer it
A brand to th' end o' th' world.
SICINIUS. This is clean kam.
BRUTUS. Merely awry. When he did love his country,
It honour'd him.
SICINIUS. The service of the foot,
Being once gangren'd, is not then respected
For what before it was.
BRUTUS. We'll hear no more.
Pursue him to his house and pluck him thence,
Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
Spread further.
MENENIUS. One word more, one word
This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will, too late,
Tie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process,
Lest parties- as he is belov'd- break out,
And sack great Rome with Romans.
BRUTUS. If it were so-
SICINIUS. What do ye talk?
Have we not had a taste of his obedience-
Our aediles smote, ourselves resisted? Come!
MENENIUS. Consider this: he has been bred i' th' wars
Since 'a could draw a sword, and is ill school'd
In bolted language; meal and bran together
He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
I'll go to him and undertake to bring him
Where he shall answer by a lawful form,
In peace, to his utmost peril.
FIRST SENATOR. Noble Tribunes,
It is the humane way; the other course
Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
Unknown to the beginning.
SICINIUS. Noble Menenius,
Be you then as the people's officer.
Masters, lay down your weapons.
BRUTUS. Go not home.
SICINIUS. Meet on the market-place. We'll attend you there;
Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed
In our first way.
MENENIUS. I'll bring him to you.
[To the SENATORS] Let me desire your company; he must come,
Or what is worst will follow.
FIRST SENATOR. Pray you let's to him. Exeunt | The Senators, with Coriolanus, are on their way to the Capitol. Titus Lartius tells Coriolanus that Aufidius quickly rearmed after his defeat, and so Rome swiftly made a peace treaty. Coriolanus's party is stopped by Sicinius and Brutus. The tribunes tell them that the plebeians have changed their minds and that it is dangerous for them to proceed. Coriolanus immediately suspects a plot by the tribunes, but the tribunes insist that the change comes from the plebeians themselves, who are angry that Coriolanus mocked them. Coriolanus furiously insults the plebeians. He warns his fellow patricians not to pander to them, as this will foster rebellion. He says that the patricians and the plebeians cannot both have power, as the plebeians are in the majority. If both try to hold power, confusion will result, and one will destroy the other. Because of the plebeians?cowardice in battle, Coriolanus despises them and believes that they do not deserve a civic voice. Menenius tries to silence him, but Coriolanus continues to denounce the chaos and instability of a society that is governed by the rabble. Brutus and Sicinius accuse him of treason, and order an Aedile and a crowd of plebeians to arrest him. The tribunes, without a trial, sentence Coriolanus to death by being thrown off the Tarpeian rock, a cliff-face in Rome from which criminals were thrown to their deaths. Coriolanus draws his sword. Menenius calls upon the patricians to help Coriolanus, and they all beat off the tribunes and plebeians. Coriolanus wants to stand and fight, but Menenius and the patricians insist that he go home and leave them to smooth things over with the plebeians. Coriolanus leaves. Brutus and Sicinius reappear with a crowd of plebeians, who are ready to seize Coriolanus at his home and throw him off the Tarpeian rock. Menenius verbally defends Coriolanus while adopting a conciliatory attitude to the plebeians. He at last persuades the plebeians to try Coriolanus by proper legal process, to avoid civil war. The tribunes arrange to meet Menenius and Coriolanus in the market place. |
XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy
If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in the
house of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a whole year,
and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When he
cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing,
which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely
pierced by the light within him.
And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house,
and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a night
he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought no
transitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary
figure lingering there, and still lingering there when the first beams
of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecture
in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet time
brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable,
into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had known
him more scantily than ever; and often when he had thrown himself upon
it no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again, and haunted that
neighbourhood.
On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal
that "he had thought better of that marrying matter") had carried his
delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the
City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health
for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney's feet still trod
those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became
animated by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention,
they took him to the Doctor's door.
He was shown up-stairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She had
never been quite at her ease with him, and received him with some little
embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up at
his face in the interchange of the first few common-places, she observed
a change in it.
"I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton!"
"No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. What
is to be expected of, or by, such profligates?"
"Is it not--forgive me; I have begun the question on my lips--a pity to
live no better life?"
"God knows it is a shame!"
"Then why not change it?"
Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that
there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as he
answered:
"It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall
sink lower, and be worse."
He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. The
table trembled in the silence that followed.
She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her to
be so, without looking at her, and said:
"Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge of
what I want to say to you. Will you hear me?"
"If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier,
it would make me very glad!"
"God bless you for your sweet compassion!"
He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily.
"Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am like
one who died young. All my life might have been."
"No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I am
sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself."
"Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better--although in the
mystery of my own wretched heart I know better--I shall never forget
it!"
She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despair
of himself which made the interview unlike any other that could have
been holden.
"If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned the
love of the man you see before yourself--flung away, wasted, drunken,
poor creature of misuse as you know him to be--he would have been
conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would
bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you,
disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have
no tenderness for me; I ask for none; I am even thankful that it cannot
be."
"Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall
you--forgive me again!--to a better course? Can I in no way repay your
confidence? I know this is a confidence," she modestly said, after a
little hesitation, and in earnest tears, "I know you would say this to
no one else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton?"
He shook his head.
"To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very
little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know that
you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not
been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this
home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had
died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that
I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from
old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I
have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off
sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all
a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down,
but I wish you to know that you inspired it."
"Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try again!"
"No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quite
undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the
weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me,
heap of ashes that I am, into fire--a fire, however, inseparable in
its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no
service, idly burning away."
"Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy
than you were before you knew me--"
"Don't say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, if
anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse."
"Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events,
attributable to some influence of mine--this is what I mean, if I can
make it plain--can I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power for
good, with you, at all?"
"The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come
here to realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life,
the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world;
and that there was something left in me at this time which you could
deplore and pity."
"Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with
all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton!"
"Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself,
and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you let
me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life
was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there
alone, and will be shared by no one?"
"If that will be a consolation to you, yes."
"Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?"
"Mr. Carton," she answered, after an agitated pause, "the secret is
yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it."
"Thank you. And again, God bless you."
He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door.
"Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this
conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it
again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In
the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance--and
shall thank and bless you for it--that my last avowal of myself was made
to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried
in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!"
He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so
sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day kept
down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as he
stood looking back at her.
"Be comforted!" he said, "I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. An
hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scorn
but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any
wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I
shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall be
what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make
to you, is, that you will believe this of me."
"I will, Mr. Carton."
"My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve
you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and
between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say
it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to
you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that
there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would
embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold
me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one
thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new
ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly
and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever
grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a
happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright
beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is
a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!"
He said, "Farewell!" said a last "God bless you!" and left her. | Sydney Carton's not exactly a man with a lot of charm. Any charm he does have, however, he never displays when he goes to visit the Manettes. Today, for some reason, his feet seem to find their way to the Manettes' house of their own accord. He finds Lucie there alone. When she sees him, she immediately notices that he's even less well than he usually is. That's not saying much. She asks Carton what's wrong. He responds that his life is miserable and hopeless. She asks why he can't change. We know, we know--it's a useless question. Someone had to ask it, though. Carton doesn't answer directly. Instead, he begins one of the strangest love scenes in all of Dickens' novels. We're not even really sure that it's a love scene. See, Carton knows that Lucie couldn't love a man like him. In fact, that's exactly what he tells her. Dismayed, Lucie doesn't know what to say. Sure, she feels badly for Carton. She even cares about him. But the saddest thing in this whole deal is that he's right--and they both know it. True to her good-natured self, though, Lucie asks if there's anything that she can do to help him without promising to love him. Carton says that if anyone could have reformed him, she could have. It looks like he's past saving, then. Just like he thought he was. Apparently, Carton just dropped by to unburden himself...sort of like a very, very painful self-help session. Distraught, Lucie asks again if there's no way that she could be a force for good in his life. Carton seems to have moved past this, however. He begs her to keep this conversation confidential; it's the last time he'll ever confide in anyone, and he'd like to remember that it ended well. Seeing that Lucie seems upset, he entreats her not to be troubled by his sorrows. More than anything, he wants her to be happy. In fact, he's so committed to her happiness that he begs her to remember that he would give his own life to keep those that she loves safe. Bidding Lucie farewell, Carton rushes out the door. |
A Family Party
Maggie left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week, and went to
Garum Firs to pay her visit to aunt Pullet according to agreement. In
the mean time very unexpected things had happened, and there was to be
a family party at Garum to discuss and celebrate a change in the
fortunes of the Tullivers, which was likely finally to carry away the
shadow of their demerits like the last limb of an eclipse, and cause
their hitherto obscured virtues to shine forth in full-rounded
splendor. It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come into
office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of high
appreciation and full-blown eulogy; in many respectable families
throughout this realm, relatives becoming creditable meet with a
similar cordiality of recognition, which in its fine freedom from the
coercion of any antecedents, suggests the hopeful possibility that we
may some day without any notice find ourselves in full millennium,
with cockatrices who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no longer
show their teeth with any but the blandest intentions.
Lucy came so early as to have the start even of aunt Glegg; for she
longed to have some undisturbed talk with Maggie about the wonderful
news. It seemed, did it not? said Lucy, with her prettiest air of
wisdom, as if everything, even other people's misfortunes (poor
creatures!) were conspiring now to make poor dear aunt Tulliver, and
cousin Tom, and naughty Maggie too, if she were not obstinately bent
on the contrary, as happy as they deserved to be after all their
troubles. To think that the very day--the _very day_--after Tom had
come back from Newcastle, that unfortunate young Jetsome, whom Mr.
Wakem had placed at the Mill, had been pitched off his horse in a
drunken fit, and was lying at St. Ogg's in a dangerous state, so that
Wakem had signified his wish that the new purchasers should enter on
the premises at once!
It was very dreadful for that unhappy young man, but it did seem as if
the misfortune had happened then, rather than at any other time, in
order that cousin Tom might all the sooner have the fit reward of his
exemplary conduct,--papa thought so very highly of him. Aunt Tulliver
must certainly go to the Mill now, and keep house for Tom; that was
rather a loss to Lucy in the matter of household comfort; but then, to
think of poor aunty being in her old place again, and gradually
getting comforts about her there!
On this last point Lucy had her cunning projects, and when she and
Maggie had made their dangerous way down the bright stairs into the
handsome parlor, where the very sunbeams seemed cleaner than
elsewhere, she directed her manoeuvres, as any other great tactician
would have done, against the weaker side of the enemy.
"Aunt Pullet," she said, seating herself on the sofa, and caressingly
adjusting that lady's floating cap-string, "I want you to make up your
mind what linen and things you will give Tom toward housekeeping;
because you are always so generous,--you give such nice things, you
know; and if you set the example, aunt Glegg will follow."
"That she never can, my dear," said Mrs. Pullet, with unusual vigor,
"for she hasn't got the linen to follow suit wi' mine, I can tell you.
She'd niver the taste, not if she'd spend the money. Big checks and
live things, like stags and foxes, all her table-linen is,--not a spot
nor a diamond among 'em. But it's poor work dividing one's linen
before one dies,--I niver thought to ha' done that, Bessy," Mrs.
Pullet continued, shaking her head and looking at her sister Tulliver,
"when you and me chose the double diamont, the first flax iver we'd
spun, and the Lord knows where yours is gone."
"I'd no choice, I'm sure, sister," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, accustomed
to consider herself in the light of an accused person. "I'm sure it
was no wish o' mine, iver, as I should lie awake o' nights thinking o'
my best bleached linen all over the country."
"Take a peppermint, Mrs. Tulliver," said uncle Pullet, feeling that he
was offering a cheap and wholesome form of comfort, which he was
recommending by example.
"Oh, but, aunt Pullet," said Lucy, "you've so much beautiful linen.
And suppose you had had daughters! Then you must have divided it when
they were married."
"Well, I don't say as I won't do it," said Mrs. Pullet, "for now Tom's
so lucky, it's nothing but right his friends should look on him and
help him. There's the tablecloths I bought at your sale, Bessy; it was
nothing but good natur' o' me to buy 'em, for they've been lying in
the chest ever since. But I'm not going to give Maggie any more o' my
Indy muslin and things, if she's to go into service again, when she
might stay and keep me company, and do my sewing for me, if she wasn't
wanted at her brother's."
"Going into service" was the expression by which the Dodson mind
represented to itself the position of teacher or governess; and
Maggie's return to that menial condition, now circumstances offered
her more eligible prospects, was likely to be a sore point with all
her relatives, besides Lucy. Maggie in her crude form, with her hair
down her back, and altogether in a state of dubious promise, was a
most undesirable niece; but now she was capable of being at once
ornamental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncle
Glegg's presence, over the tea and muffins.
"Hegh, hegh!" said Mr. Glegg, good-naturedly patting Maggie on the
back, "nonsense, nonsense! Don't let us hear of you taking a place
again, Maggie. Why, you must ha' picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at
the bazaar; isn't there one of 'em the right sort of article? Come,
now?"
"Mr. Glegg," said his wife, with that shade of increased politeness in
her severity which she always put on with her crisper fronts, "you'll
excuse me, but you're far too light for a man of your years. It's
respect and duty to her aunts, and the rest of her kin as are so good
to her, should have kept my niece from fixing about going away again
without consulting us; not sweethearts, if I'm to use such a word,
though it was never heared in _my_ family."
"Why, what did they call us, when we went to see 'em, then, eh,
neighbor Pullet? They thought us sweet enough then," said Mr. Glegg,
winking pleasantly; while Mr. Pullet, at the suggestion of sweetness,
took a little more sugar.
"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., "if you're going to be undelicate, let me
know."
"La, Jane, your husband's only joking," said Mrs. Pullet; "let him
joke while he's got health and strength. There's poor Mr. Tilt got his
mouth drawn all o' one side, and couldn't laugh if he was to try."
"I'll trouble you for the muffineer, then, Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G.,
"if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking. Though it's other
people must see the joke in a niece's putting a slight on her mother's
eldest sister, as is the head o' the family; and only coming in and
out on short visits, all the time she's been in the town, and then
settling to go away without my knowledge,--as I'd laid caps out on
purpose for her to make 'em up for me,--and me as have divided my
money so equal----"
"Sister," Mrs. Tulliver broke in anxiously, "I'm sure Maggie never
thought o' going away without staying at your house as well as the
others. Not as it's my wish she should go away at all, but quite
contrairy. I'm sure I'm innocent. I've said over and over again, 'My
dear, you've no call to go away.' But there's ten days or a fortnight
Maggie'll have before she's fixed to go; she can stay at your house
just as well, and I'll step in when I can, and so will Lucy."
"Bessy," said Mrs. Glegg, "if you'd exercise a little more thought,
you might know I should hardly think it was worth while to unpin a
bed, and go to all that trouble now, just at the end o' the time, when
our house isn't above a quarter of an hour's walk from Mr. Deane's.
She can come the first thing in the morning, and go back the last at
night, and be thankful she's got a good aunt so close to her to come
and sit with. I know _I_ should, when I was her age."
"La, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "it 'ud do your beds good to have
somebody to sleep in 'em. There's that striped room smells dreadful
mouldy, and the glass mildewed like anything. I'm sure I thought I
should be struck with death when you took me in."
"Oh, there is Tom!" exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands. "He's come on
Sindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was not going to keep his
promise."
Maggie jumped up to kiss Tom as he entered, with strong feeling, at
this first meeting since the prospect of returning to the Mill had
been opened to him; and she kept his hand, leading him to the chair by
her side. To have no cloud between herself and Tom was still a
perpetual yearning in her, that had its root deeper than all change.
He smiled at her very kindly this evening, and said, "Well, Magsie,
how's aunt Moss?"
"Come, come, sir," said Mr. Glegg putting out his hand. "Why, you're
such a big man, you carry all before you, it, seems. You're come into
your luck a good deal earlier than us old folks did; but I wish you
joy, I wish you joy. You'll get the Mill all for your own again some
day, I'll be bound. You won't stop half-way up the hill."
"But I hope he'll bear in mind as it's his mother's family as he owes
it to," said Mrs. Glegg. "If he hadn't had them to take after, he'd
ha' been poorly off. There was never any failures, nor lawing, nor
wastefulness in our family, nor dying without wills----"
"No, nor sudden deaths," said aunt Pullet; "allays the doctor called
in. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first. And I
don't know what _you_ mean to do, sister Glegg, but I mean to give him
a tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I
don't say what more I shall do; but _that_ I shall do, and if I should
die to-morrow, Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in mind,--though you'll be
blundering with the keys, and never remember as that on the third
shelf o' the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with the broad
ties,--not the narrow-frilled uns,--is the key of the drawer in the
Blue Room, where the key o' the Blue Closet is. You'll make a mistake,
and I shall niver be worthy to know it. You've a memory for my pills
and draughts, wonderful,--I'll allays say that of you,--but you're
lost among the keys." This gloomy prospect of the confusion that would
ensue on her decease was very affecting to Mrs. Pullet.
"You carry it too far, Sophy,--that locking in and out," said Mrs.
Glegg, in a tone of some disgust at this folly. "You go beyond your
own family. There's nobody can say I don't lock up; but I do what's
reasonable, and no more. And as for the linen, I shall look out what's
serviceable, to make a present of to my nephey; I've got cloth as has
never been whitened, better worth having than other people's fine
holland; and I hope he'll lie down in it and think of his aunt."
Tom thanked Mrs. Glegg, but evaded any promise to meditate nightly on
her virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diversion for him by asking
about Mr. Deane's intentions concerning steam.
Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come on Sindbad.
It appeared, when it was time to go home, that the man-servant was to
ride the horse, and cousin Tom was to drive home his mother and Lucy.
"You must sit by yourself, aunty," said that contriving young lady,
"because I must sit by Tom; I've a great deal to say to him."
In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie, Lucy could
not persuade herself to defer a conversation about her with Tom, who,
she thought, with such a cup of joy before him as this rapid
fulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must become pliant and
flexible. Her nature supplied her with no key to Tom's; and she was
puzzled as well as pained to notice the unpleasant change on his
countenance when she gave him the history of the way in which Philip
had used his influence with his father. She had counted on this
revelation as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn Tom's heart
toward Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that the elder Wakem
was ready to receive Maggie with all the honors of a daughter-in-law.
Nothing was wanted, then, but for dear Tom, who always had that
pleasant smile when he looked at cousin Lucy, to turn completely
round, say the opposite of what he had always said before, and declare
that he, for his part, was delighted that all the old grievances
should be healed, and that Maggie should have Philip with all suitable
despatch; in cousin Lucy's opinion nothing could be easier.
But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities
that create severity,--strength of will, conscious rectitude of
purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of
self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others,--prejudices
come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance
out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which
we call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air,
adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye,--however it may come,
these minds will give it a habitation; it is something to assert
strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneous
ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of conscious
right; it is at once a staff and a baton. Every prejudice that will
answer these purposes is self-evident. Our good, upright Tom Tulliver's
mind was of this class; his inward criticism of his father's faults
did not prevent him from adopting his father's prejudice; it was a
prejudice against a man of lax principle and lax life, and it was a
meeting-point for all the disappointed feelings of family and personal
pride. Other feelings added their force to produce Tom's bitter
repugnance to Philip, and to Maggie's union with him; and
notwithstanding Lucy's power over her strong-willed cousin, she got
nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a marriage; "but of
course Maggie could do as she liked,--she had declared her
determination to be independent. For Tom's part, he held himself bound
by his duty to his father's memory, and by every manly feeling, never
to consent to any relation with the Wakems."
Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation was to fill
Tom's mind with the expectation that Maggie's perverse resolve to go
into a situation again would presently metamorphose itself, as her
resolves were apt to do, into something equally perverse, but entirely
different,--a marriage with Philip Wakem. | At the end of the week Maggie goes to visit aunt Pullet. A party is being held there to celebrate Tom's acquisition of the mill. Lucy comes early in order to talk to Maggie and to convince aunt Pullet that she should donate some things to Tom and his mother to make their housekeeping easier. Mrs. Pullet finally agrees to give up some of her linen, but she says she will not save any for Maggie as the girl insists on "going into service." Maggie's employment is a sore point with her family, who all wish her to come live with them now that she is "capable of being at once ornamental and useful." Mrs. Glegg is indignant that Maggie does not do her duty to her aunts but "settles to go away" without their knowledge. However, she is unwilling to have Maggie come stay with her, as that would involve opening another room. Instead, she insists that Maggie visit her every morning. Tom is welcomed warmly, and reminded that he owes his success to the good example of his mother's family, Lucy contrives to have Tom drive her home with his mother after the party. She counts on this chance to get his consent for Maggie to marry Philip. But all she accomplishes is to make Tom think that Maggie is going to change one "perverse resolve . . . into something equally perverse, but entirely different . . . ." Tom refuses his blessing, although he says Maggie may do as she likes. |
III. The Night Shadows
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is
constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A
solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every
one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every
room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating
heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of
its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the
awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I
turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time
to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable
water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses
of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the
book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read
but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an
eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood
in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead,
my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable
consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that
individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end. In
any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there
a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their
innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?
As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, the
messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the King, the
first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. So with the
three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old mail
coach; they were mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had
been in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the
breadth of a county between him and the next.
The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at
ale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his
own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes that
assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface black, with
no depth in the colour or form, and much too near together--as if they
were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too
far apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked-hat like
a three-cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and
throat, which descended nearly to the wearer's knees. When he stopped
for drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he
poured his liquor in with his right; as soon as that was done, he
muffled again.
"No, Jerry, no!" said the messenger, harping on one theme as he rode.
"It wouldn't do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest tradesman, it wouldn't
suit _your_ line of business! Recalled--! Bust me if I don't think he'd
been a drinking!"
His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several
times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown,
which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all
over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was
so like Smith's work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked
wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might
have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over.
While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night
watchman in his box at the door of Tellson's Bank, by Temple Bar, who
was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the
night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such
shapes to the mare as arose out of _her_ private topics of uneasiness.
They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road.
What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon
its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom,
likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms
their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested.
Tellson's Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank
passenger--with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what
lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger,
and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special
jolt--nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little
coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the
bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great
stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money,
and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson's, with
all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then
the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson's, with such of their valuable
stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a
little that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among
them with the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them
safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them.
But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach
(in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was
always with him, there was another current of impression that never
ceased to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one
out of a grave.
Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him
was the true face of the buried person, the shadows of the night did
not indicate; but they were all the faces of a man of five-and-forty by
years, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed,
and in the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt,
defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another;
so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands
and figures. But the face was in the main one face, and every head was
prematurely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this
spectre:
"Buried how long?"
The answer was always the same: "Almost eighteen years."
"You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?"
"Long ago."
"You know that you are recalled to life?"
"They tell me so."
"I hope you care to live?"
"I can't say."
"Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?"
The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes
the broken reply was, "Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon."
Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was,
"Take me to her." Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it
was, "I don't know her. I don't understand."
After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig,
and dig, dig--now with a spade, now with a great key, now with his
hands--to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, with earth
hanging about his face and hair, he would suddenly fan away to dust. The
passenger would then start to himself, and lower the window, to get the
reality of mist and rain on his cheek.
Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving
patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreating
by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train
of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the
real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express
sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out
of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost
it again.
"Buried how long?"
"Almost eighteen years."
"I hope you care to live?"
"I can't say."
Dig--dig--dig--until an impatient movement from one of the two
passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm
securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two
slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again
slid away into the bank and the grave.
"Buried how long?"
"Almost eighteen years."
"You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?"
"Long ago."
The words were still in his hearing as just spoken--distinctly in
his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life--when the weary
passenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found that the
shadows of the night were gone.
He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a
ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left
last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood,
in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained
upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear,
and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful.
"Eighteen years!" said the passenger, looking at the sun. "Gracious
Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!" | The Night Shadows The chapter opens with a reflection on the fact that all humans are mysteries to one another, despite the availability of their outer appearances. The three passengers remain a mystery to one another as they advance upon Dover. Jerry Cruncher returns to Temple Bar remaining uneasy about the cryptic message. Mr. Lorry dozes off and begins to dream in the coach, imagining the comforting environment of Tellson's Bank. He is then confronted by what he calls a spectre: a man who has been buried for eighteen years and has dug his way out. A conversation that Mr. Lorry's brain repeats three times with this spectre confirms that he has been buried for eighteen years. As the sun rises, Mr. Lorry wakes up from his dream and surveys the vivid countryside, pitying a man who would be locked away from nature for eighteen years |
CHAPTER III
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting, by a new-made grave.
MILTON
On the following day, Montoni sent a second excuse to Emily, who was
surprised at the circumstance. 'This is very strange!' said she to
herself. 'His conscience tells him the purport of my visit, and he
defers it, to avoid an explanation.' She now almost resolved to throw
herself in his way, but terror checked the intention, and this day
passed, as the preceding one, with Emily, except that a degree of awful
expectation, concerning the approaching night, now somewhat disturbed
the dreadful calmness that had pervaded her mind.
Towards evening, the second part of the band, which had made the first
excursion among the mountains, returned to the castle, where, as they
entered the courts, Emily, in her remote chamber, heard their loud
shouts and strains of exultation, like the orgies of furies over
some horrid sacrifice. She even feared they were about to commit some
barbarous deed; a conjecture from which, however, Annette soon relieved
her, by telling, that the people were only exulting over the plunder
they had brought with them. This circumstance still further confirmed
her in the belief, that Montoni had really commenced to be a captain of
banditti, and meant to retrieve his broken fortunes by the plunder of
travellers! Indeed, when she considered all the circumstances of his
situation--in an armed, and almost inaccessible castle, retired far
among the recesses of wild and solitary mountains, along whose distant
skirts were scattered towns, and cities, whither wealthy travellers were
continually passing--this appeared to be the situation of all others
most suited for the success of schemes of rapine, and she yielded to
the strange thought, that Montoni was become a captain of robbers. His
character also, unprincipled, dauntless, cruel and enterprising, seemed
to fit him for the situation. Delighting in the tumult and in the
struggles of life, he was equally a stranger to pity and to fear; his
very courage was a sort of animal ferocity; not the noble impulse of
a principle, such as inspirits the mind against the oppressor, in the
cause of the oppressed; but a constitutional hardiness of nerve, that
cannot feel, and that, therefore, cannot fear.
Emily's supposition, however natural, was in part erroneous, for she was
a stranger to the state of this country and to the circumstances, under
which its frequent wars were partly conducted. The revenues of the many
states of Italy being, at that time, insufficient to the support of
standing armies, even during the short periods, which the turbulent
habits both of the governments and the people permitted to pass in
peace, an order of men arose not known in our age, and but faintly
described in the history of their own. Of the soldiers, disbanded at
the end of every war, few returned to the safe, but unprofitable
occupations, then usual in peace. Sometimes they passed into other
countries, and mingled with armies, which still kept the field.
Sometimes they formed themselves into bands of robbers, and occupied
remote fortresses, where their desperate character, the weakness of the
governments which they offended, and the certainty, that they could
be recalled to the armies, when their presence should be again wanted,
prevented them from being much pursued by the civil power; and,
sometimes, they attached themselves to the fortunes of a popular chief,
by whom they were led into the service of any state, which could settle
with him the price of their valour. From this latter practice arose
their name--CONDOTTIERI; a term formidable all over Italy, for a period,
which concluded in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, but of
which it is not so easy to ascertain the commencement.
Contests between the smaller states were then, for the most part,
affairs of enterprize alone, and the probabilities of success were
estimated, not from the skill, but from the personal courage of the
general, and the soldiers. The ability, which was necessary to the
conduct of tedious operations, was little valued. It was enough to
know how a party might be led towards their enemies, with the greatest
secrecy, or conducted from them in the compactest order. The officer was
to precipitate himself into a situation, where, but for his example,
the soldiers might not have ventured; and, as the opposed parties knew
little of each other's strength, the event of the day was frequently
determined by the boldness of the first movements. In such services the
condottieri were eminent, and in these, where plunder always followed
success, their characters acquired a mixture of intrepidity and
profligacy, which awed even those whom they served.
When they were not thus engaged, their chief had usually his own
fortress, in which, or in its neighbourhood, they enjoyed an irksome
rest; and, though their wants were, at one time, partly supplied from
the property of the inhabitants, the lavish distribution of their
plunder at others, prevented them from being obnoxious; and the peasants
of such districts gradually shared the character of their warlike
visitors. The neighbouring governments sometimes professed, but seldom
endeavoured, to suppress these military communities; both because it was
difficult to do so, and because a disguised protection of them ensured,
for the service of their wars, a body of men, who could not otherwise
be so cheaply maintained, or so perfectly qualified. The commanders
sometimes even relied so far upon this policy of the several powers, as
to frequent their capitals; and Montoni, having met them in the gaming
parties of Venice and Padua, conceived a desire to emulate their
characters, before his ruined fortunes tempted him to adopt their
practices. It was for the arrangement of his present plan of life, that
the midnight councils were held at his mansion in Venice, and at which
Orsino and some other members of the present community then assisted
with suggestions, which they had since executed with the wreck of their
fortunes.
On the return of night, Emily resumed her station at the casement. There
was now a moon; and, as it rose over the tufted woods, its yellow light
served to shew the lonely terrace and the surrounding objects, more
distinctly, than the twilight of the stars had done, and promised Emily
to assist her observations, should the mysterious form return. On this
subject, she again wavered in conjecture, and hesitated whether to speak
to the figure, to which a strong and almost irresistible interest urged
her; but terror, at intervals, made her reluctant to do so.
'If this is a person who has designs upon the castle,' said she, 'my
curiosity may prove fatal to me; yet the mysterious music, and the
lamentations I heard, must surely have proceeded from him: if so, he
cannot be an enemy.'
She then thought of her unfortunate aunt, and, shuddering with grief
and horror, the suggestions of imagination seized her mind with all
the force of truth, and she believed, that the form she had seen was
supernatural. She trembled, breathed with difficulty, an icy coldness
touched her cheeks, and her fears for a while overcame her judgment.
Her resolution now forsook her, and she determined, if the figure should
appear, not to speak to it.
