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You believe in a palace of crystal that can never be destroyed--a palace at which one will not be able to put out one's tongue or make a long nose on the sly. And perhaps that is just why I am afraid of this edifice, that it is of crystal and can never be destroyed and that one cannot put one's tongue out at it even on the sly. You see, if it were not a palace, but a hen-house, I might creep into it to avoid getting wet, and yet I would not call the hen-house a palace out of gratitude to it for keeping me dry. You laugh and say that in such circumstances a hen-house is as good as a mansion. Yes, I answer, if one had to live simply to keep out of the rain. But what is to be done if I have taken it into my head that that is not the only object in life, and that if one must live one had better live in a mansion? That is my choice, my desire. You will only eradicate it when you have changed my preference. Well, do change it, allure me with something else, give me another ideal. But meanwhile I will not take a hen-house for a mansion. The palace of crystal may be an idle dream, it may be that it is inconsistent with the laws of nature and that I have invented it only through my own stupidity, through the old-fashioned irrational habits of my generation. But what does it matter to me that it is inconsistent? That makes no difference since it exists in my desires, or rather exists as long as my desires exist. Perhaps you are laughing again? Laugh away; I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry. I know, anyway, that I will not be put off with a compromise, with a recurring zero, simply because it is consistent with the laws of nature and actually exists. I will not accept as the crown of my desires a block of buildings with tenements for the poor on a lease of a thousand years, and perhaps with a sign-board of a dentist hanging out. Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you. You will say, perhaps, that it is not worth your trouble; but in that case I can give you the same answer. We are discussing things seriously; but if you won't deign to give me your attention, I will drop your acquaintance. I can retreat into my underground hole. But while I am alive and have desires I would rather my hand were withered off than bring one brick to such a building! Don't remind me that I have just rejected the palace of crystal for the sole reason that one cannot put out one's tongue at it. I did not say because I am so fond of putting my tongue out. Perhaps the thing I resented was, that of all your edifices there has not been one at which one could not put out one's tongue. On the contrary, I would let my tongue be cut off out of gratitude if things could be so arranged that I should lose all desire to put it out. It is not my fault that things cannot be so arranged, and that one must be satisfied with model flats. Then why am I made with such desires? Can I have been constructed simply in order to come to the conclusion that all my construction is a cheat? Can this be my whole purpose? I do not believe it. But do you know what: I am convinced that we underground folk ought to be kept on a curb. Though we may sit forty years underground without speaking, when we do come out into the light of day and break out we talk and talk and talk....

The narrator ponders man's desires and points out how important they are. He feels it would be terrible to live in the Crystal Palace, a glass structure in London, where he would be inhibited from pursuing his desires. He knows he would not be comfortable sticking out his tongue there even if he wanted to, for the whole world could see him and judge him. The narrator feels that man should always be able to pursue his desires, which define his being. He also acknowledges that a man cannot be satisfied until he obtains his true desires; substitutes are never sufficient to erase the real desire.

<CHAPTER> X The Careys made up their minds to send Philip to King's School at Tercanbury. The neighbouring clergy sent their sons there. It was united by long tradition to the Cathedral: its headmaster was an honorary Canon, and a past headmaster was the Archdeacon. Boys were encouraged there to aspire to Holy Orders, and the education was such as might prepare an honest lad to spend his life in God's service. A preparatory school was attached to it, and to this it was arranged that Philip should go. Mr. Carey took him into Tercanbury one Thursday afternoon towards the end of September. All day Philip had been excited and rather frightened. He knew little of school life but what he had read in the stories of The Boy's Own Paper. He had also read Eric, or Little by Little. When they got out of the train at Tercanbury, Philip felt sick with apprehension, and during the drive in to the town sat pale and silent. The high brick wall in front of the school gave it the look of a prison. There was a little door in it, which opened on their ringing; and a clumsy, untidy man came out and fetched Philip's tin trunk and his play-box. They were shown into the drawing-room; it was filled with massive, ugly furniture, and the chairs of the suite were placed round the walls with a forbidding rigidity. They waited for the headmaster. "What's Mr. Watson like?" asked Philip, after a while. "You'll see for yourself." There was another pause. Mr. Carey wondered why the headmaster did not come. Presently Philip made an effort and spoke again. "Tell him I've got a club-foot," he said. Before Mr. Carey could speak the door burst open and Mr. Watson swept into the room. To Philip he seemed gigantic. He was a man of over six feet high, and broad, with enormous hands and a great red beard; he talked loudly in a jovial manner; but his aggressive cheerfulness struck terror in Philip's heart. He shook hands with Mr. Carey, and then took Philip's small hand in his. "Well, young fellow, are you glad to come to school?" he shouted. Philip reddened and found no word to answer. "How old are you?" "Nine," said Philip. "You must say sir," said his uncle. "I expect you've got a good lot to learn," the headmaster bellowed cheerily. To give the boy confidence he began to tickle him with rough fingers. Philip, feeling shy and uncomfortable, squirmed under his touch. "I've put him in the small dormitory for the present.... You'll like that, won't you?" he added to Philip. "Only eight of you in there. You won't feel so strange." Then the door opened, and Mrs. Watson came in. She was a dark woman with black hair, neatly parted in the middle. She had curiously thick lips and a small round nose. Her eyes were large and black. There was a singular coldness in her appearance. She seldom spoke and smiled more seldom still. Her husband introduced Mr. Carey to her, and then gave Philip a friendly push towards her. "This is a new boy, Helen, His name's Carey." Without a word she shook hands with Philip and then sat down, not speaking, while the headmaster asked Mr. Carey how much Philip knew and what books he had been working with. The Vicar of Blackstable was a little embarrassed by Mr. Watson's boisterous heartiness, and in a moment or two got up. "I think I'd better leave Philip with you now." "That's all right," said Mr. Watson. "He'll be safe with me. He'll get on like a house on fire. Won't you, young fellow?" Without waiting for an answer from Philip the big man burst into a great bellow of laughter. Mr. Carey kissed Philip on the forehead and went away. "Come along, young fellow," shouted Mr. Watson. "I'll show you the school-room." He swept out of the drawing-room with giant strides, and Philip hurriedly limped behind him. He was taken into a long, bare room with two tables that ran along its whole length; on each side of them were wooden forms. "Nobody much here yet," said Mr. Watson. "I'll just show you the playground, and then I'll leave you to shift for yourself." Mr. Watson led the way. Philip found himself in a large play-ground with high brick walls on three sides of it. On the fourth side was an iron railing through which you saw a vast lawn and beyond this some of the buildings of King's School. One small boy was wandering disconsolately, kicking up the gravel as he walked. "Hulloa, Venning," shouted Mr. Watson. "When did you turn up?" The small boy came forward and shook hands. "Here's a new boy. He's older and bigger than you, so don't you bully him." The headmaster glared amicably at the two children, filling them with fear by the roar of his voice, and then with a guffaw left them. "What's your name?" "Carey." "What's your father?" "He's dead." "Oh! Does your mother wash?" "My mother's dead, too." Philip thought this answer would cause the boy a certain awkwardness, but Venning was not to be turned from his facetiousness for so little. "Well, did she wash?" he went on. "Yes," said Philip indignantly. "She was a washerwoman then?" "No, she wasn't." "Then she didn't wash." The little boy crowed with delight at the success of his dialectic. Then he caught sight of Philip's feet. "What's the matter with your foot?" Philip instinctively tried to withdraw it from sight. He hid it behind the one which was whole. "I've got a club-foot," he answered. "How did you get it?" "I've always had it." "Let's have a look." "No." "Don't then." The little boy accompanied the words with a sharp kick on Philip's shin, which Philip did not expect and thus could not guard against. The pain was so great that it made him gasp, but greater than the pain was the surprise. He did not know why Venning kicked him. He had not the presence of mind to give him a black eye. Besides, the boy was smaller than he, and he had read in The Boy's Own Paper that it was a mean thing to hit anyone smaller than yourself. While Philip was nursing his shin a third boy appeared, and his tormentor left him. In a little while he noticed that the pair were talking about him, and he felt they were looking at his feet. He grew hot and uncomfortable. But others arrived, a dozen together, and then more, and they began to talk about their doings during the holidays, where they had been, and what wonderful cricket they had played. A few new boys appeared, and with these presently Philip found himself talking. He was shy and nervous. He was anxious to make himself pleasant, but he could not think of anything to say. He was asked a great many questions and answered them all quite willingly. One boy asked him whether he could play cricket. "No," answered Philip. "I've got a club-foot." The boy looked down quickly and reddened. Philip saw that he felt he had asked an unseemly question. He was too shy to apologise and looked at Philip awkwardly. </CHAPTER> <CHAPTER> XI Next morning when the clanging of a bell awoke Philip he looked round his cubicle in astonishment. Then a voice sang out, and he remembered where he was. "Are you awake, Singer?" The partitions of the cubicle were of polished pitch-pine, and there was a green curtain in front. In those days there was little thought of ventilation, and the windows were closed except when the dormitory was aired in the morning. Philip got up and knelt down to say his prayers. It was a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been taught by his uncle that his prayers were more acceptable to God if he said them in his nightshirt than if he waited till he was dressed. This did not surprise him, for he was beginning to realise that he was the creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers. Then he washed. There were two baths for the fifty boarders, and each boy had a bath once a week. The rest of his washing was done in a small basin on a wash-stand, which with the bed and a chair, made up the furniture of each cubicle. The boys chatted gaily while they dressed. Philip was all ears. Then another bell sounded, and they ran downstairs. They took their seats on the forms on each side of the two long tables in the school-room; and Mr. Watson, followed by his wife and the servants, came in and sat down. Mr. Watson read prayers in an impressive manner, and the supplications thundered out in his loud voice as though they were threats personally addressed to each boy. Philip listened with anxiety. Then Mr. Watson read a chapter from the Bible, and the servants trooped out. In a moment the untidy youth brought in two large pots of tea and on a second journey immense dishes of bread and butter. Philip had a squeamish appetite, and the thick slabs of poor butter on the bread turned his stomach, but he saw other boys scraping it off and followed their example. They all had potted meats and such like, which they had brought in their play-boxes; and some had 'extras,' eggs or bacon, upon which Mr. Watson made a profit. When he had asked Mr. Carey whether Philip was to have these, Mr. Carey replied that he did not think boys should be spoilt. Mr. Watson quite agreed with him--he considered nothing was better than bread and butter for growing lads--but some parents, unduly pampering their offspring, insisted on it. Philip noticed that 'extras' gave boys a certain consideration and made up his mind, when he wrote to Aunt Louisa, to ask for them. After breakfast the boys wandered out into the play-ground. Here the day-boys were gradually assembling. They were sons of the local clergy, of the officers at the Depot, and of such manufacturers or men of business as the old town possessed. Presently a bell rang, and they all trooped into school. This consisted of a large, long room at opposite ends of which two under-masters conducted the second and third forms, and of a smaller one, leading out of it, used by Mr. Watson, who taught the first form. To attach the preparatory to the senior school these three classes were known officially, on speech days and in reports, as upper, middle, and lower second. Philip was put in the last. The master, a red-faced man with a pleasant voice, was called Rice; he had a jolly manner with boys, and the time passed quickly. Philip was surprised when it was a quarter to eleven and they were let out for ten minutes' rest. The whole school rushed noisily into the play-ground. The new boys were told to go into the middle, while the others stationed themselves along opposite walls. They began to play Pig in the Middle. The old boys ran from wall to wall while the new boys tried to catch them: when one was seized and the mystic words said--one, two, three, and a pig for me--he became a prisoner and, turning sides, helped to catch those who were still free. Philip saw a boy running past and tried to catch him, but his limp gave him no chance; and the runners, taking their opportunity, made straight for the ground he covered. Then one of them had the brilliant idea of imitating Philip's clumsy run. Other boys saw it and began to laugh; then they all copied the first; and they ran round Philip, limping grotesquely, screaming in their treble voices with shrill laughter. They lost their heads with the delight of their new amusement, and choked with helpless merriment. One of them tripped Philip up and he fell, heavily as he always fell, and cut his knee. They laughed all the louder when he got up. A boy pushed him from behind, and he would have fallen again if another had not caught him. The game was forgotten in the entertainment of Philip's deformity. One of them invented an odd, rolling limp that struck the rest as supremely ridiculous, and several of the boys lay down on the ground and rolled about in laughter: Philip was completely scared. He could not make out why they were laughing at him. His heart beat so that he could hardly breathe, and he was more frightened than he had ever been in his life. He stood still stupidly while the boys ran round him, mimicking and laughing; they shouted to him to try and catch them; but he did not move. He did not want them to see him run any more. He was using all his strength to prevent himself from crying. Suddenly the bell rang, and they all trooped back to school. Philip's knee was bleeding, and he was dusty and dishevelled. For some minutes Mr. Rice could not control his form. They were excited still by the strange novelty, and Philip saw one or two of them furtively looking down at his feet. He tucked them under the bench. In the afternoon they went up to play football, but Mr. Watson stopped Philip on the way out after dinner. "I suppose you can't play football, Carey?" he asked him. Philip blushed self-consciously. "No, sir." "Very well. You'd better go up to the field. You can walk as far as that, can't you?" Philip had no idea where the field was, but he answered all the same. "Yes, sir." The boys went in charge of Mr. Rice, who glanced at Philip and seeing he had not changed, asked why he was not going to play. "Mr. Watson said I needn't, sir," said Philip. "Why?" There were boys all round him, looking at him curiously, and a feeling of shame came over Philip. He looked down without answering. Others gave the reply. "He's got a club-foot, sir." "Oh, I see." Mr. Rice was quite young; he had only taken his degree a year before; and he was suddenly embarrassed. His instinct was to beg the boy's pardon, but he was too shy to do so. He made his voice gruff and loud. "Now then, you boys, what are you waiting about for? Get on with you." Some of them had already started and those that were left now set off, in groups of two or three. "You'd better come along with me, Carey," said the master "You don't know the way, do you?" Philip guessed the kindness, and a sob came to his throat. "I can't go very fast, sir." "Then I'll go very slow," said the master, with a smile. Philip's heart went out to the red-faced, commonplace young man who said a gentle word to him. He suddenly felt less unhappy. But at night when they went up to bed and were undressing, the boy who was called Singer came out of his cubicle and put his head in Philip's. "I say, let's look at your foot," he said. "No," answered Philip. He jumped into bed quickly. "Don't say no to me," said Singer. "Come on, Mason." The boy in the next cubicle was looking round the corner, and at the words he slipped in. They made for Philip and tried to tear the bed-clothes off him, but he held them tightly. "Why can't you leave me alone?" he cried. Singer seized a brush and with the back of it beat Philip's hands clenched on the blanket. Philip cried out. "Why don't you show us your foot quietly?" "I won't." In desperation Philip clenched his fist and hit the boy who tormented him, but he was at a disadvantage, and the boy seized his arm. He began to turn it. "Oh, don't, don't," said Philip. "You'll break my arm." "Stop still then and put out your foot." Philip gave a sob and a gasp. The boy gave the arm another wrench. The pain was unendurable. "All right. I'll do it," said Philip. He put out his foot. Singer still kept his hand on Philip's wrist. He looked curiously at the deformity. "Isn't it beastly?" said Mason. Another came in and looked too. "Ugh," he said, in disgust. "My word, it is rum," said Singer, making a face. "Is it hard?" He touched it with the tip of his forefinger, cautiously, as though it were something that had a life of its own. Suddenly they heard Mr. Watson's heavy tread on the stairs. They threw the clothes back on Philip and dashed like rabbits into their cubicles. Mr. Watson came into the dormitory. Raising himself on tiptoe he could see over the rod that bore the green curtain, and he looked into two or three of the cubicles. The little boys were safely in bed. He put out the light and went out. Singer called out to Philip, but he did not answer. He had got his teeth in the pillow so that his sobbing should be inaudible. He was not crying for the pain they had caused him, nor for the humiliation he had suffered when they looked at his foot, but with rage at himself because, unable to stand the torture, he had put out his foot of his own accord. And then he felt the misery of his life. It seemed to his childish mind that this unhappiness must go on for ever. For no particular reason he remembered that cold morning when Emma had taken him out of bed and put him beside his mother. He had not thought of it once since it happened, but now he seemed to feel the warmth of his mother's body against his and her arms around him. Suddenly it seemed to him that his life was a dream, his mother's death, and the life at the vicarage, and these two wretched days at school, and he would awake in the morning and be back again at home. His tears dried as he thought of it. He was too unhappy, it must be nothing but a dream, and his mother was alive, and Emma would come up presently and go to bed. He fell asleep. But when he awoke next morning it was to the clanging of a bell, and the first thing his eyes saw was the green curtain of his cubicle. </CHAPTER> <CHAPTER> XII As time went on Philip's deformity ceased to interest. It was accepted like one boy's red hair and another's unreasonable corpulence. But meanwhile he had grown horribly sensitive. He never ran if he could help it, because he knew it made his limp more conspicuous, and he adopted a peculiar walk. He stood still as much as he could, with his club-foot behind the other, so that it should not attract notice, and he was constantly on the look out for any reference to it. Because he could not join in the games which other boys played, their life remained strange to him; he only interested himself from the outside in