Thus the time passed, as she sat at her casement, awed by expectation,
and by the gloom and stillness of midnight; for she saw obscurely in
the moon-light only the mountains and woods, a cluster of towers, that
formed the west angle of the castle, and the terrace below; and heard
no sound, except, now and then, the lonely watch-word, passed by the
centinels on duty, and afterwards the steps of the men who came to
relieve guard, and whom she knew at a distance on the rampart by their
pikes, that glittered in the moonbeam, and then, by the few short words,
in which they hailed their fellows of the night. Emily retired within
her chamber, while they passed the casement. When she returned to
it, all was again quiet. It was now very late, she was wearied with
watching, and began to doubt the reality of what she had seen on the
preceding night; but she still lingered at the window, for her mind was
too perturbed to admit of sleep. The moon shone with a clear lustre,
that afforded her a complete view of the terrace; but she saw only a
solitary centinel, pacing at one end of it; and, at length, tired with
expectation, she withdrew to seek rest.
Such, however, was the impression, left on her mind by the music, and
the complaining she had formerly heard, as well as by the figure, which
she fancied she had seen, that she determined to repeat the watch, on
the following night.
Montoni, on the next day, took no notice of Emily's appointed visit, but
she, more anxious than before to see him, sent Annette to enquire, at
what hour he would admit her. He mentioned eleven o'clock, and Emily
was punctual to the moment; at which she called up all her fortitude
to support the shock of his presence and the dreadful recollections it
enforced. He was with several of his officers, in the cedar room;
on observing whom she paused; and her agitation increased, while he
continued to converse with them, apparently not observing her, till some
of his officers, turning round, saw Emily, and uttered an exclamation.
She was hastily retiring, when Montoni's voice arrested her, and, in a
faultering accent, she said,--'I would speak with you, Signor Montoni,
if you are at leisure.'
'These are my friends,' he replied, 'whatever you would say, they may
hear.'
Emily, without replying, turned from the rude gaze of the chevaliers,
and Montoni then followed her to the hall, whence he led her to a small
room, of which he shut the door with violence. As she looked on his dark
countenance, she again thought she saw the murderer of her aunt; and
her mind was so convulsed with horror, that she had not power to recall
thought enough to explain the purport of her visit; and to trust herself
with the mention of Madame Montoni was more than she dared.
Montoni at length impatiently enquired what she had to say? 'I have no
time for trifling,' he added, 'my moments are important.'
Emily then told him, that she wished to return to France, and came to
beg, that he would permit her to do so.--But when he looked surprised,
and enquired for the motive of the request, she hesitated, became paler
than before, trembled, and had nearly sunk at his feet. He observed
her emotion, with apparent indifference, and interrupted the silence
by telling her, he must be gone. Emily, however, recalled her spirits
sufficiently to enable her to repeat her request. And, when Montoni
absolutely refused it, her slumbering mind was roused.
'I can no longer remain here with propriety, sir,' said she, 'and I may
be allowed to ask, by what right you detain me.'
'It is my will that you remain here,' said Montoni, laying his hand on
the door to go; 'let that suffice you.'
Emily, considering that she had no appeal from this will, forbore to
dispute his right, and made a feeble effort to persuade him to be
just. 'While my aunt lived, sir,' said she, in a tremulous voice, 'my
residence here was not improper; but now, that she is no more, I may
surely be permitted to depart. My stay cannot benefit you, sir, and will
only distress me.'
'Who told you, that Madame Montoni was dead?' said Montoni, with an
inquisitive eye. Emily hesitated, for nobody had told her so, and
she did not dare to avow the having seen that spectacle in the
portal-chamber, which had compelled her to the belief.
'Who told you so?' he repeated, more sternly.
'Alas! I know it too well,' replied Emily: 'spare me on this terrible
subject!'
She sat down on a bench to support herself.
'If you wish to see her,' said Montoni, 'you may; she lies in the east
turret.'
He now left the room, without awaiting her reply, and returned to the
cedar chamber, where such of the chevaliers as had not before seen
Emily, began to rally him, on the discovery they had made; but Montoni
did not appear disposed to bear this mirth, and they changed the
subject.
Having talked with the subtle Orsino, on the plan of an excursion, which
he meditated for a future day, his friend advised, that they should lie
in wait for the enemy, which Verezzi impetuously opposed, reproached
Orsino with want of spirit, and swore, that, if Montoni would let him
lead on fifty men, he would conquer all that should oppose him.
Orsino smiled contemptuously; Montoni smiled too, but he also listened.
Verezzi then proceeded with vehement declamation and assertion, till he
was stopped by an argument of Orsino, which he knew not how to answer
better than by invective. His fierce spirit detested the cunning caution
of Orsino, whom he constantly opposed, and whose inveterate, though
silent, hatred he had long ago incurred. And Montoni was a calm observer
of both, whose different qualifications he knew, and how to bend their
opposite character to the perfection of his own designs. But Verezzi,
in the heat of opposition, now did not scruple to accuse Orsino of
cowardice, at which the countenance of the latter, while he made no
reply, was overspread with a livid paleness; and Montoni, who watched
his lurking eye, saw him put his hand hastily into his bosom. But
Verezzi, whose face, glowing with crimson, formed a striking contrast to
the complexion of Orsino, remarked not the action, and continued boldly
declaiming against cowards to Cavigni, who was slily laughing at his
vehemence, and at the silent mortification of Orsino, when the latter,
retiring a few steps behind, drew forth a stilletto to stab his
adversary in the back. Montoni arrested his half-extended arm, and, with
a significant look, made him return the poinard into his bosom, unseen
by all except himself; for most of the party were disputing at a
distant window, on the situation of a dell where they meant to form an
ambuscade.
When Verezzi had turned round, the deadly hatred, expressed on the
features of his opponent, raising, for the first time, a suspicion
of his intention, he laid his hand on his sword, and then, seeming to
recollect himself, strode up to Montoni.
'Signor,' said he, with a significant look at Orsino, 'we are not a
band of assassins; if you have business for brave men employ me on this
expedition: you shall have the last drop of my blood; if you have
only work for cowards--keep him,' pointing to Orsino, 'and let me quit
Udolpho.'
Orsino, still more incensed, again drew forth his stilletto, and rushed
towards Verezzi, who, at the same instant, advanced with his sword, when
Montoni and the rest of the party interfered and separated them.
'This is the conduct of a boy,' said Montoni to Verezzi, 'not of a man:
be more moderate in your speech.'
'Moderation is the virtue of cowards,' retorted Verezzi; 'they are
moderate in every thing--but in fear.'
'I accept your words,' said Montoni, turning upon him with a fierce and
haughty look, and drawing his sword out of the scabbard.
'With all my heart,' cried Verezzi, 'though I did not mean them for
you.'
He directed a pass at Montoni; and, while they fought, the villain
Orsino made another attempt to stab Verezzi, and was again prevented.
The combatants were, at length, separated; and, after a very long and
violent dispute, reconciled. Montoni then left the room with Orsino,
whom he detained in private consultation for a considerable time.
Emily, meanwhile, stunned by the last words of Montoni, forgot, for the
moment, his declaration, that she should continue in the castle, while
she thought of her unfortunate aunt, who, he had said, was laid in
the east turret. In suffering the remains of his wife to lie thus long
unburied, there appeared a degree of brutality more shocking than she
had suspected even Montoni could practise.
After a long struggle, she determined to accept his permission to visit
the turret, and to take a last look of her ill-fated aunt: with which
design she returned to her chamber, and, while she waited for Annette
to accompany her, endeavoured to acquire fortitude sufficient to support
her through the approaching scene; for, though she trembled to encounter
it, she knew that to remember the performance of this last act of duty
would hereafter afford her consoling satisfaction.
Annette came, and Emily mentioned her purpose, from which the former
endeavoured to dissuade her, though without effect, and Annette was,
with much difficulty, prevailed upon to accompany her to the turret; but
no consideration could make her promise to enter the chamber of death.
They now left the corridor, and, having reached the foot of the
stair-case, which Emily had formerly ascended, Annette declared she
would go no further, and Emily proceeded alone. When she saw the track
of blood, which she had before observed, her spirits fainted, and, being
compelled to rest on the stairs, she almost determined to proceed no
further. The pause of a few moments restored her resolution, and she
went on.
As she drew near the landing-place, upon which the upper chamber opened,
she remembered, that the door was formerly fastened, and apprehended,
that it might still be so. In this expectation, however, she was
mistaken; for the door opened at once, into a dusky and silent chamber,
round which she fearfully looked, and then slowly advanced, when a
hollow voice spoke. Emily, who was unable to speak, or to move from
the spot, uttered no sound of terror. The voice spoke again; and, then,
thinking that it resembled that of Madame Montoni, Emily's spirits were
instantly roused; she rushed towards a bed, that stood in a remote part
of the room, and drew aside the curtains. Within, appeared a pale and
emaciated face. She started back, then again advanced, shuddered as she
took up the skeleton hand, that lay stretched upon the quilt; then let
it drop, and then viewed the face with a long, unsettled gaze. It
was that of Madame Montoni, though so changed by illness, that the
resemblance of what it had been, could scarcely be traced in what it now
appeared. She was still alive, and, raising her heavy eyes, she turned
them on her niece.
'Where have you been so long?' said she, in the same tone, 'I
thought you had forsaken me.'
'Do you indeed live,' said Emily, at length, 'or is this but a terrible
apparition?' she received no answer, and again she snatched up the hand.
'This is substance,' she exclaimed, 'but it is cold--cold as marble!'
She let it fall. 'O, if you really live, speak!' said Emily, in a voice
of desperation, 'that I may not lose my senses--say you know me!'
'I do live,' replied Madame Montoni, 'but--I feel that I am about to
die.'
Emily clasped the hand she held, more eagerly, and groaned. They were
both silent for some moments. Then Emily endeavoured to soothe her, and
enquired what had reduced her to this present deplorable state.
Montoni, when he removed her to the turret under the improbable
suspicion of having attempted his life, had ordered the men employed on
the occasion, to observe a strict secrecy concerning her. To this he was
influenced by a double motive. He meant to debar her from the comfort
of Emily's visits, and to secure an opportunity of privately dispatching
her, should any new circumstances occur to confirm the present
suggestions of his suspecting mind. His consciousness of the hatred he
deserved it was natural enough should at first led him to attribute to
her the attempt that had been made upon his life; and, though there
was no other reason to believe that she was concerned in that atrocious
design, his suspicions remained; he continued to confine her in the
turret, under a strict guard; and, without pity or remorse, had suffered
her to lie, forlorn and neglected, under a raging fever, till it had
reduced her to the present state.
The track of blood, which Emily had seen on the stairs, had flowed from
the unbound wound of one of the men employed to carry Madame Montoni,
and which he had received in the late affray. At night these men, having
contented themselves with securing the door of their prisoner's room,
had retired from guard; and then it was, that Emily, at the time of her
first enquiry, had found the turret so silent and deserted.
When she had attempted to open the door of the chamber, her aunt was
sleeping, and this occasioned the silence, which had contributed to
delude her into a belief, that she was no more; yet had her terror
permitted her to persevere longer in the call, she would probably
have awakened Madame Montoni, and have been spared much suffering. The
spectacle in the portal-chamber, which afterwards confirmed Emily's
horrible suspicion, was the corpse of a man, who had fallen in the
affray, and the same which had been borne into the servants' hall, where
she took refuge from the tumult. This man had lingered under his wounds
for some days; and, soon after his death, his body had been removed
on the couch, on which he died, for interment in the vault beneath the
chapel, through which Emily and Barnardine had passed to the chamber.
Emily, after asking Madame Montoni a thousand questions concerning
herself, left her, and sought Montoni; for the more solemn interest
she felt for her aunt, made her now regardless of the resentment her
remonstrances might draw upon herself, and of the improbability of his
granting what she meant to entreat.
'Madame Montoni is now dying, sir,' said Emily, as soon as she saw
him--'Your resentment, surely will not pursue her to the last moment!
Suffer her to be removed from that forlorn room to her own apartment,
and to have necessary comforts administered.'
'Of what service will that be, if she is dying?' said Montoni, with
apparent indifference.
'The service, at leave, of saving you, sir, from a few of those pangs
of conscience you must suffer, when you shall be in the same situation,'
said Emily, with imprudent indignation, of which Montoni soon made her
sensible, by commanding her to quit his presence. Then, forgetting her
resentment, and impressed only by compassion for the piteous state of
her aunt, dying without succour, she submitted to humble herself to
Montoni, and to adopt every persuasive means, that might induce him to
relent towards his wife.
For a considerable time he was proof against all she said, and all she
looked; but at length the divinity of pity, beaming in Emily's eyes,
seemed to touch his heart. He turned away, ashamed of his better
feelings, half sullen and half relenting; but finally consented, that
his wife should be removed to her own apartment, and that Emily should
attend her. Dreading equally, that this relief might arrive too late,
and that Montoni might retract his concession, Emily scarcely staid to
thank him for it, but, assisted by Annette, she quickly prepared Madame
Montoni's bed, and they carried her a cordial, that might enable her
feeble frame to sustain the fatigue of a removal.
Madame was scarcely arrived in her own apartment, when an order was
given by her husband, that she should remain in the turret; but Emily,
thankful that she had made such dispatch, hastened to inform him of it,
as well as that a second removal would instantly prove fatal, and he
suffered his wife to continue where she was.
During this day, Emily never left Madame Montoni, except to prepare such
little nourishing things as she judged necessary to sustain her, and
which Madame Montoni received with quiet acquiescence, though she seemed
sensible that they could not save her from approaching dissolution, and
scarcely appeared to wish for life. Emily meanwhile watched over her
with the most tender solicitude, no longer seeing her imperious aunt in
the poor object before her, but the sister of her late beloved father,
in a situation that called for all her compassion and kindness. When
night came, she determined to sit up with her aunt, but this the latter
positively forbade, commanding her to retire to rest, and Annette alone
to remain in her chamber. Rest was, indeed, necessary to Emily, whose
spirits and frame were equally wearied by the occurrences and exertions
of the day; but she would not leave Madame Montoni, till after the turn
of midnight, a period then thought so critical by the physicians.
Soon after twelve, having enjoined Annette to be wakeful, and to call
her, should any change appear for the worse, Emily sorrowfully bade
Madame Montoni good night, and withdrew to her chamber. Her spirits were
more than usually depressed by the piteous condition of her aunt, whose
recovery she scarcely dared to expect. To her own misfortunes she saw no
period, inclosed as she was, in a remote castle, beyond the reach of any
friends, had she possessed such, and beyond the pity even of strangers;
while she knew herself to be in the power of a man capable of any
action, which his interest, or his ambition, might suggest.
Occupied by melancholy reflections and by anticipations as sad, she
did not retire immediately to rest, but leaned thoughtfully on her open
casement. The scene before her of woods and mountains, reposing in the
moon-light, formed a regretted contrast with the state of her mind;
but the lonely murmur of these woods, and the view of this sleeping
landscape, gradually soothed her emotions and softened her to tears.
She continued to weep, for some time, lost to every thing, but to
a gentle sense of her misfortunes. When she, at length, took the
handkerchief from her eyes, she perceived, before her, on the terrace
below, the figure she had formerly observed, which stood fixed and
silent, immediately opposite to her casement. On perceiving it, she
started back, and terror for some time overcame curiosity;--at length,
she returned to the casement, and still the figure was before it, which
she now compelled herself to observe, but was utterly unable to speak,
as she had formerly intended. The moon shone with a clear light, and
it was, perhaps, the agitation of her mind, that prevented her
distinguishing, with any degree of accuracy, the form before her. It
was still stationary, and she began to doubt, whether it was really
animated.
Her scattered thoughts were now so far returned as to remind her, that
her light exposed her to dangerous observation, and she was stepping
back to remove it, when she perceived the figure move, and then wave
what seemed to be its arm, as if to beckon her; and, while she gazed,
fixed in fear, it repeated the action. She now attempted to speak, but
the words died on her lips, and she went from the casement to remove her
light; as she was doing which, she heard, from without, a faint groan.
Listening, but not daring to return, she presently heard it repeated.
'Good God!--what can this mean!' said she.
Again she listened, but the sound came no more; and, after a long
interval of silence, she recovered courage enough to go to the casement,
when she again saw the same appearance! It beckoned again, and again
uttered a low sound.
'That groan was surely human!' said she. 'I WILL speak.' 'Who is it,'
cried Emily in a faint voice, 'that wanders at this late hour?'
The figure raised its head but suddenly started away, and glided down
the terrace. She watched it, for a long while, passing swiftly in
the moon-light, but heard no footstep, till a sentinel from the other
extremity of the rampart walked slowly along. The man stopped under
her window, and, looking up, called her by name. She was retiring
precipitately, but, a second summons inducing her to reply, the
soldier then respectfully asked if she had seen any thing pass. On
her answering, that she had; he said no more, but walked away down the
terrace, Emily following him with her eyes, till he was lost in the
distance. But, as he was on guard, she knew he could not go beyond the
rampart, and, therefore, resolved to await his return.
Soon after, his voice was heard, at a distance, calling loudly; and
then a voice still more distant answered, and, in the next moment, the
watch-word was given, and passed along the terrace. As the soldiers
moved hastily under the casement, she called to enquire what had
happened, but they passed without regarding her.
Emily's thoughts returning to the figure she had seen, 'It cannot be a
person, who has designs upon the castle,' said she; 'such an one would
conduct himself very differently. He would not venture where sentinels
were on watch, nor fix himself opposite to a window, where he perceived
he must be observed; much less would he beckon, or utter a sound of
complaint. Yet it cannot be a prisoner, for how could he obtain the
opportunity to wander thus?'
If she had been subject to vanity, she might have supposed this figure
to be some inhabitant of the castle, who wandered under her casement in
the hope of seeing her, and of being allowed to declare his admiration;
but this opinion never occurred to Emily, and, if it had, she would have
dismissed it as improbable, on considering, that, when the opportunity
of speaking had occurred, it had been suffered to pass in silence; and
that, even at the moment in which she had spoken, the form had abruptly
quitted the place.
While she mused, two sentinels walked up the rampart in earnest
conversation, of which she caught a few words, and learned from these,
that one of their comrades had fallen down senseless. Soon after, three
other soldiers appeared slowly advancing from the bottom of the terrace,
but she heard only a low voice, that came at intervals. As they drew
near, she perceived this to be the voice of him, who walked in the
middle, apparently supported by his comrades; and she again called
to them, enquiring what had happened. At the sound of her voice, they
stopped, and looked up, while she repeated her question, and was told,
that Roberto, their fellow of the watch, had been seized with a fit, and
that his cry, as he fell, had caused a false alarm.
'Is he subject to fits?' said Emily.
'Yes, Signora,' replied Roberto; 'but if I had not, what I saw was
enough to have frightened the Pope himself.'
'What was it?' enquired Emily, trembling.
'I cannot tell what it was, lady, or what I saw, or how it vanished,'
replied the soldier, who seemed to shudder at the recollection.
'Was it the person, whom you followed down the rampart, that has
occasioned you this alarm?' said Emily, endeavouring to conceal her own.
'Person!' exclaimed the man,--'it was the devil, and this is not the
first time I have seen him!'
'Nor will it be the last,' observed one of his comrades, laughing.
'No, no, I warrant not,' said another.
'Well,' rejoined Roberto, 'you may be as merry now, as you please; you
was none so jocose the other night, Sebastian, when you was on watch
with Launcelot.'
'Launcelot need not talk of that,' replied Sebastian, 'let him remember
how he stood trembling, and unable to give the WORD, till the man was
gone, If the man had not come so silently upon us, I would have seized
him, and soon made him tell who he was.'
'What man?' enquired Emily.
'It was no man, lady,' said Launcelot, who stood by, 'but the devil
himself, as my comrade says. What man, who does not live in the castle,
could get within the walls at midnight? Why, I might just as well
pretend to march to Venice, and get among all the Senators, when they
are counselling; and I warrant I should have more chance of getting
out again alive, than any fellow, that we should catch within the gates
after dark. So I think I have proved plainly enough, that this can be
nobody that lives out of the castle; and now I will prove, that it can
be nobody that lives in the castle--for, if he did--why should he be
afraid to be seen? So after this, I hope nobody will pretend to tell
me it was anybody. No, I say again, by holy Pope! it was the devil, and
Sebastian, there, knows this is not the first time we have seen him.'
'When did you see the figure, then, before?' said Emily half smiling,
who, though she thought the conversation somewhat too much, felt an
interest, which would not permit her to conclude it.
'About a week ago, lady,' said Sebastian, taking up the story.
'And where?'
'On the rampart, lady, higher up.'
'Did you pursue it, that it fled?'
'No, Signora. Launcelot and I were on watch together, and every thing
was so still, you might have heard a mouse stir, when, suddenly,
Launcelot says--Sebastian! do you see nothing? I turned my head a
little to the left, as it might be--thus. No, says I. Hush! said
Launcelot,--look yonder--just by the last cannon on the rampart! I
looked, and then thought I did see something move; but there being no
light, but what the stars gave, I could not be certain. We stood quite
silent, to watch it, and presently saw something pass along the castle
wall just opposite to us!'
'Why did you not seize it, then?' cried a soldier, who had scarcely
spoken till now.
'Aye, why did you not seize it?' said Roberto.
'You should have been there to have done that,' replied Sebastian. 'You
would have been bold enough to have taken it by the throat, though it
had been the devil himself; we could not take such a liberty, perhaps,
because we are not so well acquainted with him, as you are. But, as I
was saying, it stole by us so quickly, that we had not time to get rid
of our surprise, before it was gone. Then, we knew it was in vain to
follow. We kept constant watch all that night, but we saw it no more.
Next morning, we told some of our comrades, who were on duty on other
parts of the ramparts, what we had seen; but they had seen nothing, and
laughed at us, and it was not till to-night, that the same figure walked
again.'
'Where did you lose it, friend?' said Emily to Roberto.
'When I left you, lady,' replied the man, 'you might see me go down the
rampart, but it was not till I reached the east terrace, that I saw
any thing. Then, the moon shining bright, I saw something like a shadow
flitting before me, as it were, at some distance. I stopped, when I
turned the corner of the east tower, where I had seen this figure not
a moment before,--but it was gone! As I stood, looking through the
old arch, which leads to the east rampart, and where I am sure it had
passed, I heard, all of a sudden, such a sound!--it was not like a
groan, or a cry, or a shout, or any thing I ever heard in my life. I
heard it only once, and that was enough for me; for I know nothing that
happened after, till I found my comrades, here, about me.'
'Come,' said Sebastian, 'let us go to our posts--the moon is setting.
Good night, lady!'
'Aye, let us go,' rejoined Roberto. 'Good night, lady.'
'Good night; the holy mother guard you!' said Emily, as she closed her
casement and retired to reflect upon the strange circumstance that had
just occurred, connecting which with what had happened on former nights,
she endeavoured to derive from the whole something more positive, than
conjecture. But her imagination was inflamed, while her judgment was not
enlightened, and the terrors of superstition again pervaded her mind. | The next day, Montoni puts off seeing Em once again. Big surprise. Em hears a band of men coming back to the castle, bragging about all the plunder they took from neighboring castle. Something tells us this won't end well. Always big on jumping to conclusions, Em assumes Montoni is a captain of robbers. Well, the narrator tells us, she's not that far off. Quickie historical context from the narrator: since Italy didn't have enough moolah to support its armies, some ex-soldiers turned to robbery. Some of them even turned outlaw and took over fortresses where they could stash their ill-gotten cash. These folks are called the Condittieri. Anyway, Em listens again at night for the strange music. No luck, though. Finally, Em has a meeting with Montoni. He's with several of his officers and won't dismiss them. Em wants to leave the castle, but Montoni forbids it. Em lets it slip that she thinks Madame M. is dead. Montoni tells Em her aunt is alive, if not totally well. He gives her permission to go see her in the east turret. Meanwhile, you could cut the tension with a knife among Montoni and his officers. Verezzi wants Orsino gone pronto. The two guys start fighting after Em leaves the room. Em visits Madame M., who is not in fact dead. But she's actually pretty close to dying. Remember that body Em saw? Yeah, it was someone who died during the fray in the castle. So Em goes to work persuading Montoni to move her sick aunt out of the east turret. She gets lucky and succeeds, then goes to work taking care of her dear auntie. The same night, Em sees the human form again. She's not crazy, either, because the watchmen of the castle also see a strange figure wandering about. |
WHILE she adjusted the broad leaves that set off the pale fragrant
butter as the primrose is set off by its nest of green I am afraid Hetty
was thinking a great deal more of the looks Captain Donnithorne had cast
at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright, admiring glances from
a handsome young gentleman with white hands, a gold chain, occasional
regimentals, and wealth and grandeur immeasurable--those were the
warm rays that set poor Hetty's heart vibrating and playing its little
foolish tunes over and over again. We do not hear that Memnon's statue
gave forth its melody at all under the rushing of the mightiest wind,
or in response to any other influence divine or human than certain
short-lived sunbeams of morning; and we must learn to accommodate
ourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly fashioned
instruments called human souls have only a very limited range of music,
and will not vibrate in the least under a touch that fills others with
tremulous rapture or quivering agony.
Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.
She was not blind to the fact that young Luke Britton of Broxton came to
Hayslope Church on a Sunday afternoon on purpose that he might see her;
and that he would have made much more decided advances if her uncle
Poyser, thinking but lightly of a young man whose father's land was so
foul as old Luke Britton's, had not forbidden her aunt to encourage him
by any civilities. She was aware, too, that Mr. Craig, the gardener at
the Chase, was over head and ears in love with her, and had lately made
unmistakable avowals in luscious strawberries and hyperbolical peas.
She knew still better, that Adam Bede--tall, upright, clever, brave Adam
Bede--who carried such authority with all the people round about, and
whom her uncle was always delighted to see of an evening, saying that
"Adam knew a fine sight more o' the natur o' things than those as
thought themselves his betters"--she knew that this Adam, who was often
rather stern to other people and not much given to run after the lasses,
could be made to turn pale or red any day by a word or a look from
her. Hetty's sphere of comparison was not large, but she couldn't help
perceiving that Adam was "something like" a man; always knew what to say
about things, could tell her uncle how to prop the hovel, and had mended
the churn in no time; knew, with only looking at it, the value of the
chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the damp came in the walls,
and what they must do to stop the rats; and wrote a beautiful hand
that you could read off, and could do figures in his head--a degree
of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest farmers of that
countryside. Not at all like that slouching Luke Britton, who, when
she once walked with him all the way from Broxton to Hayslope, had only
broken silence to remark that the grey goose had begun to lay. And as
for Mr. Craig, the gardener, he was a sensible man enough, to be sure,
but he was knock-kneed, and had a queer sort of sing-song in his talk;
moreover, on the most charitable supposition, he must be far on the way
to forty.
Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
would be pleased for her to marry him. For those were times when there
was no rigid demarcation of rank between the farmer and the respectable
artisan, and on the home hearth, as well as in the public house, they
might be seen taking their jug of ale together; the farmer having
a latent sense of capital, and of weight in parish affairs, which
sustained him under his conspicuous inferiority in conversation. Martin
Poyser was not a frequenter of public houses, but he liked a friendly
chat over his own home-brewed; and though it was pleasant to lay down
the law to a stupid neighbour who had no notion how to make the best
of his farm, it was also an agreeable variety to learn something from
a clever fellow like Adam Bede. Accordingly, for the last three
years--ever since he had superintended the building of the new
barn--Adam had always been made welcome at the Hall Farm, especially of
a winter evening, when the whole family, in patriarchal fashion, master
and mistress, children and servants, were assembled in that glorious
kitchen, at well-graduated distances from the blazing fire. And for the
last two years, at least, Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her
uncle say, "Adam Bede may be working for wage now, but he'll be a
master-man some day, as sure as I sit in this chair. Mester Burge is
in the right on't to want him to go partners and marry his daughter, if
it's true what they say; the woman as marries him 'ull have a good take,
be't Lady day or Michaelmas," a remark which Mrs. Poyser always followed
up with her cordial assent. "Ah," she would say, "it's all very fine
having a ready-made rich man, but mayhappen he'll be a ready-made fool;
and it's no use filling your pocket full o' money if you've got a hole
in the corner. It'll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own,
if you've got a soft to drive you: he'll soon turn you over into the
ditch. I allays said I'd never marry a man as had got no brains; for
where's the use of a woman having brains of her own if she's tackled
to a geck as everybody's a-laughing at? She might as well dress herself
fine to sit back'ards on a donkey."
These expressions, though figurative, sufficiently indicated the bent of
Mrs. Poyser's mind with regard to Adam; and though she and her husband
might have viewed the subject differently if Hetty had been a daughter
of their own, it was clear that they would have welcomed the match with
Adam for a penniless niece. For what could Hetty have been but a servant
elsewhere, if her uncle had not taken her in and brought her up as a
domestic help to her aunt, whose health since the birth of Totty had not
been equal to more positive labour than the superintendence of servants
and children? But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement.
Even in the moments when she was most thoroughly conscious of his
superiority to her other admirers, she had never brought herself to
think of accepting him. She liked to feel that this strong, skilful,
keen-eyed man was in her power, and would have been indignant if he had
shown the least sign of slipping from under the yoke of her coquettish
tyranny and attaching himself to the gentle Mary Burge, who would have
been grateful enough for the most trifling notice from him. "Mary Burge,
indeed! Such a sallow-faced girl: if she put on a bit of pink ribbon,
she looked as yellow as a crow-flower and her hair was as straight as a
hank of cotton." And always when Adam stayed away for several weeks from
the Hall Farm, and otherwise made some show of resistance to his passion
as a foolish one, Hetty took care to entice him back into the net by
little airs of meekness and timidity, as if she were in trouble at his
neglect. But as to marrying Adam, that was a very different affair!
There was nothing in the world to tempt her to do that. Her cheeks never
grew a shade deeper when his name was mentioned; she felt no thrill
when she saw him passing along the causeway by the window, or advancing
towards her unexpectedly in the footpath across the meadow; she felt
nothing, when his eyes rested on her, but the cold triumph of knowing
that he loved her and would not care to look at Mary Burge. He could no
more stir in her the emotions that make the sweet intoxication of young
love than the mere picture of a sun can stir the spring sap in the
subtle fibres of the plant. She saw him as he was--a poor man with old
parents to keep, who would not be able, for a long while to come, to
give her even such luxuries as she shared in her uncle's house. And
Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries: to sit in a carpeted parlour, and
always wear white stockings; to have some large beautiful ear-rings,
such as were all the fashion; to have Nottingham lace round the top of
her gown, and something to make her handkerchief smell nice, like
Miss Lydia Donnithorne's when she drew it out at church; and not to be
obliged to get up early or be scolded by anybody. She thought, if Adam
had been rich and could have given her these things, she loved him well
enough to marry him.
But for the last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty--vague,
atmospheric, shaping itself into no self-confessed hopes or prospects,
but producing a pleasant narcotic effect, making her tread the ground
and go about her work in a sort of dream, unconscious of weight or
effort, and showing her all things through a soft, liquid veil, as if
she were living not in this solid world of brick and stone, but in a
beatified world, such as the sun lights up for us in the waters. Hetty
had become aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of
trouble for the chance of seeing her; that he always placed himself at
church so as to have the fullest view of her both sitting and standing;
that he was constantly finding reason for calling at the Hall Farm, and
always would contrive to say something for the sake of making her speak
to him and look at him. The poor child no more conceived at present the
idea that the young squire could ever be her lover than a baker's pretty
daughter in the crowd, whom a young emperor distinguishes by an imperial
but admiring smile, conceives that she shall be made empress. But the
baker's daughter goes home and dreams of the handsome young emperor, and
perhaps weighs the flour amiss while she is thinking what a heavenly lot
it must be to have him for a husband. And so, poor Hetty had got a face
and a presence haunting her waking and sleeping dreams; bright, soft
glances had penetrated her, and suffused her life with a strange, happy
languor. The eyes that shed those glances were really not half so
fine as Adam's, which sometimes looked at her with a sad, beseeching
tenderness, but they had found a ready medium in Hetty's little
silly imagination, whereas Adam's could get no entrance through that
atmosphere. For three weeks, at least, her inward life had consisted of
little else than living through in memory the looks and words Arthur had
directed towards her--of little else than recalling the sensations with
which she heard his voice outside the house, and saw him enter, and
became conscious that his eyes were fixed on her, and then became
conscious that a tall figure, looking down on her with eyes that seemed
to touch her, was coming nearer in clothes of beautiful texture with an
odour like that of a flower-garden borne on the evening breeze. Foolish
thoughts! But all this happened, you must remember, nearly sixty years
ago, and Hetty was quite uneducated--a simple farmer's girl, to whom
a gentleman with a white hand was dazzling as an Olympian god. Until
to-day, she had never looked farther into the future than to the next
time Captain Donnithorne would come to the Farm, or the next Sunday when
she should see him at church; but now she thought, perhaps he would try
to meet her when she went to the Chase to-morrow--and if he should
speak to her, and walk a little way, when nobody was by! That had never
happened yet; and now her imagination, instead of retracing the past,
was busy fashioning what would happen to-morrow--whereabout in the
Chase she should see him coming towards her, how she should put her new
rose-coloured ribbon on, which he had never seen, and what he would say
to her to make her return his glance--a glance which she would be living
through in her memory, over and over again, all the rest of the day.
In this state of mind, how could Hetty give any feeling to Adam's
troubles, or think much about poor old Thias being drowned? Young souls,
in such pleasant delirium as hers are as unsympathetic as butterflies
sipping nectar; they are isolated from all appeals by a barrier of
dreams--by invisible looks and impalpable arms.
While Hetty's hands were busy packing up the butter, and her head filled
with these pictures of the morrow, Arthur Donnithorne, riding by Mr.
Irwine's side towards the valley of the Willow Brook, had also certain
indistinct anticipations, running as an undercurrent in his mind while
he was listening to Mr. Irwine's account of Dinah--indistinct, yet
strong enough to make him feel rather conscious when Mr. Irwine suddenly
said, "What fascinated you so in Mrs. Poyser's dairy, Arthur? Have you
become an amateur of damp quarries and skimming dishes?"
Arthur knew the rector too well to suppose that a clever invention would
be of any use, so he said, with his accustomed frankness, "No, I went to
look at the pretty butter-maker Hetty Sorrel. She's a perfect Hebe; and
if I were an artist, I would paint her. It's amazing what pretty girls
one sees among the farmers' daughters, when the men are such clowns.
That common, round, red face one sees sometimes in the men--all cheek
and no features, like Martin Poyser's--comes out in the women of the
family as the most charming phiz imaginable."
"Well, I have no objection to your contemplating Hetty in an artistic
light, but I must not have you feeding her vanity and filling her little
noddle with the notion that she's a great beauty, attractive to fine
gentlemen, or you will spoil her for a poor man's wife--honest Craig's,
for example, whom I have seen bestowing soft glances on her. The little
puss seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as miserable
as it's a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries a beauty.
Apropos of marrying, I hope our friend Adam will get settled, now the
poor old man's gone. He will only have his mother to keep in future, and
I've a notion that there's a kindness between him and that nice modest
girl, Mary Burge, from something that fell from old Jonathan one day
when I was talking to him. But when I mentioned the subject to Adam he
looked uneasy and turned the conversation. I suppose the love-making
doesn't run smooth, or perhaps Adam hangs back till he's in a better
position. He has independence of spirit enough for two men--rather an
excess of pride, if anything."
"That would be a capital match for Adam. He would slip into old Burge's
shoes and make a fine thing of that building business, I'll answer for
him. I should like to see him well settled in this parish; he would be
ready then to act as my grand-vizier when I wanted one. We could plan
no end of repairs and improvements together. I've never seen the girl,
though, I think--at least I've never looked at her."
"Look at her next Sunday at church--she sits with her father on the
left of the reading-desk. You needn't look quite so much at Hetty Sorrel
then. When I've made up my mind that I can't afford to buy a tempting
dog, I take no notice of him, because if he took a strong fancy to
me and looked lovingly at me, the struggle between arithmetic and
inclination might become unpleasantly severe. I pique myself on my
wisdom there, Arthur, and as an old fellow to whom wisdom had become
cheap, I bestow it upon you."
"Thank you. It may stand me in good stead some day though I don't
know that I have any present use for it. Bless me! How the brook has
overflowed. Suppose we have a canter, now we're at the bottom of the
hill."
That is the great advantage of dialogue on horseback; it can be merged
any minute into a trot or a canter, and one might have escaped from
Socrates himself in the saddle. The two friends were free from the
necessity of further conversation till they pulled up in the lane behind
Adam's cottage. | Hetty has been extremely flattered by the Captain's attentions. She knows that many men like to look at her including Adam Bede, whom she finds quite manly, She also knows that her father would like her to marry Adam. Although Hetty did not like it when his attentions to her slipped, she is not in love with him-especially because he cannot provide her with any luxuries. She is aware that the Captain went to great trouble to see her, but she does not even conceive of marrying him. She is in awe of him and finds him "as dazzling as an Olympian God. On the way home, the Captain confesses to the vicar that he finds Hetty attractive, but the vicar responds that the Captain should not give her airs because he therefore will spoil her for an honest man like Adam. The Captain says that Adam would make a better match with Mary Burge, because then he could take over her father's business. The vicar tells the Captain to look at Mary less, because then he will want her less |
Act III. Scene I
[Enter] ANTONIO and DELIO
ANTONIO. Our noble friend, my most beloved Delio!
O, you have been a stranger long at court:
Came you along with the Lord Ferdinand?
DELIO. I did, sir: and how fares your noble duchess?
ANTONIO. Right fortunately well: she 's an excellent
Feeder of pedigrees; since you last saw her,
She hath had two children more, a son and daughter.
DELIO. Methinks 'twas yesterday. Let me but wink,
And not behold your face, which to mine eye
Is somewhat leaner, verily I should dream
It were within this half hour.
ANTONIO. You have not been in law, friend Delio,
Nor in prison, nor a suitor at the court,
Nor begg'd the reversion of some great man's place,
Nor troubled with an old wife, which doth make
Your time so insensibly hasten.
DELIO. Pray, sir, tell me,
Hath not this news arriv'd yet to the ear
Of the lord cardinal?
ANTONIO. I fear it hath:
The Lord Ferdinand, that 's newly come to court,
Doth bear himself right dangerously.
DELIO. Pray, why?
ANTONIO. He is so quiet that he seems to sleep
The tempest out, as dormice do in winter.
Those houses that are haunted are most still
Till the devil be up.
DELIO. What say the common people?
ANTONIO. The common rabble do directly say
She is a strumpet.
DELIO. And your graver heads
Which would be politic, what censure they?
ANTONIO. They do observe I grow to infinite purchase,[73]
The left hand way; and all suppose the duchess
Would amend it, if she could; for, say they,
Great princes, though they grudge their officers
Should have such large and unconfined means
To get wealth under them, will not complain,
Lest thereby they should make them odious
Unto the people. For other obligation
Of love or marriage between her and me
They never dream of.
DELIO. The Lord Ferdinand
Is going to bed.
[Enter DUCHESS, FERDINAND, and Attendants]
FERDINAND. I 'll instantly to bed,
For I am weary.--I am to bespeak
A husband for you.
DUCHESS. For me, sir! Pray, who is 't?
FERDINAND. The great Count Malatesti.
DUCHESS. Fie upon him!
A count! He 's a mere stick of sugar-candy;
You may look quite through him. When I choose
A husband, I will marry for your honour.
FERDINAND. You shall do well in 't.--How is 't, worthy Antonio?
DUCHESS. But, sir, I am to have private conference with you
About a scandalous report is spread
Touching mine honour.
FERDINAND. Let me be ever deaf to 't:
One of Pasquil's paper-bullets,[74] court-calumny,
A pestilent air, which princes' palaces
Are seldom purg'd of. Yet, say that it were true,
I pour it in your bosom, my fix'd love
Would strongly excuse, extenuate, nay, deny
Faults, were they apparent in you. Go, be safe
In your own innocency.
DUCHESS. [Aside.] O bless'd comfort!
This deadly air is purg'd.
Exeunt [DUCHESS, ANTONIO, DELIO, and Attendants.]
FERDINAND. Her guilt treads on
Hot-burning coulters.[75]
Enter BOSOLA
Now, Bosola,
How thrives our intelligence?[76]
BOSOLA. Sir, uncertainly:
'Tis rumour'd she hath had three bastards, but
By whom we may go read i' the stars.
FERDINAND. Why, some
Hold opinion all things are written there.
BOSOLA. Yes, if we could find spectacles to read them.
I do suspect there hath been some sorcery
Us'd on the duchess.
FERDINAND. Sorcery! to what purpose?
BOSOLA. To make her dote on some desertless fellow
She shames to acknowledge.
FERDINAND. Can your faith give way
To think there 's power in potions or in charms,
To make us love whether we will or no?
BOSOLA. Most certainly.
FERDINAND. Away! these are mere gulleries,[77] horrid things,
Invented by some cheating mountebanks
To abuse us. Do you think that herbs or charms
Can force the will? Some trials have been made
In this foolish practice, but the ingredients
Were lenitive[78] poisons, such as are of force
To make the patient mad; and straight the witch
Swears by equivocation they are in love.
The witch-craft lies in her rank blood. This night
I will force confession from her. You told me
You had got, within these two days, a false key
Into her bed-chamber.
BOSOLA. I have.
FERDINAND. As I would wish.
BOSOLA. What do you intend to do?
FERDINAND. Can you guess?
BOSOLA. No.
FERDINAND. Do not ask, then:
He that can compass me, and know my drifts,
May say he hath put a girdle 'bout the world,
And sounded all her quick-sands.
BOSOLA. I do not
Think so.
FERDINAND. What do you think, then, pray?
BOSOLA. That you
Are your own chronicle too much, and grossly
Flatter yourself.
FERDINAND. Give me thy hand; I thank thee:
I never gave pension but to flatterers,
Till I entertained thee. Farewell.
That friend a great man's ruin strongly checks,
Who rails into his belief all his defects.
Exeunt. | Antonio is welcoming Delio back to the Maltese court, and it looks like we've fast-forwarded a bit: Delio's been chillaxing in Rome long enough that the Duchess has had another child. Things aren't so hunky-dory, though: Antonio and the Duchess's secret marriage has taken a toll on her political standing. The Duchess's people think she's a "strumpet" , and, since they can see that Antonio's definitely living larger these days but have no idea that the two are married, they assume that he's taking advantage of her in some way. Oh, yeah, and Ferdinand just arrived. Great. Just great. The Duchess comes in with Ferdinand, who's telling her that he's going to choose a husband for her. She dismisses his suggested suitor--some dude named Count Malateste--and moves onto more pressing matters: "Ferdinand, I gotta tell you, people have been spreading some nasty rumors about me." Ferdinand pretends he doesn't care at all about what people say and claims that he's totally certain of her innocence; people are always talking trash at the court anyways. The Duchess, relieved because she thinks Ferdinand doesn't suspect her, bids him goodnight. Wrong. Ferdinand, left alone with Bosola, immediately tells him that he's sure the Duchess is guilty. He wants an update on Bosola's spying. Bosola's doesn't have a whole lot to tell him--he's heard that she's had as many as three illegitimate children by now, but has no idea who the father might be. Ferdinand, crafty sucker that he is, intends to force a confession from her tonight. |
SCENE VI.
Corioli. A public place
Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with attendents
AUFIDIUS. Go tell the lords o' th' city I am here;
Deliver them this paper; having read it,
Bid them repair to th' market-place, where I,
Even in theirs and in the commons' ears,
Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse
The city ports by this hath enter'd and
Intends t' appear before the people, hoping
To purge himself with words. Dispatch.
Exeunt attendants
Enter three or four CONSPIRATORS of AUFIDIUS' faction
Most welcome!
FIRST CONSPIRATOR. How is it with our general?
AUFIDIUS. Even so
As with a man by his own alms empoison'd,
And with his charity slain.
SECOND CONSPIRATOR. Most noble sir,
If you do hold the same intent wherein
You wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you
Of your great danger.
AUFIDIUS. Sir, I cannot tell;
We must proceed as we do find the people.
THIRD CONSPIRATOR. The people will remain uncertain whilst
'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either
Makes the survivor heir of all.
AUFIDIUS. I know it;
And my pretext to strike at him admits
A good construction. I rais'd him, and I pawn'd
Mine honour for his truth; who being so heighten'd,
He watered his new plants with dews of flattery,
Seducing so my friends; and to this end
He bow'd his nature, never known before
But to be rough, unswayable, and free.
THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Sir, his stoutness
When he did stand for consul, which he lost
By lack of stooping-
AUFIDIUS. That I would have spoken of.
Being banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth,
Presented to my knife his throat. I took him;
Made him joint-servant with me; gave him way
In all his own desires; nay, let him choose
Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,
My best and freshest men; serv'd his designments
In mine own person; holp to reap the fame
Which he did end all his, and took some pride
To do myself this wrong. Till, at the last,
I seem'd his follower, not partner; and
He wag'd me with his countenance as if
I had been mercenary.
FIRST CONSPIRATOR. So he did, my lord.
The army marvell'd at it; and, in the last,
When he had carried Rome and that we look'd
For no less spoil than glory-
AUFIDIUS. There was it;
For which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.
At a few drops of women's rheum, which are
As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour
Of our great action; therefore shall he die,
And I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!
[Drums and
trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people]
FIRST CONSPIRATOR. Your native town you enter'd like a post,
And had no welcomes home; but he returns
Splitting the air with noise.
SECOND CONSPIRATOR. And patient fools,
Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear
With giving him glory.
THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Therefore, at your vantage,
Ere he express himself or move the people
With what he would say, let him feel your sword,
Which we will second. When he lies along,
After your way his tale pronounc'd shall bury
His reasons with his body.
AUFIDIUS. Say no more:
Here come the lords.
Enter the LORDS of the city
LORDS. You are most welcome home.
AUFIDIUS. I have not deserv'd it.
But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused
What I have written to you?
LORDS. We have.
FIRST LORD. And grieve to hear't.
What faults he made before the last, I think
Might have found easy fines; but there to end
Where he was to begin, and give away
The benefit of our levies, answering us
With our own charge, making a treaty where
There was a yielding- this admits no excuse.
AUFIDIUS. He approaches; you shall hear him.
Enter CORIOLANUS, marching with drum and colours;
the commoners being with him
CORIOLANUS. Hail, lords! I am return'd your soldier;
No more infected with my country's love
Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting
Under your great command. You are to know
That prosperously I have attempted, and
With bloody passage led your wars even to
The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home
Doth more than counterpoise a full third part
The charges of the action. We have made peace
With no less honour to the Antiates
Than shame to th' Romans; and we here deliver,
Subscrib'd by th' consuls and patricians,
Together with the seal o' th' Senate, what
We have compounded on.
AUFIDIUS. Read it not, noble lords;
But tell the traitor in the highest degree
He hath abus'd your powers.
CORIOLANUS. Traitor! How now?
AUFIDIUS. Ay, traitor, Marcius.
CORIOLANUS. Marcius!
AUFIDIUS. Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius! Dost thou think
I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name
Coriolanus, in Corioli?
You lords and heads o' th' state, perfidiously
He has betray'd your business and given up,
For certain drops of salt, your city Rome-
I say your city- to his wife and mother;
Breaking his oath and resolution like
A twist of rotten silk; never admitting
Counsel o' th' war; but at his nurse's tears
He whin'd and roar'd away your victory,
That pages blush'd at him, and men of heart
Look'd wond'ring each at others.
CORIOLANUS. Hear'st thou, Mars?
AUFIDIUS. Name not the god, thou boy of tears-
CORIOLANUS. Ha!
AUFIDIUS. -no more.
CORIOLANUS. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart
Too great for what contains it. 'Boy'! O slave!
Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever
I was forc'd to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,
Must give this cur the lie; and his own notion-
Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him, that
Must bear my beating to his grave- shall join
To thrust the lie unto him.
FIRST LORD. Peace, both, and hear me speak.
CORIOLANUS. Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,
Stain all your edges on me. 'Boy'! False hound!
If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there
That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli.
Alone I did it. 'Boy'!
AUFIDIUS. Why, noble lords,
Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,
Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,
Fore your own eyes and ears?
CONSPIRATORS. Let him die for't.
ALL THE PEOPLE. Tear him to pieces. Do it presently. He kill'd
my
son. My daughter. He kill'd my cousin Marcus. He kill'd my
father.
SECOND LORD. Peace, ho! No outrage- peace!
The man is noble, and his fame folds in
This orb o' th' earth. His last offences to us
Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,
And trouble not the peace.
CORIOLANUS. O that I had him,
With six Aufidiuses, or more- his tribe,
To use my lawful sword!
AUFIDIUS. Insolent villain!
CONSPIRATORS. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!
[The CONSPIRATORS draw and kill CORIOLANUS,who falls.
AUFIDIUS stands on him]
LORDS. Hold, hold, hold, hold!
AUFIDIUS. My noble masters, hear me speak.
FIRST LORD. O Tullus!
SECOND LORD. Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.
THIRD LORD. Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;
Put up your swords.
AUFIDIUS. My lords, when you shall know- as in this rage,
Provok'd by him, you cannot- the great danger
Which this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice
That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours
To call me to your Senate, I'll deliver
Myself your loyal servant, or endure
Your heaviest censure.
FIRST LORD. Bear from hence his body,
And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded
As the most noble corse that ever herald
Did follow to his um.
SECOND LORD. His own impatience
Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.
Let's make the best of it.
AUFIDIUS. My rage is gone,
And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.
Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.
Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully;
Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he
Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,
Which to this hour bewail the injury,
Yet he shall have a noble memory.
Assist. Exeunt, bearing the body of CORIOLANUS
[A dead march sounded]
THE END | Meanwhile in Corioles .... Tullus Aufidius and a bunch of his Conspirator pals have shown up in Corioles, where people have gathered to welcome Coriolanus as their newest war hero. We guess they forgot that this is the same guy who stomped all over them back in Act 1, scenes 4-5, which earned him the nickname name, "Coriolanus." Aufidius and the Conspirators aren't there to celebrate. They've come to rat out Coriolanus to the Volscian senators for signing a peace treaty with Rome. We find out that Coriolanus is on his way to the city's marketplace, where he'll have to explain why he showed mercy to the Romans instead of stomping on their necks. Aufidius and the Conspirators chat about their game plan. Since there's no way to know for certain how the Volscian people will react to Coriolanus, they'll just have to play it by ear. The Volscian Lords arrive and they're not happy with Coriolanus. Still, they think he's a hero and are willing to hear him out. Now Coriolanus parades in like he's just won the Super Bowl. He's surrounded by cheering crowds who can't get enough of him. Aufidius wastes no time going on the attack. He accuses Coriolanus of being a "traitor" and a sissy, which sends the big war hero into ... you guessed it ... a rage. Coriolanus dares the Volscians to "cut to pieces" with their swords. Aufidius takes the opportunity to remind everyone that Coriolanus is the guy who killed a bunch of their relatives when he made war on their city. Now the common people are all worked up and start yelling stuff like "Tear him to pieces!" and "He killed my son!" and "Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!" Meanwhile, the Lords try to make peace. The Conspirators know they've now got the common people on their side. They rush forward and stab Coriolanus--over and over--until he keels over, a la Julius Caesar. Then Aufidius stands on top of the dead body and gloats like a mountain climber who's just summited K-2. The Lords think this is a major bummer, but they're not about to punish anybody for what's just happened. What's the point, right? People gonna riot. Instead, they decide to honor the fallen hero and order everyone to do the same. Now Aufidius starts to feel kind of bad about everything and offers to help carry Coriolanus' body to its burial site. Generous! With Coriolanus dead, Aufidius decides that the guy probably deserves a "noble memory," even if he was the man responsible for killing so many Volscian soldiers. The End. |
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. | When Alyosha and Rakitin arrive at Grushenka's, they find that she's all dressed up and in a state of excitement, as if she were expecting someone. She tells them she told Dmitri that she was going to spend all day doing accounting with her "old man," Samsonov, but in fact she's waiting around for a very special message. She's so excited that she invites herself to sit on Alyosha's lap. Instead of feeling terrified, as he usually is with women, Alyosha finds himself just plain curious. Grushenka announces that her "officer" is in town. This officer had left her when she was just 17 and married another woman. It seems that now his wife has died and he wants to get back together with Grushenka. Grushenka admits that she had thought of seducing Alyosha before because he just seemed so good and made her feel ashamed, but she announces that she just loves him. Rakitin remarks that Alyosha is grieving over Zosima's death, and Grushenka jumps off Alyosha's lap in dismay. Alyosha reads this action as her "saving" him from lusty thoughts and proof that there is some goodness within her. Grushenka tells Alyosha a fable about an old woman whose sole kind deed in life was to give an onion to a beggar woman. Upon her death, the devils threw her into a lake of fire, but her guardian angel appeals to God. God tells the angel that if the old woman did one act of kindness, he would spare her. The angel mentions the onion. God says OK, you can extend an onion to her, and she can hold onto the onion, and you can pull her out of the lake with the onion. But if the onion breaks, she's stuck in the lake of fire. So the angel offers the woman the onion, the woman grabs hold, and the angel pulls. But everyone else in the lake of fire grabs onto the woman. When she tries to shake them off, the onion breaks and she is back in the lake of fire. Grushenka tells Alyosha that her non-seduction of him is her one "onion," her one kind act. In fact, she had even offered Rakitin 25 roubles to bring Alyosha to her for just this purpose. She throws Rakitin the money, which Rakitin accepts, although shamefacedly. Grushenka is still exploding with emotion, torn between joy that her officer is returning to her and anger that he rejected her in the first place. She even considers bringing a knife to her meeting with him. The message from her officer finally arrives: he would like to meet her at Mokroye. Alyosha and Rakitin leave Grushenka's. Rakitin is still annoyed with Alyosha for being so angelic and leaves him. Alyosha walks alone to the monastery. |
Actus Secundus. Scoena Prima.
Flourish.
Enter the King sicke, the Queene, Lord Marquesse Dorset, Riuers,
Hastings,
Catesby, Buckingham, Wooduill.
King. Why so: now haue I done a good daies work.
You Peeres, continue this vnited League:
I, euery day expect an Embassage
From my Redeemer, to redeeme me hence.
And more to peace my soule shall part to heauen,
Since I haue made my Friends at peace on earth.
Dorset and Riuers, take each others hand,
Dissemble not your hatred, Sweare your loue
Riu. By heauen, my soule is purg'd from grudging hate
And with my hand I seale my true hearts Loue
Hast. So thriue I, as I truly sweare the like
King. Take heed you dally not before your King,
Lest he that is the supreme King of Kings
Confound your hidden falshood, and award
Either of you to be the others end
Hast. So prosper I, as I sweare perfect loue
Ri. And I, as I loue Hastings with my heart,
King. Madam, your selfe is not exempt from this:
Nor you Sonne Dorset, Buckingham nor you;
You haue bene factious one against the other.
Wife, loue Lord Hastings, let him kisse your hand,
And what you do, do it vnfeignedly
Qu. There Hastings, I will neuer more remember
Our former hatred, so thriue I, and mine
King. Dorset, imbrace him:
Hastings, loue Lord Marquesse
Dor. This interchange of loue, I heere protest
Vpon my part, shall be inuiolable
Hast. And so sweare I
King. Now Princely Buckingham, seale y this league
With thy embracements to my wiues Allies,
And make me happy in your vnity
Buc. When euer Buckingham doth turne his hate
Vpon your Grace, but with all dutious loue,
Doth cherish you, and yours, God punish me
With hate in those where I expect most loue,
When I haue most need to imploy a Friend,
And most assured that he is a Friend,
Deepe, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
Be he vnto me: This do I begge of heauen,
When I am cold in loue, to you, or yours.
Embrace
King. A pleasing Cordiall, Princely Buckingham
Is this thy Vow, vnto my sickely heart:
There wanteth now our Brother Gloster heere,
To make the blessed period of this peace
Buc. And in good time,
Heere comes Sir Richard Ratcliffe, and the Duke.
Enter Ratcliffe, and Gloster.
Rich. Good morrow to my Soueraigne King & Queen
And Princely Peeres, a happy time of day
King. Happy indeed, as we haue spent the day:
Gloster, we haue done deeds of Charity,
Made peace of enmity, faire loue of hate,
Betweene these swelling wrong incensed Peeres
Rich. A blessed labour my most Soueraigne Lord:
Among this Princely heape, if any heere
By false intelligence, or wrong surmize
Hold me a Foe: If I vnwillingly, or in my rage,
Haue ought committed that is hardly borne,
To any in this presence, I desire
To reconcile me to his Friendly peace:
'Tis death to me to be at enmitie:
I hate it, and desire all good mens loue,
First Madam, I intreate true peace of you,
Which I will purchase with my dutious seruice.
Of you my Noble Cosin Buckingham,
If euer any grudge were lodg'd betweene vs.
Of you and you, Lord Riuers and of Dorset,
That all without desert haue frown'd on me:
Of you Lord Wooduill, and Lord Scales of you,
Dukes, Earles, Lords, Gentlemen, indeed of all.
I do not know that Englishman aliue,
With whom my soule is any iot at oddes,
More then the Infant that is borne to night:
I thanke my God for my Humility
Qu. A holy day shall this be kept heereafter:
I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
My Soueraigne Lord, I do beseech your Highnesse
To take our Brother Clarence to your Grace
Rich. Why Madam, haue I offred loue for this,
To be so flowted in this Royall presence?
Who knowes not that the gentle Duke is dead?
They all start.
You do him iniurie to scorne his Coarse
King. Who knowes not he is dead?
Who knowes he is?
Qu. All-seeing heauen, what a world is this?
Buc. Looke I so pale Lord Dorset, as the rest?
Dor. I my good Lord, and no man in the presence,
But his red colour hath forsooke his cheekes
King. Is Clarence dead? The Order was reuerst
Rich. But he (poore man) by your first order dyed,
And that a winged Mercurie did beare:
Some tardie Cripple bare the Countermand,
That came too lagge to see him buried.
God grant, that some lesse Noble, and lesse Loyall,
Neerer in bloody thoughts, and not in blood,
Deserue not worse then wretched Clarence did,
And yet go currant from Suspition.
Enter Earle of Derby.
Der. A boone my Soueraigne for my seruice done
King. I prethee peace, my soule is full of sorrow
Der. I will not rise, vnlesse your Highnes heare me
King. Then say at once, what is it thou requests
Der. The forfeit (Soueraigne) of my seruants life,
Who slew to day a Riotous Gentleman,
Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolke
King. Haue I a tongue to doome my Brothers death?
And shall that tongue giue pardon to a slaue?
My Brother kill'd no man, his fault was Thought,
And yet his punishment was bitter death.
Who sued to me for him? Who (in my wrath)
Kneel'd and my feet, and bid me be aduis'd?
Who spoke of Brother-hood? who spoke of loue?
Who told me how the poore soule did forsake
The mighty Warwicke, and did fight for me?
Who told me in the field at Tewkesbury,
When Oxford had me downe, he rescued me:
And said deare Brother liue, and be a King?
Who told me, when we both lay in the Field,
Frozen (almost) to death, how he did lap me
Euen in his Garments, and did giue himselfe
(All thin and naked) to the numbe cold night?
All this from my Remembrance, brutish wrath
Sinfully pluckt, and not a man of you
Had so much grace to put it in my minde.
But when your Carters, or your wayting Vassalls
Haue done a drunken Slaughter, and defac'd
The precious Image of our deere Redeemer,
You straight are on your knees for Pardon, pardon,
And I (vniustly too) must grant it you.
But for my Brother, not a man would speake,
Nor I (vngracious) speake vnto my selfe
For him poore Soule. The proudest of you all,
Haue bin beholding to him in his life:
Yet none of you, would once begge for his life.
O God! I feare thy iustice will take hold
On me, and you; and mine, and yours for this.
Come Hastings helpe me to my Closset.
Ah poore Clarence.
Exeunt. some with K[ing]. & Queen.
Rich. This is the fruits of rashnes: Markt you not,
How that the guilty Kindred of the Queene
Look'd pale, when they did heare of Clarence death.
O! they did vrge it still vnto the King,
God will reuenge it. Come Lords will you go,
To comfort Edward with our company
Buc. We wait vpon your Grace.
Exeunt.
Scena Secunda.
Enter the old Dutchesse of Yorke, with the two children of
Clarence.
Edw. Good Grandam tell vs, is our Father dead?
Dutch. No Boy
Daugh. Why do weepe so oft? And beate your Brest?