their doings; and it seemed to him that there was a barrier between them and him. Sometimes they seemed to think that it was his fault if he could not play football, and he was unable to make them understand. He was left a good deal to himself. He had been inclined to talkativeness, but gradually he became silent. He began to think of the difference between himself and others. The biggest boy in his dormitory, Singer, took a dislike to him, and Philip, small for his age, had to put up with a good deal of hard treatment. About half-way through the term a mania ran through the school for a game called Nibs. It was a game for two, played on a table or a form with steel pens. You had to push your nib with the finger-nail so as to get the point of it over your opponent's, while he manoeuvred to prevent this and to get the point of his nib over the back of yours; when this result was achieved you breathed on the ball of your thumb, pressed it hard on the two nibs, and if you were able then to lift them without dropping either, both nibs became yours. Soon nothing was seen but boys playing this game, and the more skilful acquired vast stores of nibs. But in a little while Mr. Watson made up his mind that it was a form of gambling, forbade the game, and confiscated all the nibs in the boys' possession. Philip had been very adroit, and it was with a heavy heart that he gave up his winning; but his fingers itched to play still, and a few days later, on his way to the football field, he went into a shop and bought a pennyworth of J pens. He carried them loose in his pocket and enjoyed feeling them. Presently Singer found out that he had them. Singer had given up his nibs too, but he had kept back a very large one, called a Jumbo, which was almost unconquerable, and he could not resist the opportunity of getting Philip's Js out of him. Though Philip knew that he was at a disadvantage with his small nibs, he had an adventurous disposition and was willing to take the risk; besides, he was aware that Singer would not allow him to refuse. He had not played for a week and sat down to the game now with a thrill of excitement. He lost two of his small nibs quickly, and Singer was jubilant, but the third time by some chance the Jumbo slipped round and Philip was able to push his J across it. He crowed with triumph. At that moment Mr. Watson came in. "What are you doing?" he asked. He looked from Singer to Philip, but neither answered. "Don't you know that I've forbidden you to play that idiotic game?" Philip's heart beat fast. He knew what was coming and was dreadfully frightened, but in his fright there was a certain exultation. He had never been swished. Of course it would hurt, but it was something to boast about afterwards. "Come into my study." The headmaster turned, and they followed him side by side Singer whispered to Philip: "We're in for it." Mr. Watson pointed to Singer. "Bend over," he said. Philip, very white, saw the boy quiver at each stroke, and after the third he heard him cry out. Three more followed. "That'll do. Get up." Singer stood up. The tears were streaming down his face. Philip stepped forward. Mr. Watson looked at him for a moment. "I'm not going to cane you. You're a new boy. And I can't hit a cripple. Go away, both of you, and don't be naughty again." When they got back into the school-room a group of boys, who had learned in some mysterious way what was happening, were waiting for them. They set upon Singer at once with eager questions. Singer faced them, his face red with the pain and marks of tears still on his cheeks. He pointed with his head at Philip, who was standing a little behind him. "He got off because he's a cripple," he said angrily. Philip stood silent and flushed. He felt that they looked at him with contempt. "How many did you get?" one boy asked Singer. But he did not answer. He was angry because he had been hurt "Don't ask me to play Nibs with you again," he said to Philip. "It's jolly nice for you. You don't risk anything." "I didn't ask you." "Didn't you!" He quickly put out his foot and tripped Philip up. Philip was always rather unsteady on his feet, and he fell heavily to the ground. "Cripple," said Singer. For the rest of the term he tormented Philip cruelly, and, though Philip tried to keep out of his way, the school was so small that it was impossible; he tried being friendly and jolly with him; he abased himself, so far as to buy him a knife; but though Singer took the knife he was not placated. Once or twice, driven beyond endurance, he hit and kicked the bigger boy, but Singer was so much stronger that Philip was helpless, and he was always forced after more or less torture to beg his pardon. It was that which rankled with Philip: he could not bear the humiliation of apologies, which were wrung from him by pain greater than he could bear. And what made it worse was that there seemed no end to his wretchedness; Singer was only eleven and would not go to the upper school till he was thirteen. Philip realised that he must live two years with a tormentor from whom there was no escape. He was only happy while he was working and when he got into bed. And often there recurred to him then that queer feeling that his life with all its misery was nothing but a dream, and that he would awake in the morning in his own little bed in London. </CHAPTER> <CHAPTER> XIII Two years passed, and Philip was nearly twelve. He was in the first form, within two or three places of the top, and after Christmas when several boys would be leaving for the senior school he would be head boy. He had already quite a collection of prizes, worthless books on bad paper, but in gorgeous bindings decorated with the arms of the school: his position had freed him from bullying, and he was not unhappy. His fellows forgave him his success because of his deformity. "After all, it's jolly easy for him to get prizes," they said, "there's nothing he CAN do but swat." He had lost his early terror of Mr. Watson. He had grown used to the loud voice, and when the headmaster's heavy hand was laid on his shoulder Philip discerned vaguely the intention of a caress. He had the good memory which is more useful for scholastic achievements than mental power, and he knew Mr. Watson expected him to leave the preparatory school with a scholarship. But he had grown very self-conscious. The new-born child does not realise that his body is more a part of himself than surrounding objects, and will play with his toes without any feeling that they belong to him more than the rattle by his side; and it is only by degrees, through pain, that he understands the fact of the body. And experiences of the same kind are necessary for the individual to become conscious of himself; but here there is the difference that, although everyone becomes equally conscious of his body as a separate and complete organism, everyone does not become equally conscious of himself as a complete and separate personality. The feeling of apartness from others comes to most with puberty, but it is not always developed to such a degree as to make the difference between the individual and his fellows noticeable to the individual. It is such as he, as little conscious of himself as the bee in a hive, who are the lucky in life, for they have the best chance of happiness: their activities are shared by all, and their pleasures are only pleasures because they are enjoyed in common; you will see them on Whit-Monday dancing on Hampstead Heath, shouting at a football match, or from club windows in Pall Mall cheering a royal procession. It is because of them that man has been called a social animal. Philip passed from the innocence of childhood to bitter consciousness of himself by the ridicule which his club-foot had excited. The circumstances of his case were so peculiar that he could not apply to them the ready-made rules which acted well enough in ordinary affairs, and he was forced to think for himself. The many books he had read filled his mind with ideas which, because he only half understood them, gave more scope to his imagination. Beneath his painful shyness something was growing up within him, and obscurely he realised his personality. But at times it gave him odd surprises; he did things, he knew not why, and afterwards when he thought of them found himself all at sea. There was a boy called Luard between whom and Philip a friendship had arisen, and one day, when they were playing together in the school-room, Luard began to perform some trick with an ebony pen-holder of Philip's. "Don't play the giddy ox," said Philip. "You'll only break it." "I shan't." But no sooner were the words out of the boy's mouth than the pen-holder snapped in two. Luard looked at Philip with dismay. "Oh, I say, I'm awfully sorry." The tears rolled down Philip's cheeks, but he did not answer. "I say, what's the matter?" said Luard, with surprise. "I'll get you another one exactly the same." "It's not about the pen-holder I care," said Philip, in a trembling voice, "only it was given me by my mater, just before she died." "I say, I'm awfully sorry, Carey." "It doesn't matter. It wasn't your fault." Philip took the two pieces of the pen-holder and looked at them. He tried to restrain his sobs. He felt utterly miserable. And yet he could not tell why, for he knew quite well that he had bought the pen-holder during his last holidays at Blackstable for one and twopence. He did not know in the least what had made him invent that pathetic story, but he was quite as unhappy as though it had been true. The pious atmosphere of the vicarage and the religious tone of the school had made Philip's conscience very sensitive; he absorbed insensibly the feeling about him that the Tempter was ever on the watch to gain his immortal soul; and though he was not more truthful than most boys he never told a lie without suffering from remorse. When he thought over this incident he was very much distressed, and made up his mind that he must go to Luard and tell him that the story was an invention. Though he dreaded humiliation more than anything in the world, he hugged himself for two or three days at the thought of the agonising joy of humiliating himself to the Glory of God. But he never got any further. He satisfied his conscience by the more comfortable method of expressing his repentance only to the Almighty. But he could not understand why he should have been so genuinely affected by the story he was making up. The tears that flowed down his grubby cheeks were real tears. Then by some accident of association there occurred to him that scene when Emma had told him of his mother's death, and, though he could not speak for crying, he had insisted on going in to say good-bye to the Misses Watkin so that they might see his grief and pity him. </CHAPTER> <CHAPTER> XIV Then a wave of religiosity passed through the school. Bad language was no longer heard, and the little nastinesses of small boys were looked upon with hostility; the bigger boys, like the lords temporal of the Middle Ages, used the strength of their arms to persuade those weaker than themselves to virtuous courses. Philip, his restless mind avid for new things, became very devout. He heard soon that it was possible to join a Bible League, and wrote to London for particulars. These consisted in a form to be filled up with the applicant's name, age, and school; a solemn declaration to be signed that he would read a set portion of Holy Scripture every night for a year; and a request for half a crown; this, it was explained, was demanded partly to prove the earnestness of the applicant's desire to become a member of the League, and partly to cover clerical expenses. Philip duly sent the papers and the money, and in return received a calendar worth about a penny, on which was set down the appointed passage to be read each day, and a sheet of paper on one side of which was a picture of the Good Shepherd and a lamb, and on the other, decoratively framed in red lines, a short prayer which had to be said before beginning to read. Every evening he undressed as quickly as possible in order to have time for his task before the gas was put out. He read industriously, as he read always, without criticism, stories of cruelty, deceit, ingratitude, dishonesty, and low cunning. Actions which would have excited his horror in the life about him, in the reading passed through his mind without comment, because they were committed under the direct inspiration of God. The method of the League was to alternate a book of the Old Testament with a book of the New, and one night Philip came across these words of Jesus Christ: If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all this, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. They made no particular impression on him, but it happened that two or three days later, being Sunday, the Canon in residence chose them for the text of his sermon. Even if Philip had wanted to hear this it would have been impossible, for the boys of King's School sit in the choir, and the pulpit stands at the corner of the transept so that the preacher's back is almost turned to them. The distance also is so great that it needs a man with a fine voice and a knowledge of elocution to make himself heard in the choir; and according to long usage the Canons of Tercanbury are chosen for their learning rather than for any qualities which might be of use in a cathedral church. But the words of the text, perhaps because he had read them so short a while before, came clearly enough to Philip's ears, and they seemed on a sudden to have a personal application. He thought about them through most of the sermon, and that night, on getting into bed, he turned over the pages of the Gospel and found once more the passage. Though he believed implicitly everything he saw in print, he had learned already that in the Bible things that said one thing quite clearly often mysteriously meant another. There was no one he liked to ask at school, so he kept the question he had in mind till the Christmas holidays, and then one day he made an opportunity. It was after supper and prayers were just finished. Mrs. Carey was counting the eggs that Mary Ann had brought in as usual and writing on each one the date. Philip stood at the table and pretended to turn listlessly the pages of the Bible. "I say, Uncle William, this passage here, does it really mean that?" He put his finger against it as though he had come across it accidentally. Mr. Carey looked up over his spectacles. He was holding The Blackstable Times in front of the fire. It had come in that evening damp from the press, and the Vicar always aired it for ten minutes before he began to read. "What passage is that?" he asked. "Why, this about if you have faith you can remove mountains." "If it says so in the Bible it is so, Philip," said Mrs. Carey gently, taking up the plate-basket. Philip looked at his uncle for an answer. "It's a matter of faith." "D'you mean to say that if you really believed you could move mountains you could?" "By the grace of God," said the Vicar. "Now, say good-night to your uncle, Philip," said Aunt Louisa. "You're not wanting to move a mountain tonight, are you?" Philip allowed himself to be kissed on the forehead by his uncle and preceded Mrs. Carey upstairs. He had got the information he wanted. His little room was icy, and he shivered when he put on his nightshirt. But he always felt that his prayers were more pleasing to God when he said them under conditions of discomfort. The coldness of his hands and feet were an offering to the Almighty. And tonight he sank on his knees; buried his face in his hands, and prayed to God with all his might that He would make his club-foot whole. It was a very small thing beside the moving of mountains. He knew that God could do it if He wished, and his own faith was complete. Next morning, finishing his prayers with the same request, he fixed a date for the miracle. "Oh, God, in Thy loving mercy and goodness, if it be Thy will, please make my foot all right on the night before I go back to school." He was glad to get his petition into a formula, and he repeated it later in the dining-room during the short pause which the Vicar always made after prayers, before he rose from his knees. He said it again in the evening and again, shivering in his nightshirt, before he got into bed. And he believed. For once he looked forward with eagerness to the end of the holidays. He laughed to himself as he thought of his uncle's astonishment when he ran down the stairs three at a time; and after breakfast he and Aunt Louisa would have to hurry out and buy a new pair of boots. At school they would be astounded. "Hulloa, Carey, what have you done with your foot?" "Oh, it's all right now," he would answer casually, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. He would be able to play football. His heart leaped as he saw himself running, running, faster than any of the other boys. At the end of the Easter term there were the sports, and he would be able to go in for the races; he rather fancied himself over the hurdles. It would be splendid to be like everyone else, not to be stared at curiously by new boys who did not know about his deformity, nor at the baths in summer to need incredible precautions, while he was undressing, before he could hide his foot in the water. He prayed with all the power of his soul. No doubts assailed him. He was confident in the word of God. And the night before he was to go back to school he went up to bed tremulous with excitement. There was snow on the ground, and Aunt Louisa had allowed herself the unaccustomed luxury of a fire in her bed-room; but in Philip's little room it was so cold that his fingers were numb, and he had great difficulty in undoing his collar. His teeth chattered. The idea came to him that he must do something more than usual to attract the attention of God, and he turned back the rug which was in front of his bed so that he could kneel on the bare boards; and then it struck him that his nightshirt was a softness that might displease his Maker, so he took it off and said his prayers naked. When he got into bed he was so cold that for some time he could not sleep, but when he did, it was so soundly that Mary Ann had to shake him when she brought in his hot water next morning. She talked to him while she drew the curtains, but he did not answer; he had remembered at once that this was the morning for the miracle. His heart was filled with joy and gratitude. His first instinct was to put down his hand and feel the foot which was whole now, but to do this seemed to doubt the goodness of God. He knew that his foot was well. But at last he made up his mind, and with the toes of his right foot he just touched his left. Then he passed his hand over it. He limped downstairs just as Mary Ann was going into the dining-room for prayers, and then he sat down to breakfast. "You're very quiet this morning, Philip," said Aunt Louisa presently. "He's thinking of the good breakfast he'll have at school to-morrow," said the Vicar. When Philip answered, it was in a way that always irritated his uncle, with something that had nothing to do with the matter in hand. He called it a bad habit of wool-gathering. "Supposing you'd asked God to do something," said Philip, "and really believed it was going to happen, like moving a mountain, I mean, and you had faith, and it didn't happen, what would it mean?" "What a funny boy you are!" said Aunt Louisa. "You asked about moving mountains two or three weeks ago." "It would just mean that you hadn't got faith," answered Uncle William. Philip accepted the explanation. If God had not cured him, it was because he did not really believe. And yet he did not see how he could believe more than he did. But perhaps he had not given God enough time. He had only asked Him for nineteen days. In a day or two he began his prayer again, and this time he fixed upon Easter. That was the day of His Son's glorious resurrection, and God in His happiness might be mercifully inclined. But now Philip added other means of attaining his desire: he began to wish, when he saw a new moon or a dappled horse, and he looked out for shooting stars; during exeat they had a chicken at the vicarage, and he broke the lucky bone with Aunt Louisa and wished again, each time that his foot might be made whole. He was appealing unconsciously to gods older to his race than the God of Israel. And he bombarded the Almighty with his prayer, at odd times of the day, whenever it occurred to him, in identical words always, for it seemed to him important to make his request in the same terms. But presently the feeling came to him that this time also his faith would not be great enough. He could not resist the doubt that assailed him. He made his own experience into a general rule. "I suppose no one ever has faith enough," he said. It was like the salt which his nurse used to tell him about: you could catch any bird by putting salt on his tail; and once he had taken a little bag of it into Kensington Gardens. But he could never get near enough to put the salt on a bird's tail. Before Easter he had given up the struggle. He felt a dull resentment against his uncle for taking him in. The text which spoke of the moving of mountains was just one of those that said one thing and meant another. He thought his uncle had been playing a practical joke on him. </CHAPTER>