And cry, O Clarence, my vnhappy Sonne
Boy. Why do you looke on vs, and shake your head,
And call vs Orphans, Wretches, Castawayes,
If that our Noble Father were aliue?
Dut. My pretty Cosins, you mistake me both,
I do lament the sicknesse of the King,
As loath to lose him, not your Fathers death:
It were lost sorrow to waile one that's lost
Boy. Then you conclude, (my Grandam) he is dead:
The King mine Vnckle is too blame for it.
God will reuenge it, whom I will importune
With earnest prayers, all to that effect
Daugh. And so will I
Dut. Peace children peace, the King doth loue you wel.
Incapeable, and shallow Innocents,
You cannot guesse who caus'd your Fathers death
Boy. Grandam we can: for my good Vnkle Gloster
Told me, the King prouok'd to it by the Queene,
Deuis'd impeachments to imprison him;
And when my Vnckle told me so, he wept,
And pittied me, and kindly kist my cheeke:
Bad me rely on him, as on my Father,
And he would loue me deerely as a childe
Dut. Ah! that Deceit should steale such gentle shape,
And with a vertuous Vizor hide deepe vice.
He is my sonne, I, and therein my shame,
Yet from my dugges, he drew not this deceit
Boy. Thinke you my Vnkle did dissemble Grandam?
Dut. I Boy
Boy. I cannot thinke it. Hearke, what noise is this?
Enter the Queene with her haire about her ears, Riuers & Dorset
after
her.
Qu. Ah! who shall hinder me to waile and weepe?
To chide my Fortune, and torment my Selfe.
Ile ioyne with blacke dispaire against my Soule,
And to my selfe, become an enemie
Dut. What meanes this Scene of rude impatience?
Qu. To make an act of Tragicke violence.
Edward my Lord, thy Sonne, our King is dead.
Why grow the Branches, when the Roote is gone?
Why wither not the leaues that want their sap?
If you will liue, Lament: if dye, be breefe,
That our swift-winged Soules may catch the Kings,
Or like obedient Subiects follow him,
To his new Kingdome of nere-changing night
Dut. Ah so much interest haue in thy sorrow,
As I had Title in thy Noble Husband:
I haue bewept a worthy Husbands death,
And liu'd with looking on his Images:
But now two Mirrors of his Princely semblance,
Are crack'd in pieces, by malignant death,
And I for comfort, haue but one false Glasse,
That greeues me, when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a Widdow: yet thou art a Mother,
And hast the comfort of thy Children left,
But death hath snatch'd my Husband from mine Armes,
And pluckt two Crutches from my feeble hands,
Clarence, and Edward. O, what cause haue I,
(Thine being but a moity of my moane)
To ouer-go thy woes, and drowne thy cries
Boy. Ah Aunt! you wept not for our Fathers death:
How can we ayde you with our Kindred teares?
Daugh. Our fatherlesse distresse was left vnmoan'd,
Your widdow-dolour, likewise be vnwept
Qu. Giue me no helpe in Lamentation,
I am not barren to bring forth complaints:
All Springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I being gouern'd by the waterie Moone,
May send forth plenteous teares to drowne the World.
Ah, for my Husband, for my deere Lord Edward
Chil. Ah for our Father, for our deere Lord Clarence
Dut. Alas for both, both mine Edward and Clarence
Qu. What stay had I but Edward, and hee's gone?
Chil. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone
Dut. What stayes had I, but they? and they are gone
Qu. Was neuer widdow had so deere a losse
Chil. Were neuer Orphans had so deere a losse
Dut. Was neuer Mother had so deere a losse.
Alas! I am the Mother of these Greefes,
Their woes are parcell'd, mine is generall.
She for an Edward weepes, and so do I:
I for a Clarence weepes, so doth not shee:
These Babes for Clarence weepe, so do not they.
Alas! you three, on me threefold distrest:
Power all your teares, I am your sorrowes Nurse,
And I will pamper it with Lamentation
Dor. Comfort deere Mother, God is much displeas'd,
That you take with vnthankfulnesse his doing.
In common worldly things, 'tis call'd vngratefull,
With dull vnwillingnesse to repay a debt,
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent:
Much more to be thus opposite with heauen,
For it requires the Royall debt it lent you
Riuers. Madam, bethinke you like a carefull Mother
Of the young Prince your sonne: send straight for him,
Let him be Crown'd, in him your comfort liues.
Drowne desperate sorrow in dead Edwards graue,
And plant your ioyes in liuing Edwards Throne.
Enter Richard, Buckingham, Derbie, Hastings, and Ratcliffe.
Rich. Sister haue comfort, all of vs haue cause
To waile the dimming of our shining Starre:
But none can helpe our harmes by wayling them.
Madam, my Mother, I do cry you mercie,
I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee,
I craue your Blessing
Dut. God blesse thee, and put meeknes in thy breast,
Loue Charity, Obedience, and true Dutie
Rich. Amen, and make me die a good old man,
That is the butt-end of a Mothers blessing;
I maruell that her Grace did leaue it out
Buc. You clowdy-Princes, & hart-sorowing-Peeres,
That beare this heauie mutuall loade of Moane,
Now cheere each other, in each others Loue:
Though we haue spent our Haruest of this King,
We are to reape the Haruest of his Sonne.
The broken rancour of your high-swolne hates,
But lately splinter'd, knit, and ioyn'd together,
Must gently be preseru'd, cherisht, and kept:
Me seemeth good, that with some little Traine,
Forthwith from Ludlow, the young Prince be set
Hither to London, to be crown'd our King
Riuers. Why with some little Traine,
My Lord of Buckingham?
Buc. Marrie my Lord, least by a multitude,
The new-heal'd wound of Malice should breake out,
Which would be so much the more dangerous,
By how much the estate is greene, and yet vngouern'd.
Where euery Horse beares his commanding Reine,
And may direct his course as please himselfe,
As well the feare of harme, as harme apparant,
In my opinion, ought to be preuented
Rich. I hope the King made peace with all of vs,
And the compact is firme, and true in me
Riu. And so in me, and so (I thinke) in all.
Yet since it is but greene, it should be put
To no apparant likely-hood of breach,
Which haply by much company might be vrg'd:
Therefore I say with Noble Buckingham,
That it is meete so few should fetch the Prince
Hast. And so say I
Rich. Then be it so, and go we to determine
Who they shall be that strait shall poste to London.
Madam, and you my Sister, will you go
To giue your censures in this businesse.
Exeunt.
Manet Buckingham, and Richard.
Buc. My Lord, who euer iournies to the Prince,
For God sake let not vs two stay at home:
For by the way, Ile sort occasion,
As Index to the story we late talk'd of,
To part the Queenes proud Kindred from the Prince
Rich. My other selfe, my Counsailes Consistory,
My Oracle, My Prophet, my deere Cosin,
I, as a childe, will go by thy direction,
Toward London then, for wee'l not stay behinde.
Exeunt.
Scena Tertia.
Enter one Citizen at one doore, and another at the other.
1.Cit. Good morrow Neighbour, whether away so
fast?
2.Cit. I promise you, I scarsely know my selfe:
Heare you the newes abroad?
1. Yes, that the King is dead
2. Ill newes byrlady, seldome comes the better:
I feare, I feare, 'twill proue a giddy world.
Enter another Citizen.
3. Neighbours, God speed
1. Giue you good morrow sir
3. Doth the newes hold of good king Edwards death?
2. I sir, it is too true, God helpe the while
3. Then Masters looke to see a troublous world
1. No, no, by Gods good grace, his Son shall reigne
3. Woe to that Land that's gouern'd by a Childe
2. In him there is a hope of Gouernment,
Which in his nonage, counsell vnder him,
And in his full and ripened yeares, himselfe
No doubt shall then, and till then gouerne well
1. So stood the State, when Henry the sixt
Was crown'd in Paris, but at nine months old
3. Stood the State so? No, no, good friends, God wot
For then this Land was famously enrich'd
With politike graue Counsell; then the King
Had vertuous Vnkles to protect his Grace
1. Why so hath this, both by his Father and Mother
3. Better it were they all came by his Father:
Or by his Father there were none at all:
For emulation, who shall now be neerest,
Will touch vs all too neere, if God preuent not.
O full of danger is the Duke of Glouster,
And the Queenes Sons, and Brothers, haught and proud:
And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,
This sickly Land, might solace as before
1. Come, come, we feare the worst: all will be well
3. When Clouds are seen, wisemen put on their clokes;
When great leaues fall, then Winter is at hand;
When the Sun sets, who doth not looke for night?
Vntimely stormes, makes men expect a Dearth:
All may be well; but if God sort it so,
'Tis more then we deserue, or I expect
2. Truly, the hearts of men are full of feare:
You cannot reason (almost) with a man,
That lookes not heauily, and full of dread
3. Before the dayes of Change, still is it so,
By a diuine instinct, mens mindes mistrust
Pursuing danger: as by proofe we see
The Water swell before a boyst'rous storme:
But leaue it all to God. Whither away?
2 Marry we were sent for to the Iustices
3 And so was I: Ile beare you company.
Exeunt.
Scena Quarta.
Enter Arch-bishop, yong Yorke, the Queene, and the Dutchesse.
Arch. Last night I heard they lay at Stony Stratford,
And at Northampton they do rest to night:
To morrow, or next day, they will be heere
Dut. I long with all my heart to see the Prince:
I hope he is much growne since last I saw him
Qu. But I heare no, they say my sonne of Yorke
Ha's almost ouertane him in his growth
Yorke. I Mother, but I would not haue it so
Dut. Why my good Cosin, it is good to grow
Yor. Grandam, one night as we did sit at Supper,
My Vnkle Riuers talk'd how I did grow
More then my Brother. I, quoth my Vnkle Glouster,
Small Herbes haue grace, great Weeds do grow apace.
And since, me thinkes I would not grow so fast,
Because sweet Flowres are slow, and Weeds make hast
Dut. Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold
In him that did obiect the same to thee.
He was the wretched'st thing when he was yong,
So long a growing, and so leysurely,
That if his rule were true, he should be gracious
Yor. And so no doubt he is, my gracious Madam
Dut. I hope he is, but yet let Mothers doubt
Yor. Now by my troth, if I had beene remembred,
I could haue giuen my Vnkles Grace, a flout,
To touch his growth, neerer then he toucht mine
Dut. How my yong Yorke,
I prythee let me heare it
Yor. Marry (they say) my Vnkle grew so fast,
That he could gnaw a crust at two houres old,
'Twas full two yeares ere I could get a tooth.
Grandam, this would haue beene a byting Iest
Dut. I prythee pretty Yorke, who told thee this?
Yor. Grandam, his Nursse
Dut. His Nurse? why she was dead, ere y wast borne
Yor. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me
Qu. A parlous Boy: go too, you are too shrew'd
Dut. Good Madam, be not angry with the Childe
Qu. Pitchers haue eares.
Enter a Messenger.
Arch. Heere comes a Messenger: What Newes?
Mes. Such newes my Lord, as greeues me to report
Qu. How doth the Prince?
Mes. Well Madam, and in health
Dut. What is thy Newes?
Mess. Lord Riuers, and Lord Grey,
Are sent to Pomfret, and with them,
Sir Thomas Vaughan, Prisoners
Dut. Who hath committed them?
Mes. The mighty Dukes, Glouster and Buckingham
Arch. For what offence?
Mes. The summe of all I can, I haue disclos'd:
Why, or for what, the Nobles were committed,
Is all vnknowne to me, my gracious Lord
Qu. Aye me! I see the ruine of my House:
The Tyger now hath seiz'd the gentle Hinde,
Insulting Tiranny beginnes to Iutt
Vpon the innocent and awelesse Throne:
Welcome Destruction, Blood, and Massacre,
I see (as in a Map) the end of all
Dut. Accursed, and vnquiet wrangling dayes,
How many of you haue mine eyes beheld?
My Husband lost his life, to get the Crowne,
And often vp and downe my sonnes were tost
For me to ioy, and weepe, their gaine and losse.
And being seated, and Domesticke broyles
Cleane ouer-blowne, themselues the Conquerors,
Make warre vpon themselues, Brother to Brother;
Blood to blood, selfe against selfe: O prepostorous
And franticke outrage, end thy damned spleene,
Or let me dye, to looke on earth no more
Qu. Come, come my Boy, we will to Sanctuary.
Madam, farwell
Dut. Stay, I will go with you
Qu. You haue no cause
Arch. My gracious Lady go,
And thether beare your Treasure and your Goodes,
For my part, Ile resigne vnto your Grace
The Seale I keepe, and so betide to me,
As well I tender you, and all of yours.
Go, Ile conduct you to the Sanctuary.
Exeunt. | At the palace in London, the sickly King Edward IV is gathered with Queen Elizabeth, her two sons Dorset and Gray, her brother Rivers, and Hastings, Catesby, and Buckingham . Edward warmly addresses the crowd and says something like "Can't we all just get along?" The two factions agree to play nice and ask God to punish them if they ever break this new bond. Richard enters and makes a big speech about how he too is committed to peace and how sorry he is for anything bad he might have done. The happy glow doesn't last long. Queen Elizabeth asks Edward to accept his imprisoned brother Clarence back into his good graces. Richard acts like Elizabeth is cruelly and purposefully mocking - after all, don't they know about Clarence? Richard then announces to the group that Clarence is dead, pretending to be shocked they haven't heard. Everyone is shocked, especially King Edward, who knows he gave orders to reverse Clarence's sentence. Richard is all, "Oh dear, I guess your message got lost in the mail." Stanley, Earl of Derby, arrives and kneels before the king, asking him to pardon the life of a servant of his who killed a "riotous gentleman" earlier that day. This really sets Edward off, and he begins to blame everyone around him for not stopping him from ordering Clarence's execution. Edward then gives some examples of Clarence's goodness - from murdering Prince Edward of Wales for Edward's sake, to even giving up his cloak on a freezing night in battle, running around naked so Edward could be less naked. Edward, after this tender reminiscing, pardons Derby's man, lamenting that had he been more forgiving earlier , he might have saved his own brother. Edward voices his fear that God will have justice on Clarence's behalf, judging everyone who didn't stand up for the condemned man. The sickly king must then be carried off, leaving Richard behind with Buckingham, among others. Richard, still crafty, quickly raises suspicions against the queen and her family. He notes how they looked pale on hearing of Clarence's death and declares this is evidence that the queen encouraged the king to have Clarence killed. So much for the peace treaty. |
Not only was White Fang adaptable by nature, but he had travelled much,
and knew the meaning and necessity of adjustment. Here, in Sierra Vista,
which was the name of Judge Scott's place, White Fang quickly began to
make himself at home. He had no further serious trouble with the dogs.
They knew more about the ways of the Southland gods than did he, and in
their eyes he had qualified when he accompanied the gods inside the
house. Wolf that he was, and unprecedented as it was, the gods had
sanctioned his presence, and they, the dogs of the gods, could only
recognise this sanction.
Dick, perforce, had to go through a few stiff formalities at first, after
which he calmly accepted White Fang as an addition to the premises. Had
Dick had his way, they would have been good friends; but White Fang
was averse to friendship. All he asked of other dogs was to be let
alone. His whole life he had kept aloof from his kind, and he still
desired to keep aloof. Dick's overtures bothered him, so he snarled Dick
away. In the north he had learned the lesson that he must let the
master's dogs alone, and he did not forget that lesson now. But he
insisted on his own privacy and self-seclusion, and so thoroughly ignored
Dick that that good-natured creature finally gave him up and scarcely
took as much interest in him as in the hitching-post near the stable.
Not so with Collie. While she accepted him because it was the mandate of
the gods, that was no reason that she should leave him in peace. Woven
into her being was the memory of countless crimes he and his had
perpetrated against her ancestry. Not in a day nor a generation were the
ravaged sheepfolds to be forgotten. All this was a spur to her, pricking
her to retaliation. She could not fly in the face of the gods who
permitted him, but that did not prevent her from making life miserable
for him in petty ways. A feud, ages old, was between them, and she, for
one, would see to it that he was reminded.
So Collie took advantage of her sex to pick upon White Fang and maltreat
him. His instinct would not permit him to attack her, while her
persistence would not permit him to ignore her. When she rushed at him
he turned his fur-protected shoulder to her sharp teeth and walked away
stiff-legged and stately. When she forced him too hard, he was compelled
to go about in a circle, his shoulder presented to her, his head turned
from her, and on his face and in his eyes a patient and bored expression.
Sometimes, however, a nip on his hind-quarters hastened his retreat and
made it anything but stately. But as a rule he managed to maintain a
dignity that was almost solemnity. He ignored her existence whenever it
was possible, and made it a point to keep out of her way. When he saw or
heard her coming, he got up and walked off.
There was much in other matters for White Fang to learn. Life in the
Northland was simplicity itself when compared with the complicated
affairs of Sierra Vista. First of all, he had to learn the family of the
master. In a way he was prepared to do this. As Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch
had belonged to Grey Beaver, sharing his food, his fire, and his
blankets, so now, at Sierra Vista, belonged to the love-master all the
denizens of the house.
But in this matter there was a difference, and many differences. Sierra
Vista was a far vaster affair than the tepee of Grey Beaver. There were
many persons to be considered. There was Judge Scott, and there was his
wife. There were the master's two sisters, Beth and Mary. There was his
wife, Alice, and then there were his children, Weedon and Maud, toddlers
of four and six. There was no way for anybody to tell him about all
these people, and of blood-ties and relationship he knew nothing whatever
and never would be capable of knowing. Yet he quickly worked it out that
all of them belonged to the master. Then, by observation, whenever
opportunity offered, by study of action, speech, and the very intonations
of the voice, he slowly learned the intimacy and the degree of favour
they enjoyed with the master. And by this ascertained standard, White
Fang treated them accordingly. What was of value to the master he
valued; what was dear to the master was to be cherished by White Fang and
guarded carefully.
Thus it was with the two children. All his life he had disliked
children. He hated and feared their hands. The lessons were not tender
that he had learned of their tyranny and cruelty in the days of the
Indian villages. When Weedon and Maud had first approached him, he
growled warningly and looked malignant. A cuff from the master and a
sharp word had then compelled him to permit their caresses, though he
growled and growled under their tiny hands, and in the growl there was no
crooning note. Later, he observed that the boy and girl were of great
value in the master's eyes. Then it was that no cuff nor sharp word was
necessary before they could pat him.
Yet White Fang was never effusively affectionate. He yielded to the
master's children with an ill but honest grace, and endured their fooling
as one would endure a painful operation. When he could no longer endure,
he would get up and stalk determinedly away from them. But after a time,
he grew even to like the children. Still he was not demonstrative. He
would not go up to them. On the other hand, instead of walking away at
sight of them, he waited for them to come to him. And still later, it
was noticed that a pleased light came into his eyes when he saw them
approaching, and that he looked after them with an appearance of curious
regret when they left him for other amusements.
All this was a matter of development, and took time. Next in his regard,
after the children, was Judge Scott. There were two reasons, possibly,
for this. First, he was evidently a valuable possession of the master's,
and next, he was undemonstrative. White Fang liked to lie at his feet on
the wide porch when he read the newspaper, from time to time favouring
White Fang with a look or a word--untroublesome tokens that he recognised
White Fang's presence and existence. But this was only when the master
was not around. When the master appeared, all other beings ceased to
exist so far as White Fang was concerned.
White Fang allowed all the members of the family to pet him and make much
of him; but he never gave to them what he gave to the master. No caress
of theirs could put the love-croon into his throat, and, try as they
would, they could never persuade him into snuggling against them. This
expression of abandon and surrender, of absolute trust, he reserved for
the master alone. In fact, he never regarded the members of the family
in any other light than possessions of the love-master.
Also White Fang had early come to differentiate between the family and
the servants of the household. The latter were afraid of him, while he
merely refrained from attacking them. This because he considered that
they were likewise possessions of the master. Between White Fang and
them existed a neutrality and no more. They cooked for the master and
washed the dishes and did other things just as Matt had done up in the
Klondike. They were, in short, appurtenances of the household.
Outside the household there was even more for White Fang to learn. The
master's domain was wide and complex, yet it had its metes and bounds.
The land itself ceased at the county road. Outside was the common domain
of all gods--the roads and streets. Then inside other fences were the
particular domains of other gods. A myriad laws governed all these
things and determined conduct; yet he did not know the speech of the
gods, nor was there any way for him to learn save by experience. He
obeyed his natural impulses until they ran him counter to some law. When
this had been done a few times, he learned the law and after that
observed it.
But most potent in his education was the cuff of the master's hand, the
censure of the master's voice. Because of White Fang's very great love,
a cuff from the master hurt him far more than any beating Grey Beaver or
Beauty Smith had ever given him. They had hurt only the flesh of him;
beneath the flesh the spirit had still raged, splendid and invincible.
But with the master the cuff was always too light to hurt the flesh. Yet
it went deeper. It was an expression of the master's disapproval, and
White Fang's spirit wilted under it.
In point of fact, the cuff was rarely administered. The master's voice
was sufficient. By it White Fang knew whether he did right or not. By
it he trimmed his conduct and adjusted his actions. It was the compass
by which he steered and learned to chart the manners of a new land and
life.
In the Northland, the only domesticated animal was the dog. All other
animals lived in the Wild, and were, when not too formidable, lawful
spoil for any dog. All his days White Fang had foraged among the live
things for food. It did not enter his head that in the Southland it was
otherwise. But this he was to learn early in his residence in Santa
Clara Valley. Sauntering around the corner of the house in the early
morning, he came upon a chicken that had escaped from the chicken-yard.
White Fang's natural impulse was to eat it. A couple of bounds, a flash
of teeth and a frightened squawk, and he had scooped in the adventurous
fowl. It was farm-bred and fat and tender; and White Fang licked his
chops and decided that such fare was good.
Later in the day, he chanced upon another stray chicken near the stables.
One of the grooms ran to the rescue. He did not know White Fang's breed,
so for weapon he took a light buggy-whip. At the first cut of the whip,
White Fang left the chicken for the man. A club might have stopped White
Fang, but not a whip. Silently, without flinching, he took a second cut
in his forward rush, and as he leaped for the throat the groom cried out,
"My God!" and staggered backward. He dropped the whip and shielded his
throat with his arms. In consequence, his forearm was ripped open to the
bone.
The man was badly frightened. It was not so much White Fang's ferocity
as it was his silence that unnerved the groom. Still protecting his
throat and face with his torn and bleeding arm, he tried to retreat to
the barn. And it would have gone hard with him had not Collie appeared
on the scene. As she had saved Dick's life, she now saved the groom's.
She rushed upon White Fang in frenzied wrath. She had been right. She
had known better than the blundering gods. All her suspicions were
justified. Here was the ancient marauder up to his old tricks again.
The groom escaped into the stables, and White Fang backed away before
Collie's wicked teeth, or presented his shoulder to them and circled
round and round. But Collie did not give over, as was her wont, after a
decent interval of chastisement. On the contrary, she grew more excited
and angry every moment, until, in the end, White Fang flung dignity to
the winds and frankly fled away from her across the fields.
"He'll learn to leave chickens alone," the master said. "But I can't
give him the lesson until I catch him in the act."
Two nights later came the act, but on a more generous scale than the
master had anticipated. White Fang had observed closely the
chicken-yards and the habits of the chickens. In the night-time, after
they had gone to roost, he climbed to the top of a pile of newly hauled
lumber. From there he gained the roof of a chicken-house, passed over
the ridgepole and dropped to the ground inside. A moment later he was
inside the house, and the slaughter began.
In the morning, when the master came out on to the porch, fifty white
Leghorn hens, laid out in a row by the groom, greeted his eyes. He
whistled to himself, softly, first with surprise, and then, at the end,
with admiration. His eyes were likewise greeted by White Fang, but about
the latter there were no signs of shame nor guilt. He carried himself
with pride, as though, forsooth, he had achieved a deed praiseworthy and
meritorious. There was about him no consciousness of sin. The master's
lips tightened as he faced the disagreeable task. Then he talked harshly
to the unwitting culprit, and in his voice there was nothing but godlike
wrath. Also, he held White Fang's nose down to the slain hens, and at
the same time cuffed him soundly.
White Fang never raided a chicken-roost again. It was against the law,
and he had learned it. Then the master took him into the chicken-yards.
White Fang's natural impulse, when he saw the live food fluttering about
him and under his very nose, was to spring upon it. He obeyed the
impulse, but was checked by the master's voice. They continued in the
yards for half an hour. Time and again the impulse surged over White
Fang, and each time, as he yielded to it, he was checked by the master's
voice. Thus it was he learned the law, and ere he left the domain of the
chickens, he had learned to ignore their existence.
"You can never cure a chicken-killer." Judge Scott shook his head sadly
at luncheon table, when his son narrated the lesson he had given White
Fang. "Once they've got the habit and the taste of blood . . ." Again
he shook his head sadly.
But Weedon Scott did not agree with his father. "I'll tell you what I'll
do," he challenged finally. "I'll lock White Fang in with the chickens
all afternoon."
"But think of the chickens," objected the judge.
"And furthermore," the son went on, "for every chicken he kills, I'll pay
you one dollar gold coin of the realm."
"But you should penalise father, too," interpose Beth.
Her sister seconded her, and a chorus of approval arose from around the
table. Judge Scott nodded his head in agreement.
"All right." Weedon Scott pondered for a moment. "And if, at the end of
the afternoon White Fang hasn't harmed a chicken, for every ten minutes
of the time he has spent in the yard, you will have to say to him,
gravely and with deliberation, just as if you were sitting on the bench
and solemnly passing judgment, 'White Fang, you are smarter than I
thought.'"
From hidden points of vantage the family watched the performance. But it
was a fizzle. Locked in the yard and there deserted by the master, White
Fang lay down and went to sleep. Once he got up and walked over to the
trough for a drink of water. The chickens he calmly ignored. So far as
he was concerned they did not exist. At four o'clock he executed a
running jump, gained the roof of the chicken-house and leaped to the
ground outside, whence he sauntered gravely to the house. He had learned
the law. And on the porch, before the delighted family, Judge Scott,
face to face with White Fang, said slowly and solemnly, sixteen times,
"White Fang, you are smarter than I thought."
But it was the multiplicity of laws that befuddled White Fang and often
brought him into disgrace. He had to learn that he must not touch the
chickens that belonged to other gods. Then there were cats, and rabbits,
and turkeys; all these he must let alone. In fact, when he had but
partly learned the law, his impression was that he must leave all live
things alone. Out in the back-pasture, a quail could flutter up under
his nose unharmed. All tense and trembling with eagerness and desire, he
mastered his instinct and stood still. He was obeying the will of the
gods.
And then, one day, again out in the back-pasture, he saw Dick start a
jackrabbit and run it. The master himself was looking on and did not
interfere. Nay, he encouraged White Fang to join in the chase. And thus
he learned that there was no taboo on jackrabbits. In the end he worked
out the complete law. Between him and all domestic animals there must be
no hostilities. If not amity, at least neutrality must obtain. But the
other animals--the squirrels, and quail, and cottontails, were creatures
of the Wild who had never yielded allegiance to man. They were the
lawful prey of any dog. It was only the tame that the gods protected,
and between the tame deadly strife was not permitted. The gods held the
power of life and death over their subjects, and the gods were jealous of
their power.
Life was complex in the Santa Clara Valley after the simplicities of the
Northland. And the chief thing demanded by these intricacies of
civilisation was control, restraint--a poise of self that was as delicate
as the fluttering of gossamer wings and at the same time as rigid as
steel. Life had a thousand faces, and White Fang found he must meet them
all--thus, when he went to town, in to San Jose, running behind the
carriage or loafing about the streets when the carriage stopped. Life
flowed past him, deep and wide and varied, continually impinging upon his
senses, demanding of him instant and endless adjustments and
correspondences, and compelling him, almost always, to suppress his
natural impulses.
There were butcher-shops where meat hung within reach. This meat he must
not touch. There were cats at the houses the master visited that must be
let alone. And there were dogs everywhere that snarled at him and that
he must not attack. And then, on the crowded sidewalks there were
persons innumerable whose attention he attracted. They would stop and
look at him, point him out to one another, examine him, talk of him, and,
worst of all, pat him. And these perilous contacts from all these
strange hands he must endure. Yet this endurance he achieved.
Furthermore, he got over being awkward and self-conscious. In a lofty
way he received the attentions of the multitudes of strange gods. With
condescension he accepted their condescension. On the other hand, there
was something about him that prevented great familiarity. They patted
him on the head and passed on, contented and pleased with their own
daring.
But it was not all easy for White Fang. Running behind the carriage in
the outskirts of San Jose, he encountered certain small boys who made a
practice of flinging stones at him. Yet he knew that it was not
permitted him to pursue and drag them down. Here he was compelled to
violate his instinct of self-preservation, and violate it he did, for he
was becoming tame and qualifying himself for civilisation.
Nevertheless, White Fang was not quite satisfied with the arrangement. He
had no abstract ideas about justice and fair play. But there is a
certain sense of equity that resides in life, and it was this sense in
him that resented the unfairness of his being permitted no defence
against the stone-throwers. He forgot that in the covenant entered into
between him and the gods they were pledged to care for him and defend
him. But one day the master sprang from the carriage, whip in hand, and
gave the stone-throwers a thrashing. After that they threw stones no
more, and White Fang understood and was satisfied.
One other experience of similar nature was his. On the way to town,
hanging around the saloon at the cross-roads, were three dogs that made a
practice of rushing out upon him when he went by. Knowing his deadly
method of fighting, the master had never ceased impressing upon White
Fang the law that he must not fight. As a result, having learned the
lesson well, White Fang was hard put whenever he passed the cross-roads
saloon. After the first rush, each time, his snarl kept the three dogs
at a distance but they trailed along behind, yelping and bickering and
insulting him. This endured for some time. The men at the saloon even
urged the dogs on to attack White Fang. One day they openly sicked the
dogs on him. The master stopped the carriage.
"Go to it," he said to White Fang.
But White Fang could not believe. He looked at the master, and he looked
at the dogs. Then he looked back eagerly and questioningly at the
master.
The master nodded his head. "Go to them, old fellow. Eat them up."