These chapters relate the experience of Philip at the preparatory King's School, which helps to prepare a boy for the ministry. As he accompanies his uncle to the school at Tercanbury, he is full of apprehension and feels self-conscious about his clubfoot. His uncle leaves him in the care of Mr. Watson. True to his fears, the boys immediately notice his deformed foot. Some of them take pity on him, while others mock him and even abuse him physically. He feels isolated because of his disability. When he is unable to bear the humiliation of his tormentors any longer, he cries and remembers his mother. After a time, his deformity is taken for granted and ignored, but Philip still remains sensitive and withdrawn, avoiding participation in the boys' activities. He does excel, however, in his studies and wins several prizes. Mr. Watson appreciates his efforts and expects to secure him a scholarship for additional education. When the school is gripped with a religious fever, Philip joins a study group and starts reading the Bible everynight. He excitedly reads the words, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Encouraged by the Vicar, he begins to pray fervently. He asks God to heal his foot and waits anxiously for the results. When no miracle occurs, Philip feels that his uncle has lied to him and loses faith.

NEVER had the old house appeared so dismal to poor Hepzibah as when she departed on that wretched errand. There was a strange aspect in it. As she trode along the foot-worn passages, and opened one crazy door after another, and ascended the creaking staircase, she gazed wistfully and fearfully around. It would have been no marvel, to her excited mind, if, behind or beside her, there had been the rustle of dead people's garments, or pale visages awaiting her on the landing-place above. Her nerves were set all ajar by the scene of passion and terror through which she had just struggled. Her colloquy with Judge Pyncheon, who so perfectly represented the person and attributes of the founder of the family, had called back the dreary past. It weighed upon her heart. Whatever she had heard, from legendary aunts and grandmothers, concerning the good or evil fortunes of the Pyncheons,--stories which had heretofore been kept warm in her remembrance by the chimney-corner glow that was associated with them,--now recurred to her, sombre, ghastly, cold, like most passages of family history, when brooded over in melancholy mood. The whole seemed little else but a series of calamity, reproducing itself in successive generations, with one general hue, and varying in little, save the outline. But Hepzibah now felt as if the Judge, and Clifford, and herself,--they three together,--were on the point of adding another incident to the annals of the house, with a bolder relief of wrong and sorrow, which would cause it to stand out from all the rest. Thus it is that the grief of the passing moment takes upon itself an individuality, and a character of climax, which it is destined to lose after a while, and to fade into the dark gray tissue common to the grave or glad events of many years ago. It is but for a moment, comparatively, that anything looks strange or startling,--a truth that has the bitter and the sweet in it. But Hepzibah could not rid herself of the sense of something unprecedented at that instant passing and soon to be accomplished. Her nerves were in a shake. Instinctively she paused before the arched window, and looked out upon the street, in order to seize its permanent objects with her mental grasp, and thus to steady herself from the reel and vibration which affected her more immediate sphere. It brought her up, as we may say, with a kind of shock, when she beheld everything under the same appearance as the day before, and numberless preceding days, except for the difference between sunshine and sullen storm. Her eyes travelled along the street, from doorstep to doorstep, noting the wet sidewalks, with here and there a puddle in hollows that had been imperceptible until filled with water. She screwed her dim optics to their acutest point, in the hope of making out, with greater distinctness, a certain window, where she half saw, half guessed, that a tailor's seamstress was sitting at her work. Hepzibah flung herself upon that unknown woman's companionship, even thus far off. Then she was attracted by a chaise rapidly passing, and watched its moist and glistening top, and its splashing wheels, until it had turned the corner, and refused to carry any further her idly trifling, because appalled and overburdened, mind. When the vehicle had disappeared, she allowed herself still another loitering moment; for the patched figure of good Uncle Venner was now visible, coming slowly from the head of the street downward, with a rheumatic limp, because the east wind had got into his joints. Hepzibah wished that he would pass yet more slowly, and befriend her shivering solitude a little longer. Anything that would take her out of the grievous present, and interpose human beings betwixt herself and what was nearest to her,--whatever would defer for an instant the inevitable errand on which she was bound,--all such impediments were welcome. Next to the lightest heart, the heaviest is apt to be most playful. Hepzibah had little hardihood for her own proper pain, and far less for what she must inflict on Clifford. Of so slight a nature, and so shattered by his previous calamities, it could not well be short of utter ruin to bring him face to face with the hard, relentless man who had been his evil destiny through life. Even had there been no bitter recollections, nor any hostile interest now at stake between them, the mere natural repugnance of the more sensitive system to the massive, weighty, and unimpressible one, must, in itself, have been disastrous to the former. It would be like flinging a porcelain vase, with already a crack in it, against a granite column. Never before had Hepzibah so adequately estimated the powerful character of her cousin Jaffrey,--powerful by intellect, energy of will, the long habit of acting among men, and, as she believed, by his unscrupulous pursuit of selfish ends through evil means. It did but increase the difficulty that Judge Pyncheon was under a delusion as to the secret which he supposed Clifford to possess. Men of his strength of purpose and customary sagacity, if they chance to adopt a mistaken opinion in practical matters, so wedge it and fasten it among things known to be true, that to wrench it out of their minds is hardly less difficult than pulling up an oak. Thus, as the Judge required an impossibility of Clifford, the latter, as he could not perform it, must needs perish. For what, in the grasp of a man like this, was to become of Clifford's soft poetic nature, that never should have had a task more stubborn than to set a life of beautiful enjoyment to the flow and rhythm of musical cadences! Indeed, what had become of it already? Broken! Blighted! All but annihilated! Soon to be wholly so! For a moment, the thought crossed Hepzibah's mind, whether Clifford might not really have such knowledge of their deceased uncle's vanished estate as the Judge imputed to him. She remembered some vague intimations, on her brother's part, which--if the supposition were not essentially preposterous--might have been so interpreted. There had been schemes of travel and residence abroad, day-dreams of brilliant life at home, and splendid castles in the air, which it would have required boundless wealth to build and realize. Had this wealth been in her power, how gladly would Hepzibah have bestowed it all upon her iron-hearted kinsman, to buy for Clifford the freedom and seclusion of the desolate old house! But she believed that her brother's schemes were as destitute of actual substance and purpose as a child's pictures of its future life, while sitting in a little chair by its mother's knee. Clifford had none but shadowy gold at his command; and it was not the stuff to satisfy Judge Pyncheon! Was there no help in their extremity? It seemed strange that there should be none, with a city round about her. It would be so easy to throw up the window, and send forth a shriek, at the strange agony of which everybody would come hastening to the rescue, well understanding it to be the cry of a human soul, at some dreadful crisis! But how wild, how almost laughable, the fatality,--and yet how continually it comes to pass, thought Hepzibah, in this dull delirium of a world,--that whosoever, and with however kindly a purpose, should come to help, they would be sure to help the strongest side! Might and wrong combined, like iron magnetized, are endowed with irresistible attraction. There would be Judge Pyncheon,--a person eminent in the public view, of high station and great wealth, a philanthropist, a member of Congress and of the church, and intimately associated with whatever else bestows good name,--so imposing, in these advantageous lights, that Hepzibah herself could hardly help shrinking from her own conclusions as to his hollow integrity. The Judge, on one side! And who, on the other? The guilty Clifford! Once a byword! Now, an indistinctly remembered ignominy! Nevertheless, in spite of this perception that the Judge would draw all human aid to his own behalf, Hepzibah was so unaccustomed to act for herself, that the least word of counsel would have swayed her to any mode of action. Little Phoebe Pyncheon would at once have lighted up the whole scene, if not by any available suggestion, yet simply by the warm vivacity of her character. The idea of the artist occurred to Hepzibah. Young and unknown, mere vagrant adventurer as he was, she had been conscious of a force in Holgrave which might well adapt him to be the champion of a crisis. With this thought in her mind, she unbolted a door, cobwebbed and long disused, but which had served as a former medium of communication between her own part of the house and the gable where the wandering daguerreotypist had now established his temporary home. He was not there. A book, face downward, on the table, a roll of manuscript, a half-written sheet, a newspaper, some tools of his present occupation, and several rejected daguerreotypes, conveyed an impression as if he were close at hand. But, at this period of the day, as Hepzibah might have anticipated, the artist was at his public rooms. With an impulse of idle curiosity, that flickered among her heavy thoughts, she looked at one of the daguerreotypes, and beheld Judge Pyncheon frowning at her. Fate stared her in the face. She turned back from her fruitless quest, with a heartsinking sense of disappointment. In all her years of seclusion, she had never felt, as now, what it was to be alone. It seemed as if the house stood in a desert, or, by some spell, was made invisible to those who dwelt around, or passed beside it; so that any mode of misfortune, miserable accident, or crime might happen in it without the possibility of aid. In her grief and wounded pride, Hepzibah had spent her life in divesting herself of friends; she had wilfully cast off the support which God has ordained his creatures to need from one another; and it was now her punishment, that Clifford and herself would fall the easier victims to their kindred enemy. Returning to the arched window, she lifted her eyes,--scowling, poor, dim-sighted Hepzibah, in the face of Heaven!--and strove hard to send up a prayer through the dense gray pavement of clouds. Those mists had gathered, as if to symbolize a great, brooding mass of human trouble, doubt, confusion, and chill indifference, between earth and the better regions. Her faith was too weak; the prayer too heavy to be thus uplifted. It fell back, a lump of lead, upon her heart. It smote her with the wretched conviction that Providence intermeddled not in these petty wrongs of one individual to his fellow, nor had any balm for these little agonies of a solitary soul; but shed its justice, and its mercy, in a broad, sunlike sweep, over half the universe at once. Its vastness made it nothing. But Hepzibah did not see that, just as there comes a warm sunbeam into every cottage window, so comes a lovebeam of God's care and pity for every separate need. At last, finding no other pretext for deferring the torture that she was to inflict on Clifford,--her reluctance to which was the true cause of her loitering at the window, her search for the artist, and even her abortive prayer,--dreading, also, to hear the stern voice of Judge Pyncheon from below stairs, chiding her delay,--she crept slowly, a pale, grief-stricken figure, a dismal shape of woman, with almost torpid limbs, slowly to her brother's door, and knocked! There was no reply. And how should there have been? Her hand, tremulous with the shrinking purpose which directed it, had smitten so feebly against the door that the sound could hardly have gone inward. She knocked again. Still no response! Nor was it to be wondered at. She had struck with the entire force of her heart's vibration, communicating, by some subtile magnetism, her own terror to the summons. Clifford would turn his face to the pillow, and cover his head beneath the bedclothes, like a startled child at midnight. She knocked a third time, three regular strokes, gentle, but perfectly distinct, and with meaning in them; for, modulate it with what cautious art we will, the hand cannot help playing some tune of what we feel upon the senseless wood. Clifford returned no answer. "Clifford! Dear brother!" said Hepzibah. "Shall I come in?" A silence. Two or three times, and more, Hepzibah repeated his name, without result; till, thinking her brother's sleep unwontedly profound, she undid the door, and entering, found the chamber vacant. How could he have come forth, and when, without her knowledge? Was it possible that, in spite of the stormy day, and worn out with the irksomeness within doors he had betaken himself to his customary haunt in the garden, and was now shivering under the cheerless shelter of the summer-house? She hastily threw up a window, thrust forth her turbaned head and the half of her gaunt figure, and searched the whole garden through, as completely as her dim vision would allow. She could see the interior of the summer-house, and its circular seat, kept moist by the droppings of the roof. It had no occupant. Clifford was not thereabouts; unless, indeed, he had crept for concealment (as, for a moment, Hepzibah fancied might be the case) into a great, wet mass of tangled and broad-leaved shadow, where the squash-vines were clambering tumultuously upon an old wooden framework, set casually aslant against the fence. This could not be, however; he was not there; for, while Hepzibah was looking, a strange grimalkin stole forth from the very spot, and picked his way across the garden. Twice he paused to snuff the air, and then anew directed his course towards the parlor window. Whether it was only on account of the stealthy, prying manner common to the race, or that this cat seemed to have more than ordinary mischief in his thoughts, the old gentlewoman, in spite of her much perplexity, felt an impulse to drive the animal away, and accordingly flung down a window stick. The cat stared up at her, like a detected thief or murderer, and, the next instant, took to flight. No other living creature was visible in the garden. Chanticleer and his family had either not left their roost, disheartened by the interminable rain, or had done the next wisest thing, by seasonably returning to it. Hepzibah closed the window. But where was Clifford? Could it be that, aware of the presence of his Evil Destiny, he had crept silently down the staircase, while the Judge and Hepzibah stood talking in the shop, and had softly undone the fastenings of the outer door, and made his escape into the street? With that thought, she seemed to behold his gray, wrinkled, yet childlike aspect, in the old-fashioned garments which he wore about the house; a figure such as one sometimes imagines himself to be, with the world's eye upon him, in a troubled dream. This figure of her wretched brother would go wandering through the city, attracting all eyes, and everybody's wonder and repugnance, like a ghost, the more to be shuddered at because visible at noontide. To incur the ridicule of the younger crowd, that knew him not,--the harsher scorn and indignation of a few old men, who might recall his once familiar features! To be the sport of boys, who, when old enough to run about the streets, have no more reverence for what is beautiful and holy, nor pity for what is sad,--no more sense of sacred misery, sanctifying the human shape in which it embodies itself,--than if Satan were the father of them all! Goaded by their taunts, their loud, shrill cries, and cruel laughter,--insulted by the filth of the public ways, which they would fling upon him,--or, as it might well be, distracted by the mere strangeness of his situation, though nobody should afflict him with so much as a thoughtless word,--what wonder if Clifford were to break into some wild extravagance which was certain to be interpreted as lunacy? Thus Judge Pyncheon's fiendish scheme would be ready accomplished to his hands! Then Hepzibah reflected that the town was almost completely water-girdled. The wharves stretched out towards the centre of the harbor, and, in this inclement weather, were deserted by the ordinary throng of merchants, laborers, and sea-faring men; each wharf a solitude, with the vessels moored stem and stern, along its misty length. Should her brother's aimless footsteps stray thitherward, and he but bend, one moment, over the deep, black tide, would he not bethink himself that here was the sure refuge within his reach, and that, with a single step, or the slightest overbalance of his body, he might be forever beyond his kinsman's gripe? Oh, the temptation! To make of his ponderous sorrow a security! To sink, with its leaden weight upon him, and never rise again! The horror of this last conception was too much for Hepzibah. Even Jaffrey Pyncheon must help her now She hastened down the staircase, shrieking as she went. "Clifford is gone!" she cried. "I cannot find my brother. Help, Jaffrey Pyncheon! Some harm will happen to him!" She threw open the parlor-door. But, what with the shade of branches across the windows, and the smoke-blackened ceiling, and the dark oak-panelling of the walls, there was hardly so much daylight in the room that Hepzibah's imperfect sight could accurately distinguish the Judge's figure. She was certain, however, that she saw him sitting in the ancestral arm-chair, near the centre of the floor, with his face somewhat averted, and looking towards a window. So firm and quiet is the nervous system of such men as Judge Pyncheon, that he had perhaps stirred not more than once since her departure, but, in the hard composure of his temperament, retained the position into which accident had thrown him. "I tell you, Jaffrey," cried Hepzibah impatiently, as she turned from the parlor-door to search other rooms, "my brother is not in his chamber! You must help me seek him!" But Judge Pyncheon was not the man to let himself be startled from an easy-chair with haste ill-befitting either the dignity of his character or his broad personal basis, by the alarm of an hysteric woman. Yet, considering his own interest in the matter, he might have bestirred himself with a little more alacrity. "Do you hear me, Jaffrey Pyncheon?" screamed Hepzibah, as she again approached the parlor-door, after an ineffectual search elsewhere. "Clifford is gone." At this instant, on the threshold of the parlor, emerging from within, appeared Clifford himself! His face was preternaturally pale; so deadly white, indeed, that, through all the glimmering indistinctness of the passageway, Hepzibah could discern his features, as if a light fell on them alone. Their vivid and wild expression seemed likewise sufficient to illuminate them; it was an expression of scorn and mockery, coinciding with the emotions indicated by his gesture. As Clifford stood on the threshold, partly turning back, he pointed his finger within the parlor, and shook it slowly as though he would have summoned, not Hepzibah alone, but the whole world, to gaze at some object inconceivably ridiculous. This action, so ill-timed and extravagant,--accompanied, too, with a look that showed more like joy than any other kind of excitement,--compelled Hepzibah to dread that her stern kinsman's ominous visit had driven her poor brother to absolute insanity. Nor could she otherwise account for the Judge's quiescent mood than by supposing him craftily on the watch, while Clifford developed these symptoms of a distracted mind. "Be quiet, Clifford!" whispered his sister, raising her hand to impress caution. "Oh, for Heaven's sake, be quiet!" "Let him be quiet! What can he do better?" answered Clifford, with a still wilder gesture, pointing into the room which he had just quitted. "As for us, Hepzibah, we can dance now!--we can sing, laugh, play, do what we will! The weight is gone, Hepzibah! It is gone off this weary old world, and we may be as light-hearted as little Phoebe herself." And, in accordance with his words, he began to laugh, still pointing his finger at the object, invisible to Hepzibah, within the parlor. She was seized with a sudden intuition of some horrible thing. She thrust herself past Clifford, and disappeared into the room; but almost immediately returned, with a cry choking in her throat. Gazing at her brother with an affrighted glance of inquiry, she beheld him all in a tremor and a quake, from head to foot, while, amid these commoted elements of passion or alarm, still flickered his gusty mirth. "My God! what is to become of us?" gasped Hepzibah. "Come!" said Clifford in a tone of brief decision, most unlike what was usual with him. "We stay here too long! Let us leave the old house to our cousin Jaffrey! He will take good care of it!" Hepzibah now noticed that Clifford had on a cloak,--a garment of long ago,--in which he had constantly muffled himself during these days of easterly storm. He beckoned with his hand, and intimated, so far as she could comprehend him, his purpose that they should go together from the house. There are chaotic, blind, or drunken moments, in the lives of persons who lack real force of character,--moments of test, in which courage would most assert itself,--but where these individuals, if left to themselves, stagger aimlessly along, or follow implicitly whatever guidance may befall them, even if it be a child's. No matter how preposterous or insane, a purpose is a Godsend to them. Hepzibah had reached this point. Unaccustomed to action or responsibility,--full of horror at what she had seen, and afraid to inquire, or almost to imagine, how it had come to pass,--affrighted at the fatality which seemed to pursue her brother,--stupefied by the dim, thick, stifling atmosphere of dread which filled the house as with a death-smell, and obliterated all definiteness of thought,--she yielded without a question, and on the instant, to the will which Clifford expressed. For herself, she was like a person in a dream, when the will always sleeps. Clifford, ordinarily so destitute of this faculty, had found it in the tension of the crisis. "Why do you delay so?" cried he sharply. "Put on your cloak and hood, or whatever it pleases you to wear! No matter what; you cannot look beautiful nor brilliant, my poor Hepzibah! Take your purse, with money in it, and come along!" Hepzibah obeyed these instructions, as if nothing else were to be done or thought of. She began to wonder, it is true, why she did not wake up, and at what still more intolerable pitch of dizzy trouble her spirit would struggle out of the maze, and make her conscious that nothing of all this had actually happened. Of course it was not real; no such black, easterly day as this had yet begun to be; Judge Pyncheon had not talked with, her. Clifford had not laughed, pointed, beckoned her away with him; but she had merely been afflicted--as lonely sleepers often are--with a great deal of unreasonable misery, in a morning dream! "Now--now--I shall certainly awake!" thought Hepzibah, as she went to and fro, making her little preparations. "I can bear it no longer I must wake up now!" But it came not, that awakening moment! It came not, even when, just before they left the house, Clifford stole to the parlor-door, and made a parting obeisance to the sole occupant of the room. "What an absurd figure the old fellow cuts now!" whispered he to Hepzibah. "Just when he fancied he had me completely under his thumb! Come, come; make haste! or he will start up, like Giant Despair in pursuit of Christian and Hopeful, and catch us yet!" As they passed into the street, Clifford directed Hepzibah's attention to something on one of the posts of the front door. It was merely the initials of his own name, which, with somewhat of his characteristic grace about the forms of the letters, he had cut there when a boy. The brother and sister departed, and left Judge Pyncheon sitting in the old home of his forefathers, all by himself; so heavy and lumpish that we can liken him to nothing better than a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might!

Hepzibah goes back inside the House of the Seven Gables. She has a feeling that something new, something unprecedented in the Pyncheon family history, is about to take place. Hepzibah is sure that Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon will destroy Clifford. She is also sure that Clifford has no access to the secret Judge Pyncheon believes he holds. She has nowhere to turn for help. Who would side with Clifford against well-respected Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon? She thinks of going to Mr. Holgrave, but he's not there. She looks out the arched window at the sky and sends up a prayer, but she doesn't feel any response. At last Hepzibah goes to knock on Clifford's door. No one answers. Hepzibah asks if she can come in. She finds Clifford's room empty. Hepzibah looks down into the garden to see if Clifford has gone out somehow. She sees "a strange grimalkin" - meaning an old house cat - walking across the garden. Hepzibah throws a stick at it to frighten it away. But still, Hepzibah cannot see Clifford. She can't imagine that he would have run away - he would be treated so badly by the public! Hepzibah suddenly wonders whether Clifford might have decided to end it all and throw himself into the sea. Hepzibah is so frightened by the thought that she runs to Judge Pyncheon. She begs Judge Pyncheon to help her. She finds him sitting in that chair in the parlor - the same chair, supposedly, where Colonel Pyncheon was found dead 150 years before. Judge Pyncheon doesn't move, even when Hepzibah screams, "Do you hear me, Jaffrey Pyncheon?" . Clifford walks into the parlor. He looks crazy. His face is filled with a wild expression of "scorn and mockery" . Clifford tells Hepzibah that they can dance now - they can do whatever they like. Hepzibah realizes that Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon is dead. Clifford suggests that they leave the House of the Seven Gables. After all, Judge Pyncheon "will take good care of it!" . Hepzibah is in such a panic that she agrees without question. She grabs her cloak and follows Clifford. She keeps thinking that she will awake from this dream, but she never does. And so Clifford and Hepzibah leave the House of the Seven Gables. Inside, Judge Pyncheon's body is sitting by himself "in the old home of his forefathers" .

The Same Subject Continued (The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union) For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, December 5, 1787 HAMILTON To the People of the State of New York: AN OBJECTION, of a nature different from that which has been stated and answered, in my last address, may perhaps be likewise urged against the principle of legislation for the individual citizens of America. It may be said that it would tend to render the government of the Union too powerful, and to enable it to absorb those residuary authorities, which it might be judged proper to leave with the States for local purposes. Allowing the utmost latitude to the love of power which any reasonable man can require, I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons intrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition. Commerce, finance, negotiation, and war seem to comprehend all the objects which have charms for minds governed by that passion; and all the powers necessary to those objects ought, in the first instance, to be lodged in the national depository. The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same State, the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction. It is therefore improbable that there should exist a disposition in the federal councils to usurp the powers with which they are connected; because the attempt to exercise those powers would be as troublesome as it would be nugatory; and the possession of them, for that reason, would contribute nothing to the dignity, to the importance, or to the splendor of the national government. But let it be admitted, for argument's sake, that mere wantonness and lust of domination would be sufficient to beget that disposition; still it may be safely affirmed, that the sense of the constituent body of the national representatives, or, in other words, the people of the several States, would control the indulgence of so extravagant an appetite. It will always be far more easy for the State governments to encroach upon the national authorities than for the national government to encroach upon the State authorities. The proof of this proposition turns upon the greater degree of influence which the State governments if they administer their affairs with uprightness and prudence, will generally possess over the people; a circumstance which at the same time teaches us that there is an inherent and intrinsic weakness in all federal constitutions; and that too much pains cannot be taken in their organization, to give them all the force which is compatible with the principles of liberty. The superiority of influence in favor of the particular governments would result partly from the diffusive construction of the national government, but chiefly from the nature of the objects to which the attention of the State administrations would be directed. It is a known fact in human nature, that its affections are commonly weak in proportion to the distance or diffusiveness of the object. Upon the same principle that a man is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large, the people of each State would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards their local governments than towards the government of the Union; unless the force of that principle should be destroyed by a much better administration of the latter. This strong propensity of the human heart would find powerful auxiliaries in the objects of State regulation. The variety of more minute interests, which will necessarily fall under the superintendence of the local administrations, and which will form so many rivulets of influence, running through every part of the society, cannot be particularized, without involving a detail too tedious and uninteresting to compensate for the instruction it might afford. There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments, which alone suffices to place the matter in a clear and satisfactory light,--I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice. This, of all others, is the most powerful, most universal, and most attractive source of popular obedience and attachment. It is that which, being the immediate and visible guardian of life and property, having its benefits and its terrors in constant activity before the public eye, regulating all those personal interests and familiar concerns to which the sensibility of individuals is more immediately awake, contributes, more than any other circumstance, to impressing upon the minds of the people, affection, esteem, and reverence towards the government. This great cement of society, which will diffuse itself almost wholly through the channels of the particular governments, independent of all other causes of influence, would insure them so decided an empire over their respective citizens as to render them at all times a complete counterpoise, and, not unfrequently, dangerous rivals to the power of the Union. The operations of the national government, on the other hand, falling less immediately under the observation of the mass of the citizens, the benefits derived from it will chiefly be perceived and attended to by speculative men. Relating to more general interests, they will be less apt to come home to the feelings of the people; and, in proportion, less likely to inspire an habitual sense of obligation, and an active sentiment of attachment. The reasoning on this head has been abundantly exemplified by the experience of all federal constitutions with which we are acquainted, and of all others which have borne the least analogy to them. Though the ancient feudal systems were not, strictly speaking, confederacies, yet they partook of the nature of that species of association. There was a common head, chieftain, or sovereign, whose authority extended over the whole nation; and a number of subordinate vassals, or feudatories, who had large portions of land allotted to them, and numerous trains of INFERIOR vassals or retainers, who occupied and cultivated that land upon the tenure of fealty or obedience, to the persons of whom they held it. Each principal vassal was a kind of sovereign, within his particular demesnes. The consequences of this situation were a continual opposition to authority of the sovereign, and frequent wars between the great barons or chief feudatories themselves. The power of the head of the nation was commonly too weak, either to preserve the public peace, or to protect the people against the oppressions of their immediate lords. This period of European affairs is emphatically styled by historians, the times of feudal anarchy. When the sovereign happened to be a man of vigorous and warlike temper and of superior abilities, he would acquire a personal weight and influence, which answered, for the time, the purpose of a more regular authority. But in general, the power of the barons triumphed over that of the prince; and in many instances his dominion was entirely thrown off, and the great fiefs were erected into independent principalities or States. In those instances in which the monarch finally prevailed over his vassals, his success was chiefly owing to the tyranny of those vassals over their dependents. The barons, or nobles, equally the enemies of the sovereign and the oppressors of the common people, were dreaded and detested by both; till mutual danger and mutual interest effected a union between them fatal to the power of the aristocracy. Had the nobles, by a conduct of clemency and justice, preserved the fidelity and devotion of their retainers and followers, the contests between them and the prince must almost always have ended in their favor, and in the abridgment or subversion of the royal authority. This is not an assertion founded merely in speculation or conjecture. Among other illustrations of its truth which might be cited, Scotland will furnish a cogent example. The spirit of clanship which was, at an early day, introduced into that kingdom, uniting the nobles and their dependants by ties equivalent to those of kindred, rendered the aristocracy a constant overmatch for the power of the monarch, till the incorporation with England subdued its fierce and ungovernable spirit, and reduced it within those rules of subordination which a more rational and more energetic system of civil polity had previously established in the latter kingdom. The separate governments in a confederacy may aptly be compared with the feudal baronies; with this advantage in their favor, that from the reasons already explained, they will generally possess the confidence and good-will of the people, and with so important a support, will be able effectually to oppose all encroachments of the national government. It will be well if they are not able to counteract its legitimate and necessary authority. The points of similitude consist in the rivalship of power, applicable to both, and in the CONCENTRATION of large portions of the strength of the community into particular DEPOSITORIES, in one case at the disposal of individuals, in the other case at the disposal of political bodies. A concise review of the events that have attended confederate governments will further illustrate this important doctrine; an inattention to which has been the great source of our political mistakes, and has given our jealousy a direction to the wrong side. This review shall form the subject of some ensuing papers. PUBLIUS

Hamilton seeks to address concerns that the proposed Constitution will lead to tyranny at the hands of a power-hungry national government. He argues that it is unlikely that men in national office would even be interested in usurping the powers from the states, which relate to concerns that "can never be desirable cares" of a general government. However, Hamilton argues that even if the national government were to try and usurp power from the states, it would be very difficult for it to do so. He contends that state governments will likely have far more influence over and support from the people then the national government. Essentially, Hamilton is arguing that since states deal with issues that more directly impact the day-to-day lives of the people, especially criminal and civil justice issues, they are more likely to inspire feelings of attachment from the people than a distant, national government would. As evidence, Hamilton points to European feudal societies and notes that it was very difficult for the sovereign to control his feudal baronies. Hamilton asserts that state governments in the American confederacy are analogous to these feudal baronies in that both are able to effectively resist central control. If anything, Hamilton warns, Americans should be concerned about a federal system leading to anarchy, not tyranny.

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

Tess remains with Alec at Trantridge for a few weeks and then packs her things and leaves for her home at Marlott. Alec follows her and questions her about her sudden decision of leaving. She refuses to go back and to take his material help, and he sees no point in coaxing her. Although her contempt for Alec remains, Tess no longer fears him and accepts a ride with him for a few miles. When they part, Alex tells Tess to call him if she ever needs him. At home, Tess's parents, though sad at her misfortune, take her into their fold. Joan, however, is terribly disappointed that Tess has lost a golden opportunity of marrying into the rich D'Urberville family. Tess is unsuccessful in explaining to her mother that marriage was never on Alec's mind. Tess also accuses her mother of hiding the dangers of life from her, making her ill prepared to cope with the likes of Alec.

HOLGRAVE, plunging into his tale with the energy and absorption natural to a young author, had given a good deal of action to the parts capable of being developed and exemplified in that manner. He now observed that a certain remarkable drowsiness (wholly unlike that with which the reader possibly feels himself affected) had been flung over the senses of his auditress. It was the effect, unquestionably, of the mystic gesticulations by which he had sought to bring bodily before Phoebe's perception the figure of the mesmerizing carpenter. With the lids drooping over her eyes,--now lifted for an instant, and drawn down again as with leaden weights,--she leaned slightly towards him, and seemed almost to regulate her breath by his. Holgrave gazed at her, as he rolled up his manuscript, and recognized an incipient stage of that curious psychological condition which, as he had himself told Phoebe, he possessed more than an ordinary faculty of producing. A veil was beginning to be muffled about her, in which she could behold only him, and live only in his thoughts and emotions. His glance, as he fastened it on the young girl, grew involuntarily more concentrated; in his attitude there was the consciousness of power, investing his hardly mature figure with a dignity that did not belong to its physical manifestation. It was evident, that, with but one wave of his hand and a corresponding effort of his will, he could complete his mastery over Phoebe's yet free and virgin spirit: he could establish an influence over this good, pure, and simple child, as dangerous, and perhaps as disastrous, as that which the carpenter of his legend had acquired and exercised over the ill-fated Alice. To a disposition like Holgrave's, at once speculative and active, there is no temptation so great as the opportunity of acquiring empire over the human spirit; nor any idea more seductive to a young man than to become the arbiter of a young girl's destiny. Let us, therefore,--whatever his defects of nature and education, and in spite of his scorn for creeds and institutions,--concede to the daguerreotypist the rare and high quality of reverence for another's individuality. Let us allow him integrity, also, forever after to be confided in; since he forbade himself to twine that one link more which might have rendered his spell over Phoebe indissoluble. He made a slight gesture upward with his hand. "You really mortify me, my dear Miss Phoebe!" he exclaimed, smiling half-sarcastically at her. "My poor story, it is but too evident, will never do for Godey or Graham! Only think of your falling asleep at what I hoped the newspaper critics would pronounce a most brilliant, powerful, imaginative, pathetic, and original winding up! Well, the manuscript must serve to light lamps with;--if, indeed, being so imbued with my gentle dulness, it is any longer capable of flame!" "Me asleep! How can you say so?" answered Phoebe, as unconscious of the crisis through which she had passed as an infant of the precipice to the verge of which it has rolled. "No, no! I consider myself as having been very attentive; and, though I don't remember the incidents quite distinctly, yet I have an impression of a vast deal of trouble and calamity,--so, no doubt, the story will prove exceedingly attractive." By this time the sun had gone down, and was tinting the clouds towards the zenith with those bright hues which are not seen there until some time after sunset, and when the horizon has quite lost its richer brilliancy. The moon, too, which had long been climbing overhead, and unobtrusively melting its disk into the azure,--like an ambitious demagogue, who hides his aspiring purpose by assuming the prevalent hue of popular sentiment,--now began to shine out, broad and oval, in its middle pathway. These silvery beams were already powerful enough to change the character of the lingering daylight. They softened and embellished the aspect of the old house; although the shadows fell deeper into the angles of its many gables, and lay brooding under the projecting story, and within the half-open door. With the lapse of every moment, the garden grew more picturesque; the fruit-trees, shrubbery, and flower-bushes had a dark obscurity among them. The commonplace characteristics--which, at noontide, it seemed to have taken a century of sordid life to accumulate--were now transfigured by a charm of romance. A hundred mysterious years were whispering among the leaves, whenever the slight sea-breeze found its way thither and stirred them. Through the foliage that roofed the little summer-house the moonlight flickered to and fro, and fell silvery white on the dark floor, the table, and the circular bench, with a continual shift and play, according as the chinks and wayward crevices among the twigs admitted or shut out the glimmer. So sweetly cool was the atmosphere, after all the feverish day, that the summer eve might be fancied as sprinkling dews and liquid moonlight, with a dash of icy temper in them, out of a silver vase. Here and there, a few drops of this freshness were scattered on a human heart, and gave it youth again, and sympathy with the eternal youth of nature. The artist chanced to be one on whom the reviving influence fell. It made him feel--what he sometimes almost forgot, thrust so early as he had been into the rude struggle of man with man--how youthful he still was. "It seems to me," he observed, "that I never watched the coming of so beautiful an eve, and never felt anything so very much like happiness as at this moment. After all, what a good world we live in! How good, and beautiful! How young it is, too, with nothing really rotten or age-worn in it! This old house, for example, which sometimes has positively oppressed my breath with its smell of decaying timber! And this garden, where the black mould always clings to my spade, as if I were a sexton delving in a graveyard! Could I keep the feeling that now possesses me, the garden would every day be virgin soil, with the earth's first freshness in the flavor of its beans and squashes; and the house!--it would be like a bower in Eden, blossoming with the earliest roses that God ever made. Moonlight, and the sentiment in man's heart responsive to it, are the greatest of renovators and reformers. And all other reform and renovation, I suppose, will prove to be no better than moonshine!" "I have been happier than I am now; at least, much gayer," said Phoebe thoughtfully. "Yet I am sensible of a great charm in this brightening moonlight; and I love to watch how the day, tired as it is, lags away reluctantly, and hates to be called yesterday so soon. I never cared much about moonlight before. What is there, I wonder, so beautiful in it, to-night?" "And you have never felt it before?" inquired the artist, looking earnestly at the girl through the twilight. "Never," answered Phoebe; "and life does not look the same, now that I have felt it so. It seems as if I had looked at everything, hitherto, in broad daylight, or else in the ruddy light of a cheerful fire, glimmering and dancing through a room. Ah, poor me!" she added, with a half-melancholy laugh. "I shall never be so merry as before I knew Cousin Hepzibah and poor Cousin Clifford. I have grown a great deal older, in this little time. Older, and, I hope, wiser, and,--not exactly sadder,--but, certainly, with not half so much lightness in my spirits! I have given them my sunshine, and have been glad to give it; but, of course, I cannot both give and keep it. They are welcome, notwithstanding!" "You have lost nothing, Phoebe, worth keeping, nor which it was possible to keep," said Holgrave after a pause. "Our first youth is of no value; for we are never conscious of it until after it is gone. But sometimes--always, I suspect, unless one is exceedingly unfortunate--there comes a sense of second youth, gushing out of the heart's joy at being in love; or, possibly, it may come to crown some other grand festival in life, if any other such there be. This bemoaning of one's self (as you do now) over the first, careless, shallow gayety of youth departed, and this profound happiness at youth regained,--so much deeper and richer than that we lost,--are essential to the soul's development. In some cases, the two states come almost simultaneously, and mingle the sadness and the rapture in one mysterious emotion." "I hardly think I understand you," said Phoebe. "No wonder," replied Holgrave, smiling; "for I have told you a secret which I hardly began to know before I found myself giving it utterance. Remember it, however; and when the truth becomes clear to you, then think of this moonlight scene!" "It is entirely moonlight now, except only a little flush of faint crimson, upward from the west, between those buildings," remarked Phoebe. "I must go in. Cousin Hepzibah is not quick at figures, and will give herself a headache over the day's accounts, unless I help her." But Holgrave detained her a little longer. "Miss Hepzibah tells me," observed he, "that you return to the country in a few days." "Yes, but only for a little while," answered Phoebe; "for I look upon this as my present home. I go to make a few arrangements, and to take a more deliberate leave of my mother and friends. It is pleasant to live where one is much desired and very useful; and I think I may have the satisfaction of feeling myself so here." "You surely may, and more than you imagine," said the artist. "Whatever health, comfort, and natural life exists in the house is embodied in your person. These blessings came along with you, and will vanish when you leave the threshold. Miss Hepzibah, by secluding herself from society, has lost all true relation with it, and is, in fact, dead; although she galvanizes herself into a semblance of life, and stands behind her counter, afflicting the world with a greatly-to-be-deprecated scowl. Your poor cousin Clifford is another dead and long-buried person, on whom the governor and council have wrought a necromantic miracle. I should not wonder if he were to crumble away, some morning, after you are gone, and nothing be seen of him more, except a heap of dust. Miss Hepzibah, at any rate, will lose what little flexibility she has. They both exist by you." "I should be very sorry to think so," answered Phoebe gravely. "But it is true that my small abilities were precisely what they needed; and I have a real interest in their welfare,--an odd kind of motherly sentiment,--which I wish you would not laugh at! And let me tell you frankly, Mr. Holgrave, I am sometimes puzzled to know whether you wish them well or ill." "Undoubtedly," said the daguerreotypist, "I do feel an interest in this antiquated, poverty-stricken old maiden lady, and this degraded and shattered gentleman,--this abortive lover of the beautiful. A kindly interest, too, helpless old children that they are! But you have no conception what a different kind of heart mine is from your own. It is not my impulse, as regards these two individuals, either to help or hinder; but to look on, to analyze, to explain matters to myself, and to comprehend the drama which, for almost two hundred years, has been dragging its slow length over the ground where you and I now tread. If permitted to witness the close, I doubt not to derive a moral satisfaction from it, go matters how they may. There is a conviction within me that the end draws nigh. But, though Providence sent you hither to help, and sends me only as a privileged and meet spectator, I pledge myself to lend these unfortunate beings whatever aid I can!" "I wish you would speak more plainly," cried Phoebe, perplexed and displeased; "and, above all, that you would feel more like a Christian and a human being! How is it possible to see people in distress without desiring, more than anything else, to help and comfort them? You talk as if this old house were a theatre; and you seem to look at Hepzibah's and Clifford's misfortunes, and those of generations before them, as a tragedy, such as I have seen acted in the hall of a country hotel, only the present one appears to be played exclusively for your amusement. I do not like this. The play costs the performers too much, and the audience is too cold-hearted." "You are severe," said Holgrave, compelled to recognize a degree of truth in the piquant sketch of his own mood. "And then," continued Phoebe, "what can you mean by your conviction, which you tell me of, that the end is drawing near? Do you know of any new trouble hanging over my poor relatives? If so, tell me at once, and I will not leave them!" "Forgive me, Phoebe!" said the daguerreotypist, holding out his hand, to which the girl was constrained to yield her own. "I am somewhat of a mystic, it must be confessed. The tendency is in my blood, together with the faculty of mesmerism, which might have brought me to Gallows Hill, in the good old times of witchcraft. Believe me, if I were really aware of any secret, the disclosure of which would benefit your friends,--who are my own friends, likewise,--you should learn it before we part. But I have no such knowledge." "You hold something back!" said Phoebe. "Nothing,--no secrets but my own," answered Holgrave. "I can perceive, indeed, that Judge Pyncheon still keeps his eye on Clifford, in whose ruin he had so large a share. His motives and intentions, however are a mystery to me. He is a determined and relentless man, with the genuine character of an inquisitor; and had he any object to gain by putting Clifford to the rack, I verily believe that he would wrench his joints from their sockets, in order to accomplish it. But, so wealthy and eminent as he is,--so powerful in his own strength, and in the support of society on all sides,--what can Judge Pyncheon have to hope or fear from the imbecile, branded, half-torpid Clifford?" "Yet," urged Phoebe, "you did speak as if misfortune were impending!" "Oh, that was because I am morbid!" replied the artist. "My mind has a twist aside, like almost everybody's mind, except your own. Moreover, it is so strange to find myself an inmate of this old Pyncheon House, and sitting in this old garden--(hark, how Maule's well is murmuring!)--that, were it only for this one circumstance, I cannot help fancying that Destiny is arranging its fifth act for a catastrophe." "There!" cried Phoebe with renewed vexation; for she was by nature as hostile to mystery as the sunshine to a dark corner. "You puzzle me more than ever!" "Then let us part friends!" said Holgrave, pressing her hand. "Or, if not friends, let us part before you entirely hate me. You, who love everybody else in the world!" "Good-by, then," said Phoebe frankly. "I do not mean to be angry a great while, and should be sorry to have you think so. There has Cousin Hepzibah been standing in the shadow of the doorway, this quarter of an hour past! She thinks I stay too long in the damp garden. So, good-night, and good-by." On the second morning thereafter, Phoebe might have been seen, in her straw bonnet, with a shawl on one arm and a little carpet-bag on the other, bidding adieu to Hepzibah and Cousin Clifford. She was to take a seat in the next train of cars, which would transport her to within half a dozen miles of her country village. The tears were in Phoebe's eyes; a smile, dewy with affectionate regret, was glimmering around her pleasant mouth. She wondered how it came to pass, that her life of a few weeks, here in this heavy-hearted old mansion, had taken such hold of her, and so melted into her associations, as now to seem a more important centre-point of remembrance than all which had gone before. How had Hepzibah--grim, silent, and irresponsive to her overflow of cordial sentiment--contrived to win so much love? And Clifford,--in his abortive decay, with the mystery of fearful crime upon him, and the close prison-atmosphere yet lurking in his breath,--how had he transformed himself into the simplest child, whom Phoebe felt bound to watch over, and be, as it were, the providence of his unconsidered hours! Everything, at that instant of farewell, stood out prominently to her view. Look where she would, lay her hand on what she might, the object responded to her consciousness, as if a moist human heart were in it. She peeped from the window into the garden, and felt herself more regretful at leaving this spot of black earth, vitiated with such an age-long growth of weeds, than joyful at the idea of again scenting her pine forests and fresh clover-fields. She called Chanticleer, his two wives, and the venerable chicken, and threw them some crumbs of bread from the breakfast-table. These being hastily gobbled up, the chicken spread its wings, and alighted close by Phoebe on the window-sill, where it looked gravely into her face and vented its emotions in a croak. Phoebe bade it be a good old chicken during her absence, and promised to bring it a little bag of buckwheat. "Ah, Phoebe!" remarked Hepzibah, "you do not smile so naturally as when you came to us! Then, the smile chose to shine out; now, you choose it should. It is well that you are going back, for a little while, into your native air. There has been too much weight on your spirits. The house is too gloomy and lonesome; the shop is full of vexations; and as for me, I have no faculty of making things look brighter than they are. Dear Clifford has been your only comfort!" "Come hither, Phoebe," suddenly cried her cousin Clifford, who had said very little all the morning. "Close!--closer!--and look me in the face!" Phoebe put one of her small hands on each elbow of his chair, and leaned her face towards him, so that he might peruse it as carefully as he would. It is probable that the latent emotions of this parting hour had revived, in some degree, his bedimmed and enfeebled faculties. At any rate, Phoebe soon felt that, if not the profound insight of a seer, yet a more than feminine delicacy of appreciation, was making her heart the subject of its regard. A moment before, she had known nothing which she would have sought to hide. Now, as if some secret were hinted to her own consciousness through the medium of another's perception, she was fain to let her eyelids droop beneath Clifford's gaze. A blush, too,--the redder, because she strove hard to keep it down,--ascended bigger and higher, in a tide of fitful progress, until even her brow was all suffused with it. "It is enough, Phoebe," said Clifford, with a melancholy smile. "When I first saw you, you were the prettiest little maiden in the world; and now you have deepened into beauty. Girlhood has passed into womanhood; the bud is a bloom! Go, now--I feel lonelier than I did." Phoebe took leave of the desolate couple, and passed through the shop, twinkling her eyelids to shake off a dew-drop; for--considering how brief her absence was to be, and therefore the folly of being cast down about it--she would not so far acknowledge her tears as to dry them with her handkerchief. On the doorstep, she met the little urchin whose marvellous feats of gastronomy have been recorded in the earlier pages of our narrative. She took from the window some specimen or other of natural history,--her eyes being too dim with moisture to inform her accurately whether it was a rabbit or a hippopotamus,--put it into the child's hand as a parting gift, and went her way. Old Uncle Venner was just coming out of his door, with a wood-horse and saw on his shoulder; and, trudging along the street, he scrupled not to keep company with Phoebe, so far as their paths lay together; nor, in spite of his patched coat and rusty beaver, and the curious fashion of his tow-cloth trousers, could she find it in her heart to outwalk him. "We shall miss you, next Sabbath afternoon," observed the street philosopher. "It is unaccountable how little while it takes some folks to grow just as natural to a man as his own breath; and, begging your pardon, Miss Phoebe (though there can be no offence in an old man's saying it), that's just what you've grown to me! My years have been a great many, and your life is but just beginning; and yet, you are somehow as familiar to me as if I had found you at my mother's door, and you had blossomed, like a running vine, all along my pathway since. Come back soon, or I shall be gone to my farm; for I begin to find these wood-sawing jobs a little too tough for my back-ache." "Very soon, Uncle Venner," replied Phoebe. "And let it be all the sooner, Phoebe, for the sake of those poor souls yonder," continued her companion. "They can never do without you, now,--never, Phoebe; never--no more than if one of God's angels had been living with them, and making their dismal house pleasant and comfortable! Don't it seem to you they'd be in a sad case, if, some pleasant summer morning like this, the angel should spread his wings, and fly to the place he came from? Well, just so they feel, now that you're going home by the railroad! They can't bear it, Miss Phoebe; so be sure to come back!" "I am no angel, Uncle Venner," said Phoebe, smiling, as she offered him her hand at the street-corner. "But, I suppose, people never feel so much like angels as when they are doing what little good they may. So I shall certainly come back!" Thus parted the old man and the rosy girl; and Phoebe took the wings of the morning, and was soon flitting almost as rapidly away as if endowed with the aerial locomotion of the angels to whom Uncle Venner had so graciously compared her.

After Mr. Holgrave finishes reading his story aloud, he notices that Phoebe has become literally hypnotized as a result of his gestures. Mr. Holgrave has a sudden temptation: he could establish total power over Phoebe in this state. But he has too much respect for individual choice to do this to Phoebe, so he releases her from the hypnotic spell. Mr. Holgrave teases Phoebe for falling asleep. She protests that she was awake the whole time. She just can't...quite...remember what his story was about. The night falls and it's lovely. Mr. Holgrave has never felt so happy as he does at this moment. Phoebe admits that she's been more cheerful in the past, but she has a new appreciation for moonlight now. Mr. Holgrave says this feeling is proof that her soul is developing into something better and more mature. Phoebe realizes that she must go inside to help Hepzibah close up the shop. Mr. Holgrave has heard that Phoebe plans to go back to the country in a couple of days. Phoebe says it's true, but she's coming back soon. She enjoys living where she can be useful . Mr. Holgrave says she is desperately needed by Hepzibah and Clifford, who are both as good as dead without her. Phoebe wonders whether Mr. Holgrave cares what happens to Hepzibah and Clifford. Mr. Holgrave is interested in the two of them, but in an intellectual way. He is there primarily as "a privileged spectator" to this human drama. Phoebe demands to know whether Mr. Holgrave is aware of anything that threatens Hepzibah and Clifford. Mr. Holgrave apologizes and promises that he knows of nothing coming their way. He has secrets, yes, but they are his own. It's just that Mr. Holgrave has noticed that Judge Pyncheon seems unusually interested in Clifford. But why? Phoebe says goodbye and promises that she is not angry. Two days later Phoebe says farewell to Hepzibah and Clifford. She weeps as she thinks over how much her life has changed over the last several weeks. She feeds Chanticleer and the hens. Hepzibah remarks that it's good Phoebe is going away for a bit - she needs to regain her old, easy smile. Clifford tells Phoebe that she has changed from a child into a woman during her stay at the House. Phoebe goes on her way after handing Ned Higgins another animal-shaped cookie. Uncle Venner walks along the path with her awhile. He tells Phoebe to come back soon - she seems to belong here, and Clifford and Hepzibah won't be able to bear her absence. Phoebe promises to come back.