White Fang no longer hesitated. He turned and leaped silently among his
enemies. All three faced him. There was a great snarling and growling,
a clashing of teeth and a flurry of bodies. The dust of the road arose
in a cloud and screened the battle. But at the end of several minutes
two dogs were struggling in the dirt and the third was in full flight. He
leaped a ditch, went through a rail fence, and fled across a field. White
Fang followed, sliding over the ground in wolf fashion and with wolf
speed, swiftly and without noise, and in the centre of the field he
dragged down and slew the dog.
With this triple killing his main troubles with dogs ceased. The word
went up and down the valley, and men saw to it that their dogs did not
molest the Fighting Wolf. | As White Fang must adapt to life at Sierra Vista, so must the Scotts' other dogs adapt to him. Collie especially is in no hurry to accept him, for she is fighting against her sheepdog instincts: "Woven into her being was the memory of countless crimes he and his had perpetrated against her ancestry. Not in a day nor a generation were the ravaged sheepfolds to be forgotten." Collie exploits White Fang's instinctual deference to the female to persecute him-in gentler ways than did Lip-lip, to be sure -yet persecution all the same. At the same time, he is learning to receive expressions of affection from the Scott family. He must also, however, learn to negotiate another series of laws and restraints. When White Fang comes across a chicken who has escaped from the coop, he yields to instinct, attacking it, eating it, and enjoying it. Scott must teach him not to eat the chickens. The rest of the family, particularly Judge Scott, is dubious that the wolf-dog can learn this lesson-but learn it he does, eventually able to stay in the chicken coop without attacking any of the fowl. On the other hand, on one visit to San Jose, Weedon Scott eventually gives White Fang license to attack dogs who abuse him. White Fang kills three such dogs-and receives fearful respect from the residents, and their dogs, thereafter. |
|ON the Monday evening before the picnic Marilla came down from her room
with a troubled face.
"Anne," she said to that small personage, who was shelling peas by the
spotless table and singing, "Nelly of the Hazel Dell" with a vigor and
expression that did credit to Diana's teaching, "did you see anything
of my amethyst brooch? I thought I stuck it in my pincushion when I came
home from church yesterday evening, but I can't find it anywhere."
"I--I saw it this afternoon when you were away at the Aid Society," said
Anne, a little slowly. "I was passing your door when I saw it on the
cushion, so I went in to look at it."
"Did you touch it?" said Marilla sternly.
"Y-e-e-s," admitted Anne, "I took it up and I pinned it on my breast
just to see how it would look."
"You had no business to do anything of the sort. It's very wrong in a
little girl to meddle. You shouldn't have gone into my room in the first
place and you shouldn't have touched a brooch that didn't belong to you
in the second. Where did you put it?"
"Oh, I put it back on the bureau. I hadn't it on a minute. Truly, I
didn't mean to meddle, Marilla. I didn't think about its being wrong to
go in and try on the brooch; but I see now that it was and I'll never
do it again. That's one good thing about me. I never do the same naughty
thing twice."
"You didn't put it back," said Marilla. "That brooch isn't anywhere on
the bureau. You've taken it out or something, Anne."
"I did put it back," said Anne quickly--pertly, Marilla thought. "I
don't just remember whether I stuck it on the pincushion or laid it in
the china tray. But I'm perfectly certain I put it back."
"I'll go and have another look," said Marilla, determining to be just.
"If you put that brooch back it's there still. If it isn't I'll know you
didn't, that's all!"
Marilla went to her room and made a thorough search, not only over the
bureau but in every other place she thought the brooch might possibly
be. It was not to be found and she returned to the kitchen.
"Anne, the brooch is gone. By your own admission you were the last
person to handle it. Now, what have you done with it? Tell me the truth
at once. Did you take it out and lose it?"
"No, I didn't," said Anne solemnly, meeting Marilla's angry gaze
squarely. "I never took the brooch out of your room and that is the
truth, if I was to be led to the block for it--although I'm not very
certain what a block is. So there, Marilla."
Anne's "so there" was only intended to emphasize her assertion, but
Marilla took it as a display of defiance.
"I believe you are telling me a falsehood, Anne," she said sharply. "I
know you are. There now, don't say anything more unless you are prepared
to tell the whole truth. Go to your room and stay there until you are
ready to confess."
"Will I take the peas with me?" said Anne meekly.
"No, I'll finish shelling them myself. Do as I bid you."
When Anne had gone Marilla went about her evening tasks in a very
disturbed state of mind. She was worried about her valuable brooch. What
if Anne had lost it? And how wicked of the child to deny having taken
it, when anybody could see she must have! With such an innocent face,
too!
"I don't know what I wouldn't sooner have had happen," thought Marilla,
as she nervously shelled the peas. "Of course, I don't suppose she meant
to steal it or anything like that. She's just taken it to play with
or help along that imagination of hers. She must have taken it, that's
clear, for there hasn't been a soul in that room since she was in it, by
her own story, until I went up tonight. And the brooch is gone, there's
nothing surer. I suppose she has lost it and is afraid to own up for
fear she'll be punished. It's a dreadful thing to think she tells
falsehoods. It's a far worse thing than her fit of temper. It's a
fearful responsibility to have a child in your house you can't trust.
Slyness and untruthfulness--that's what she has displayed. I declare I
feel worse about that than about the brooch. If she'd only have told the
truth about it I wouldn't mind so much."
Marilla went to her room at intervals all through the evening and
searched for the brooch, without finding it. A bedtime visit to the
east gable produced no result. Anne persisted in denying that she knew
anything about the brooch but Marilla was only the more firmly convinced
that she did.
She told Matthew the story the next morning. Matthew was confounded and
puzzled; he could not so quickly lose faith in Anne but he had to admit
that circumstances were against her.
"You're sure it hasn't fell down behind the bureau?" was the only
suggestion he could offer.
"I've moved the bureau and I've taken out the drawers and I've looked
in every crack and cranny" was Marilla's positive answer. "The brooch
is gone and that child has taken it and lied about it. That's the plain,
ugly truth, Matthew Cuthbert, and we might as well look it in the face."
"Well now, what are you going to do about it?" Matthew asked forlornly,
feeling secretly thankful that Marilla and not he had to deal with the
situation. He felt no desire to put his oar in this time.
"She'll stay in her room until she confesses," said Marilla grimly,
remembering the success of this method in the former case. "Then we'll
see. Perhaps we'll be able to find the brooch if she'll only tell
where she took it; but in any case she'll have to be severely punished,
Matthew."
"Well now, you'll have to punish her," said Matthew, reaching for his
hat. "I've nothing to do with it, remember. You warned me off yourself."
Marilla felt deserted by everyone. She could not even go to Mrs. Lynde
for advice. She went up to the east gable with a very serious face and
left it with a face more serious still. Anne steadfastly refused to
confess. She persisted in asserting that she had not taken the brooch.
The child had evidently been crying and Marilla felt a pang of pity
which she sternly repressed. By night she was, as she expressed it,
"beat out."
"You'll stay in this room until you confess, Anne. You can make up your
mind to that," she said firmly.
"But the picnic is tomorrow, Marilla," cried Anne. "You won't keep me
from going to that, will you? You'll just let me out for the afternoon,
won't you? Then I'll stay here as long as you like _afterwards_
cheerfully. But I _must_ go to the picnic."
"You'll not go to picnics nor anywhere else until you've confessed,
Anne."
"Oh, Marilla," gasped Anne.
But Marilla had gone out and shut the door.
Wednesday morning dawned as bright and fair as if expressly made to
order for the picnic. Birds sang around Green Gables; the Madonna lilies
in the garden sent out whiffs of perfume that entered in on viewless
winds at every door and window, and wandered through halls and rooms
like spirits of benediction. The birches in the hollow waved joyful
hands as if watching for Anne's usual morning greeting from the east
gable. But Anne was not at her window. When Marilla took her breakfast
up to her she found the child sitting primly on her bed, pale and
resolute, with tight-shut lips and gleaming eyes.
"Marilla, I'm ready to confess."
"Ah!" Marilla laid down her tray. Once again her method had succeeded;
but her success was very bitter to her. "Let me hear what you have to
say then, Anne."
"I took the amethyst brooch," said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she
had learned. "I took it just as you said. I didn't mean to take it when
I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on my
breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how
perfectly thrilling it would be to take it to Idlewild and play I was
the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine I
was the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and
I make necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to
amethysts? So I took the brooch. I thought I could put it back before
you came home. I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out the
time. When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters
I took the brooch off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine
in the sunlight! And then, when I was leaning over the bridge, it
just slipped through my fingers--so--and went down--down--down, all
purply-sparkling, and sank forevermore beneath the Lake of Shining
Waters. And that's the best I can do at confessing, Marilla."
Marilla felt hot anger surge up into her heart again. This child had
taken and lost her treasured amethyst brooch and now sat there calmly
reciting the details thereof without the least apparent compunction or
repentance.
"Anne, this is terrible," she said, trying to speak calmly. "You are the
very wickedest girl I ever heard of."
"Yes, I suppose I am," agreed Anne tranquilly. "And I know I'll have to
be punished. It'll be your duty to punish me, Marilla. Won't you please
get it over right off because I'd like to go to the picnic with nothing
on my mind."
"Picnic, indeed! You'll go to no picnic today, Anne Shirley. That shall
be your punishment. And it isn't half severe enough either for what
you've done!"
"Not go to the picnic!" Anne sprang to her feet and clutched Marilla's
hand. "But you _promised_ me I might! Oh, Marilla, I must go to the
picnic. That was why I confessed. Punish me any way you like but that.
Oh, Marilla, please, please, let me go to the picnic. Think of the ice
cream! For anything you know I may never have a chance to taste ice
cream again."
Marilla disengaged Anne's clinging hands stonily.
"You needn't plead, Anne. You are not going to the picnic and that's
final. No, not a word."
Anne realized that Marilla was not to be moved. She clasped her hands
together, gave a piercing shriek, and then flung herself face
downward on the bed, crying and writhing in an utter abandonment of
disappointment and despair.
"For the land's sake!" gasped Marilla, hastening from the room. "I
believe the child is crazy. No child in her senses would behave as she
does. If she isn't she's utterly bad. Oh dear, I'm afraid Rachel was
right from the first. But I've put my hand to the plow and I won't look
back."
That was a dismal morning. Marilla worked fiercely and scrubbed the
porch floor and the dairy shelves when she could find nothing else to
do. Neither the shelves nor the porch needed it--but Marilla did. Then
she went out and raked the yard.
When dinner was ready she went to the stairs and called Anne. A
tear-stained face appeared, looking tragically over the banisters.
"Come down to your dinner, Anne."
"I don't want any dinner, Marilla," said Anne, sobbingly. "I couldn't
eat anything. My heart is broken. You'll feel remorse of conscience
someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla, but I forgive you. Remember
when the time comes that I forgive you. But please don't ask me to eat
anything, especially boiled pork and greens. Boiled pork and greens are
so unromantic when one is in affliction."
Exasperated, Marilla returned to the kitchen and poured out her tale
of woe to Matthew, who, between his sense of justice and his unlawful
sympathy with Anne, was a miserable man.
"Well now, she shouldn't have taken the brooch, Marilla, or told stories
about it," he admitted, mournfully surveying his plateful of unromantic
pork and greens as if he, like Anne, thought it a food unsuited to
crises of feeling, "but she's such a little thing--such an interesting
little thing. Don't you think it's pretty rough not to let her go to the
picnic when she's so set on it?"
"Matthew Cuthbert, I'm amazed at you. I think I've let her off entirely
too easy. And she doesn't appear to realize how wicked she's been at
all--that's what worries me most. If she'd really felt sorry it wouldn't
be so bad. And you don't seem to realize it, neither; you're making
excuses for her all the time to yourself--I can see that."
"Well now, she's such a little thing," feebly reiterated Matthew. "And
there should be allowances made, Marilla. You know she's never had any
bringing up."
"Well, she's having it now" retorted Marilla.
The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner was
a very dismal meal. The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote,
the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness as a personal
insult.
When her dishes were washed and her bread sponge set and her hens fed
Marilla remembered that she had noticed a small rent in her best black
lace shawl when she had taken it off on Monday afternoon on returning
from the Ladies' Aid.
She would go and mend it. The shawl was in a box in her trunk. As
Marilla lifted it out, the sunlight, falling through the vines that
clustered thickly about the window, struck upon something caught in the
shawl--something that glittered and sparkled in facets of violet light.
Marilla snatched at it with a gasp. It was the amethyst brooch, hanging
to a thread of the lace by its catch!
"Dear life and heart," said Marilla blankly, "what does this mean?
Here's my brooch safe and sound that I thought was at the bottom of
Barry's pond. Whatever did that girl mean by saying she took it and lost
it? I declare I believe Green Gables is bewitched. I remember now that
when I took off my shawl Monday afternoon I laid it on the bureau for a
minute. I suppose the brooch got caught in it somehow. Well!"
Marilla betook herself to the east gable, brooch in hand. Anne had cried
herself out and was sitting dejectedly by the window.
"Anne Shirley," said Marilla solemnly, "I've just found my brooch
hanging to my black lace shawl. Now I want to know what that rigmarole
you told me this morning meant."
"Why, you said you'd keep me here until I confessed," returned Anne
wearily, "and so I decided to confess because I was bound to get to the
picnic. I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed and
made it as interesting as I could. And I said it over and over so that I
wouldn't forget it. But you wouldn't let me go to the picnic after all,
so all my trouble was wasted."
Marilla had to laugh in spite of herself. But her conscience pricked
her.
"Anne, you do beat all! But I was wrong--I see that now. I shouldn't
have doubted your word when I'd never known you to tell a story.
Of course, it wasn't right for you to confess to a thing you hadn't
done--it was very wrong to do so. But I drove you to it. So if you'll
forgive me, Anne, I'll forgive you and we'll start square again. And now
get yourself ready for the picnic."
Anne flew up like a rocket.
"Oh, Marilla, isn't it too late?"
"No, it's only two o'clock. They won't be more than well gathered yet
and it'll be an hour before they have tea. Wash your face and comb your
hair and put on your gingham. I'll fill a basket for you. There's plenty
of stuff baked in the house. And I'll get Jerry to hitch up the sorrel
and drive you down to the picnic ground."
"Oh, Marilla," exclaimed Anne, flying to the washstand. "Five minutes
ago I was so miserable I was wishing I'd never been born and now I
wouldn't change places with an angel!"
That night a thoroughly happy, completely tired-out Anne returned to
Green Gables in a state of beatification impossible to describe.
"Oh, Marilla, I've had a perfectly scrumptious time. Scrumptious is a
new word I learned today. I heard Mary Alice Bell use it. Isn't it very
expressive? Everything was lovely. We had a splendid tea and then Mr.
Harmon Andrews took us all for a row on the Lake of Shining Waters--six
of us at a time. And Jane Andrews nearly fell overboard. She was leaning
out to pick water lilies and if Mr. Andrews hadn't caught her by her
sash just in the nick of time she'd fallen in and prob'ly been drowned.
I wish it had been me. It would have been such a romantic experience to
have been nearly drowned. It would be such a thrilling tale to tell. And
we had the ice cream. Words fail me to describe that ice cream. Marilla,
I assure you it was sublime."
That evening Marilla told the whole story to Matthew over her stocking
basket.
"I'm willing to own up that I made a mistake," she concluded candidly,
"but I've learned a lesson. I have to laugh when I think of Anne's
'confession,' although I suppose I shouldn't for it really was a
falsehood. But it doesn't seem as bad as the other would have been,
somehow, and anyhow I'm responsible for it. That child is hard to
understand in some respects. But I believe she'll turn out all right
yet. And there's one thing certain, no house will ever be dull that
she's in." | Anne is shelling peas when Marilla walks in and asks if Anne took her amethyst brooch. Anne admits to trying it on, but she says she returned it to Marilla's bureau afterward. Marilla re-checks the bureau and her whole bedroom, but no brooch. So she returns to Anne and accuses her of lying. Anne refuses to confess, so she's sent to her room. It's the same punishment as earlier: stay in your room until you do the thing. In this case, confess. What bugs Marilla more than a missing brooch is the idea that there's a child in her house who lies and can't be trusted. She tells as much to Matthew the next morning, but Matthew's completely willing to stay out of this one. The next day, Marilla searches for the brooch and Anne stays in her room. In the evening, Marilla tells Anne she can't go to the picnic until she confesses. So the next morning, Anne "confesses." She tells Marilla she took the brooch and accidentally dropped it in the Lake of Shining Waters. But she says it all without any feeling, like she's reciting something. A super-annoyed Marilla forbids Anne from going to the picnic. Matthew tries to persuade her otherwise, but Marilla's foot is down. But later, when Marilla goes to mend her black shawl, she finds the brooch caught in it. Anne admits she made up the story of dropping it into the lake so she could go to the picnic. Marilla apologizes and sends Anne there with some food. The picnic doesn't disappoint. Afterward, Anne tells Marilla that she had tea, was rowed around the lake, and tasted ice cream. Marilla tells Matthew that she thinks Anne will turn out all right. |
IT was in the summer of 1842 that we arrived at the islands; the French
had then held possession of them for several weeks. During this time
they had visited some of the principal places in the group, and had
disembarked at various points about five hundred troops. These were
employed in constructing works of defence, and otherwise providing
against the attacks of the natives, who at any moment might be expected
to break out in open hostility. The islanders looked upon the people who
made this cavalier appropriation of their shores with mingled feelings
of fear and detestation. They cordially hated them; but the impulses
of their resentment were neutralized by their dread of the floating
batteries, which lay with their fatal tubes ostentatiously pointed,
not at fortifications and redoubts, but at a handful of bamboo sheds,
sheltered in a grove of cocoanuts! A valiant warrior doubtless, but
a prudent one too, was this same Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars. Four
heavy, doublebanked frigates and three corvettes to frighten a parcel of
naked heathen into subjection! Sixty-eight pounders to demolish huts of
cocoanut boughs, and Congreve rockets to set on fire a few canoe sheds!
At Nukuheva, there were about one hundred soldiers ashore. They were
encamped in tents, constructed of the old sails and spare spars of
the squadron, within the limits of a redoubt mounted with a few
nine-pounders, and surrounded with a fosse. Every other day, these
troops were marched out in martial array, to a level piece of ground
in the vicinity, and there for hours went through all sorts of military
evolutions, surrounded by flocks of the natives, who looked on with
savage admiration at the show, and as savage a hatred of the actors.
A regiment of the Old Guard, reviewed on a summer's day in the Champs
Elysees, could not have made a more critically correct appearance. The
officers' regimentals, resplendent with gold lace and embroidery as if
purposely calculated to dazzle the islanders, looked as if just unpacked
from their Parisian cases.
The sensation produced by the presence of the strangers had not in the
least subsided at the period of our arrival at the islands. The natives
still flocked in numbers about the encampment, and watched with the
liveliest curiosity everything that was going forward. A blacksmith's
forge, which had been set up in the shelter of a grove near the beach,
attracted so great a crowd, that it required the utmost efforts of the
sentries posted around to keep the inquisitive multitude at a sufficient
distance to allow the workmen to ply their vocation. But nothing gained
so large a share of admiration as a horse, which had been brought from
Valparaiso by the Achille, one of the vessels of the squadron. The
animal, a remarkably fine one, had been taken ashore, and stabled in a
hut of cocoanut boughs within the fortified enclosure. Occasionally it
was brought out, and, being gaily caparisoned, was ridden by one of the
officers at full speed over the hard sand beach. This performance was
sure to be hailed with loud plaudits, and the 'puarkee nuee' (big hog)
was unanimously pronounced by the islanders to be the most extraordinary
specimen of zoology that had ever come under their observation.
The expedition for the occupation of the Marquesas had sailed from Brest
in the spring of 1842, and the secret of its destination was solely in
the possession of its commander. No wonder that those who contemplated
such a signal infraction of the rights of humanity should have sought to
veil the enormity from the eyes of the world. And yet, notwithstanding
their iniquitous conduct in this and in other matters, the French
have ever plumed themselves upon being the most humane and polished of
nations. A high degree of refinement, however, does not seem to subdue
our wicked propensities so much after all; and were civilization itself
to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for
what we call the barbarous part of the world to remain unchanged.
One example of the shameless subterfuges under which the French stand
prepared to defend whatever cruelties they may hereafter think fit to
commit in bringing the Marquesan natives into subjection is well worthy
of being recorded. On some flimsy pretext or other Mowanna, the king of
Nukuheva, whom the invaders by extravagant presents had cajoled over to
their interests, and moved about like a mere puppet, has been set up
as the rightful sovereign of the entire island--the alleged ruler by
prescription of various clans, who for ages perhaps have treated with
each other as separate nations. To reinstate this much-injured prince in
the assumed dignities of his ancestors, the disinterested strangers have
come all the way from France: they are determined that his title shall
be acknowledged. If any tribe shall refuse to recognize the authority
of the French, by bowing down to the laced chapeau of Mowanna, let them
abide the consequences of their obstinacy. Under cover of a similar
pretence, have the outrages and massacres at Tahiti the beautiful, the
queen of the South Seas, been perpetrated.
On this buccaneering expedition, Rear Admiral Du Petit Thouars, leaving
the rest of his squadron at the Marquesas,--which had then been occupied
by his forces about five months--set sail for the doomed island in
the Reine Blanche frigate. On his arrival, as an indemnity for alleged
insults offered to the flag of his country, he demanded some twenty
or thirty thousand dollars to be placed in his hands forthwith, and in
default of payment, threatened to land and take possession of the place.
The frigate, immediately upon coming to an anchor, got springs on her
cables, and with her guns cast loose and her men at their quarters, lay
in the circular basin of Papeete, with her broadside bearing upon the
devoted town; while her numerous cutters, hauled in order alongside,
were ready to effect a landing, under cover of her batteries. She
maintained this belligerent attitude for several days, during which time
a series of informal negotiations were pending, and wide alarm spread
over the island. Many of the Tahitians were at first disposed to resort
to arms, and drive the invaders from their shores; but more pacific and
feebler counsels ultimately prevailed. The unfortunate queen Pomare,
incapable of averting the impending calamity, terrified at the arrogance
of the insolent Frenchman, and driven at last to despair, fled by night
in a canoe to Emio.
During the continuance of the panic there occurred an instance of
feminine heroism that I cannot omit to record.
In the grounds of the famous missionary consul, Pritchard, then absent
in London, the consular flag of Britain waved as usual during the day,
from a lofty staff planted within a few yards of the beach, and in full
view of the frigate. One morning an officer, at the head of a party
of men, presented himself at the verandah of Mr Pritchard's house, and
inquired in broken English for the lady his wife. The matron soon made
her appearance; and the polite Frenchman, making one of his best bows,
and playing gracefully with the aiguillettes that danced upon his
breast, proceeded in courteous accents to deliver his mission. 'The
admiral desired the flag to be hauled down--hoped it would be perfectly
agreeable--and his men stood ready to perform the duty.' 'Tell the
Pirate your master,' replied the spirited Englishwoman, pointing to
the staff, 'that if he wishes to strike these colours, he must come and
perform the act himself; I will suffer no one else to do it.' The lady
then bowed haughtily and withdrew into the house. As the discomfited
officer slowly walked away, he looked up to the flag, and perceived that
the cord by which it was elevated to its place, led from the top of the
staff, across the lawn, to an open upper window of the mansion, where
sat the lady from whom he had just parted, tranquilly engaged in
knitting. Was that flag hauled down? Mrs Pritchard thinks not; and
Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars is believed to be of the same opinion. | It is the summer of 1842 and the French have arrived on the island only a few weeks before the Dolly. About a hundred French soldiers now live around the bay. The natives come from their huts to watch the foreigners. They appear intrigued by European customs and especially are impressed by the arrival of a European horse. One of the chiefs of Nukuheva, Mowanna, is appointed by the French to serve as a puppet chieftain. Although the French act as if they are polite and diplomatic, this behavior merely cloaks the true brutality with which they generally treat natives |
DR. KEMP'S VISITOR
Dr. Kemp had continued writing in his study until the shots
aroused him. Crack, crack, crack, they came one after the other.
"Hullo!" said Dr. Kemp, putting his pen into his mouth again and
listening. "Who's letting off revolvers in Burdock? What are the
asses at now?"
He went to the south window, threw it up, and leaning out stared
down on the network of windows, beaded gas-lamps and shops, with its
black interstices of roof and yard that made up the town at night.
"Looks like a crowd down the hill," he said, "by 'The Cricketers,'"
and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered over the town to far
away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed--a little
illuminated, facetted pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon
in its first quarter hung over the westward hill, and the stars were
clear and almost tropically bright.
After five minutes, during which his mind had travelled into a
remote speculation of social conditions of the future, and lost
itself at last over the time dimension, Dr. Kemp roused himself
with a sigh, pulled down the window again, and returned to his
writing desk.
It must have been about an hour after this that the front-door bell
rang. He had been writing slackly, and with intervals of
abstraction, since the shots. He sat listening. He heard the servant
answer the door, and waited for her feet on the staircase, but she
did not come. "Wonder what that was," said Dr. Kemp.
He tried to resume his work, failed, got up, went downstairs from
his study to the landing, rang, and called over the balustrade to
the housemaid as she appeared in the hall below. "Was that a
letter?" he asked.
"Only a runaway ring, sir," she answered.
"I'm restless to-night," he said to himself. He went back to his
study, and this time attacked his work resolutely. In a little
while he was hard at work again, and the only sounds in the room
were the ticking of the clock and the subdued shrillness of his
quill, hurrying in the very centre of the circle of light his
lampshade threw on his table.
It was two o'clock before Dr. Kemp had finished his work for the
night. He rose, yawned, and went downstairs to bed. He had already
removed his coat and vest, when he noticed that he was thirsty. He
took a candle and went down to the dining-room in search of a
syphon and whiskey.
Dr. Kemp's scientific pursuits have made him a very observant
man, and as he recrossed the hall, he noticed a dark spot on the
linoleum near the mat at the foot of the stairs. He went on
upstairs, and then it suddenly occurred to him to ask himself what
the spot on the linoleum might be. Apparently some subconscious
element was at work. At any rate, he turned with his burden, went
back to the hall, put down the syphon and whiskey, and bending
down, touched the spot. Without any great surprise he found it had
the stickiness and colour of drying blood.
He took up his burden again, and returned upstairs, looking about
him and trying to account for the blood-spot. On the landing he saw
something and stopped astonished. The door-handle of his own room
was blood-stained.
He looked at his own hand. It was quite clean, and then he
remembered that the door of his room had been open when he came down
from his study, and that consequently he had not touched the handle
at all. He went straight into his room, his face quite calm--perhaps
a trifle more resolute than usual. His glance, wandering
inquisitively, fell on the bed. On the counterpane was a mess of
blood, and the sheet had been torn. He had not noticed this before
because he had walked straight to the dressing-table. On the further
side the bedclothes were depressed as if someone had been recently
sitting there.
Then he had an odd impression that he had heard a low voice say,
"Good Heavens!--Kemp!" But Dr. Kemp was no believer in voices.
He stood staring at the tumbled sheets. Was that really a voice? He
looked about again, but noticed nothing further than the disordered
and blood-stained bed. Then he distinctly heard a movement across
the room, near the wash-hand stand. All men, however highly
educated, retain some superstitious inklings. The feeling that is
called "eerie" came upon him. He closed the door of the room, came
forward to the dressing-table, and put down his burdens. Suddenly,
with a start, he perceived a coiled and blood-stained bandage of
linen rag hanging in mid-air, between him and the wash-hand stand.
He stared at this in amazement. It was an empty bandage, a bandage
properly tied but quite empty. He would have advanced to grasp it,
but a touch arrested him, and a voice speaking quite close to him.
"Kemp!" said the Voice.
"Eh?" said Kemp, with his mouth open.
"Keep your nerve," said the Voice. "I'm an Invisible Man."
Kemp made no answer for a space, simply stared at the bandage.
"Invisible Man," he said.
"I am an Invisible Man," repeated the Voice.
The story he had been active to ridicule only that morning rushed
through Kemp's brain. He does not appear to have been either very
much frightened or very greatly surprised at the moment.
Realisation came later.
"I thought it was all a lie," he said. The thought uppermost in his
mind was the reiterated arguments of the morning. "Have you a
bandage on?" he asked.
"Yes," said the Invisible Man.
"Oh!" said Kemp, and then roused himself. "I say!" he said. "But
this is nonsense. It's some trick." He stepped forward suddenly,
and his hand, extended towards the bandage, met invisible fingers.
He recoiled at the touch and his colour changed.
"Keep steady, Kemp, for God's sake! I want help badly. Stop!"
The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it.
"Kemp!" cried the Voice. "Kemp! Keep steady!" and the grip
tightened.
A frantic desire to free himself took possession of Kemp. The hand
of the bandaged arm gripped his shoulder, and he was suddenly
tripped and flung backwards upon the bed. He opened his mouth to
shout, and the corner of the sheet was thrust between his teeth.
The Invisible Man had him down grimly, but his arms were free and
he struck and tried to kick savagely.
"Listen to reason, will you?" said the Invisible Man, sticking to
him in spite of a pounding in the ribs. "By Heaven! you'll madden
me in a minute!
"Lie still, you fool!" bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp's ear.
Kemp struggled for another moment and then lay still.
"If you shout, I'll smash your face," said the Invisible Man,
relieving his mouth.
"I'm an Invisible Man. It's no foolishness, and no magic. I really
am an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don't want to hurt
you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic, I must. Don't you
remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College?"
"Let me get up," said Kemp. "I'll stop where I am. And let me sit
quiet for a minute."
He sat up and felt his neck.
"I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself
invisible. I am just an ordinary man--a man you have known--made
invisible."
"Griffin?" said Kemp.
"Griffin," answered the Voice. A younger student than you were,
almost an albino, six feet high, and broad, with a pink and white
face and red eyes, who won the medal for chemistry."
"I am confused," said Kemp. "My brain is rioting. What has this to
do with Griffin?"
"I _am_ Griffin."
Kemp thought. "It's horrible," he said. "But what devilry must
happen to make a man invisible?"
"It's no devilry. It's a process, sane and intelligible enough--"
"It's horrible!" said Kemp. "How on earth--?"
"It's horrible enough. But I'm wounded and in pain, and tired ...
Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food
and drink, and let me sit down here."
Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a
basket chair dragged across the floor and come to rest near the bed.
It creaked, and the seat was depressed the quarter of an inch or so.
He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. "This beats ghosts," he
said, and laughed stupidly.