They came downstairs yawning next morning; but skimming and milking were proceeded with as usual, and they went indoors to breakfast. Dairyman Crick was discovered stamping about the house. He had received a letter, in which a customer had complained that the butter had a twang. "And begad, so 't have!" said the dairyman, who held in his left hand a wooden slice on which a lump of butter was stuck. "Yes--taste for yourself!" Several of them gathered round him; and Mr Clare tasted, Tess tasted, also the other indoor milkmaids, one or two of the milking-men, and last of all Mrs Crick, who came out from the waiting breakfast-table. There certainly was a twang. The dairyman, who had thrown himself into abstraction to better realize the taste, and so divine the particular species of noxious weed to which it appertained, suddenly exclaimed-- "'Tis garlic! and I thought there wasn't a blade left in that mead!" Then all the old hands remembered that a certain dry mead, into which a few of the cows had been admitted of late, had, in years gone by, spoilt the butter in the same way. The dairyman had not recognized the taste at that time, and thought the butter bewitched. "We must overhaul that mead," he resumed; "this mustn't continny!" All having armed themselves with old pointed knives, they went out together. As the inimical plant could only be present in very microscopic dimensions to have escaped ordinary observation, to find it seemed rather a hopeless attempt in the stretch of rich grass before them. However, they formed themselves into line, all assisting, owing to the importance of the search; the dairyman at the upper end with Mr Clare, who had volunteered to help; then Tess, Marian, Izz Huett, and Retty; then Bill Lewell, Jonathan, and the married dairywomen--Beck Knibbs, with her wooly black hair and rolling eyes; and flaxen Frances, consumptive from the winter damps of the water-meads--who lived in their respective cottages. With eyes fixed upon the ground they crept slowly across a strip of the field, returning a little further down in such a manner that, when they should have finished, not a single inch of the pasture but would have fallen under the eye of some one of them. It was a most tedious business, not more than half a dozen shoots of garlic being discoverable in the whole field; yet such was the herb's pungency that probably one bite of it by one cow had been sufficient to season the whole dairy's produce for the day. Differing one from another in natures and moods so greatly as they did, they yet formed, bending, a curiously uniform row--automatic, noiseless; and an alien observer passing down the neighbouring lane might well have been excused for massing them as "Hodge". As they crept along, stooping low to discern the plant, a soft yellow gleam was reflected from the buttercups into their shaded faces, giving them an elfish, moonlit aspect, though the sun was pouring upon their backs in all the strength of noon. Angel Clare, who communistically stuck to his rule of taking part with the rest in everything, glanced up now and then. It was not, of course, by accident that he walked next to Tess. "Well, how are you?" he murmured. "Very well, thank you, sir," she replied demurely. As they had been discussing a score of personal matters only half-an-hour before, the introductory style seemed a little superfluous. But they got no further in speech just then. They crept and crept, the hem of her petticoat just touching his gaiter, and his elbow sometimes brushing hers. At last the dairyman, who came next, could stand it no longer. "Upon my soul and body, this here stooping do fairly make my back open and shut!" he exclaimed, straightening himself slowly with an excruciated look till quite upright. "And you, maidy Tess, you wasn't well a day or two ago--this will make your head ache finely! Don't do any more, if you feel fainty; leave the rest to finish it." Dairyman Crick withdrew, and Tess dropped behind. Mr Clare also stepped out of line, and began privateering about for the weed. When she found him near her, her very tension at what she had heard the night before made her the first to speak. "Don't they look pretty?" she said. "Who?" "Izzy Huett and Retty." Tess had moodily decided that either of these maidens would make a good farmer's wife, and that she ought to recommend them, and obscure her own wretched charms. "Pretty? Well, yes--they are pretty girls--fresh looking. I have often thought so." "Though, poor dears, prettiness won't last long!" "O no, unfortunately." "They are excellent dairywomen." "Yes: though not better than you." "They skim better than I." "Do they?" Clare remained observing them--not without their observing him. "She is colouring up," continued Tess heroically. "Who?" "Retty Priddle." "Oh! Why it that?" "Because you are looking at her." Self-sacrificing as her mood might be, Tess could not well go further and cry, "Marry one of them, if you really do want a dairywoman and not a lady; and don't think of marrying me!" She followed Dairyman Crick, and had the mournful satisfaction of seeing that Clare remained behind. From this day she forced herself to take pains to avoid him--never allowing herself, as formerly, to remain long in his company, even if their juxtaposition were purely accidental. She gave the other three every chance. Tess was woman enough to realize from their avowals to herself that Angel Clare had the honour of all the dairymaids in his keeping, and her perception of his care to avoid compromising the happiness of either in the least degree bred a tender respect in Tess for what she deemed, rightly or wrongly, the self-controlling sense of duty shown by him, a quality which she had never expected to find in one of the opposite sex, and in the absence of which more than one of the simple hearts who were his house-mates might have gone weeping on her pilgrimage.

The next morning Dairyman Crick orders his workers to overhaul the mead, for there is garlic in it that has spoiled the milk. While searching for garlic in the field, Angel finds Tess and they search together. Dairyman Crick finds them and tells her that she should not be out in the fields, for she was not feeling well a day or so ago. Tess mentions to Angel that Izzy Huett and Retty look pretty, but Angel insists on Tess's superiority. Tess finally tells Angel to marry one of them if she wants a dairywoman and not a lady, and not to think of marrying her. From this day Tess forces herself to take pains to avoid Angel.

There was one point which Anne, on returning to her family, would have been more thankful to ascertain even than Mr Elliot's being in love with Elizabeth, which was, her father's not being in love with Mrs Clay; and she was very far from easy about it, when she had been at home a few hours. On going down to breakfast the next morning, she found there had just been a decent pretence on the lady's side of meaning to leave them. She could imagine Mrs Clay to have said, that "now Miss Anne was come, she could not suppose herself at all wanted;" for Elizabeth was replying in a sort of whisper, "That must not be any reason, indeed. I assure you I feel it none. She is nothing to me, compared with you;" and she was in full time to hear her father say, "My dear madam, this must not be. As yet, you have seen nothing of Bath. You have been here only to be useful. You must not run away from us now. You must stay to be acquainted with Mrs Wallis, the beautiful Mrs Wallis. To your fine mind, I well know the sight of beauty is a real gratification." He spoke and looked so much in earnest, that Anne was not surprised to see Mrs Clay stealing a glance at Elizabeth and herself. Her countenance, perhaps, might express some watchfulness; but the praise of the fine mind did not appear to excite a thought in her sister. The lady could not but yield to such joint entreaties, and promise to stay. In the course of the same morning, Anne and her father chancing to be alone together, he began to compliment her on her improved looks; he thought her "less thin in her person, in her cheeks; her skin, her complexion, greatly improved; clearer, fresher. Had she been using any thing in particular?" "No, nothing." "Merely Gowland," he supposed. "No, nothing at all." "Ha! he was surprised at that;" and added, "certainly you cannot do better than to continue as you are; you cannot be better than well; or I should recommend Gowland, the constant use of Gowland, during the spring months. Mrs Clay has been using it at my recommendation, and you see what it has done for her. You see how it has carried away her freckles." If Elizabeth could but have heard this! Such personal praise might have struck her, especially as it did not appear to Anne that the freckles were at all lessened. But everything must take its chance. The evil of a marriage would be much diminished, if Elizabeth were also to marry. As for herself, she might always command a home with Lady Russell. Lady Russell's composed mind and polite manners were put to some trial on this point, in her intercourse in Camden Place. The sight of Mrs Clay in such favour, and of Anne so overlooked, was a perpetual provocation to her there; and vexed her as much when she was away, as a person in Bath who drinks the water, gets all the new publications, and has a very large acquaintance, has time to be vexed. As Mr Elliot became known to her, she grew more charitable, or more indifferent, towards the others. His manners were an immediate recommendation; and on conversing with him she found the solid so fully supporting the superficial, that she was at first, as she told Anne, almost ready to exclaim, "Can this be Mr Elliot?" and could not seriously picture to herself a more agreeable or estimable man. Everything united in him; good understanding, correct opinions, knowledge of the world, and a warm heart. He had strong feelings of family attachment and family honour, without pride or weakness; he lived with the liberality of a man of fortune, without display; he judged for himself in everything essential, without defying public opinion in any point of worldly decorum. He was steady, observant, moderate, candid; never run away with by spirits or by selfishness, which fancied itself strong feeling; and yet, with a sensibility to what was amiable and lovely, and a value for all the felicities of domestic life, which characters of fancied enthusiasm and violent agitation seldom really possess. She was sure that he had not been happy in marriage. Colonel Wallis said it, and Lady Russell saw it; but it had been no unhappiness to sour his mind, nor (she began pretty soon to suspect) to prevent his thinking of a second choice. Her satisfaction in Mr Elliot outweighed all the plague of Mrs Clay. It was now some years since Anne had begun to learn that she and her excellent friend could sometimes think differently; and it did not surprise her, therefore, that Lady Russell should see nothing suspicious or inconsistent, nothing to require more motives than appeared, in Mr Elliot's great desire of a reconciliation. In Lady Russell's view, it was perfectly natural that Mr Elliot, at a mature time of life, should feel it a most desirable object, and what would very generally recommend him among all sensible people, to be on good terms with the head of his family; the simplest process in the world of time upon a head naturally clear, and only erring in the heyday of youth. Anne presumed, however, still to smile about it, and at last to mention "Elizabeth." Lady Russell listened, and looked, and made only this cautious reply:--"Elizabeth! very well; time will explain." It was a reference to the future, which Anne, after a little observation, felt she must submit to. She could determine nothing at present. In that house Elizabeth must be first; and she was in the habit of such general observance as "Miss Elliot," that any particularity of attention seemed almost impossible. Mr Elliot, too, it must be remembered, had not been a widower seven months. A little delay on his side might be very excusable. In fact, Anne could never see the crape round his hat, without fearing that she was the inexcusable one, in attributing to him such imaginations; for though his marriage had not been very happy, still it had existed so many years that she could not comprehend a very rapid recovery from the awful impression of its being dissolved. However it might end, he was without any question their pleasantest acquaintance in Bath: she saw nobody equal to him; and it was a great indulgence now and then to talk to him about Lyme, which he seemed to have as lively a wish to see again, and to see more of, as herself. They went through the particulars of their first meeting a great many times. He gave her to understand that he had looked at her with some earnestness. She knew it well; and she remembered another person's look also. They did not always think alike. His value for rank and connexion she perceived was greater than hers. It was not merely complaisance, it must be a liking to the cause, which made him enter warmly into her father and sister's solicitudes on a subject which she thought unworthy to excite them. The Bath paper one morning announced the arrival of the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and her daughter, the Honourable Miss Carteret; and all the comfort of No. --, Camden Place, was swept away for many days; for the Dalrymples (in Anne's opinion, most unfortunately) were cousins of the Elliots; and the agony was how to introduce themselves properly. Anne had never seen her father and sister before in contact with nobility, and she must acknowledge herself disappointed. She had hoped better things from their high ideas of their own situation in life, and was reduced to form a wish which she had never foreseen; a wish that they had more pride; for "our cousins Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret;" "our cousins, the Dalrymples," sounded in her ears all day long. Sir Walter had once been in company with the late viscount, but had never seen any of the rest of the family; and the difficulties of the case arose from there having been a suspension of all intercourse by letters of ceremony, ever since the death of that said late viscount, when, in consequence of a dangerous illness of Sir Walter's at the same time, there had been an unlucky omission at Kellynch. No letter of condolence had been sent to Ireland. The neglect had been visited on the head of the sinner; for when poor Lady Elliot died herself, no letter of condolence was received at Kellynch, and, consequently, there was but too much reason to apprehend that the Dalrymples considered the relationship as closed. How to have this anxious business set to rights, and be admitted as cousins again, was the question: and it was a question which, in a more rational manner, neither Lady Russell nor Mr Elliot thought unimportant. "Family connexions were always worth preserving, good company always worth seeking; Lady Dalrymple had taken a house, for three months, in Laura Place, and would be living in style. She had been at Bath the year before, and Lady Russell had heard her spoken of as a charming woman. It was very desirable that the connexion should be renewed, if it could be done, without any compromise of propriety on the side of the Elliots." Sir Walter, however, would choose his own means, and at last wrote a very fine letter of ample explanation, regret, and entreaty, to his right honourable cousin. Neither Lady Russell nor Mr Elliot could admire the letter; but it did all that was wanted, in bringing three lines of scrawl from the Dowager Viscountess. "She was very much honoured, and should be happy in their acquaintance." The toils of the business were over, the sweets began. They visited in Laura Place, they had the cards of Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and the Honourable Miss Carteret, to be arranged wherever they might be most visible: and "Our cousins in Laura Place,"--"Our cousin, Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret," were talked of to everybody. Anne was ashamed. Had Lady Dalrymple and her daughter even been very agreeable, she would still have been ashamed of the agitation they created, but they were nothing. There was no superiority of manner, accomplishment, or understanding. Lady Dalrymple had acquired the name of "a charming woman," because she had a smile and a civil answer for everybody. Miss Carteret, with still less to say, was so plain and so awkward, that she would never have been tolerated in Camden Place but for her birth. Lady Russell confessed she had expected something better; but yet "it was an acquaintance worth having;" and when Anne ventured to speak her opinion of them to Mr Elliot, he agreed to their being nothing in themselves, but still maintained that, as a family connexion, as good company, as those who would collect good company around them, they had their value. Anne smiled and said, "My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company." "You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company; that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well. My cousin Anne shakes her head. She is not satisfied. She is fastidious. My dear cousin" (sitting down by her), "you have a better right to be fastidious than almost any other woman I know; but will it answer? Will it make you happy? Will it not be wiser to accept the society of those good ladies in Laura Place, and enjoy all the advantages of the connexion as far as possible? You may depend upon it, that they will move in the first set in Bath this winter, and as rank is rank, your being known to be related to them will have its use in fixing your family (our family let me say) in that degree of consideration which we must all wish for." "Yes," sighed Anne, "we shall, indeed, be known to be related to them!" then recollecting herself, and not wishing to be answered, she added, "I certainly do think there has been by far too much trouble taken to procure the acquaintance. I suppose" (smiling) "I have more pride than any of you; but I confess it does vex me, that we should be so solicitous to have the relationship acknowledged, which we may be very sure is a matter of perfect indifference to them." "Pardon me, dear cousin, you are unjust in your own claims. In London, perhaps, in your present quiet style of living, it might be as you say: but in Bath; Sir Walter Elliot and his family will always be worth knowing: always acceptable as acquaintance." "Well," said Anne, "I certainly am proud, too proud to enjoy a welcome which depends so entirely upon place." "I love your indignation," said he; "it is very natural. But here you are in Bath, and the object is to be established here with all the credit and dignity which ought to belong to Sir Walter Elliot. You talk of being proud; I am called proud, I know, and I shall not wish to believe myself otherwise; for our pride, if investigated, would have the same object, I have no doubt, though the kind may seem a little different. In one point, I am sure, my dear cousin," (he continued, speaking lower, though there was no one else in the room) "in one point, I am sure, we must feel alike. We must feel that every addition to your father's society, among his equals or superiors, may be of use in diverting his thoughts from those who are beneath him." He looked, as he spoke, to the seat which Mrs Clay had been lately occupying: a sufficient explanation of what he particularly meant; and though Anne could not believe in their having the same sort of pride, she was pleased with him for not liking Mrs Clay; and her conscience admitted that his wishing to promote her father's getting great acquaintance was more than excusable in the view of defeating her.

Anne's still concerned that she's going to get Mrs. Clay as a wicked stepmother. Mrs. Clay offers to leave, but both the elder Elliots insist that she stay. It doesn't help Anne's worries that, when her father is trying to give her beauty advice, he holds up Mrs. Clay as an example of what his favorite face cream can do. Anne feels powerless, and thinks that she would feel better about Mrs. Clay becoming Mrs. Walter Elliot if Elizabeth became Mrs. William Elliot. Her own backup plan is to move in with Lady Russell. Lady Russell is rather cranky that Anne is getting ignored while Mrs. Clay gets all the attention; despite her crankiness, though, she still enjoys being a Bath scenester. As Lady Russell gets to know Mr. Elliot, she likes him more and more, and is pleased with his sense of moderation and family pride. Anne, however, thinks that Mr. Elliot has more than family pride on his mind, and suspects him of being after Elizabeth, but Lady Russell doesn't see things that way. In any case, Anne knows that the first Mrs. William Elliot has been in the ground for only seven months, and so he might not be too eager to enlist a second wife, even if the first one was unsatisfactory. Until that becomes clear, Anne simply enjoys their friendship, as Mr. Elliot is by far the person in her limited social circle she most enjoys hanging out with, even though he cares more about rank than she does. This difference becomes especially clear when a cousin to the Elliots, known unfortunately as the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and her daughter arrive in Bath. The Dalrymples are higher up on the social ladder than the Elliots, so Sir Walter is anxious to get some of their reflected glory. The backstory fairy explains the difficulty: Sir Walter was ill when Lady Dalrymple's husband died, and so didn't send a letter of condolence; the Dalrymples struck back by similarly ignoring Lady Elliot's death, and the two families have been giving each other the silent treatment ever since. Knowing this, Sir Walter writes an elaborate letter to smooth things over, which has the desired effect. Soon Sir Walter and Elizabeth are name-dropping their illustrious cousins at any chance they get. Anne feels ashamed that her family has gone to such efforts to get in with people she finds boring and stupid, but Lady Russell and Mr. Elliot hold that rank brings along a whole bunch of other privileges that are worth pursuing. Anne tells Mr. Elliot that her pride makes her want to make friends based on who she is rather than who her family is; Mr. Elliot replies that he, too, is proud, and that having Sir Walter set his eyes on those above him will keep his attention away from those below him - especially, Mr. Elliot hints, Mrs. Clay. Anne can't argue with that, and likes Mr. Elliot all the more for his sharing her dislike of Mrs. Clay.

I now approach an event in my life, so indelible, so awful, so bound by an infinite variety of ties to all that has preceded it, in these pages, that, from the beginning of my narrative, I have seen it growing larger and larger as I advanced, like a great tower in a plain, and throwing its fore-cast shadow even on the incidents of my childish days. For years after it occurred, I dreamed of it often. I have started up so vividly impressed by it, that its fury has yet seemed raging in my quiet room, in the still night. I dream of it sometimes, though at lengthened and uncertain intervals, to this hour. I have an association between it and a stormy wind, or the lightest mention of a sea-shore, as strong as any of which my mind is conscious. As plainly as I behold what happened, I will try to write it down. I do not recall it, but see it done; for it happens again before me. The time drawing on rapidly for the sailing of the emigrant-ship, my good old nurse (almost broken-hearted for me, when we first met) came up to London. I was constantly with her, and her brother, and the Micawbers (they being very much together); but Emily I never saw. One evening when the time was close at hand, I was alone with Peggotty and her brother. Our conversation turned on Ham. She described to us how tenderly he had taken leave of her, and how manfully and quietly he had borne himself. Most of all, of late, when she believed he was most tried. It was a subject of which the affectionate creature never tired; and our interest in hearing the many examples which she, who was so much with him, had to relate, was equal to hers in relating them. My aunt and I were at that time vacating the two cottages at Highgate; I intending to go abroad, and she to return to her house at Dover. We had a temporary lodging in Covent Garden. As I walked home to it, after this evening's conversation, reflecting on what had passed between Ham and myself when I was last at Yarmouth, I wavered in the original purpose I had formed, of leaving a letter for Emily when I should take leave of her uncle on board the ship, and thought it would be better to write to her now. She might desire, I thought, after receiving my communication, to send some parting word by me to her unhappy lover. I ought to give her the opportunity. I therefore sat down in my room, before going to bed, and wrote to her. I told her that I had seen him, and that he had requested me to tell her what I have already written in its place in these sheets. I faithfully repeated it. I had no need to enlarge upon it, if I had had the right. Its deep fidelity and goodness were not to be adorned by me or any man. I left it out, to be sent round in the morning; with a line to Mr. Peggotty, requesting him to give it to her; and went to bed at daybreak. I was weaker than I knew then; and, not falling asleep until the sun was up, lay late, and unrefreshed, next day. I was roused by the silent presence of my aunt at my bedside. I felt it in my sleep, as I suppose we all do feel such things. 'Trot, my dear,' she said, when I opened my eyes, 'I couldn't make up my mind to disturb you. Mr. Peggotty is here; shall he come up?' I replied yes, and he soon appeared. 'Mas'r Davy,' he said, when we had shaken hands, 'I giv Em'ly your letter, sir, and she writ this heer; and begged of me fur to ask you to read it, and if you see no hurt in't, to be so kind as take charge on't.' 'Have you read it?' said I. He nodded sorrowfully. I opened it, and read as follows: 'I have got your message. Oh, what can I write, to thank you for your good and blessed kindness to me! 'I have put the words close to my heart. I shall keep them till I die. They are sharp thorns, but they are such comfort. I have prayed over them, oh, I have prayed so much. When I find what you are, and what uncle is, I think what God must be, and can cry to him. 'Good-bye for ever. Now, my dear, my friend, good-bye for ever in this world. In another world, if I am forgiven, I may wake a child and come to you. All thanks and blessings. Farewell, evermore.' This, blotted with tears, was the letter. 'May I tell her as you doen't see no hurt in't, and as you'll be so kind as take charge on't, Mas'r Davy?' said Mr. Peggotty, when I had read it. 'Unquestionably,' said I--'but I am thinking--' 'Yes, Mas'r Davy?' 'I am thinking,' said I, 'that I'll go down again to Yarmouth. There's time, and to spare, for me to go and come back before the ship sails. My mind is constantly running on him, in his solitude; to put this letter of her writing in his hand at this time, and to enable you to tell her, in the moment of parting, that he has got it, will be a kindness to both of them. I solemnly accepted his commission, dear good fellow, and cannot discharge it too completely. The journey is nothing to me. I am restless, and shall be better in motion. I'll go down tonight.' Though he anxiously endeavoured to dissuade me, I saw that he was of my mind; and this, if I had required to be confirmed in my intention, would have had the effect. He went round to the coach office, at my request, and took the box-seat for me on the mail. In the evening I started, by that conveyance, down the road I had traversed under so many vicissitudes. 'Don't you think that,' I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of London, 'a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one like it.' 'Nor I--not equal to it,' he replied. 'That's wind, sir. There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long.' It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds, tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. There had been a wind all day; and it was rising then, with an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much increased, and the sky was more overcast, and blew hard. But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely over-spreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder and harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in September, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle. When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich--very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of London; and found a cluster of people in the market-place, who had risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some of these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a by-street, which they then blocked up. Others had to tell of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole ricks scattered about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the storm, but it blew harder. As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us. When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. When at last we got into the town, the people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair, making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night. I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering along the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and holding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag back. Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were away in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to think might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety. Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, as they looked from water to sky, and muttering to one another; ship-owners, excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and peering into older faces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their glasses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they were surveying an enemy. The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature. Not finding Ham among the people whom this memorable wind--for it is still remembered down there, as the greatest ever known to blow upon that coast--had brought together, I made my way to his house. It was shut; and as no one answered to my knocking, I went, by back ways and by-lanes, to the yard where he worked. I learned, there, that he had gone to Lowestoft, to meet some sudden exigency of ship-repairing in which his skill was required; but that he would be back tomorrow morning, in good time. I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried to sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. I had not sat five minutes by the coffee-room fire, when the waiter, coming to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other ships had been seen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great distress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the last! I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an uneasiness in Ham's not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. I was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by late events; and my long exposure to the fierce wind had confused me. There was that jumble in my thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear arrangement of time and distance. Thus, if I had gone out into the town, I should not have been surprised, I think, to encounter someone who I knew must be then in London. So to speak, there was in these respects a curious inattention in my mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances the place naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct and vivid. In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the ships immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with my uneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension of his returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strong with me, that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took my dinner, and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by sea at all likely? If he gave me the least reason to think so, I would go over to Lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me. I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none too soon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was locking the yard-gate. He quite laughed when I asked him the question, and said there was no fear; no man in his senses, or out of them, would put off in such a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had been born to seafaring. So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doing what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. If such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, the rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. But there was now a great darkness besides; and that invested the storm with new terrors, real and fanciful. I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue steadfast to anything. Something within me, faintly answering to the storm without, tossed up the depths of my memory and made a tumult in them. Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running with the thundering sea,--the storm, and my uneasiness regarding Ham were always in the fore-ground. My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself with a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a dull slumber before the fire, without losing my consciousness, either of the uproar out of doors, or of the place in which I was. Both became overshadowed by a new and indefinable horror; and when I awoke--or rather when I shook off the lethargy that bound me in my chair--my whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelligible fear. I walked to and fro, tried to read an old gazetteer, listened to the awful noises: looked at faces, scenes, and figures in the fire. At length, the steady ticking of the undisturbed clock on the wall tormented me to that degree that I resolved to go to bed. It was reassuring, on such a night, to be told that some of the inn-servants had agreed together to sit up until morning. I went to bed, exceedingly weary and heavy; but, on my lying down, all such sensations vanished, as if by magic, and I was broad awake, with every sense refined. For hours I lay there, listening to the wind and water; imagining, now, that I heard shrieks out at sea; now, that I distinctly heard the firing of signal guns; and now, the fall of houses in the town. I got up, several times, and looked out; but could see nothing, except the reflection in the window-panes of the faint candle I had left burning, and of my own haggard face looking in at me from the black void. At length, my restlessness attained to such a pitch, that I hurried on my clothes, and went downstairs. In the large kitchen, where I dimly saw bacon and ropes of onions hanging from the beams, the watchers were clustered together, in various attitudes, about a table, purposely moved away from the great chimney, and brought near the door. A pretty girl, who had her ears stopped with her apron, and her eyes upon the door, screamed when I appeared, supposing me to be a spirit; but the others had more presence of mind, and were glad of an addition to their company. One man, referring to the topic they had been discussing, asked me whether I thought the souls of the collier-crews who had gone down, were out in the storm? I remained there, I dare say, two hours. Once, I opened the yard-gate, and looked into the empty street. The sand, the sea-weed, and the flakes of foam, were driving by; and I was obliged to call for assistance before I could shut the gate again, and make it fast against the wind. There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length returned to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell--off a tower and down a precipice--into the depths of sleep. I have an impression that for a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length, I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with two dear friends, but who they were I don't know, at the siege of some town in a roar of cannonading. The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could not hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great exertion and awoke. It was broad day--eight or nine o'clock; the storm raging, in lieu of the batteries; and someone knocking and calling at my door. 'What is the matter?' I cried. 'A wreck! Close by!' I sprung out of bed, and asked, what wreck? 'A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. Make haste, sir, if you want to see her! It's thought, down on the beach, she'll go to pieces every moment.' The excited voice went clamouring along the staircase; and I wrapped myself in my clothes as quickly as I could, and ran into the street. Numbers of people were there before me, all running in one direction, to the beach. I ran the same way, outstripping a good many, and soon came facing the wild sea. The wind might by this time have lulled a little, though not more sensibly than if the cannonading I had dreamed of, had been diminished by the silencing of half-a-dozen guns out of hundreds. But the sea, having upon it the additional agitation of the whole night, was infinitely more terrific than when I had seen it last. Every appearance it had then presented, bore the expression of being swelled; and the height to which the breakers rose, and, looking over one another, bore one another down, and rolled in, in interminable hosts, was most appalling. In the difficulty of hearing anything but wind and waves, and in the crowd, and the unspeakable confusion, and my first breathless efforts to stand against the weather, I was so confused that I looked out to sea for the wreck, and saw nothing but the foaming heads of the great waves. A half-dressed boatman, standing next me, pointed with his bare arm (a tattoo'd arrow on it, pointing in the same direction) to the left. Then, O great Heaven, I saw it, close in upon us! One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat--which she did without a moment's pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable--beat the side as if it would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge. The second mast was yet standing, with the rags of a rent sail, and a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. The ship had struck once, the same boatman hoarsely said in my ear, and then lifted in and struck again. I understood him to add that she was parting amidships, and I could readily suppose so, for the rolling and beating were too tremendous for any human work to suffer long. As he spoke, there was another great cry of pity from the beach; four men arose with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost, the active figure with the curling hair. There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind. Again we lost her, and again she rose. Two men were gone. The agony on the shore increased. Men groaned, and clasped their hands; women shrieked, and turned away their faces. Some ran wildly up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help could be. I found myself one of these, frantically imploring a knot of sailors whom I knew, not to let those two lost creatures perish before our eyes. They were making out to me, in an agitated way--I don't know how, for the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to understand--that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore, there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking through them to the front. I ran to him--as well as I know, to repeat my appeal for help. But, distracted though I was, by a sight so new to me and terrible, the determination in his face, and his look out to sea--exactly the same look as I remembered in connexion with the morning after Emily's flight--awoke me to a knowledge of his danger. I held him back with both arms; and implored the men with whom I had been speaking, not to listen to him, not to do murder, not to let him stir from off that sand! Another cry arose on shore; and looking to the wreck, we saw the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men, and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast. Against such a sight, and against such determination as that of the calmly desperate man who was already accustomed to lead half the people present, I might as hopefully have entreated the wind. 'Mas'r Davy,' he said, cheerily grasping me by both hands, 'if my time is come, 'tis come. If 'tan't, I'll bide it. Lord above bless you, and bless all! Mates, make me ready! I'm a-going off!' I was swept away, but not unkindly, to some distance, where the people around me made me stay; urging, as I confusedly perceived, that he was bent on going, with help or without, and that I should endanger the precautions for his safety by troubling those with whom they rested. I don't know what I answered, or what they rejoined; but I saw hurry on the beach, and men running with ropes from a capstan that was there, and penetrating into a circle of figures that hid him from me. Then, I saw him standing alone, in a seaman's frock and trousers: a rope in his hand, or slung to his wrist: another round his body: and several of the best men holding, at a little distance, to the latter, which he laid out himself, slack upon the shore, at his feet. The wreck, even to my unpractised eye, was breaking up. I saw that she was parting in the middle, and that the life of the solitary man upon the mast hung by a thread. Still, he clung to it. He had a singular red cap on,--not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer colour; and as the few yielding planks between him and destruction rolled and bulged, and his anticipative death-knell rung, he was seen by all of us to wave it. I saw him do it now, and thought I was going distracted, when his action brought an old remembrance to my mind of a once dear friend. Ham watched the sea, standing alone, with the silence of suspended breath behind him, and the storm before, until there was a great retiring wave, when, with a backward glance at those who held the rope which was made fast round his body, he dashed in after it, and in a moment was buffeting with the water; rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the foam; then drawn again to land. They hauled in hastily. He was hurt. I saw blood on his face, from where I stood; but he took no thought of that. He seemed hurriedly to give them some directions for leaving him more free--or so I judged from the motion of his arm--and was gone as before. And now he made for the wreck, rising with the hills, falling with the valleys, lost beneath the rugged foam, borne in towards the shore, borne on towards the ship, striving hard and valiantly. The distance was nothing, but the power of the sea and wind made the strife deadly. At length he neared the wreck. He was so near, that with one more of his vigorous strokes he would be clinging to it,--when a high, green, vast hill-side of water, moving on shoreward, from beyond the ship, he seemed to leap up into it with a mighty bound, and the ship was gone! Some eddying fragments I saw in the sea, as if a mere cask had been broken, in running to the spot where they were hauling in. Consternation was in every face. They drew him to my very feet--insensible--dead. He was carried to the nearest house; and, no one preventing me now, I remained near him, busy, while every means of restoration were tried; but he had been beaten to death by the great wave, and his generous heart was stilled for ever. As I sat beside the bed, when hope was abandoned and all was done, a fisherman, who had known me when Emily and I were children, and ever since, whispered my name at the door. 'Sir,' said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, 'will you come over yonder?' The old remembrance that had been recalled to me, was in his look. I asked him, terror-stricken, leaning on the arm he held out to support me: 'Has a body come ashore?' He said, 'Yes.' 'Do I know it?' I asked then. He answered nothing. But he led me to the shore. And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.

Tempest David goes to Yarmouth to deliver a letter from Little Em'ly to Ham so that they may know of each other before Little Em'ly goes to Australia. As David travels, a terrific storm blows into Yarmouth, and the sea and wind rage. A ship from Spain is wrecked off the coast, and David and others go to the beach to watch its fate. The lifeboat has been tried and has failed, and there is no way to help. All the men on board have been killed except one, who is hanging onto a mast in his red cap and waving at the shore. Ham appears out of nowhere, back from a job he has been working on, and insists on going out into the water with a rope around his waist to try to save the last sailor. After a first failed attempt, Ham gets all the way out, but a gigantic wave sweeps the ship under and kills him. The next morning, David is fetched to the beach, where Steerforth's body has rolled in with the morning tide

THE LAST NIGHT MR. UTTERSON was sitting by his fireside one evening after dinner, when he was surprised to receive a visit from Poole. "Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?" he cried; and then taking a second look at him, "What ails you?" he added; "is the doctor ill?" "Mr. Utterson," said the man, "there is something wrong." "Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you," said the lawyer. "Now, take your time, and tell me plainly what you want." "You know the doctor's ways, sir," replied Poole, "and how he shuts himself up. Well, he's shut up again in the cabinet; and I don't like it, sir--I wish I may die if I like it. Mr. Utterson, sir, I'm afraid." "Now, my good man," said the lawyer, "be explicit. What are you afraid of?" "I've been afraid for about a week," returned Poole, doggedly disregarding the question, "and I can bear it no more." The man's appearance amply bore out his 52) words; his manner was altered for the worse; and except for the moment when he had first announced his terror, he had not once looked the lawyer in the face. Even now, he sat with the glass of wine untasted on his knee, and his eyes directed to a corner of the floor. "I can bear it no more," he repeated. "Come," said the lawyer, "I see you have some good reason, Poole; I see there is something seriously amiss. Try to tell me what it is." "I think there's been foul play," said Poole, hoarsely. "Foul play!" cried the lawyer, a good deal frightened and rather inclined to be irritated in consequence. "What foul play? What does the man mean?" "I daren't say, sir," was the answer; "but will you come along with me and see for yourself?" Mr. Utterson's only answer was to rise and get his hat and great-coat; but he observed with wonder the greatness of the relief that appeared upon the butler's face, and perhaps with no less, that the wine was still untasted when he set it down to follow. It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and a flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture. The wind made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face. It seemed to have swept the 53) streets unusually bare of passengers, besides; for Mr. Utterson thought he had never seen that part of London so deserted. He could have wished it otherwise; never in his life had he been conscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch his fellow-creatures; for struggle as he might, there was borne in upon his mind a crushing anticipation of calamity. The square, when they got there, was all full of wind and dust, and the thin trees in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing. Poole, who had kept all the way a pace or two ahead, now pulled up in the middle of the pavement, and in spite of the biting weather, took off his hat and mopped his brow with a red pocket-handkerchief. But for all the hurry of his coming, these were not the dews of exertion that he wiped away, but the moisture of some strangling anguish; for his face was white and his voice, when he spoke, harsh and broken. "Well, sir," he said, "here we are, and God grant there be nothing wrong." "Amen, Poole," said the lawyer. Thereupon the servant knocked in a very guarded manner; the door was opened on the chain; and a voice asked from within, "Is that you, Poole?" "It's all right," said Poole. "Open the door." The hall, when they entered it, was brightly lighted up; the fire was built high; and about the hearth the whole of the servants, men and 54) women, stood huddled together like a flock of sheep. At the sight of Mr. Utterson, the housemaid broke into hysterical whimpering; and the cook, crying out, "Bless God! it's Mr. Utterson," ran forward as if to take him in her arms. "What, what? Are you all here?" said the lawyer peevishly. "Very irregular, very unseemly; your master would be far from pleased." "They're all afraid," said Poole. Blank silence followed, no one protesting; only the maid lifted up her voice and now wept loudly. "Hold your tongue!" Poole said to her, with a ferocity of accent that testified to his own jangled nerves; and indeed, when the girl had so suddenly raised the note of her lamentation, they had all started and turned toward the inner door with faces of dreadful expectation. "And now," continued the butler, addressing the knife-boy, "reach me a candle, and we'll get this through hands at once." And then he begged Mr. Utterson to follow him, and led the way to the back-garden. "Now, sir," said he, "you come as gently as you can. I want you to hear, and I don't want you to be heard. And see here, sir, if by any chance he was to ask you in, don't go." Mr. Utterson's nerves, at this unlooked-for termination, gave a jerk that nearly threw him from his balance; but he re-collected his courage 55) and followed the butler into the laboratory building and through the surgical theatre, with its lumber of crates and bottles, to the foot of the stair. Here Poole motioned him to stand on one side and listen; while he himself, setting down the candle and making a great and obvious call on his resolution, mounted the steps and knocked with a somewhat uncertain hand on the red baize of the cabinet door. "Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you," he called; and even as he did so, once more violently signed to the lawyer to give ear. A voice answered from within: "Tell him I cannot see any one," it said complainingly. "Thank you, sir," said Poole, with a note of something like triumph in his voice; and taking up his candle, he led Mr. Utterson back across the yard and into the great kitchen, where the fire was out and the beetles were leaping on the floor. "Sir," he said, looking Mr. Utterson in the eyes, "was that my master's voice?" "It seems much changed," replied the lawyer, very pale, but giving look for look. "Changed? Well, yes, I think so," said the butler. "Have I been twenty years in this man's house, to be deceived about his voice? No, sir; master's made away with; he was made, away with eight days ago, when we heard him cry out upon the name of God; and who's in there instead of him, and why it stays there, is a thing that cries to Heaven, Mr. Utterson!" 56) "This is a very strange tale, Poole; this is rather a wild tale, my man," said Mr. Utterson, biting his finger. "Suppose it were as you suppose, supposing Dr. Jekyll to have been--well, murdered, what could induce the murderer to stay? That won't hold water; it doesn't commend itself to reason." "Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man to satisfy, but I'll do it yet," said Poole. "All this last week (you must know) him, or it, or whatever it is that lives in that cabinet, has been crying night and day for some sort of medicine and cannot get it to his mind. It was sometimes his way--the master's, that is--to write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair. We've had nothing else this week back; nothing but papers, and a closed door, and the very meals left there to be smuggled in when nobody was looking. Well, sir, every day, ay, and twice and thrice in the same day, there have been orders and complaints, and I have been sent flying to all the wholesale chemists in town. Every time I brought the stuff back, there would be another paper telling me to return it, because it was not pure, and another order to a different firm. This drug is wanted bitter bad, sir, whatever for." "Have you any of these papers?" asked Mr. Utterson. Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled note, which the lawyer, bending nearer 57) to the candle, carefully examined. Its contents ran thus: "Dr. Jekyll presents his compliments to Messrs. Maw. He assures them that their last sample is impure and quite useless for his present purpose. In the year 18---, Dr. J. purchased a somewhat large quantity from Messrs. M. He now begs them to search with the most sedulous care, and should any of the same quality be left, to forward it to him at once. Expense is no consideration. The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated." So far the letter had run composedly enough, but here with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had broken loose. "For God's sake," he had added, "find me some of the old." "This is a strange note," said Mr. Utterson; and then sharply, "How do you come to have it open?" "The man at Maw's was main angry, sir, and he threw it back to me like so much dirt," returned Poole. "This is unquestionably the doctor's hand, do you know?" resumed the lawyer. "I thought it looked like it," said the servant rather sulkily; and then, with another voice, "But what matters hand-of-write?" he said. "I've seen him!" "Seen him?" repeated Mr. Utterson. "Well?" "That's it!" said Poole. "It was this way. I came suddenly into the theatre from the 58) garden. It seems he had slipped out to look for this drug or whatever it is; for the cabinet door was open, and there he was at the far end of the room digging among the crates. He looked up when I came in, gave a kind of cry, and whipped up-stairs into the cabinet. It was but for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face? If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat, and run from me? I have served him long enough. And then..." The man paused and passed his hand over his face. "These are all very strange circumstances," said Mr. Utterson, "but I think I begin to see daylight. Your master, Poole, is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer; hence, for aught I know, the alteration of his voice; hence the mask and the avoidance of his friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug, by means of which the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery--God grant that he be not deceived! There is my explanation; it is sad enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and natural, hangs well together, and delivers us from all exorbitant alarms." "Sir," said the butler, turning to a sort of mottled pallor, "that thing was not my master, and there's the truth. My master" here he looked round him and began to whisper--"is 59) a tall, fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf." Utterson attempted to protest. "O, sir," cried Poole, "do you think I do not know my master after twenty years? Do you think I do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet door, where I saw him every morning of my life? No, Sir, that thing in the mask was never Dr. Jekyll--God knows what it was, but it was never Dr. Jekyll; and it is the belief of my heart that there was murder done." "Poole," replied the lawyer, "if you say that, it will become my duty to make certain. Much as I desire to spare your master's feelings, much as I am puzzled by this note which seems to prove him to be still alive, I shall consider it my duty to break in that door." "Ah Mr. Utterson, that's talking!" cried the butler. "And now comes the second question," resumed Utterson: "Who is going to do it?" "Why, you and me," was the undaunted reply. "That's very well said," returned the lawyer; "and whatever comes of it, I shall make it my business to see you are no loser." "There is an axe in the theatre," continued Poole; "and you might take the kitchen poker for yourself." The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument into his hand, and balanced it. "Do you know, Poole," he said, looking up, "that 60) you and I are about to place ourselves in a position of some peril?" "You may say so, sir, indeed," returned the butler. "It is well, then, that we should be frank," said the other. "We both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast. This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?" "Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so doubled up, that I could hardly swear to that," was the answer. "But if you mean, was it Mr. Hyde?--why, yes, I think it was! You see, it was much of the same bigness; and it had the same quick, light way with it; and then who else could have got in by the laboratory door? You have not forgot, sir that at the time of the murder he had still the key with him? But that's not all. I don't know, Mr. Utterson, if ever you met this Mr. Hyde?" "Yes," said the lawyer, "I once spoke with him." "Then you must know as well as the rest of us that there was something queer about that gentleman--something that gave a man a turn--I don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this: that you felt it in your marrow kind of cold and thin." "I own I felt something of what you describe," said Mr. Utterson. "Quite so, sir," returned Poole. "Well, when 61) that masked thing like a monkey jumped from among the chemicals and whipped into the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice. Oh, I know it's not evidence, Mr. Utterson. I'm book-learned enough for that; but a man has his feelings, and I give you my Bible-word it was Mr. Hyde!" "Ay, ay," said the lawyer. "My fears incline to the same point. Evil, I fear, founded--evil was sure to come--of that connection. Ay, truly, I believe you; I believe poor Harry is killed; and I believe his murderer (for what purpose, God alone can tell) is still lurking in his victim's room. Well, let our name be vengeance. Call Bradshaw." The footman came at the summons, very white and nervous. "Pull yourself together, Bradshaw," said the lawyer. "This suspense, I know, is telling upon all of you; but it is now our intention to make an end of it. Poole, here, and I are going to force our way into the cabinet. If all is well, my shoulders are broad enough to bear the blame. Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good sticks and take your post at the laboratory door. We give you ten minutes to get to your stations." As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch. "And now, Poole, let us get to ours," 62) he said; and taking the poker under his arm, led the way into the yard. The scud had banked over the moon, and it was now quite dark. The wind, which only broke in puffs and draughts into that deep well of building, tossed the light of the candle to and fro about their steps, until they came into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down silently to wait. London hummed solemnly all around; but nearer at hand, the stillness was only broken by the sounds of a footfall moving to and fro along the cabinet floor. "So it will walk all day, sir," whispered Poole; "ay, and the better part of the night. Only when a new sample comes from the chemist, there's a bit of a break. Ah, it's an ill conscience that's such an enemy to rest! Ah, sir, there's blood foully shed in every step of it! But hark again, a little closer--put your heart in your ears, Mr. Utterson, and tell me, is that the doctor's foot?" The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. "Is there never anything else?" he asked. Poole nodded. "Once," he said. "Once I heard it weeping!" "Weeping? how that?" said the lawyer, conscious of a sudden chill of horror. "Weeping like a woman or a lost soul," said 63) the butler. "I came away with that upon my heart, that I could have wept too." But now the ten minutes drew to an end. Poole disinterred the axe from under a stack of packing straw; the candle was set upon the nearest table to light them to the attack; and they drew near with bated breath to where that patient foot was still going up and down, up and down, in the quiet of the night. "Jekyll," cried Utterson, with a loud voice, "I demand to see you." He paused a moment, but there came no reply. "I give you fair warning, our suspicions are aroused, and I must and shall see you," he resumed; "if not by fair means, then by foul! if not of your consent, then by brute force!" "Utterson," said the voice, "for God's sake, have mercy!" "Ah, that's not Jekyll's voice--it's Hyde's!" cried Utterson. "Down with the door, Poole!" Poole swung the axe over his shoulder; the blow shook the building, and the red baize door leaped against the lock and hinges. A dismal screech, as of mere animal terror, rang from the cabinet. Up went the axe again, and again the panels crashed and the frame bounded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship; and it was not until the fifth, that the lock burst in sunder and the wreck of the door fell inwards on the carpet. 64) The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness that had succeeded, stood back a little and peered in. There lay the cabinet before their eyes in the quiet lamplight, a good fire glowing and chattering on the hearth, the kettle singing its thin strain, a drawer or two open, papers neatly set forth on the business-table, and nearer the fire, the things laid out for tea: the quietest room, you would have said, and, but for the glazed presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace that night in London. Right in the midst there lay the body of a man sorely contorted and still twitching. They drew near on tiptoe, turned it on its back and beheld the face of Edward Hyde. He was dressed in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the doctor's bigness; the cords of his face still moved with a semblance of life, but life was quite gone; and by the crushed phial in the hand and the strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew that he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer. "We have come too late," he said sternly, "whether to save or punish. Hyde is gone to his account; and it only remains for us to find the body of your master." The far greater proportion of the building was occupied by the theatre, which filled almost the whole ground story and was lighted from above, and by the cabinet, which formed an upper story at one end and looked upon the 65) court. A corridor joined the theatre to the door on the by-street; and with this the cabinet communicated separately by a second flight of stairs. There were besides a few dark closets and a spacious cellar. All these they now thoroughly examined. Each closet needed but a glance, for all were empty, and all, by the dust that fell from their doors, had stood long unopened. The cellar, indeed, was filled with crazy lumber, mostly dating from the times of the surgeon who was Jekyll's predecessor; but even as they opened the door they were advertised of the uselessness of further search, by the fall of a perfect mat of cobweb which had for years sealed up the entrance. Nowhere was there any trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive. Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor. "He must be buried here," he said, hearkening to the sound. "Or he may have fled," said Utterson, and he turned to examine the door in the by-street. It was locked; and lying near by on the flags, they found the key, already stained with rust. "This does not look like use," observed the lawyer. "Use!" echoed Poole. "Do you not see, sir, it is broken? much as if a man had stamped on it." "Ay," continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too, are rusty." The two men looked at each other with a scare. "This is beyond me, 66) Poole," said the lawyer. "Let us go back to the cabinet." They mounted the stair in silence, and still with an occasional awe-struck glance at the dead body, proceeded more thoroughly to examine the contents of the cabinet. At one table, there were traces of chemical work, various measured heaps of some white salt being laid on glass saucers, as though for an experiment in which the unhappy man had been prevented. "That is the same drug that I was always bringing him," said Poole; and even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise boiled over. This brought them to the fireside, where the easy-chair was drawn cosily up, and the tea-things stood ready to the sitter's elbow, the very sugar in the cup. There were several books on a shelf; one lay beside the tea-things open, and Utterson was amazed to find it a copy of a pious work, for which Jekyll had several times expressed a great esteem, annotated, in his own hand, with startling blasphemies. Next, in the course of their review of the chamber, the searchers came to the cheval glass, into whose depths they looked with an involuntary horror. But it was so turned as to show them nothing but the rosy glow playing on the roof, the fire sparkling in a hundred repetitions along the glazed front of the presses, and their own pale and fearful countenances stooping to look in. 67) "This glass have seen some strange things, sir," whispered Poole. "And surely none stranger than itself," echoed the lawyer in the same tones. "For what did Jekyll"--he caught himself up at the word with a start, and then conquering the weakness--"what could Jekyll want with it?" he said. "You may say that!" said Poole. Next they turned to the business-table. On the desk among the neat array of papers, a large envelope was uppermost, and bore, in the doctor's hand, the name of Mr. Utterson. The lawyer unsealed it, and several enclosures fell to the floor. The first was a will, drawn in the same eccentric terms as the one which he had returned six months before, to serve as a testament in case of death and as a deed of gift in case of disappearance; but, in place of the name of Edward Hyde, the lawyer, with indescribable amazement, read the name of Gabriel John Utterson. He looked at Poole, and then back at the paper, and last of all at the dead malefactor stretched upon the carpet. "My head goes round," he said. "He has been all these days in possession; he had no cause to like me; he must have raged to see himself displaced; and he has not destroyed this document." He caught up the next paper; it was a brief note in the doctor's hand and dated at the top. 68) "O Poole!" the lawyer cried, "he was alive and here this day. He cannot have been disposed of in so short a space, he must be still alive, he must have fled! And then, why fled? and how? and in that case, can we venture to declare this suicide? Oh, we must be careful. I foresee that we may yet involve your master in some dire catastrophe." "Why don't you read it, sir?" asked Poole. "Because I fear," replied the lawyer solemnly. "God grant I have no cause for it!" And with that he brought the paper to his eyes and read as follows: "MY DEAR UTTERSON,--When this shall fall into your hands, I shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be early. Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to place in your hands; and if you care to hear more, turn to the confession of "Your unworthy and unhappy friend, "HENRY JEKYLL." "There was a third enclosure?" asked Utterson. "Here, sir," said Poole, and gave into his hands a considerable packet sealed in several places. 69) The lawyer put it in his pocket. "I would say nothing of this paper. If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save his credit. It is now ten; I must go home and read these documents in quiet; but I shall be back before midnight, when we shall send for the police." They went out, locking the door of the theatre behind them; and Utterson, once more leaving the servants gathered about the fire in the hall, trudged back to his office to read the two narratives in which this mystery was now to be explained. 70)