"That's better. Thank Heaven, you're getting sensible!"
"Or silly," said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes.
"Give me some whiskey. I'm near dead."
"It didn't feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you?
_There_! all right. Whiskey? Here. Where shall I give it to you?"
The chair creaked and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He
let go by an effort; his instinct was all against it. It came to
rest poised twenty inches above the front edge of the seat of the
chair. He stared at it in infinite perplexity. "This is--this
must be--hypnotism. You have suggested you are invisible."
"Nonsense," said the Voice.
"It's frantic."
"Listen to me."
"I demonstrated conclusively this morning," began Kemp, "that
invisibility--"
"Never mind what you've demonstrated!--I'm starving," said the
Voice, "and the night is chilly to a man without clothes."
"Food?" said Kemp.
The tumbler of whiskey tilted itself. "Yes," said the Invisible Man
rapping it down. "Have you a dressing-gown?"
Kemp made some exclamation in an undertone. He walked to a wardrobe
and produced a robe of dingy scarlet. "This do?" he asked. It was
taken from him. It hung limp for a moment in mid-air, fluttered
weirdly, stood full and decorous buttoning itself, and sat down in
his chair. "Drawers, socks, slippers would be a comfort," said the
Unseen, curtly. "And food."
"Anything. But this is the insanest thing I ever was in, in my
life!"
He turned out his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs
to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and
bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest.
"Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air,
with a sound of gnawing.
"Invisible!" said Kemp, and sat down on a bedroom chair.
"I always like to get something about me before I eat," said the
Invisible Man, with a full mouth, eating greedily. "Queer fancy!"
"I suppose that wrist is all right," said Kemp.
"Trust me," said the Invisible Man.
"Of all the strange and wonderful--"
"Exactly. But it's odd I should blunder into _your_ house to get my
bandaging. My first stroke of luck! Anyhow I meant to sleep in this
house to-night. You must stand that! It's a filthy nuisance, my
blood showing, isn't it? Quite a clot over there. Gets visible as
it coagulates, I see. It's only the living tissue I've changed, and
only for as long as I'm alive.... I've been in the house three hours."
"But how's it done?" began Kemp, in a tone of exasperation.
"Confound it! The whole business--it's unreasonable from
beginning to end."
"Quite reasonable," said the Invisible Man. "Perfectly reasonable."
He reached over and secured the whiskey bottle. Kemp stared at the
devouring dressing gown. A ray of candle-light penetrating a torn
patch in the right shoulder, made a triangle of light under the
left ribs. "What were the shots?" he asked. "How did the shooting
begin?"
"There was a real fool of a man--a sort of confederate of
mine--curse him!--who tried to steal my money. _Has_ done so."
"Is _he_ invisible too?"
"No."
"Well?"
"Can't I have some more to eat before I tell you all that? I'm
hungry--in pain. And you want me to tell stories!"
Kemp got up. "_You_ didn't do any shooting?" he asked.
"Not me," said his visitor. "Some fool I'd never seen fired at
random. A lot of them got scared. They all got scared at me. Curse
them!--I say--I want more to eat than this, Kemp."
"I'll see what there is to eat downstairs," said Kemp. "Not much,
I'm afraid."
After he had done eating, and he made a heavy meal, the Invisible
Man demanded a cigar. He bit the end savagely before Kemp could
find a knife, and cursed when the outer leaf loosened. It was
strange to see him smoking; his mouth, and throat, pharynx and
nares, became visible as a sort of whirling smoke cast.
"This blessed gift of smoking!" he said, and puffed vigorously.
"I'm lucky to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy
tumbling on you just now! I'm in a devilish scrape--I've been mad,
I think. The things I have been through! But we will do things yet.
Let me tell you--"
He helped himself to more whiskey and soda. Kemp got up, looked
about him, and fetched a glass from his spare room. "It's wild--but
I suppose I may drink."
"You haven't changed much, Kemp, these dozen years. You fair men
don't. Cool and methodical--after the first collapse. I must tell
you. We will work together!"
"But how was it all done?" said Kemp, "and how did you get like
this?"
"For God's sake, let me smoke in peace for a little while! And then
I will begin to tell you."
But the story was not told that night. The Invisible Man's wrist
was growing painful; he was feverish, exhausted, and his mind came
round to brood upon his chase down the hill and the struggle about
the inn. He spoke in fragments of Marvel, he smoked faster, his
voice grew angry. Kemp tried to gather what he could.
"He was afraid of me, I could see that he was afraid of me," said
the Invisible Man many times over. "He meant to give me the slip--he
was always casting about! What a fool I was!
"The cur!
"I should have killed him!"
"Where did you get the money?" asked Kemp, abruptly.
The Invisible Man was silent for a space. "I can't tell you
to-night," he said.
He groaned suddenly and leant forward, supporting his invisible
head on invisible hands. "Kemp," he said, "I've had no sleep for
near three days, except a couple of dozes of an hour or so. I
must sleep soon."
"Well, have my room--have this room."
"But how can I sleep? If I sleep--he will get away. Ugh! What
does it matter?"
"What's the shot wound?" asked Kemp, abruptly.
"Nothing--scratch and blood. Oh, God! How I want sleep!"
"Why not?"
The Invisible Man appeared to be regarding Kemp. "Because I've a
particular objection to being caught by my fellow-men," he said
slowly.
Kemp started.
"Fool that I am!" said the Invisible Man, striking the table
smartly. "I've put the idea into your head." | After four months of study, Jack takes him to Harlem. However, instead of delivering speeches, he is taken out for drinks. The lack of activity bothers the narrator, who longs for another chance at glory. He studies more than ever, preparing for the next speech. Jack informs the narrator that he has been voted spokesperson for the Harlem district. He is advised to keep the people stirred up and active. He will be provided with guidance and orders. Jack explains that he has freedom to operate within the guidelines of the organization. He tells him that he will have an appointment with the executive committee of the Harlem section the next day at nine. Jack then takes him to the location of his new office. They are met at the door by Brother Tarp. The next morning, the narrator arrives on time. He is announced as the new spokesperson just as Brother Clifton arrives late. At first, the narrator is threatened by the handsome young man, thinking he is a rival for his position. Clifton explains his tardiness by saying he was seeing a doctor to treat his wounds from an encounter with Ras the Exhorter and his nationalists. In the meeting the narrator suggests that they focus on the eviction issue in the community by getting the support of local officials. Brother Clifton supports his idea. Then, he suggests taking the speeches to the streets like Ras does. The committee agrees but reminds Clifton of the non-violence rule of the group. Jack leaves, and Clifton and the narrator go over plans for street speeches. The narrator looks around the room to observe everyone and try to figure them out. He cannot, deciding they are too different, too fluid. He decides that he too is different and changes all the time. He decides he should not make anyone angry, since he is to be the new leader. Outside, the narrator is surrounded by a crowd of people anxious to hear him speak. Clifton's youth division of the Brotherhood surrounds him. Ras the Exhorter and his violent gang of activists show up and begin to fight. The narrator is hit in the head and falls. He sees Ras pull a knife on Clifton but stop in mid-air. Ras lets Clifton go because he is black. Ras tries to convince Clifton and the narrator that they are traitors to the black people by helping ex-slave holders and calling them brothers, for there are white men in the Brotherhood. Ras goes on to explain that white men will only call them brothers long enough to achieve their goals. He pleads with them to believe him, even moved to tears. The narrator responds carefully, telling Ras they will not go away, and they want no more trouble with him or his nationalists. Clifton and the narrator leave, talking as they go about how Jack will respond to the violence, which is strictly against Brotherhood policy. Clifton halfway admits to believing some of Ras' philosophy, revealing that he sometimes feels he has turned his back on the black people in some manner. He tells the narrator he does not know any other way of fighting for his cause, revealing that if he allowed himself to get as angry as Ras, he might lose control and kill someone. The narrator is mostly silent, finally saying he is glad the Brotherhood can help them fight for their cause. |
Having carefully considered the subject of the above discourses, and
wondering within myself whether the present times were propitious to
a new prince, and whether there were elements that would give an
opportunity to a wise and virtuous one to introduce a new order of
things which would do honour to him and good to the people of this
country, it appears to me that so many things concur to favour a new
prince that I never knew a time more fit than the present.
And if, as I said, it was necessary that the people of Israel should be
captive so as to make manifest the ability of Moses; that the Persians
should be oppressed by the Medes so as to discover the greatness of the
soul of Cyrus; and that the Athenians should be dispersed to illustrate
the capabilities of Theseus: then at the present time, in order to
discover the virtue of an Italian spirit, it was necessary that Italy
should be reduced to the extremity that she is now in, that she should
be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians,
more scattered than the Athenians; without head, without order, beaten,
despoiled, torn, overrun; and to have endured every kind of desolation.
Although lately some spark may have been shown by one, which made us
think he was ordained by God for our redemption, nevertheless it was
afterwards seen, in the height of his career, that fortune rejected him;
so that Italy, left as without life, waits for him who shall yet heal
her wounds and put an end to the ravaging and plundering of Lombardy,
to the swindling and taxing of the kingdom and of Tuscany, and cleanse
those sores that for long have festered. It is seen how she entreats God
to send someone who shall deliver her from these wrongs and barbarous
insolencies. It is seen also that she is ready and willing to follow a
banner if only someone will raise it.
Nor is there to be seen at present one in whom she can place more hope
than in your illustrious house,(*) with its valour and fortune, favoured
by God and by the Church of which it is now the chief, and which could
be made the head of this redemption. This will not be difficult if you
will recall to yourself the actions and lives of the men I have named.
And although they were great and wonderful men, yet they were men, and
each one of them had no more opportunity than the present offers, for
their enterprises were neither more just nor easier than this, nor was
God more their friend than He is yours.
(*) Giuliano de Medici. He had just been created a cardinal
by Leo X. In 1523 Giuliano was elected Pope, and took the
title of Clement VII.
With us there is great justice, because that war is just which is
necessary, and arms are hallowed when there is no other hope but in
them. Here there is the greatest willingness, and where the willingness
is great the difficulties cannot be great if you will only follow those
men to whom I have directed your attention. Further than this, how
extraordinarily the ways of God have been manifested beyond example:
the sea is divided, a cloud has led the way, the rock has poured
forth water, it has rained manna, everything has contributed to
your greatness; you ought to do the rest. God is not willing to do
everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory
which belongs to us.
And it is not to be wondered at if none of the above-named Italians
have been able to accomplish all that is expected from your illustrious
house; and if in so many revolutions in Italy, and in so many campaigns,
it has always appeared as if military virtue were exhausted, this has
happened because the old order of things was not good, and none of us
have known how to find a new one. And nothing honours a man more than to
establish new laws and new ordinances when he himself was newly risen.
Such things when they are well founded and dignified will make him
revered and admired, and in Italy there are not wanting opportunities to
bring such into use in every form.
Here there is great valour in the limbs whilst it fails in the head.
Look attentively at the duels and the hand-to-hand combats, how superior
the Italians are in strength, dexterity, and subtlety. But when it comes
to armies they do not bear comparison, and this springs entirely from
the insufficiency of the leaders, since those who are capable are not
obedient, and each one seems to himself to know, there having never been
any one so distinguished above the rest, either by valour or fortune,
that others would yield to him. Hence it is that for so long a time,
and during so much fighting in the past twenty years, whenever there
has been an army wholly Italian, it has always given a poor account of
itself; the first witness to this is Il Taro, afterwards Allesandria,
Capua, Genoa, Vaila, Bologna, Mestri.(*)
(*) The battles of Il Taro, 1495; Alessandria, 1499; Capua,
1501; Genoa, 1507; Vaila, 1509; Bologna, 1511; Mestri, 1513.
If, therefore, your illustrious house wishes to follow these remarkable
men who have redeemed their country, it is necessary before all things,
as a true foundation for every enterprise, to be provided with your
own forces, because there can be no more faithful, truer, or better
soldiers. And although singly they are good, altogether they will
be much better when they find themselves commanded by their prince,
honoured by him, and maintained at his expense. Therefore it is
necessary to be prepared with such arms, so that you can be defended
against foreigners by Italian valour.
And although Swiss and Spanish infantry may be considered very
formidable, nevertheless there is a defect in both, by reason of which
a third order would not only be able to oppose them, but might be relied
upon to overthrow them. For the Spaniards cannot resist cavalry, and the
Switzers are afraid of infantry whenever they encounter them in close
combat. Owing to this, as has been and may again be seen, the Spaniards
are unable to resist French cavalry, and the Switzers are overthrown by
Spanish infantry. And although a complete proof of this latter cannot
be shown, nevertheless there was some evidence of it at the battle of
Ravenna, when the Spanish infantry were confronted by German battalions,
who follow the same tactics as the Swiss; when the Spaniards, by agility
of body and with the aid of their shields, got in under the pikes of the
Germans and stood out of danger, able to attack, while the Germans stood
helpless, and, if the cavalry had not dashed up, all would have been
over with them. It is possible, therefore, knowing the defects of both
these infantries, to invent a new one, which will resist cavalry and not
be afraid of infantry; this need not create a new order of arms, but
a variation upon the old. And these are the kind of improvements which
confer reputation and power upon a new prince.
This opportunity, therefore, ought not to be allowed to pass for letting
Italy at last see her liberator appear. Nor can one express the love
with which he would be received in all those provinces which have
suffered so much from these foreign scourings, with what thirst for
revenge, with what stubborn faith, with what devotion, with what tears.
What door would be closed to him? Who would refuse obedience to him?
What envy would hinder him? What Italian would refuse him homage? To all
of us this barbarous dominion stinks. Let, therefore, your illustrious
house take up this charge with that courage and hope with which all
just enterprises are undertaken, so that under its standard our native
country may be ennobled, and under its auspices may be verified that
saying of Petrarch:
Virtu contro al Furore
Prendera l'arme, e fia il combatter corto:
Che l'antico valore
Negli italici cuor non e ancor morto.
Virtue against fury shall advance the fight,
And it i' th' combat soon shall put to flight:
For the old Roman valour is not dead,
Nor in th' Italians' brests extinguished.
Edward Dacre, 1640. | At the end of it all, Machiavelli has an appeal to Lorenzo de' Medici. Please take over Italy. Pretty please! It goes a little something like this: It's time for a new ruler. If he wants to, Medici can be like Moses, Cyrus, and all the greats. He can rebuild Italy from its broken down state and be part of the history books. Doesn't that sound sweet? There was one guy who might have been Italy's savior, but well, that didn't work out so well and now look where we are. Italy is ready for someone to save her, and who better than the smart, rich, famous, powerful--and did we mention good-smelling?--Lorenzo de' Medici? Now that he's presumably read the book, Medici has all the knowledge he needs to be a first-rate ruler. God wants him to do it. He has sent miracles. Does he want to displease God? Does he want to get smote? Look at Italy. It's down in the dumps, but its peoples are hard workers. Better than any other country. The best. They just need a leader. Whose name begins with an "L." By the way, Lorenzo, if you haven't gotten it already, if you plan to rule Italy, please establish an army. It's only the right thing to do. Italy can take on the Spanish, it can take on the Swiss--just give it a chance. So, Lorenzo, don't pass up this limited-time offer of ruling Italy. Everyone would love you, everyone would be loyal, and you would be the most adored ruler in the history of Italy. Why would you pass that up? Machiavelli leaves de' Medici with a patriotic quote from Petrarch about taking up arms, and his plea is over. |
Sir Walter, his two daughters, and Mrs Clay, were the earliest of all
their party at the rooms in the evening; and as Lady Dalrymple must be
waited for, they took their station by one of the fires in the Octagon
Room. But hardly were they so settled, when the door opened again, and
Captain Wentworth walked in alone. Anne was the nearest to him, and
making yet a little advance, she instantly spoke. He was preparing
only to bow and pass on, but her gentle "How do you do?" brought him
out of the straight line to stand near her, and make enquiries in
return, in spite of the formidable father and sister in the back
ground. Their being in the back ground was a support to Anne; she knew
nothing of their looks, and felt equal to everything which she believed
right to be done.
While they were speaking, a whispering between her father and Elizabeth
caught her ear. She could not distinguish, but she must guess the
subject; and on Captain Wentworth's making a distant bow, she
comprehended that her father had judged so well as to give him that
simple acknowledgement of acquaintance, and she was just in time by a
side glance to see a slight curtsey from Elizabeth herself. This,
though late, and reluctant, and ungracious, was yet better than
nothing, and her spirits improved.
After talking, however, of the weather, and Bath, and the concert,
their conversation began to flag, and so little was said at last, that
she was expecting him to go every moment, but he did not; he seemed in
no hurry to leave her; and presently with renewed spirit, with a little
smile, a little glow, he said--
"I have hardly seen you since our day at Lyme. I am afraid you must
have suffered from the shock, and the more from its not overpowering
you at the time."
She assured him that she had not.
"It was a frightful hour," said he, "a frightful day!" and he passed
his hand across his eyes, as if the remembrance were still too painful,
but in a moment, half smiling again, added, "The day has produced some
effects however; has had some consequences which must be considered as
the very reverse of frightful. When you had the presence of mind to
suggest that Benwick would be the properest person to fetch a surgeon,
you could have little idea of his being eventually one of those most
concerned in her recovery."
"Certainly I could have none. But it appears--I should hope it would
be a very happy match. There are on both sides good principles and
good temper."
"Yes," said he, looking not exactly forward; "but there, I think, ends
the resemblance. With all my soul I wish them happy, and rejoice over
every circumstance in favour of it. They have no difficulties to
contend with at home, no opposition, no caprice, no delays. The
Musgroves are behaving like themselves, most honourably and kindly,
only anxious with true parental hearts to promote their daughter's
comfort. All this is much, very much in favour of their happiness;
more than perhaps--"
He stopped. A sudden recollection seemed to occur, and to give him
some taste of that emotion which was reddening Anne's cheeks and fixing
her eyes on the ground. After clearing his throat, however, he
proceeded thus--
"I confess that I do think there is a disparity, too great a disparity,
and in a point no less essential than mind. I regard Louisa Musgrove
as a very amiable, sweet-tempered girl, and not deficient in
understanding, but Benwick is something more. He is a clever man, a
reading man; and I confess, that I do consider his attaching himself to
her with some surprise. Had it been the effect of gratitude, had he
learnt to love her, because he believed her to be preferring him, it
would have been another thing. But I have no reason to suppose it so.
It seems, on the contrary, to have been a perfectly spontaneous,
untaught feeling on his side, and this surprises me. A man like him,
in his situation! with a heart pierced, wounded, almost broken! Fanny
Harville was a very superior creature, and his attachment to her was
indeed attachment. A man does not recover from such a devotion of the
heart to such a woman. He ought not; he does not."
Either from the consciousness, however, that his friend had recovered,
or from other consciousness, he went no farther; and Anne who, in spite
of the agitated voice in which the latter part had been uttered, and in
spite of all the various noises of the room, the almost ceaseless slam
of the door, and ceaseless buzz of persons walking through, had
distinguished every word, was struck, gratified, confused, and
beginning to breathe very quick, and feel an hundred things in a
moment. It was impossible for her to enter on such a subject; and yet,
after a pause, feeling the necessity of speaking, and having not the
smallest wish for a total change, she only deviated so far as to say--
"You were a good while at Lyme, I think?"
"About a fortnight. I could not leave it till Louisa's doing well was
quite ascertained. I had been too deeply concerned in the mischief to
be soon at peace. It had been my doing, solely mine. She would not
have been obstinate if I had not been weak. The country round Lyme is
very fine. I walked and rode a great deal; and the more I saw, the
more I found to admire."
"I should very much like to see Lyme again," said Anne.
"Indeed! I should not have supposed that you could have found anything
in Lyme to inspire such a feeling. The horror and distress you were
involved in, the stretch of mind, the wear of spirits! I should have
thought your last impressions of Lyme must have been strong disgust."
"The last hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne; "but when
pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure. One does
not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been
all suffering, nothing but suffering, which was by no means the case at
Lyme. We were only in anxiety and distress during the last two hours,
and previously there had been a great deal of enjoyment. So much
novelty and beauty! I have travelled so little, that every fresh place
would be interesting to me; but there is real beauty at Lyme; and in
short" (with a faint blush at some recollections), "altogether my
impressions of the place are very agreeable."
As she ceased, the entrance door opened again, and the very party
appeared for whom they were waiting. "Lady Dalrymple, Lady Dalrymple,"
was the rejoicing sound; and with all the eagerness compatible with
anxious elegance, Sir Walter and his two ladies stepped forward to meet
her. Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, escorted by Mr Elliot and
Colonel Wallis, who had happened to arrive nearly at the same instant,
advanced into the room. The others joined them, and it was a group in
which Anne found herself also necessarily included. She was divided
from Captain Wentworth. Their interesting, almost too interesting
conversation must be broken up for a time, but slight was the penance
compared with the happiness which brought it on! She had learnt, in
the last ten minutes, more of his feelings towards Louisa, more of all
his feelings than she dared to think of; and she gave herself up to the
demands of the party, to the needful civilities of the moment, with
exquisite, though agitated sensations. She was in good humour with
all. She had received ideas which disposed her to be courteous and
kind to all, and to pity every one, as being less happy than herself.
The delightful emotions were a little subdued, when on stepping back
from the group, to be joined again by Captain Wentworth, she saw that
he was gone. She was just in time to see him turn into the Concert
Room. He was gone; he had disappeared, she felt a moment's regret.
But "they should meet again. He would look for her, he would find her
out before the evening were over, and at present, perhaps, it was as
well to be asunder. She was in need of a little interval for
recollection."
Upon Lady Russell's appearance soon afterwards, the whole party was
collected, and all that remained was to marshal themselves, and proceed
into the Concert Room; and be of all the consequence in their power,
draw as many eyes, excite as many whispers, and disturb as many people
as they could.
Very, very happy were both Elizabeth and Anne Elliot as they walked in.
Elizabeth arm in arm with Miss Carteret, and looking on the broad back
of the dowager Viscountess Dalrymple before her, had nothing to wish
for which did not seem within her reach; and Anne--but it would be an
insult to the nature of Anne's felicity, to draw any comparison between
it and her sister's; the origin of one all selfish vanity, of the other
all generous attachment.
Anne saw nothing, thought nothing of the brilliancy of the room. Her
happiness was from within. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks glowed;
but she knew nothing about it. She was thinking only of the last half
hour, and as they passed to their seats, her mind took a hasty range
over it. His choice of subjects, his expressions, and still more his
manner and look, had been such as she could see in only one light. His
opinion of Louisa Musgrove's inferiority, an opinion which he had
seemed solicitous to give, his wonder at Captain Benwick, his feelings
as to a first, strong attachment; sentences begun which he could not
finish, his half averted eyes and more than half expressive glance,
all, all declared that he had a heart returning to her at least; that
anger, resentment, avoidance, were no more; and that they were
succeeded, not merely by friendship and regard, but by the tenderness
of the past. Yes, some share of the tenderness of the past. She could
not contemplate the change as implying less. He must love her.
These were thoughts, with their attendant visions, which occupied and
flurried her too much to leave her any power of observation; and she
passed along the room without having a glimpse of him, without even
trying to discern him. When their places were determined on, and they
were all properly arranged, she looked round to see if he should happen
to be in the same part of the room, but he was not; her eye could not
reach him; and the concert being just opening, she must consent for a
time to be happy in a humbler way.
The party was divided and disposed of on two contiguous benches: Anne
was among those on the foremost, and Mr Elliot had manoeuvred so well,
with the assistance of his friend Colonel Wallis, as to have a seat by
her. Miss Elliot, surrounded by her cousins, and the principal object
of Colonel Wallis's gallantry, was quite contented.
Anne's mind was in a most favourable state for the entertainment of the
evening; it was just occupation enough: she had feelings for the
tender, spirits for the gay, attention for the scientific, and patience
for the wearisome; and had never liked a concert better, at least
during the first act. Towards the close of it, in the interval
succeeding an Italian song, she explained the words of the song to Mr
Elliot. They had a concert bill between them.
"This," said she, "is nearly the sense, or rather the meaning of the
words, for certainly the sense of an Italian love-song must not be
talked of, but it is as nearly the meaning as I can give; for I do not
pretend to understand the language. I am a very poor Italian scholar."
"Yes, yes, I see you are. I see you know nothing of the matter. You
have only knowledge enough of the language to translate at sight these
inverted, transposed, curtailed Italian lines, into clear,
comprehensible, elegant English. You need not say anything more of
your ignorance. Here is complete proof."
"I will not oppose such kind politeness; but I should be sorry to be
examined by a real proficient."
"I have not had the pleasure of visiting in Camden Place so long,"
replied he, "without knowing something of Miss Anne Elliot; and I do
regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be
aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for
modesty to be natural in any other woman."
"For shame! for shame! this is too much flattery. I forget what we are
to have next," turning to the bill.
"Perhaps," said Mr Elliot, speaking low, "I have had a longer
acquaintance with your character than you are aware of."
"Indeed! How so? You can have been acquainted with it only since I
came to Bath, excepting as you might hear me previously spoken of in my
own family."
"I knew you by report long before you came to Bath. I had heard you
described by those who knew you intimately. I have been acquainted
with you by character many years. Your person, your disposition,
accomplishments, manner; they were all present to me."
Mr Elliot was not disappointed in the interest he hoped to raise. No
one can withstand the charm of such a mystery. To have been described
long ago to a recent acquaintance, by nameless people, is irresistible;
and Anne was all curiosity. She wondered, and questioned him eagerly;
but in vain. He delighted in being asked, but he would not tell.
"No, no, some time or other, perhaps, but not now. He would mention no
names now; but such, he could assure her, had been the fact. He had
many years ago received such a description of Miss Anne Elliot as had
inspired him with the highest idea of her merit, and excited the
warmest curiosity to know her."
Anne could think of no one so likely to have spoken with partiality of
her many years ago as the Mr Wentworth of Monkford, Captain Wentworth's
brother. He might have been in Mr Elliot's company, but she had not
courage to ask the question.
"The name of Anne Elliot," said he, "has long had an interesting sound
to me. Very long has it possessed a charm over my fancy; and, if I
dared, I would breathe my wishes that the name might never change."
Such, she believed, were his words; but scarcely had she received their
sound, than her attention was caught by other sounds immediately behind
her, which rendered every thing else trivial. Her father and Lady
Dalrymple were speaking.
"A well-looking man," said Sir Walter, "a very well-looking man."
"A very fine young man indeed!" said Lady Dalrymple. "More air than
one often sees in Bath. Irish, I dare say."
"No, I just know his name. A bowing acquaintance. Wentworth; Captain
Wentworth of the navy. His sister married my tenant in Somersetshire,
the Croft, who rents Kellynch."
Before Sir Walter had reached this point, Anne's eyes had caught the
right direction, and distinguished Captain Wentworth standing among a
cluster of men at a little distance. As her eyes fell on him, his
seemed to be withdrawn from her. It had that appearance. It seemed as
if she had been one moment too late; and as long as she dared observe,
he did not look again: but the performance was recommencing, and she
was forced to seem to restore her attention to the orchestra and look
straight forward.
When she could give another glance, he had moved away. He could not
have come nearer to her if he would; she was so surrounded and shut in:
but she would rather have caught his eye.
Mr Elliot's speech, too, distressed her. She had no longer any
inclination to talk to him. She wished him not so near her.
The first act was over. Now she hoped for some beneficial change; and,
after a period of nothing-saying amongst the party, some of them did
decide on going in quest of tea. Anne was one of the few who did not
choose to move. She remained in her seat, and so did Lady Russell; but
she had the pleasure of getting rid of Mr Elliot; and she did not mean,
whatever she might feel on Lady Russell's account, to shrink from
conversation with Captain Wentworth, if he gave her the opportunity.
She was persuaded by Lady Russell's countenance that she had seen him.
He did not come however. Anne sometimes fancied she discerned him at a
distance, but he never came. The anxious interval wore away
unproductively. The others returned, the room filled again, benches
were reclaimed and repossessed, and another hour of pleasure or of
penance was to be sat out, another hour of music was to give delight or
the gapes, as real or affected taste for it prevailed. To Anne, it
chiefly wore the prospect of an hour of agitation. She could not quit
that room in peace without seeing Captain Wentworth once more, without
the interchange of one friendly look.
In re-settling themselves there were now many changes, the result of
which was favourable for her. Colonel Wallis declined sitting down
again, and Mr Elliot was invited by Elizabeth and Miss Carteret, in a
manner not to be refused, to sit between them; and by some other
removals, and a little scheming of her own, Anne was enabled to place
herself much nearer the end of the bench than she had been before, much
more within reach of a passer-by. She could not do so, without
comparing herself with Miss Larolles, the inimitable Miss Larolles; but
still she did it, and not with much happier effect; though by what
seemed prosperity in the shape of an early abdication in her next
neighbours, she found herself at the very end of the bench before the
concert closed.
Such was her situation, with a vacant space at hand, when Captain
Wentworth was again in sight. She saw him not far off. He saw her
too; yet he looked grave, and seemed irresolute, and only by very slow
degrees came at last near enough to speak to her. She felt that
something must be the matter. The change was indubitable. The
difference between his present air and what it had been in the Octagon
Room was strikingly great. Why was it? She thought of her father, of
Lady Russell. Could there have been any unpleasant glances? He began
by speaking of the concert gravely, more like the Captain Wentworth of
Uppercross; owned himself disappointed, had expected singing; and in
short, must confess that he should not be sorry when it was over. Anne
replied, and spoke in defence of the performance so well, and yet in
allowance for his feelings so pleasantly, that his countenance
improved, and he replied again with almost a smile. They talked for a
few minutes more; the improvement held; he even looked down towards the
bench, as if he saw a place on it well worth occupying; when at that
moment a touch on her shoulder obliged Anne to turn round. It came
from Mr Elliot. He begged her pardon, but she must be applied to, to
explain Italian again. Miss Carteret was very anxious to have a
general idea of what was next to be sung. Anne could not refuse; but
never had she sacrificed to politeness with a more suffering spirit.
A few minutes, though as few as possible, were inevitably consumed; and
when her own mistress again, when able to turn and look as she had done
before, she found herself accosted by Captain Wentworth, in a reserved
yet hurried sort of farewell. "He must wish her good night; he was
going; he should get home as fast as he could."