The eighth chapter is by far the most dramatic of Stevenson's ten chapters. The scene begins with Poole, Jekyll's butler, making a surprise visit to the home of Mr. Utterson. Poole proceeds to explain that he thinks "foul play" has occurred in the laboratory of Dr. Jekyll, in which he has kept himself isolated for the last two weeks. Poole tells Utterson that he thinks Hyde is involved, because the voice of the doctor has changed. Quickly Utterson and Poole return to the doctor's house, explaining to the rest of the servants that they plan to break into the laboratory and find out what has happened to Dr. Jekyll. After knocking and being told to go away, Utterson and Poole force the door down, and witness the dead body of Mr. Hyde lying on the floor. Thinking that Hyde killed Jekyll and then killed himself, the two men frantically search the laboratory for the remains of Jekyll. Yet "nowhere was there any trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive." . After searching the entire room, Utterson looks on the desk of Jekyll and sees several documents. One of them is a newly written will. To the shock of Utterson and Poole, instead of Mr. Hyde as the inheritor, Mr. Utterson's name is written on the dotted line. This confuses and amazes both men, who quickly leave and lock the door, keeping it untouched for the police.

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

At the palace, Saturninus complains to Tamora, Demetrius, and Chiron about Titus shooting arrows at him. Saturninus is not amused by this stunt and believes Titus is just pretending to be a madman. The old man better watch out, because Saturninus isn't buying into his crazy act. Tamora steps in and smoothes Saturninus's ruffled feathers, saying that Titus's grief and old age really have made him crazy. Then she whispers to the audience that everything is going according to her deliciously evil plan. The Clown enters and offers up the basket of pigeons and Titus's letter. Saturninus reads the letter and then immediately sentences the Clown to death by hanging. The Clown, who has no idea what's going, stands around waiting to be tipped for his efforts. Saturninus orders his men to fetch Titus, who is totally going to pay for whatever it was that he wrote in the letter. Aemilius enters and announces that Lucius has amassed an army of Goths and they're getting ready to attack. Saturninus decides that this could be bad. There's a huge army coming after him, and it also seems like his people love Lucius more than him - everyone wants Lucius to be the emperor. Saturninus apparently knows this because, in his spare time, he disguises himself as a commoner and walks the streets of Rome so he can keep tabs on what everyone is saying about him. Tamora tells Saturninus not to worry - she's going to pay Titus a visit and convince the crazy old guy to stop badmouthing Saturninus.

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.

Elizabeth and Jane decide to return home, but when they send a note home asking for the carriage, their mother creates reasons why they cannot have it yet. Elizabeth talks Jane into borrowing Bingley's carriage, but it is decided that they will not leave Netherfield until the next day. Darcy realizes that he has paid too much attention to Elizabeth and tries not to speak to her too much. When Elizabeth and Jane arrive home, their mother is not welcoming to them, as she wanted Jane to stay longer in Bingley's company. Kitty and Lydia fill the sisters in on all of the happenings with the regiment in Meryton

This Issachar was the most choleric Hebrew that had ever been seen in Israel since the Captivity in Babylon. "What!" said he, "thou bitch of a Galilean, was not the Inquisitor enough for thee? Must this rascal also share with me?" In saying this he drew a long poniard which he always carried about him; and not imagining that his adversary had any arms he threw himself upon Candide: but our honest Westphalian had received a handsome sword from the old woman along with the suit of clothes. He drew his rapier, despite his gentleness, and laid the Israelite stone dead upon the cushions at Cunegonde's feet. "Holy Virgin!" cried she, "what will become of us? A man killed in my apartment! If the officers of justice come, we are lost!" "Had not Pangloss been hanged," said Candide, "he would give us good counsel in this emergency, for he was a profound philosopher. Failing him let us consult the old woman." She was very prudent and commenced to give her opinion when suddenly another little door opened. It was an hour after midnight, it was the beginning of Sunday. This day belonged to my lord the Inquisitor. He entered, and saw the whipped Candide, sword in hand, a dead man upon the floor, Cunegonde aghast, and the old woman giving counsel. At this moment, the following is what passed in the soul of Candide, and how he reasoned: If this holy man call in assistance, he will surely have me burnt; and Cunegonde will perhaps be served in the same manner; he was the cause of my being cruelly whipped; he is my rival; and, as I have now begun to kill, I will kill away, for there is no time to hesitate. This reasoning was clear and instantaneous; so that without giving time to the Inquisitor to recover from his surprise, he pierced him through and through, and cast him beside the Jew. "Yet again!" said Cunegonde, "now there is no mercy for us, we are excommunicated, our last hour has come. How could you do it? you, naturally so gentle, to slay a Jew and a prelate in two minutes!" "My beautiful young lady," responded Candide, "when one is a lover, jealous and whipped by the Inquisition, one stops at nothing." The old woman then put in her word, saying: "There are three Andalusian horses in the stable with bridles and saddles, let the brave Candide get them ready; madame has money, jewels; let us therefore mount quickly on horseback, though I can sit only on one buttock; let us set out for Cadiz, it is the finest weather in the world, and there is great pleasure in travelling in the cool of the night." Immediately Candide saddled the three horses, and Cunegonde, the old woman and he, travelled thirty miles at a stretch. While they were journeying, the Holy Brotherhood entered the house; my lord the Inquisitor was interred in a handsome church, and Issachar's body was thrown upon a dunghill. Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman, had now reached the little town of Avacena in the midst of the mountains of the Sierra Morena, and were speaking as follows in a public inn.

Don Issachar arrives to find Cunegonde and Candide alone together, and attacks Candide in a jealous rage. Candide kills Don Issachar with a sword given to him by the old woman. The Grand Inquisitor arrives to enjoy his allotted time with Cunegonde and is surprised to find Candide. Candide kills him. Cunegonde gathers her jewels and three horses from the stable and flees with Candide and the old woman. The Holy Brotherhood gives the Grand Inquisitor a grand burial, but throws Don Issachar's body on a dunghill

SCENE III. A lonely part of the forest Enter AARON alone, with a bag of gold AARON. He that had wit would think that I had none, To bury so much gold under a tree And never after to inherit it. Let him that thinks of me so abjectly Know that this gold must coin a stratagem, Which, cunningly effected, will beget A very excellent piece of villainy. And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest [Hides the gold] That have their alms out of the Empress' chest. Enter TAMORA alone, to the Moor TAMORA. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad When everything does make a gleeful boast? The birds chant melody on every bush; The snakes lie rolled in the cheerful sun; The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground; Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit, And while the babbling echo mocks the hounds, Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns, As if a double hunt were heard at once, Let us sit down and mark their yelping noise; And- after conflict such as was suppos'd The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed, When with a happy storm they were surpris'd, And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave- We may, each wreathed in the other's arms, Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber, Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds Be unto us as is a nurse's song Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep. AARON. Madam, though Venus govern your desires, Saturn is dominator over mine. What signifies my deadly-standing eye, My silence and my cloudy melancholy, My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls Even as an adder when she doth unroll To do some fatal execution? No, madam, these are no venereal signs. Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head. Hark, Tamora, the empress of my soul, Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee- This is the day of doom for Bassianus; His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day, Thy sons make pillage of her chastity, And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood. Seest thou this letter? Take it up, I pray thee, And give the King this fatal-plotted scroll. Now question me no more; we are espied. Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty, Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction. Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA TAMORA. Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life! AARON. No more, great Empress: Bassianus comes. Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy sons To back thy quarrels, whatsoe'er they be. Exit BASSIANUS. Who have we here? Rome's royal Empress, Unfurnish'd of her well-beseeming troop? Or is it Dian, habited like her, Who hath abandoned her holy groves To see the general hunting in this forest? TAMORA. Saucy controller of my private steps! Had I the pow'r that some say Dian had, Thy temples should be planted presently With horns, as was Actaeon's; and the hounds Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs, Unmannerly intruder as thou art! LAVINIA. Under your patience, gentle Empress, 'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning, And to be doubted that your Moor and you Are singled forth to try thy experiments. Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day! 'Tis pity they should take him for a stag. BASSIANUS. Believe me, Queen, your swarth Cimmerian Doth make your honour of his body's hue, Spotted, detested, and abominable. Why are you sequest'red from all your train, Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed, And wand'red hither to an obscure plot, Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor, If foul desire had not conducted you? LAVINIA. And, being intercepted in your sport, Great reason that my noble lord be rated For sauciness. I pray you let us hence, And let her joy her raven-coloured love; This valley fits the purpose passing well. BASSIANUS. The King my brother shall have notice of this. LAVINIA. Ay, for these slips have made him noted long. Good king, to be so mightily abused! TAMORA. Why, I have patience to endure all this. Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS DEMETRIUS. How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother! Why doth your Highness look so pale and wan? TAMORA. Have I not reason, think you, to look pale? These two have 'ticed me hither to this place. A barren detested vale you see it is: The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe; Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds, Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven. And when they show'd me this abhorred pit, They told me, here, at dead time of the night, A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes, Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins, Would make such fearful and confused cries As any mortal body hearing it Should straight fall mad or else die suddenly. No sooner had they told this hellish tale But straight they told me they would bind me here Unto the body of a dismal yew, And leave me to this miserable death. And then they call'd me foul adulteress, Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms That ever ear did hear to such effect; And had you not by wondrous fortune come, This vengeance on me had they executed. Revenge it, as you love your mother's life, Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children. DEMETRIUS. This is a witness that I am thy son. [Stabs BASSIANUS] CHIRON. And this for me, struck home to show my strength. [Also stabs] LAVINIA. Ay, come, Semiramis- nay, barbarous Tamora, For no name fits thy nature but thy own! TAMORA. Give me the poniard; you shall know, my boys, Your mother's hand shall right your mother's wrong. DEMETRIUS. Stay, madam, here is more belongs to her; First thrash the corn, then after burn the straw. This minion stood upon her chastity, Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty, And with that painted hope braves your mightiness; And shall she carry this unto her grave? CHIRON. An if she do, I would I were an eunuch. Drag hence her husband to some secret hole, And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust. TAMORA. But when ye have the honey we desire, Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting. CHIRON. I warrant you, madam, we will make that sure. Come, mistress, now perforce we will enjoy That nice-preserved honesty of yours. LAVINIA. O Tamora! thou bearest a woman's face- TAMORA. I will not hear her speak; away with her! LAVINIA. Sweet lords, entreat her hear me but a word. DEMETRIUS. Listen, fair madam: let it be your glory To see her tears; but be your heart to them As unrelenting flint to drops of rain. LAVINIA. When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam? O, do not learn her wrath- she taught it thee; The milk thou suck'dst from her did turn to marble, Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny. Yet every mother breeds not sons alike: [To CHIRON] Do thou entreat her show a woman's pity. CHIRON. What, wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard? LAVINIA. 'Tis true, the raven doth not hatch a lark. Yet have I heard- O, could I find it now!- The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure To have his princely paws par'd all away. Some say that ravens foster forlorn children, The whilst their own birds famish in their nests; O, be to me, though thy hard heart say no, Nothing so kind, but something pitiful! TAMORA. I know not what it means; away with her! LAVINIA. O, let me teach thee! For my father's sake, That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee, Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears. TAMORA. Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me, Even for his sake am I pitiless. Remember, boys, I pour'd forth tears in vain To save your brother from the sacrifice; But fierce Andronicus would not relent. Therefore away with her, and use her as you will; The worse to her the better lov'd of me. LAVINIA. O Tamora, be call'd a gentle queen, And with thine own hands kill me in this place! For 'tis not life that I have begg'd so long; Poor I was slain when Bassianus died. TAMORA. What beg'st thou, then? Fond woman, let me go. LAVINIA. 'Tis present death I beg; and one thing more, That womanhood denies my tongue to tell: O, keep me from their worse than killing lust, And tumble me into some loathsome pit, Where never man's eye may behold my body; Do this, and be a charitable murderer. TAMORA. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee; No, let them satisfy their lust on thee. DEMETRIUS. Away! for thou hast stay'd us here too long. LAVINIA. No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature, The blot and enemy to our general name! Confusion fall- CHIRON. Nay, then I'll stop your mouth. Bring thou her husband. This is the hole where Aaron bid us hide him. DEMETRIUS throws the body of BASSIANUS into the pit; then exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, dragging off LAVINIA TAMORA. Farewell, my sons; see that you make her sure. Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed Till all the Andronici be made away. Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor, And let my spleenful sons this trull deflower. Exit Re-enter AARON, with two of TITUS' sons, QUINTUS and MARTIUS AARON. Come on, my lords, the better foot before; Straight will I bring you to the loathsome pit Where I espied the panther fast asleep. QUINTUS. My sight is very dull, whate'er it bodes. MARTIUS. And mine, I promise you; were it not for shame, Well could I leave our sport to sleep awhile. [Falls into the pit] QUINTUS. What, art thou fallen? What subtle hole is this, Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers, Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood As fresh as morning dew distill'd on flowers? A very fatal place it seems to me. Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall? MARTIUS. O brother, with the dismal'st object hurt That ever eye with sight made heart lament! AARON. [Aside] Now will I fetch the King to find them here, That he thereby may have a likely guess How these were they that made away his brother. Exit MARTIUS. Why dost not comfort me, and help me out From this unhallow'd and blood-stained hole? QUINTUS. I am surprised with an uncouth fear; A chilling sweat o'er-runs my trembling joints; My heart suspects more than mine eye can see. MARTIUS. To prove thou hast a true divining heart, Aaron and thou look down into this den, And see a fearful sight of blood and death. QUINTUS. Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart Will not permit mine eyes once to behold The thing whereat it trembles by surmise; O, tell me who it is, for ne'er till now Was I a child to fear I know not what. MARTIUS. Lord Bassianus lies beray'd in blood, All on a heap, like to a slaughtered lamb, In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit. QUINTUS. If it be dark, how dost thou know 'tis he? MARTIUS. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear A precious ring that lightens all this hole, Which, like a taper in some monument, Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks, And shows the ragged entrails of this pit; So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood. O brother, help me with thy fainting hand- If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath- Out of this fell devouring receptacle, As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth. QUINTUS. Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out, Or, wanting strength to do thee so much good, I may be pluck'd into the swallowing womb Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus' grave. I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink. MARTIUS. Nor I no strength to climb without thy help. QUINTUS. Thy hand once more; I will not loose again, Till thou art here aloft, or I below. Thou canst not come to me- I come to thee. [Falls in] Enter the EMPEROR and AARON the Moor SATURNINUS. Along with me! I'll see what hole is here, And what he is that now is leapt into it. Say, who art thou that lately didst descend Into this gaping hollow of the earth? MARTIUS. The unhappy sons of old Andronicus, Brought hither in a most unlucky hour, To find thy brother Bassianus dead. SATURNINUS. My brother dead! I know thou dost but jest: He and his lady both are at the lodge Upon the north side of this pleasant chase; 'Tis not an hour since I left them there. MARTIUS. We know not where you left them all alive; But, out alas! here have we found him dead. Re-enter TAMORA, with attendants; TITUS ANDRONICUS and Lucius TAMORA. Where is my lord the King? SATURNINUS. Here, Tamora; though griev'd with killing grief. TAMORA. Where is thy brother Bassianus? SATURNINUS. Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound; Poor Bassianus here lies murdered. TAMORA. Then all too late I bring this fatal writ, The complot of this timeless tragedy; And wonder greatly that man's face can fold In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny. [She giveth SATURNINE a letter] SATURNINUS. [Reads] 'An if we miss to meet him handsomely, Sweet huntsman- Bassianus 'tis we mean- Do thou so much as dig the grave for him. Thou know'st our meaning. Look for thy reward Among the nettles at the elder-tree Which overshades the mouth of that same pit Where we decreed to bury Bassianus. Do this, and purchase us thy lasting friends.' O Tamora! was ever heard the like? This is the pit and this the elder-tree. Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out That should have murdered Bassianus here. AARON. My gracious lord, here is the bag of gold. SATURNINUS. [To TITUS] Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody kind, Have here bereft my brother of his life. Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison; There let them bide until we have devis'd Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them. TAMORA. What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing! How easily murder is discovered! TITUS. High Emperor, upon my feeble knee I beg this boon, with tears not lightly shed, That this fell fault of my accursed sons- Accursed if the fault be prov'd in them- SATURNINUS. If it be prov'd! You see it is apparent. Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you? TAMORA. Andronicus himself did take it up. TITUS. I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail; For, by my fathers' reverend tomb, I vow They shall be ready at your Highness' will To answer their suspicion with their lives. SATURNINUS. Thou shalt not bail them; see thou follow me. Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers; Let them not speak a word- the guilt is plain; For, by my soul, were there worse end than death, That end upon them should be executed. TAMORA. Andronicus, I will entreat the King. Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough. TITUS. Come, Lucius, come; stay not to talk with them. Exeunt