"Is not this song worth staying for?" said Anne, suddenly struck by an
idea which made her yet more anxious to be encouraging.
"No!" he replied impressively, "there is nothing worth my staying for;"
and he was gone directly.
Jealousy of Mr Elliot! It was the only intelligible motive. Captain
Wentworth jealous of her affection! Could she have believed it a week
ago; three hours ago! For a moment the gratification was exquisite.
But, alas! there were very different thoughts to succeed. How was such
jealousy to be quieted? How was the truth to reach him? How, in all
the peculiar disadvantages of their respective situations, would he
ever learn of her real sentiments? It was misery to think of Mr
Elliot's attentions. Their evil was incalculable. | Sir Walter, Elizabeth, Mrs. Clay, and Anne are at the concert, sitting around waiting for the fashionably-late Dalrymples when Captain Wentworth walks in. Anne starts talking to him, despite feeling the eyes of her father and sister sending daggers at her back. Eventually they relent slightly, however, just enough to give the Captain the slightest bow and curtsey. After the usual small talk of the weather and the town, the conversation turns to Lyme, and Anne and Wentworth discuss the strange turn of affairs that brought Louisa and Benwick together. Wentworth says that at least the couple doesn't have to deal with obnoxious parents, before Anne's blushes clue him in that he's not being the world's most tactful person. Wentworth goes on to say that Louisa's nice and all, but she doesn't seem bookish enough for Benwick, and he's surprised that his friend fall for her, especially after seeming so hard hit when his previous fiancee Fanny Harville died. Moving from the personal to the abstract, he says that "A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman. He ought not; he does not" . He then falls silent, perhaps thinking of the experience of someone other than Captain Benwick. Anne picks up the conversation, turning it back to Lyme more generally, and says that she would like to visit the town again. Wentworth blames himself for Louisa's reckless leap, and is surprised that Anne would want to revisit the site of previous trauma. Anne says that the bad part was only at the end, and that memory can transform even bad experiences into good. The Dalrymples and Mr. Elliot arrive and sweep Anne away from Wentworth; when she looks for him again, he has disappeared into the crowd. Anne thinks it's just as well, as she needs time to think over their conversation. Once Lady Russell arrives, the group heads to their seats, trying to attract as much attention as possible to themselves. Anne barely notices what's going on around her, as she is much more concerned with the happy thoughts inside her head: she goes over Wentworth's words and actions, and realizes that he still loves her. Even with such internal distractions, she manages to enjoy the concert, and to translate the Italian of the performance into English for Mr. Elliot, who flatters her intelligence and modesty. Mr. Elliot drops a hint that he has heard much of Anne even before they met in Bath, and Anne is curious as to who could have been telling him stories about her. He says that he has long been enchanted by the name Anne Elliot, and hints at a hope that the name will never change. Anne is distracted from this conversation when Lady Dalrymple and Sir Walter spot Captain Wentworth and discuss his hotness. Anne tries to catch Wentworth's eye, but senses that he is purposefully avoiding her gaze, and she doesn't manage to exchange a look with him before the show starts again and she has to turn her attention back to the stage. She still keeps an eye out for him, though, and wishes that Mr. Elliot would leave her alone. At intermission she hopes he'll come find her, now that half her group has gone off for snacks, but he doesn't turn up. Intermission ends and they sit down again. Anne has sneakily managed to get a seat closer to the aisle, all the better for potential Wentworth-gazing. Her position is improved even more when the people at the end of the row depart early, leaving an invitingly empty spot next to Anne. She finally spots Captain Wentworth, but his manner is colder than before. They talk of the concert and Anne manages to warm him up a bit again but, just as Wentworth seems about to sit down, Mr. Elliot butts in to ask Anne to translate more Italian. When Anne finally gets free, Wentworth speaks to her only to say goodbye. Anne tries to convince him to stay , but he goes off rather huffily. Anne realizes what is going on - he's jealous of Mr. Elliot! While Anne is happy at this further proof that he cares about her, she's also worried about how to let him know that she still wants him and doesn't care a bit about Mr. Elliot. |
[Spain: the palace]
Enter HORATIO and BEL-IMPERIA.
BEL. Signior Horatio, this is the place and hour
Wherein I must entreat thee to relate
The circumstance of Don Andrea's death,
Who living was my garland's sweetest flower,
And in his death hath buried my delights.
HOR. For love of him and service to yourself,
I'll not refuse this heavy doleful charge;
Yet tears and sighs, I fear, will hinder me.
When both our armies were enjoin'd in fight,
Your worthy cavalier amidst the thickest,
For glorious cause still aiming at the fairest,
Was at the last by young Don Balthazar
Encounter'd hand-to-hand. Their fight was long,
Their hearts were great, their clamours menacing,
Their strength alike, their strokes both dangerous;
But wrathful Nemesis, that wicked power,
Envying at Andrea's praise and worth,
Cut short his life to end his praise and worth.
She, she herself, disguis'd in armour's mask,
As Pallas was before proud Pergamus,
Brought in a fresh supply of halberdiers,
Which punch'd his horse and ding'd him to the ground.
Then young Don Balthazar, with ruthless rage,
Taking advantage of his foe's distress,
Did finish what his halberdiers begun;
And left not till Andrea's life was done.
Then, though too late, incens'd with just remorse,
I with my band set forth against the prince,
And brought him prisoner from his halberdiers.
BEL. Would thou hadst slain him that so slew my love!
But then was Don Andrea's carcass lost?
HOR. No; that was it for which I chiefly strove,
Nor stepp'd I back till I recover'd him.
I took him up, and wound him in mine arms,
And, wielding him unto my private tent,
There laid him down and dew'd him with my tears,
And sigh'd and sorrow'd as became a friend.
But neither friendly sorrow, sighs and tears
Could win pale Death from his usurped right.
Yet this I did, and less I could not do:
I saw him honour'd with due funeral.
This scarf I pluck'd from off his lifeless arm,
And wear it in remembrance of my friend.
BEL. I know the scarf: would he had kept it still!
For, had he liv'd, he would have kept it still,
And worn it for his Bel-imperia's sake;
For 'twas my favour at his last depart.
But now wear thou it both for him and me;
For, after him, thou hast deserv'd it best.
But, for thy kindness in his life and death,
Be sure, while Bel-imperia's life endures,
She will be Don Horatio's thankful friend.
HOR. And, madame, Don Horatio will not slack
Humbly to serve fair Bel-imperia.
But now, if your good liking stand thereto,
I'll crave your pardon to go seek the prince;
For so the duke, your father, gave me charge.
Exit.
BEL. Aye, go, Horatio; leave me here alone,
For solitude best fits my cheerless mood.--
Yet what avails to wail Andreas death,
From whence Horatio proves my second love?
Had he not lov'd Andrea as he did,
He could not sit in Bel-imperia's thoughts.
But how can love find harbour in my breast,
Till I revenge the death of my belov'd?
Yes, second love shall further my revenge:
I'll love Horatio, my Andrea's friend,
The more to spite the prince that wrought his end;
And, where Don Balthazar, that slew my love,
Himself now pleads for favor at my hands,
He shall, in rigour of my just disdain,
Reap long repentance for his murderous deed,--
For what was't else but murderous cowardice,
So many to oppress one valiant knight,
Without respect of honour in the fight?
And here he comes that murder'd my delight.
Enter LORENZO and BALTHAZAR.
LOR. Sister, what means this melancholy walk?
BEL. That for a-while I wish no company.
LOR. But here the prince is come to visit you.
BEL. That argues that he lives in liberty.
BAL. No madam, but in pleasing servitude.
BEL. Your prison then, belike, is your conceit.
BAL. Aye, by conceit my freedom is enthrall'd.
BEL. Then with conceit enlarge yourself again.
BAL. What if conceit have laid my heart to gage?
BEL. Pay that you borrow'd, and recover it.
BAL. I die if it return from whence it lies.
BEL. A heartless man, and live? A miracle!
BAL. Aye, lady, love can work such miracles.
LOR. Tush, tush, my lord! let go these ambages,
And in plain terms acquaint her with your love.
BEL. What boots complaint, when there's no remedy?
BAL. Yes, to your gracious self must I complain,
In whose fair answer lies my remedy,
On whose perfection all my thoughts attend,
On whose aspect mine eyes find beauty's bower,
In whose translucent breast my heart is lodg'd.
BEL. Alas, my lord! These are but words of course,
And but devis'd to drive me from this place.
She, going in, lets fall her glove, which
HORATIO, coming out, takes up.
HOR. Madame, your glove.
BEL. Thanks, good Horatio; take it for thy pains.
[BEL-IMPERIA exits.]
BAL. Signior Horatio stoop'd in happy time!
HOR. I reap'd more grace that I deserv'd or hop'd.
LOR. My lord, be not dismay'd for what is past;
You know that women oft are humorous:
These clouds will overblow with little wind;
Let me alone, I'll scatter them myself.
Meanwhile let us devise to spend the time
In some delightful sports and revelling.
HOR. The king, my lords, is coming hither straight
To feast the Portingal ambassador;
Things were in readiness before I came.
BAL. Then here it fits us to attend the king,
To welcome hither our ambassador,
And learn my father and my country's health.
Enter the banquet, TRUMPETS, the KING,
and AMBASSADOR.
KING. See, lord ambassador, how Spain entreats
Their prisoner Balthazar, thy viceroy's son:
We pleasure more in kindness than in wars.
AMBASS. Sad is our king, and Portingal laments,
Supposing that Don Balthazar is slain.
BAL. [aside] So am I, slain by beauty's tyranny!--
You see, my lord, how Balthazar is slain:
I frolic with the Duke of Castille's son,
Wrapp'd every hour in pleasures of the court,
And grac'd with favours of his Majesty.
KING. Put off your greetings till our feast be done;
Now come and sit with us, and taste our cheer.
Sit to the banquet.
Sit down, young prince, you are our second guest;
Brother, sit down; and nephew, take your place.
Signior Horatio, wait thou upon our cup,
For well thou hast deserved to be honour'd.
Now, lordings, fall too: Spain is Portugal,
And Portugal is Spain; we both are friends;
Tribute is paid, and we enjoy our right.
But where is old Hieronimo, our marshall?
He promis'd us, in honour of our guest,
To grace our banquet with some pompous jest.
Enter HIERONIMO with a DRUM, three KNIGHTS,
each with scutcheon; then he fetches three
KINGS; they take their crowns and them
captive.
Hieronimo, this makes content mine eye,
Although I sound not well the mystery.
HIERO. The first arm'd knight that hung his scutcheon up
He takes the scutcheon and gives it to
the KING.
Was English Robert, Earle of Gloucester,
Who, when King Stephen bore sway in Albion,
Arriv'd with five and twenty thousand men
In Portingal, and, by success of war,
Enforc'd the king, then but a Saracen,
To bear the yoke of the English monarchy.
KING. My lord of Portingal, by this you see
That which may comfort both your king and you,
And make your late discomfort seem the less.
But say, Hieronimo: what was the next?
HIERO. The second knight that hung his scutcheon up
He doth as he did before.
Was Edmond, Earle of Kent in Albion.
When English Richard wore the diadem,
He came likewise and razed Lisbon walls,
And took the king of Portingal in fight,--
For which, and other such service done,
He after was created Duke of York.
KING. This is another special argument
That Portingal may deign to bear our yoke,
When it by little England hath been yok'd.
But now, Hieronimo, what were the last?
HIERO. The third and last, not least in our account,
Doing as before.
Was, as the rest, a valiant Englishman,
Brave John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster,
As by his scutcheon plainly may appear:
He with a puissant army came to Spain
And took our King of Castille prisoner.
AMBASS. This is an argument for our viceroy
That Spain may not insult for her success,
Since English warriors likewise conquer'd Spain
And made them bow their knees to Albion.
KING. Hieronimo, I drink to thee for this device,
Which hath pleas'd both the ambassador and me:
Pledge me, Hieronimo, if thou love the king!
Takes the cup of HORATIO.
My lord, I fear we sit but over-long,
Unless our dainties were more delicate,--
But welcome are you to the best we have.
Now let us in, that you may be dispatch'd;
I think our council is already set.
Exeunt omnes.
[CHORUS.]
ANDREA. Come we for this from depth of under ground,--
To see him feast that gave me my death's wound?
These pleasant sights are sorrow to my soul:
Nothing but league and love and banqueting!
REVENGE. Be still, Andrea; ere we go from hence,
I'll turn their friendship into fell despite,
Their love to mortal hate, their day to night,
Their hope into despair, their peace to war,
Their joys to pain, their bliss to misery. | The scene shifts to Portugal, where the Viceroy laments his misfortune in front of two noblemen, Alexandro and Villuppo. After confirming that an ambassador has been sent to Spain with the required tribute, the Viceroy prostrates himself on the ground. This way, he declares, his fortunes can no fall no further. The Viceroy continues to grieve over his misfortunes and in particular over the loss of his son - if only he himself could have been killed, instead of Balthazar. Alexandro hastens to inform the King that his son is most likely still alive: the prince has been taken prisoner, and his ransom will probably assure his life. Villuppo, however, tells a different tale. After insuring against the King's wrath for being the messenger of bad news, Villuppo claims that he saw Balthazar engaged in battle with the Spanish General, whereupon Alexandro shot the prince in the back. Despite Alexandro's vehement protest, the Viceroy is inclined to believe Villuppo. His nightly dreams, the Viceroy says, have confirmed Villuppo's claim that the Spanish dragged Balthazar's body to their tents. The Viceroy thus turns to Alexandro and accuses him of treachery, speculating that he was blinded by either the Spanish gold or his eventual claim to the throne. The Viceroy takes his crown off and puts it on again, declaring that he will wear it until Alexandro's blood has been spilled. He sends Alexandro to prison and promises Villuppo a reward. The latter delivers a short soliloquy to conclude the scene, revealing desire for a reward as his motive for treachery |
II. A Sight
"You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?" said one of the oldest of
clerks to Jerry the messenger.
"Ye-es, sir," returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. "I _do_
know the Bailey."
"Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry."
"I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much
better," said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment
in question, "than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey."
"Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the
door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in."
"Into the court, sir?"
"Into the court."
Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to
interchange the inquiry, "What do you think of this?"
"Am I to wait in the court, sir?" he asked, as the result of that
conference.
"I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr.
Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry's
attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is,
to remain there until he wants you."
"Is that all, sir?"
"That's all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him
you are there."
As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note,
Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the
blotting-paper stage, remarked:
"I suppose they'll be trying Forgeries this morning?"
"Treason!"
"That's quartering," said Jerry. "Barbarous!"
"It is the law," remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised
spectacles upon him. "It is the law."
"It's hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It's hard enough to kill
him, but it's wery hard to spile him, sir."
"Not at all," retained the ancient clerk. "Speak well of the law. Take
care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take
care of itself. I give you that advice."
"It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice," said Jerry. "I
leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is."
"Well, well," said the old clerk; "we all have our various ways of
gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry
ways. Here is the letter. Go along."
Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal
deference than he made an outward show of, "You are a lean old one,
too," made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination,
and went his way.
They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had
not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it.
But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and
villainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came
into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the
dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It
had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced
his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him.
For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard,
from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on
a violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a
half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any.
So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It
was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted
a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for
the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and
softening to behold in action; also, for extensive transactions in
blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically
leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed
under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice
illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism
that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome
consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong.
Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down this
hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his
way quietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in
his letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see the play
at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam--only the
former entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey
doors were well guarded--except, indeed, the social doors by which the
criminals got there, and those were always left wide open.
After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a
very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself into
court.
"What's on?" he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself next
to.
"Nothing yet."
"What's coming on?"
"The Treason case."
"The quartering one, eh?"
"Ah!" returned the man, with a relish; "he'll be drawn on a hurdle to
be half hanged, and then he'll be taken down and sliced before his own
face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on,
and then his head will be chopped off, and he'll be cut into quarters.
That's the sentence."
"If he's found Guilty, you mean to say?" Jerry added, by way of proviso.
"Oh! they'll find him guilty," said the other. "Don't you be afraid of
that."
Mr. Cruncher's attention was here diverted to the door-keeper, whom he
saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorry
sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a wigged
gentleman, the prisoner's counsel, who had a great bundle of papers
before him: and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands
in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him
then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the
court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and signing
with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up
to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down again.
"What's _he_ got to do with the case?" asked the man he had spoken with.
"Blest if I know," said Jerry.
"What have _you_ got to do with it, then, if a person may inquire?"
"Blest if I know that either," said Jerry.
The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling
down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the
central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing there,
went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar.
Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the
ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled
at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round
pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows
stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court,
laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help
themselves, at anybody's cost, to a view of him--stood a-tiptoe, got
upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him.
Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall
of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a
whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with
the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not,
that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him
in an impure mist and rain.
The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about
five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and
a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly
dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and
dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out
of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express
itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his
situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, showing the
soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite self-possessed,
bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet.
The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at,
was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less
horrible sentence--had there been a chance of any one of its savage
details being spared--by just so much would he have lost in his
fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled,
was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be so butchered
and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various
spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts and
powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish.
Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to
an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that
he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so
forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers
occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French
King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and
so forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of
our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the
said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise
evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our
said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation
to send to Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head
becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with
huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding that
the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood
there before him upon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; and
that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to speak.
The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged,
beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched from
the situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet and
attentive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest;
and stood with his hands resting on the slab of wood before him, so
composedly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which
it was strewn. The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with
vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol fever.
Over the prisoner's head there was a mirror, to throw the light down
upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected in
it, and had passed from its surface and this earth's together. Haunted
in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the
glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one
day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace
for which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner's mind. Be
that as it may, a change in his position making him conscious of a bar
of light across his face, he looked up; and when he saw the glass his
face flushed, and his right hand pushed the herbs away.
It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the court
which was on his left. About on a level with his eyes, there sat,
in that corner of the Judge's bench, two persons upon whom his look
immediately rested; so immediately, and so much to the changing of his
aspect, that all the eyes that were turned upon him, turned to them.
The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more than
twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a very
remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair,
and a certain indescribable intensity of face: not of an active kind,
but pondering and self-communing. When this expression was upon him, he
looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken up--as
it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughter--he became a
handsome man, not past the prime of life.
His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat by
him, and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, in her
dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had
been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and compassion
that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This had been so very
noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who
had had no pity for him were touched by her; and the whisper went about,
"Who are they?"
Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own
manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his fingers in his
absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about
him had pressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and
from him it had been more slowly pressed and passed back; at last it got
to Jerry:
"Witnesses."
"For which side?"
"Against."
"Against what side?"
"The prisoner's."
The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them,
leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was
in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the
axe, and hammer the nails into the scaffold. | A Sight An old clerk at Tellson's gives Jerry Cruncher a message to deliver to Mr. Lorry at Old Bailey, where Charles Darnay is being tried. Jerry makes his way into the trial and is reassured by an onlooker that this is indeed the treason case. The man gruesomely describes the quartering that is certain to follow as punishment. When the young gentleman prisoner, Charles Darnay, is brought in, the whole courtroom stares at him. He had pleaded not guilty the previous day. Darnay's gaze rests immediately on Dr. Manette and his daughter, who are to be witnesses for the prosecution |
It was just a quarter before twelve o'clock when we got into the
churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark with occasional gleams
of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded across
the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly
in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked
well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a place laden with so
sorrowful a memory would upset him; but he bore himself well. I took it
that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant
to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural
hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by
entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door.
He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped
forward hesitatingly; Van Helsing said to me:--
"You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that
coffin?"
"It was." The Professor turned to the rest saying:--
"You hear; and yet there is no one who does not believe with me." He
took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur
looked on, very pale but silent; when the lid was removed he stepped
forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or,
at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead,
the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away
again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness; he was still silent.
Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and
recoiled.
The coffin was empty!
For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by
Quincey Morris:--
"Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn't ask
such a thing ordinarily--I wouldn't so dishonour you as to imply a
doubt; but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour.
Is this your doing?"
"I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor
touched her. What happened was this: Two nights ago my friend Seward and
I came here--with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which
was then sealed up, and we found it, as now, empty. We then waited, and
saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in
day-time, and she lay there. Did she not, friend John?"
"Yes."
"That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing,
and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came
here before sundown, for at sundown the Un-Dead can move. I waited here
all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable
that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic,
which the Un-Dead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last
night there was no exodus, so to-night before the sundown I took away my
garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But
bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me
outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be.
So"--here he shut the dark slide of his lantern--"now to the outside."
He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the
door behind him.
Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of
that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing
gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and
passing--like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life; how sweet it was
to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how
humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to
hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each
in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I
could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the
mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to
throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's conclusions. Quincey
Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and
accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to
stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of
tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a
definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like
thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white
napkin; next he took out a double-handful of some whitish stuff, like
dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the
mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin
strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its
setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close,
asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near
also, as they too were curious. He answered:--
"I am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter."
"And is that stuff you have put there going to do it?" asked Quincey.
"Great Scott! Is this a game?"
"It is."
"What is that which you are using?" This time the question was by
Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered:--
"The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence." It was an
answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually
that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor's, a
purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was
impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places
assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any
one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself
been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror; and yet I,
who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink
within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or
yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree
or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so
mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a
woeful presage through the night.
There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the
Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed; and far down the avenue of yews
we saw a white figure advance--a dim white figure, which held something
dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of
moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling
prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave.
We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a
fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a
child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We
were starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand, seen by us as
he stood behind a yew-tree, kept us back; and then as we looked the
white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see
clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice,
and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of
Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was
turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous
wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we
all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the
tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the
concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips
were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her
chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe.
We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even
Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had
not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen.
When Lucy--I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her
shape--saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives
when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form
and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of
the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love
passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have
done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy
light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God,
how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to
the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had
clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls
over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There
was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when
she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell
back and hid his face in his hands.
She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace,
said:--
"Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are
hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!"
There was something diabolically sweet in her tones--something of the
tingling of glass when struck--which rang through the brains even of us
who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under
a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She
was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between
them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a
suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter
the tomb.
When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if
arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was
shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no
quiver from Van Helsing's iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled
malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by
mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw
out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of
the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely,
blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of
the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death--if looks could
kill--we saw it at that moment.
And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained
between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of
entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:--
"Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?"
Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he
answered:--
"Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like
this ever any more;" and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I
simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the
click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close
to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred
emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified
amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal
body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice
where scarce a knife-blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of
relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty
to the edges of the door.
When this was done, he lifted the child and said:
"Come now, my friends; we can do no more till to-morrow. There is a
funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The
friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock
the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but not like this of
to-night. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by to-morrow
night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find
him, as on the other night; and then to home." Coming close to Arthur,
he said:--
"My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial; but after, when you look
back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter
waters, my child. By this time to-morrow you will, please God, have
passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn
overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me."
Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other
on the way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired; so we all
slept with more or less reality of sleep.
* * * * *
_29 September, night._--A little before twelve o'clock we three--Arthur,
Quincey Morris, and myself--called for the Professor. It was odd to
notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of
course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of
us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one, and
strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the
gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief
that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to
ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a
long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was manifestly of
fair weight.
When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up
the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the
Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it
behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also
two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their own
ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work
by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all looked--Arthur
trembling like an aspen--and saw that the body lay there in all its
death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but
loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her
soul. I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked. Presently
he said to Van Helsing:--
"Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?"
"It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you all see her
as she was, and is."
She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth,
the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth--which it made one shudder to
see--the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a
devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual
methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and
placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some
plumbing solder, and then a small oil-lamp, which gave out, when lit in
a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a blue
flame; then his operating knives, which he placed to hand; and last a
round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about
three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and
was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such
as in households is used in the coal-cellar for breaking the lumps. To
me, a doctor's preparations for work of any kind are stimulating and
bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was
to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their
courage, and remained silent and quiet.
When all was ready, Van Helsing said:--
"Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and
experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers
of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the
curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age
adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that
die from the preying of the Un-Dead becomes themselves Un-Dead, and prey
on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the
ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met
that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night
when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died,
have become _nosferatu_, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would
all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror.
The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those
children whose blood she suck are not as yet so much the worse; but if
she live on, Un-Dead, more and more they lose their blood and by her
power over them they come to her; and so she draw their blood with that
so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease; the tiny
wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their plays
unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when
this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor
lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by
night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she
shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will
be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free.
To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better
right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the
night when sleep is not: 'It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it
was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she would
herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?' Tell me if there be
such a one amongst us?"
We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite
kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore
Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and
said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as
snow:--
"My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me
what I am to do, and I shall not falter!" Van Helsing laid a hand on his
shoulder, and said:--
"Brave lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be
driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal--be not deceived in
that--but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more
than your pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though
you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only
think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for
you all the time."
"Go on," said Arthur hoarsely. "Tell me what I am to do."
"Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the
heart, and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for
the dead--I shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall
follow--strike in God's name, that so all may be well with the dead that
we love and that the Un-Dead pass away."
Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on
action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened
his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we
could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could
see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might.
The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech
came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted
in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the
lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur
never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm
rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst
the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His
face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; the sight of it
gave us courage so that our voices seemed to ring through the little
vault.
And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the
teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. The
terrible task was over.
The hammer fell from Arthur's hand. He reeled and would have fallen had
we not caught him. The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead,
and his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain
on him; and had he not been forced to his task by more than human
considerations he could never have gone through with it. For a few
minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look towards the
coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled surprise ran from one
to the other of us. We gazed so eagerly that Arthur rose, for he had
been seated on the ground, and came and looked too; and then a glad,
strange light broke over his face and dispelled altogether the gloom of
horror that lay upon it.
There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded
and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a
privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in
her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that
there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and
pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth
to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like
sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and
symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever.
Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder, and said to
him:--
"And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?"
The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man's hand
in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said:--
"Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again,
and me peace." He put his hands on the Professor's shoulder, and laying
his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood
unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him:--
"And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as
she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning
devil now--not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is
the devil's Un-Dead. She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him!"
Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the
tomb; the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point
of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with
garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffin-lid,
and gathering up our belongings, came away. When the Professor locked
the door he gave the key to Arthur.
Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it
seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was
gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves
on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy.
Before we moved away Van Helsing said:--
"Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing
to ourselves. But there remains a greater task: to find out the author
of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can
follow; but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in
it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all
of us--is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do
we not promise to go on to the bitter end?"
Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the
Professor as we moved off:--
"Two nights hence you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of
the clock with friend John. I shall entreat two others, two that you
know not as yet; and I shall be ready to all our work show and our plans
unfold. Friend John, you come with me home, for I have much to consult
about, and you can help me. To-night I leave for Amsterdam, but shall
return to-morrow night. And then begins our great quest. But first I
shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and to dread.
Then our promise shall be made to each other anew; for there is a
terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the ploughshare we
must not draw back." | That night, the four men go to Lucy's grave and find it empty. Van Helsing seals the door of the tomb with Communion wafers to prevent the vampire Lucy from reentering. The men then hide in wait. Eventually, a figure appears, dressed entirely in white and carrying a child. It is Lucy--or rather, a monster that looks like Lucy, with eyes "unclean and full of hell-fire" and a mouth stained with fresh blood. As the men surround her, she drops the child and calls out passionately to Holmwood, telling him to come to her. Holmwood begins to move, but Van Helsing leaps between the couple and brandishes a crucifix. Lucy recoils. Van Helsing quickly removes the Communion wafers, and the vampire slips through the door of her tomb. Having witnessed this horror, Holmwood concurs that the necessary rites must be performed, and the following evening, he returns to hammer a stake through Lucy's heart. As Lucy returns to a state of beauty, Van Helsing reassures Holmwood that he has saved Lucy's soul from eternal darkness and has given her peace at last. Before leaving the tomb, Van Helsing makes plans to reunite with the men two nights later, so that they may discuss the "terrible task" before them |
From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the
next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had
closed her eyes.
Elinor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt; and
before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and
again; and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on
Elinor's side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on
Marianne's, as before. Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as
unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every
consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him. At one moment she
was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at
another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third
could resist it with energy. In one thing, however, she was uniform,
when it came to the point, in avoiding, where it was possible, the
presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to
endure it. Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs.
Jennings's entering into her sorrows with any compassion.
"No, no, no, it cannot be," she cried; "she cannot feel. Her kindness
is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness. All that she wants
is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it."
Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her
sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable
refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her
on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished
manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be
that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an
excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected
from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she
judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on
herself. Thus a circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together
in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs.
Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own
weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though
Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.
With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling,
from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying,
"Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good."
Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination placed before her
a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition,
explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and
instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room
to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances
of his letter. The work of one moment was destroyed by the next. The
hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her;
and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an
ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had
never suffered.
The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her
moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could
reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with
passionate violence--a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its
object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still
referring her to the letter of comfort. But the letter, when she was
calm enough to read it, brought little comfort. Willoughby filled
every page. Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and
relying as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by
Elinor's application, to intreat from Marianne greater openness towards
them both; and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection
for Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each
other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it.
All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was
dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken
confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone.
Elinor, unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne
to be in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of
patience till their mother's wishes could be known; and at length she
obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge.
Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy
till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself;
and positively refusing Elinor's offered attendance, went out alone for
the rest of the morning. Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the
pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne's
letter, how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then
sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat
her directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the
drawing-room on Mrs. Jennings's going away, remained fixed at the table
where Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over
her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly
over its effect on her mother.
In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when
Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was
startled by a rap at the door.
"Who can this be?" cried Elinor. "So early too! I thought we HAD been
safe."
Marianne moved to the window--
"It is Colonel Brandon!" said she, with vexation. "We are never safe
from HIM."
"He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home."
"I will not trust to THAT," retreating to her own room. "A man who has
nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on
that of others."
The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on
injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon DID come in; and Elinor, who
was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who
saw THAT solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his
anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister
for esteeming him so lightly.
"I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street," said he, after the first
salutation, "and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more
easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you
alone, which I was very desirous of doing. My object--my wish--my sole
wish in desiring it--I hope, I believe it is--is to be a means of
giving comfort;--no, I must not say comfort--not present comfort--but
conviction, lasting conviction to your sister's mind. My regard for
her, for yourself, for your mother--will you allow me to prove it, by
relating some circumstances which nothing but a VERY sincere
regard--nothing but an earnest desire of being useful--I think I am
justified--though where so many hours have been spent in convincing
myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be
wrong?" He stopped.
"I understand you," said Elinor. "You have something to tell me of Mr.
Willoughby, that will open his character farther. Your telling it will
be the greatest act of friendship that can be shewn Marianne. MY
gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to
that end, and HERS must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray let me
hear it."
"You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,--but
this will give you no idea--I must go farther back. You will find me a
very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin. A
short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it SHALL be
a short one. On such a subject," sighing heavily, "can I have little
temptation to be diffuse."
He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went
on.
"You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation--(it is not to be
supposed that it could make any impression on you)--a conversation
between us one evening at Barton Park--it was the evening of a
dance--in which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling, in
some measure, your sister Marianne."
"Indeed," answered Elinor, "I have NOT forgotten it." He looked pleased
by this remembrance, and added,
"If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender
recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well
in mind as person. The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of
fancy and spirits. This lady was one of my nearest relations, an
orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father. Our
ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were
playfellows and friends. I cannot remember the time when I did not
love Eliza; and my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as
perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you
might think me incapable of having ever felt. Hers, for me, was, I
believe, fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and
it was, though from a different cause, no less unfortunate. At
seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married--married
against her inclination to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our
family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be
said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian.
My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her. I had hoped
that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for
some time it did; but at last the misery of her situation, for she
experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though
she had promised me that nothing--but how blindly I relate! I have
never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of
eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my
cousin's maid betrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation
far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement,
till my father's point was gained. I had depended on her fortitude too
far, and the blow was a severe one--but had her marriage been happy, so
young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at
least I should not have now to lament it. This however was not the
case. My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what
they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly.
The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so
inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural. She resigned
herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it
been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the
remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with such a
husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or
restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after their
marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should
fall? Had I remained in England, perhaps--but I meant to promote the
happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose
had procured my exchange. The shock which her marriage had given me,"
he continued, in a voice of great agitation, "was of trifling
weight--was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years
afterwards, of her divorce. It was THAT which threw this gloom,--even
now the recollection of what I suffered--"
He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about
the room. Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his
distress, could not speak. He saw her concern, and coming to her, took
her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few
minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure.
"It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned
to England. My first care, when I DID arrive, was of course to seek
for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could
not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to
fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of
sin. Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor
sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my
brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months
before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it,
that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to
dispose of it for some immediate relief. At last, however, and after I
had been six months in England, I DID find her. Regard for a former
servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to
visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and
there, in the same house, under a similar confinement, was my unfortunate
sister. So altered--so faded--worn down by acute suffering of every
kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before
me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom
I had once doted. What I endured in so beholding her--but I have no
right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it--I have
pained you too much already. That she was, to all appearance, in the
last stage of a consumption, was--yes, in such a situation it was my
greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time
for a better preparation for death; and that was given. I saw her
placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited
her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her
last moments."
Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in
an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate friend.
"Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended," said he, "by the resemblance
I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation. Their
fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet
disposition of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier
marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other
be. But to what does all this lead? I seem to have been distressing
you for nothing. Ah! Miss Dashwood--a subject such as this--untouched
for fourteen years--it is dangerous to handle it at all! I WILL be
more collected--more concise. She left to my care her only child, a
little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then
about three years old. She loved the child, and had always kept it
with her. It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I
have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her
education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I
had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at
school. I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my
brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the
possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford. I
called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in
general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her. It is now
three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I
removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very
respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four
or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I
had every reason to be pleased with her situation. But last February,
almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared. I had allowed
her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire,
to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her
father there for his health. I knew him to be a very good sort of man,
and I thought well of his daughter--better than she deserved, for, with
a most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would
give no clue, though she certainly knew all. He, her father, a
well-meaning, but not a quick-sighted man, could really, I believe,
give no information; for he had been generally confined to the house,
while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance
they chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was
convinced himself, of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the
business. In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone; all
the rest, for eight long months, was left to conjecture. What I
thought, what I feared, may be imagined; and what I suffered too."
"Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "could it be--could Willoughby!"--
"The first news that reached me of her," he continued, "came in a
letter from herself, last October. It was forwarded to me from
Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party
to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly,
which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body,
and which I believe gave offence to some. Little did Mr. Willoughby
imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in
breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom
he had made poor and miserable; but HAD he known it, what would it have
availed? Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of
your sister? No, he had already done that, which no man who CAN feel
for another would do. He had left the girl whose youth and innocence
he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no
creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had
left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor
relieved her."
"This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor.
"His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than
both. Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what
I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on
being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have felt
for all your sakes. When I came to you last week and found you alone,
I came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to do when
it WAS known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then; but
now you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so deceived; to
see your sister--but what could I do? I had no hope of interfering
with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet
reclaim him. But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what
were his designs on her. Whatever they may have been, however, she may
now, and hereafter doubtless WILL turn with gratitude towards her own
condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she
considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and
pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as
strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which
must attend her through life. Surely this comparison must have its use
with her. She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing. They
proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace. On the
contrary, every friend must be made still more her friend by them.
Concern for her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it,
must strengthen every attachment. Use your own discretion, however, in
communicating to her what I have told you. You must know best what
will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed
it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have
suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family
afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to
raise myself at the expense of others."
Elinor's thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness;
attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to
Marianne, from the communication of what had passed.
"I have been more pained," said she, "by her endeavors to acquit him
than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most
perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first
she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have
you," she continued, after a short silence, "ever seen Mr. Willoughby
since you left him at Barton?"
"Yes," he replied gravely, "once I have. One meeting was unavoidable."
Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying,
"What? have you met him to--"
"I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though most
reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town, which
was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to
defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the
meeting, therefore, never got abroad."
Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a
soldier she presumed not to censure it.
"Such," said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, "has been the unhappy
resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imperfectly
have I discharged my trust!"
"Is she still in town?"
"No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near
her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there
she remains."
Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor
from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again
the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion
and esteem for him. | Mrs. Jennings continued her good services, all of which were unappreciated by Marianne, who felt that the woman was using her as a source of gossip. When she came to Marianne's room, glowing, with a letter which she believed would cheer the girl, Marianne assumed the correspondence was from Willoughby, and her distress was heightened when she realized it was but from her mother. What was worse, her mother spoke continually of Willoughby with the greatest confidence in his good intentions. Marianne longed to go home, but Elinor persuaded her to wait for their mother's advice. Elinor started a letter to her mother but was interrupted by the arrival of Colonel Brandon, who was very desirous of finding Elinor alone. Warning her that she would find him "a very awkward narrator," he began to tell her about Eliza, a girl who "in some measure" resembled Marianne. Eliza, an orphan and wealthy, was under the guardianship of Colonel Brandon's father, who was a close relative and grew up with him in his home. They planned to elope, but a housemaid betrayed them, and, at seventeen, against her inclination, Eliza was married to Colonel Brandon's older brother. This was done so that her large income could save the Brandon estate, which had gone to his older brother. He treated her badly, and after two years they were divorced. Eliza was then seduced by one man after another. After serving in the East Indies for three years, Colonel Brandon came home and began to search for her. He at last found her a consumptive, "so altered -- so faded -- worn down by acute suffering of every kind!" He did all he could for her and "was with her in her last moments." Eliza left her only child, three-year-old Eliza, in his charge. He put her in a good school, visited her whenever he could, and often had her to stay at Delaford. Twelve months ago, she had asked permission to go to Bath with a friend. There she had disappeared, and it was eight months before Colonel Brandon found what had happened to her. He received a letter -- the same letter which had caused him to leave Barton Park so abruptly on the day of the planned excursion to Whitwell. She had been seduced by Mr. Willoughby, who "had left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor relieved her." At present she lived in the country with the child who was the product of that event. Colonel Brandon had challenged Willoughby to a duel, but neither had been wounded, "and the meeting, therefore, never got abroad." He told Elinor to tell Marianne whatever she saw fit. "You must know best what will be its effect." |
Drouet did not call that evening. After receiving the letter, he had
laid aside all thought of Carrie for the time being and was floating
around having what he considered a gay time. On this particular evening
he dined at "Rector's," a restaurant of some local fame, which occupied
a basement at Clark and Monroe Streets. There--after he visited the
resort of Fitzgerald and Moy's in Adams Street, opposite the imposing
Federal Building. There he leaned over the splendid bar and swallowed a
glass of plain whiskey and purchased a couple of cigars, one of which
he lighted. This to him represented in part high life--a fair sample of
what the whole must be. Drouet was not a drinker in excess. He was not a
moneyed man. He only craved the best, as his mind conceived it, and such
doings seemed to him a part of the best. Rector's, with its polished
marble walls and floor, its profusion of lights, its show of china and
silverware, and, above all, its reputation as a resort for actors and
professional men, seemed to him the proper place for a successful man to
go. He loved fine clothes, good eating, and particularly the company and
acquaintanceship of successful men. When dining, it was a source of keen
satisfaction to him to know that Joseph Jefferson was wont to come to
this same place, or that Henry E. Dixie, a well-known performer of the
day, was then only a few tables off. At Rector's he could always obtain
this satisfaction, for there one could encounter politicians, brokers,
actors, some rich young "rounders" of the town, all eating and drinking
amid a buzz of popular commonplace conversation.
"That's So-and-so over there," was a common remark of these gentlemen
among themselves, particularly among those who had not yet reached, but
hoped to do so, the dazzling height which money to dine here lavishly
represented.
"You don't say so," would be the reply.
"Why, yes, didn't you know that? Why, he's manager of the Grand Opera
House."
When these things would fall upon Drouet's ears, he would straighten
himself a little more stiffly and eat with solid comfort. If he had any
vanity, this augmented it, and if he had any ambition, this stirred it.
He would be able to flash a roll of greenbacks too some day. As it was,
he could eat where THEY did.
His preference for Fitzgerald and Moy's Adams Street place was another
yard off the same cloth. This was really a gorgeous saloon from a
Chicago standpoint. Like Rector's, it was also ornamented with a blaze
of incandescent lights, held in handsome chandeliers. The floors were of
brightly coloured tiles, the walls a composition of rich, dark, polished
wood, which reflected the light, and coloured stucco-work, which gave
the place a very sumptuous appearance. The long bar was a blaze of
lights, polished woodwork, coloured and cut glassware, and many fancy
bottles. It was a truly swell saloon, with rich screens, fancy wines,
and a line of bar goods unsurpassed in the country.
At Rector's, Drouet had met Mr. G. W. Hurstwood, manager of Fitzgerald
and Moy's. He had been pointed out as a very successful and well-known
man about town. Hurstwood looked the part, for, besides being slightly
under forty, he had a good, stout constitution, an active manner, and a
solid, substantial air, which was composed in part of his fine clothes,
his clean linen, his jewels, and, above all, his own sense of his
importance. Drouet immediately conceived a notion of him as being some
one worth knowing, and was glad not only to meet him, but to visit the
Adams Street bar thereafter whenever he wanted a drink or a cigar.
Hurstwood was an interesting character after his kind. He was shrewd and
clever in many little things, and capable of creating a good impression.
His managerial position was fairly important--a kind of stewardship
which was imposing, but lacked financial control. He had risen by
perseverance and industry, through long years of service, from the
position of barkeeper in a commonplace saloon to his present altitude.
He had a little office in the place, set off in polished cherry and
grill-work, where he kept, in a roll-top desk, the rather simple
accounts of the place--supplies ordered and needed. The chief executive
and financial functions devolved upon the owners--Messrs. Fitzgerald and
Moy--and upon a cashier who looked after the money taken in.
For the most part he lounged about, dressed in excellent tailored suits
of imported goods, a solitaire ring, a fine blue diamond in his tie,
a striking vest of some new pattern, and a watch-chain of solid gold,
which held a charm of rich design, and a watch of the latest make and
engraving. He knew by name, and could greet personally with a "Well, old
fellow," hundreds of actors, merchants, politicians, and the general run
of successful characters about town, and it was part of his success to
do so. He had a finely graduated scale of informality and
friendship, which improved from the "How do you do?" addressed to
the fifteen-dollar-a-week clerks and office attaches, who, by long
frequenting of the place, became aware of his position, to the "Why, old
man, how are you?" which he addressed to those noted or rich individuals
who knew him and were inclined to be friendly. There was a class,
however, too rich, too famous, or too successful, with whom he could not
attempt any familiarity of address, and with these he was professionally
tactful, assuming a grave and dignified attitude, paying them the
deference which would win their good feeling without in the least
compromising his own bearing and opinions. There were, in the last
place, a few good followers, neither rich nor poor, famous, nor yet
remarkably successful, with whom he was friendly on the score of
good-fellowship. These were the kind of men with whom he would converse
longest and most seriously. He loved to go out and have a good time
once in a while--to go to the races, the theatres, the sporting
entertainments at some of the clubs. He kept a horse and neat trap, had
his wife and two children, who were well established in a neat house on
the North Side near Lincoln Park, and was altogether a very acceptable
individual of our great American upper class--the first grade below the
luxuriously rich.
Hurstwood liked Drouet. The latter's genial nature and dressy appearance
pleased him. He knew that Drouet was only a travelling salesman--and not
one of many years at that--but the firm of Bartlett, Caryoe & Company
was a large and prosperous house, and Drouet stood well. Hurstwood
knew Caryoe quite well, having drunk a glass now and then with him, in
company with several others, when the conversation was general. Drouet
had what was a help in his business, a moderate sense of humour, and
could tell a good story when the occasion required. He could talk races
with Hurstwood, tell interesting incidents concerning himself and his
experiences with women, and report the state of trade in the cities
which he visited, and so managed to make himself almost invariably
agreeable. To-night he was particularly so, since his report to the
company had been favourably commented upon, his new samples had been
satisfactorily selected, and his trip marked out for the next six weeks.
"Why, hello, Charlie, old man," said Hurstwood, as Drouet came in that
evening about eight o'clock. "How goes it?" The room was crowded.
Drouet shook hands, beaming good nature, and they strolled towards the
bar.
"Oh, all right."
"I haven't seen you in six weeks. When did you get in?"
"Friday," said Drouet. "Had a fine trip."
"Glad of it," said Hurstwood, his black eyes lit with a warmth which
half displaced the cold make-believe that usually dwelt in them. "What
are you going to take?" he added, as the barkeeper, in snowy jacket and
tie, leaned toward them from behind the bar.
"Old Pepper," said Drouet.
"A little of the same for me," put in Hurstwood.
"How long are you in town this time?" inquired Hurstwood.
"Only until Wednesday. I'm going up to St. Paul."
"George Evans was in here Saturday and said he saw you in Milwaukee last
week."
"Yes, I saw George," returned Drouet. "Great old boy, isn't he? We had
quite a time there together."
The barkeeper was setting out the glasses and bottle before them, and
they now poured out the draught as they talked, Drouet filling his to
within a third of full, as was considered proper, and Hurstwood taking
the barest suggestion of whiskey and modifying it with seltzer.
"What's become of Caryoe?" remarked Hurstwood. "I haven't seen him
around here in two weeks."
"Laid up, they say," exclaimed Drouet. "Say, he's a gouty old boy!"
"Made a lot of money in his time, though, hasn't he?"
"Yes, wads of it," returned Drouet. "He won't live much longer. Barely
comes down to the office now."
"Just one boy, hasn't he?" asked Hurstwood.
"Yes, and a swift-pacer," laughed Drouet.
"I guess he can't hurt the business very much, though, with the other
members all there."
"No, he can't injure that any, I guess."
Hurstwood was standing, his coat open, his thumbs in his pockets,
the light on his jewels and rings relieving them with agreeable
distinctness. He was the picture of fastidious comfort.
To one not inclined to drink, and gifted with a more serious turn of
mind, such a bubbling, chattering, glittering chamber must ever seem an
anomaly, a strange commentary on nature and life. Here come the
moths, in endless procession, to bask in the light of the flame. Such
conversation as one may hear would not warrant a commendation of the
scene upon intellectual grounds. It seems plain that schemers
would choose more sequestered quarters to arrange their plans, that
politicians would not gather here in company to discuss anything save
formalities, where the sharp-eared may hear, and it would scarcely be
justified on the score of thirst, for the majority of those who frequent
these more gorgeous places have no craving for liquor. Nevertheless,
the fact that here men gather, here chatter, here love to pass and rub
elbows, must be explained upon some grounds. It must be that a strange
bundle of passions and vague desires give rise to such a curious social
institution or it would not be.
Drouet, for one, was lured as much by his longing for pleasure as by his
desire to shine among his betters. The many friends he met here dropped
in because they craved, without, perhaps, consciously analysing it, the
company, the glow, the atmosphere which they found. One might take it,
after all, as an augur of the better social order, for the things which
they satisfied here, though sensory, were not evil. No evil could come
out of the contemplation of an expensively decorated chamber. The
worst effect of such a thing would be, perhaps, to stir up in the
material-minded an ambition to arrange their lives upon a similarly
splendid basis. In the last analysis, that would scarcely be called the
fault of the decorations, but rather of the innate trend of the mind.
That such a scene might stir the less expensively dressed to emulate the
more expensively dressed could scarcely be laid at the door of anything
save the false ambition of the minds of those so affected. Remove the
element so thoroughly and solely complained of--liquor--and there would
not be one to gainsay the qualities of beauty and enthusiasm which would
remain. The pleased eye with which our modern restaurants of fashion are
looked upon is proof of this assertion.
Yet, here is the fact of the lighted chamber, the dressy, greedy
company, the small, self-interested palaver, the disorganized, aimless,
wandering mental action which it represents--the love of light and show
and finery which, to one outside, under the serene light of the eternal
stars, must seem a strange and shiny thing. Under the stars and sweeping
night winds, what a lamp-flower it must bloom; a strange, glittering
night-flower, odour-yielding, insect-drawing, insect-infested rose of
pleasure.
"See that fellow coming in there?" said Hurstwood, glancing at a
gentleman just entering, arrayed in a high hat and Prince Albert coat,
his fat cheeks puffed and red as with good eating.
"No, where?" said Drouet.
"There," said Hurstwood, indicating the direction by a cast of his eye,
"the man with the silk hat."
"Oh, yes," said Drouet, now affecting not to see. "Who is he?"
"That's Jules Wallace, the spiritualist."
Drouet followed him with his eyes, much interested.
"Doesn't look much like a man who sees spirits, does he?" said Drouet.
"Oh, I don't know," returned Hurstwood. "He's got the money, all right,"
and a little twinkle passed over his eyes.
"I don't go much on those things, do you?" asked Drouet.
"Well, you never can tell," said Hurstwood. "There may be something to
it. I wouldn't bother about it myself, though. By the way," he added,
"are you going anywhere to-night?"
"'The Hole in the Ground,'" said Drouet, mentioning the popular farce of
the time.
"Well, you'd better be going. It's half after eight already," and he
drew out his watch.
The crowd was already thinning out considerably--some bound for the
theatres, some to their clubs, and some to that most fascinating of
all the pleasures--for the type of man there represented, at least--the
ladies.
"Yes, I will," said Drouet.
"Come around after the show. I have something I want to show you," said
Hurstwood.
"Sure," said Drouet, elated.
"You haven't anything on hand for the night, have you?" added Hurstwood.
"Not a thing."
"Well, come round, then."
"I struck a little peach coming in on the train Friday," remarked
Drouet, by way of parting. "By George, that's so, I must go and call on
her before I go away."
"Oh, never mind her," Hurstwood remarked.
"Say, she was a little dandy, I tell you," went on Drouet
confidentially, and trying to impress his friend.
"Twelve o'clock," said Hurstwood.
"That's right," said Drouet, going out.
Thus was Carrie's name bandied about in the most frivolous and gay of
places, and that also when the little toiler was bemoaning her narrow
lot, which was almost inseparable from the early stages of this, her
unfolding fate. | We shift gears to find out what Drouet's been up to. After getting Carrie's letter, he pretty much put her out of his mind. He hasn't wasted any time jumping back into the Chicago nightlife scene of dining, drinking, and smoking in fancy restaurants and saloons, and he's always on the lookout for opportunities to brush shoulders with local celebrities and other successful men in the community. In fact, he's recently become pals with one of those successful men, Mr. G.W. Hurstwood, manager of a fancy hotel called Fitzgerald and Moy's. According to Drouet, he's "someone worth knowing." We learn that Hurstwood is impressed with Drouet's friendliness, so it seems they've got a bit of a bromance going on. They hang out at a bar and catch up a bit, when Jules Wallace, a famous spiritualist, walks in. Drouet and Hurstwood are both a little star struck. Drouet mentions that he has plans to see a play called The Hole in the Ground ; Hurstwood tells him he'd better get moving because it's getting late, but invites him to find him after the show. He mysteriously adds that he has something to show him. As Drouet leaves, he tells Hurstwood about having met Carrie and how he intends to hang out with her before he leaves the city for work. He really talks her up to Hurstwood. |
What I had said to Mrs. Grose was true enough: there were in the matter
I had put before her depths and possibilities that I lacked resolution
to sound; so that when we met once more in the wonder of it we were of a
common mind about the duty of resistance to extravagant fancies. We were
to keep our heads if we should keep nothing else--difficult indeed as
that might be in the face of what, in our prodigious experience, was
least to be questioned. Late that night, while the house slept, we had
another talk in my room, when she went all the way with me as to its
being beyond doubt that I had seen exactly what I had seen. To hold her
perfectly in the pinch of that, I found I had only to ask her how, if
I had "made it up," I came to be able to give, of each of the persons
appearing to me, a picture disclosing, to the last detail, their
special marks--a portrait on the exhibition of which she had instantly
recognized and named them. She wished of course--small blame to her!--to
sink the whole subject; and I was quick to assure her that my own
interest in it had now violently taken the form of a search for the way
to escape from it. I encountered her on the ground of a probability that
with recurrence--for recurrence we took for granted--I should get
used to my danger, distinctly professing that my personal exposure had
suddenly become the least of my discomforts. It was my new suspicion
that was intolerable; and yet even to this complication the later hours
of the day had brought a little ease.
On leaving her, after my first outbreak, I had of course returned to my
pupils, associating the right remedy for my dismay with that sense of
their charm which I had already found to be a thing I could positively
cultivate and which had never failed me yet. I had simply, in other
words, plunged afresh into Flora's special society and there become
aware--it was almost a luxury!--that she could put her little conscious
hand straight upon the spot that ached. She had looked at me in sweet
speculation and then had accused me to my face of having "cried." I had
supposed I had brushed away the ugly signs: but I could literally--for
the time, at all events--rejoice, under this fathomless charity, that
they had not entirely disappeared. To gaze into the depths of blue of
the child's eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature
cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I
naturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my
agitation. I couldn't abjure for merely wanting to, but I could repeat
to Mrs. Grose--as I did there, over and over, in the small hours--that
with their voices in the air, their pressure on one's heart, and their
fragrant faces against one's cheek, everything fell to the ground but
their incapacity and their beauty. It was a pity that, somehow, to
settle this once for all, I had equally to re-enumerate the signs of
subtlety that, in the afternoon, by the lake had made a miracle of my
show of self-possession. It was a pity to be obliged to reinvestigate
the certitude of the moment itself and repeat how it had come to me as
a revelation that the inconceivable communion I then surprised was a
matter, for either party, of habit. It was a pity that I should have had
to quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in my delusion,
so much as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even as I
actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just so much as
she did thus see, to make me suppose she didn't, and at the same time,
without showing anything, arrive at a guess as to whether I myself did!
It was a pity that I needed once more to describe the portentous little
activity by which she sought to divert my attention--the perceptible
increase of movement, the greater intensity of play, the singing, the
gabbling of nonsense, and the invitation to romp.
Yet if I had not indulged, to prove there was nothing in it, in this
review, I should have missed the two or three dim elements of comfort
that still remained to me. I should not for instance have been able to
asseverate to my friend that I was certain--which was so much to the
good--that _I_ at least had not betrayed myself. I should not have been
prompted, by stress of need, by desperation of mind--I scarce know what
to call it--to invoke such further aid to intelligence as might spring
from pushing my colleague fairly to the wall. She had told me, bit by
bit, under pressure, a great deal; but a small shifty spot on the wrong
side of it all still sometimes brushed my brow like the wing of a bat;
and I remember how on this occasion--for the sleeping house and the
concentration alike of our danger and our watch seemed to help--I felt
the importance of giving the last jerk to the curtain. "I don't
believe anything so horrible," I recollect saying; "no, let us put it
definitely, my dear, that I don't. But if I did, you know, there's
a thing I should require now, just without sparing you the least bit
more--oh, not a scrap, come!--to get out of you. What was it you had in
mind when, in our distress, before Miles came back, over the letter from
his school, you said, under my insistence, that you didn't pretend for
him that he had not literally EVER been 'bad'? He has NOT literally
'ever,' in these weeks that I myself have lived with him and so closely
watched him; he has been an imperturbable little prodigy of delightful,
lovable goodness. Therefore you might perfectly have made the claim for
him if you had not, as it happened, seen an exception to take. What was
your exception, and to what passage in your personal observation of him
did you refer?"
It was a dreadfully austere inquiry, but levity was not our note, and,
at any rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate I had got
my answer. What my friend had had in mind proved to be immensely to the
purpose. It was neither more nor less than the circumstance that for
a period of several months Quint and the boy had been perpetually
together. It was in fact the very appropriate truth that she had
ventured to criticize the propriety, to hint at the incongruity, of
so close an alliance, and even to go so far on the subject as a frank
overture to Miss Jessel. Miss Jessel had, with a most strange manner,
requested her to mind her business, and the good woman had, on this,
directly approached little Miles. What she had said to him, since I
pressed, was that SHE liked to see young gentlemen not forget their
station.
I pressed again, of course, at this. "You reminded him that Quint was
only a base menial?"
"As you might say! And it was his answer, for one thing, that was bad."
"And for another thing?" I waited. "He repeated your words to Quint?"
"No, not that. It's just what he WOULDN'T!" she could still impress upon
me. "I was sure, at any rate," she added, "that he didn't. But he denied
certain occasions."
"What occasions?"
"When they had been about together quite as if Quint were his tutor--and
a very grand one--and Miss Jessel only for the little lady. When he had
gone off with the fellow, I mean, and spent hours with him."
"He then prevaricated about it--he said he hadn't?" Her assent was clear
enough to cause me to add in a moment: "I see. He lied."
"Oh!" Mrs. Grose mumbled. This was a suggestion that it didn't matter;
which indeed she backed up by a further remark. "You see, after all,
Miss Jessel didn't mind. She didn't forbid him."
I considered. "Did he put that to you as a justification?"
At this she dropped again. "No, he never spoke of it."
"Never mentioned her in connection with Quint?"
She saw, visibly flushing, where I was coming out. "Well, he didn't show
anything. He denied," she repeated; "he denied."
Lord, how I pressed her now! "So that you could see he knew what was
between the two wretches?"
"I don't know--I don't know!" the poor woman groaned.
"You do know, you dear thing," I replied; "only you haven't my dreadful
boldness of mind, and you keep back, out of timidity and modesty and
delicacy, even the impression that, in the past, when you had, without
my aid, to flounder about in silence, most of all made you miserable.
But I shall get it out of you yet! There was something in the boy that
suggested to you," I continued, "that he covered and concealed their
relation."
"Oh, he couldn't prevent--"
"Your learning the truth? I daresay! But, heavens," I fell, with
vehemence, athinking, "what it shows that they must, to that extent,
have succeeded in making of him!"
"Ah, nothing that's not nice NOW!" Mrs. Grose lugubriously pleaded.
"I don't wonder you looked queer," I persisted, "when I mentioned to you
the letter from his school!"
"I doubt if I looked as queer as you!" she retorted with homely force.
"And if he was so bad then as that comes to, how is he such an angel
now?"
"Yes, indeed--and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how? Well,"
I said in my torment, "you must put it to me again, but I shall not be
able to tell you for some days. Only, put it to me again!" I cried in a
way that made my friend stare. "There are directions in which I must
not for the present let myself go." Meanwhile I returned to her first
example--the one to which she had just previously referred--of the boy's
happy capacity for an occasional slip. "If Quint--on your remonstrance
at the time you speak of--was a base menial, one of the things Miles
said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another." Again
her admission was so adequate that I continued: "And you forgave him
that?"
"Wouldn't YOU?"
"Oh, yes!" And we exchanged there, in the stillness, a sound of the
oddest amusement. Then I went on: "At all events, while he was with the
man--"
"Miss Flora was with the woman. It suited them all!"
It suited me, too, I felt, only too well; by which I mean that it suited
exactly the particularly deadly view I was in the very act of forbidding
myself to entertain. But I so far succeeded in checking the expression
of this view that I will throw, just here, no further light on it than
may be offered by the mention of my final observation to Mrs. Grose.
"His having lied and been impudent are, I confess, less engaging
specimens than I had hoped to have from you of the outbreak in him of
the little natural man. Still," I mused, "They must do, for they make me
feel more than ever that I must watch."
It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend's face how much
more unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdote struck me as
presenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. This came out
when, at the schoolroom door, she quitted me. "Surely you don't accuse
HIM--"
"Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? Ah, remember
that, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody." Then, before
shutting her out to go, by another passage, to her own place, "I must
just wait," I wound up. | Meeting again later, the governess and Mrs. Grose determine to keep their wits about them. That night they talk in the governess's room until the governess is convinced that Mrs. Grose believes her. The governess returns to her pupils and feels ashamed at having thought Flora capable of cunning. Later, she asks Mrs. Grose about the occasions on which Miles had been bad. It takes prying, but Mrs. Grose finally tells her that her previous reference had regarded the time Miles had spent with Quint. Mrs. Grose defends Miles, pointing out that Miss Jessel had not disapproved of his and Quint's relationship. Getting fed up with the governess's relentless questioning, Mrs. Grose fires back some retorts. The governess pieces together her colleague's revelations and presumes that Mrs. Grose's silence signifies her agreement. Mrs. Grose confirms that whenever Miles had been with Quint, Flora had been with Miss Jessel. As Mrs. Grose again defends Miles, the governess reassures her that without more evidence, she can accuse no one and will simply wait. |