In the forest, Aaron hides a bag of gold under a tree. Tamora enters and announces that she and Aaron should have sex while everyone else is busy hunting. Aaron blows her off and says he's not in the mood for love because he's got "vengeance" on his mind. He's way too busy preparing for Bassianus's murder and Lavinia's rape to think about anything else. Aaron gives Tamora a letter and tells her to give it to Saturninus. Aaron spots Bassianus and Lavinia and runs off to fetch Demetrius and Chiron. Bassianus and Lavinia stroll up to Tamora and proceed to make snide remarks about Tamora being alone in the forest with a "barbarous Moor." Bassianus declares that Tamora's virtue is as "spotted, detested, and abominable" as Aaron's black skin color. Just as Bassianus threatens to expose Tamora for sleeping with Aaron, Chiron and Demetrius show up. Tamora lies and says Bassianus and Lavinia lured her into the woods, threatened to tie her up to a tree, and called her names like "foul adulteress." Tamora orders her sons to "revenge" this injustice and prove their loyalty to their mother. Demetrius and Chiron stab Bassianus. When Lavinia calls Tamora "barbarous," Tamora tries to stab her in the guts. Demetrius says "first thrash the corn, then after burn the straw," meaning, first they're going to rape Lavinia, and then they'll kill her. Chiron suggests they rape Lavinia on top of her husband's dead body: "Drag hence her husband to some secret hole / And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust." Tamora says that's fine, just as long as Lavinia can't tell on them afterwards . Lavinia begs Tamora to "show a woman's pity," but Tamora refuses to show mercy. Demetrius and Chiron throw Bassianus's dead body into a pit and drag Lavinia off to rape her. Tamora coldly says something like "Ta, ta, boys - I'm off to have sex with my secret boyfriend." Meanwhile Aaron lures Quintus and Martius to the pit where Bassianus's dead body has been dumped. Not seeing the giant hole in the ground , Martius falls in and lands next to Bassianus's bloody body. Aaron runs off into the woods to get Saturninus. Martius describes the "dark, blood-drinking pit," and Quintus calls it a "swallowing womb." While he's trying to help his brother out of the "blood-stained hole," Quintus falls in and they're both trapped. Then Aaron shows up with Saturninus. Saturninus is horrified to learn that his brother, Bassianus, is lying in a bloody heap inside the pit. Just then, Tamora, Titus, and Lucius arrive. Tamora whips out a letter . The letter is forged to look like Quintus and Martius paid a woodsman to kill Bassianus and dump him in the pit. On cue, Aaron lifts up the bag of gold he buried earlier and is all "Ah ha! Here's the blood money!" Saturninus orders Quintus and Martius to prison. Titus begs Saturninus to be merciful and asks if he can post bail for his sons. Saturninus refuses to release Quintus and Martius and declares that their guilt is obvious. Tamora sweetly tells Titus not to worry - she'll talk to Saturninus for him.

While Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling--drip, drip, drip--by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement, the Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad down in Lincolnshire that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being fine again. Not that there is any superabundant life of imagination on the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, truly, even if he were, would not do much for it in that particular), but is in Paris with my Lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon Chesney Wold. There may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at Chesney Wold. The horses in the stables--the long stables in a barren, red-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a clock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it and who love to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always consulting--THEY may contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather on occasions, and may be better artists at them than the grooms. The old roan, so famous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The grey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient rattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, "Woa grey, then, steady! Noabody wants you to-day!" may know it quite as well as the man. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen, stabled together, may pass the long wet hours when the door is shut in livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall or at the Dedlock Arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps corrupting) the pony in the loose-box in the corner. So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his large head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of the stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him at one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own house, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very much wanting something to worry besides himself and his chain. So now, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house full of company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of horses, and the out-buildings full of attendants upon horses, until he is undecided about the present and comes forth to see how it is. Then, with that impatient shake of himself, he may growl in the spirit, "Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain--and no family here!" as he goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn. So with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have their restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been very obstinate have even made it known in the house itself--upstairs, downstairs, and in my Lady's chamber. They may hunt the whole country-side, while the raindrops are pattering round their inactivity. So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of the breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in the poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance (probably Christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully taken from him when he got into the lane among the felled trees, where there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops to pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway casts its shadow on the ground. Be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at Chesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a little noise in that old echoing place, a long way and usually leads off to ghosts and mystery. It has rained so hard and rained so long down in Lincolnshire that Mrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that the drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and such a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows her would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell little. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she expresses it, "is what she looks at." She sits in her room (in a side passage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a smooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round trees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to play at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her mind. She can open it on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it is shut up now and lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell's iron-bound bosom in a majestic sleep. It is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine Chesney Wold without Mrs. Rouncewell, but she has only been here fifty years. Ask her how long, this rainy day, and she shall answer "fifty year, three months, and a fortnight, by the blessing of heaven, if I live till Tuesday." Mr. Rouncewell died some time before the decease of the pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly hid his own (if he took it with him) in a corner of the churchyard in the park near the mouldy porch. He was born in the market-town, and so was his young widow. Her progress in the family began in the time of the last Sir Leicester and originated in the still-room. The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he is an excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so. He has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most respectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with her when he comes down to Chesney Wold and when he goes away; and if he were very ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run over, or placed in any situation expressive of a Dedlock at a disadvantage, he would say if he could speak, "Leave me, and send Mrs. Rouncewell here!" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer with her than with anybody else. Mrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. She has had two sons, of whom the younger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. Even to this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when she speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her stomacher, hover about her in an agitated manner as she says what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad he was! Her second son would have been provided for at Chesney Wold and would have been made steward in due season, but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to constructing steam-engines out of saucepans and setting birds to draw their own water with the least possible amount of labour, so assisting them with artful contrivance of hydraulic pressure that a thirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to the wheel and the job was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell great uneasiness. She felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in the Wat Tyler direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that general impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a tall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young rebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign of grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model of a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his backslidings to the baronet. "Mrs. Rouncewell," said Sir Leicester, "I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any subject. You had better get rid of your boy; you had better get him into some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the congenial direction for a boy with these tendencies." Farther north he went, and farther north he grew up; and if Sir Leicester Dedlock ever saw him when he came to Chesney Wold to visit his mother, or ever thought of him afterwards, it is certain that he only regarded him as one of a body of some odd thousand conspirators, swarthy and grim, who were in the habit of turning out by torchlight two or three nights in the week for unlawful purposes. Nevertheless, Mrs. Rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature and art, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called unto him Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, who, being out of his apprenticeship, and home from a journey in far countries, whither he was sent to enlarge his knowledge and complete his preparations for the venture of this life, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day in Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold. "And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once again, I am glad to see you, Watt!" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "You are a fine young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!" Mrs. Rouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference. "They say I am like my father, grandmother." "Like him, also, my dear--but most like your poor uncle George! And your dear father." Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. "He is well?" "Thriving, grandmother, in every way." "I am thankful!" Mrs. Rouncewell is fond of her son but has a plaintive feeling towards him, much as if he were a very honourable soldier who had gone over to the enemy. "He is quite happy?" says she. "Quite." "I am thankful! So he has brought you up to follow in his ways and has sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows best. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't understand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a quantity of good company too!" "Grandmother," says the young man, changing the subject, "what a very pretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?" "Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are so hard to teach, now-a-days, that I have put her about me young. She's an apt scholar and will do well. She shows the house already, very pretty. She lives with me at my table here." "I hope I have not driven her away?" "She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She is very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer," says Mrs. Rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its utmost limits, "than it formerly was!" The young man inclines his head in acknowledgment of the precepts of experience. Mrs. Rouncewell listens. "Wheels!" says she. They have long been audible to the younger ears of her companion. "What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious sake?" After a short interval, a tap at the door. "Come in!" A dark-eyed, dark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in--so fresh in her rosy and yet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have beaten on her hair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered. "What company is this, Rosa?" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house--yes, and if you please, I told them so!" in quick reply to a gesture of dissent from the housekeeper. "I went to the hall-door and told them it was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was driving took off his hat in the wet and begged me to bring this card to you." "Read it, my dear Watt," says the housekeeper. Rosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between them and almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. Rosa is shyer than before. "Mr. Guppy" is all the information the card yields. "Guppy!" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell, "MR. Guppy! Nonsense, I never heard of him!" "If you please, he told ME that!" says Rosa. "But he said that he and the other young gentleman came from London only last night by the mail, on business at the magistrates' meeting, ten miles off, this morning, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard a great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn't know what to do with themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. They are lawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, but he is sure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn's name if necessary." Finding, now she leaves off, that she has been making quite a long speech, Rosa is shyer than ever. Now, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place, and besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The old lady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a favour, and dismisses Rosa. The grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The grandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest, accompanies him--though to do him justice, he is exceedingly unwilling to trouble her. "Much obliged to you, ma'am!" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of his wet dreadnought in the hall. "Us London lawyers don't often get an out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know." The old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves her hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow Rosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young gardener goes before to open the shutters. As is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and his friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They straggle about in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right things, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression of spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In each successive chamber that they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as upright as the house itself, rests apart in a window-seat or other such nook and listens with stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so attentive to it that Rosa is shyer than ever--and prettier. Thus they pass on from room to room, raising the pictured Dedlocks for a few brief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and reconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. It appears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend that there is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to consist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves for seven hundred years. Even the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. Guppy's spirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold and has hardly strength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the chimney-piece, painted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a charm. He recovers in a moment. He stares at it with uncommon interest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it. "Dear me!" says Mr. Guppy. "Who's that?" "The picture over the fire-place," says Rosa, "is the portrait of the present Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the best work of the master." "Blest," says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend, "if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been engraved, miss?" "The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always refused permission." "Well!" says Mr. Guppy in a low voice. "I'll be shot if it ain't very curious how well I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, is it!" "The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The picture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester." Mr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. "It's unaccountable to me," he says, still staring at the portrait, "how well I know that picture! I'm dashed," adds Mr. Guppy, looking round, "if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!" As no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy's dreams, the probability is not pursued. But he still remains so absorbed by the portrait that he stands immovable before it until the young gardener has closed the shutters, when he comes out of the room in a dazed state that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for interest and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare, as if he were looking everywhere for Lady Dedlock again. He sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last shown, as being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she looked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death. All things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains to see and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her description; which is always this: "The terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost's Walk." "No?" says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. "What's the story, miss? Is it anything about a picture?" "Pray tell us the story," says Watt in a half whisper. "I don't know it, sir." Rosa is shyer than ever. "It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten," says the housekeeper, advancing. "It has never been more than a family anecdote." "You'll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a picture, ma'am," observes Mr. Guppy, "because I do assure you that the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without knowing how I know it!" The story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can guarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information and is, moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided down another staircase by the young gardener, and presently is heard to drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the discretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how the terrace came to have that ghostly name. She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and tells them: "In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the First--I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against that excellent king--Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those days, I can't say. I should think it very likely indeed." Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. "Sir Morbury Dedlock," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "was, I have no occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles's enemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his Majesty's cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?" Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. "I hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and I hear a curious echo--I suppose an echo--which is very like a halting step." The housekeeper gravely nods and continues: "Partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir Morbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Chesney Wold in the king's cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night and lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that hour began to pine away." The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a whisper. "She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being crippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon the terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, 'I will die here where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for my step!'" Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the ground, half frightened and half shy. "There and then she died. And from those days," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "the name has come down--the Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then." "And disgrace, grandmother--" says Watt. "Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold," returns the housekeeper. Her grandson apologizes with "True. True." "That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound," says Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; "and what is to be noticed in it is that it MUST BE HEARD. My Lady, who is afraid of nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You cannot shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed there, 'a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion and can play music. You understand how those things are managed?" "Pretty well, grandmother, I think." "Set it a-going." Watt sets it a-going--music and all. "Now, come hither," says the housekeeper. "Hither, child, towards my Lady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the beat, and everything?" "I certainly can!" "So my Lady says."

It's raining cats and dogs in the world's least pleasant place to be, Chesney Wold, the Dedlocks' estate. Luckily they aren't there , but their housekeeper, Mrs. Rouncewell, is. She's been a servant with the Dedlocks for 50 years now and is obviously pretty committed to the whole lord-of-the-manor thing. She has two sons. One ran off and joined the army and was never heard from again. The other was a born engineer who left for "the North." The north of England is where the Industrial Revolution is happening as the novel takes place. Not sure what that is? Quick brain snack. In the middle of the 19th century, technologies for producing goods started to advance by leaps and bounds. Instead of small groups of highly skilled people making stuff in little workshops, factories were created, where many low-skilled workers could manufacture the same stuff by using division of labor . Cheap workers, sped-up production, and cheap raw materials from England's many colonies ended up lowering prices and in short order made England into the world's economic powerhouse. So Mrs. Rouncewell's son is all about that. She's kind of bummed though that he didn't go into the family business of being servants, which probably sounded less nuts back in the day than it does to our freedom-loving modern American ears. Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson Watt is visiting. He's psyched to see grandma and everything, but he's even more psyched to check out the hot new maid, Rosa. OK, maybe hot is the wrong word, since she's shy, modest, and all those awesome repressive things. Rosa is learning how to be a maid and so far she has learned how to show the house to visitors. Meaning what? Check it out - you know how nowadays when you go visiting castles and old estates in Europe they are all set up as museums and there are tour guides and gift shops and all that good stuff? Well, back in Victorian times, people still actually lived in those places, but because they were beautiful and had all kinds of fancy art and objects in them, you could stop by and take a tour without having to know the people who lived there. A special servant would take you around and tell you about what you were looking at. So servants would have to memorize the spiel - which is what Rosa has been doing. There is a knock at the door. Turns out it's Mr. Guppy and another guy. They are clerks who know Mr. Tulkinghorn, and since they happened to have a few hours free from a case nearby, they wanted to check out the sightseeing. Rosa takes them around the house and Watt joins the tour group. Guppy is totally bored the whole time until he sees a portrait of Lady Dedlock and... freaks out. He swears he's seen the painting or the woman herself before. But that's crazy talk, because how could he ever have seen Lady Dedlock? And no one had ever made a print of the portrait. Guppy can't get over it, though. Meanwhile Mrs. Rouncewell tells the gang the story of The Ghost's Walk, one of the mansion's terraces. Speaking of which, you know what's not a good name for a pretty terrace? "The Ghost's Walk." Also not awesome? The Ghoul's Crawl, The Demon's Run, or The Vampire's Creep. Seriously, people. Turns out, a few centuries ago, the then Lady Dedlock cursed the Dedlock family. She also said that her steps would forever be heard on the terrace whenever some horrible thing was about to happen to a Dedlock. Nice.

SCENE II. The same. Before the Princess's pavilion. [Enter the PRINCESS, KATHARINE, ROSALINE and MARIA.] PRINCESS. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings come thus plentifully in. A lady wall'd about with diamonds! Look you what I have from the loving king. ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that? PRINCESS. Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in rime As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all, That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name. ROSALINE. That was the way to make his godhead wax; For he hath been five thousand years a boy. KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too. ROSALINE. You'll ne'er be friends with him: a' kill'd your sister. KATHARINE. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; And so she died: had she been light, like you, Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, She might ha' been a grandam ere she died; And so may you, for a light heart lives long. ROSALINE. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word? KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark. ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out. KATHARINE. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff; Therefore I'll darkly end the argument. ROSALINE. Look what you do, you do it still i' the dark. KATHARINE. So do not you; for you are a light wench. ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light. KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O! that's you care not for me. ROSALINE. Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.' PRINCESS. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd. But, Rosaline, you have a favour too: Who sent it? and what is it? ROSALINE. I would you knew. An if my face were but as fair as yours, My favour were as great: be witness this. Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne; The numbers true, and, were the numbering too, I were the fairest goddess on the ground: I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs. O! he hath drawn my picture in his letter. PRINCESS. Anything like? ROSALINE. Much in the letters; nothing in the praise. PRINCESS. Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion. KATHARINE. Fair as a text B in a copy-book. ROSALINE. 'Ware pencils! how! let me not die your debtor, My red dominical, my golden letter: O, that your face were not so full of O's! KATHARINE. A pox of that jest! and beshrew all shrows! PRINCESS. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair Dumaine? KATHARINE. Madam, this glove. PRINCESS. Did he not send you twain? KATHARINE. Yes, madam; and, moreover, Some thousand verses of a faithful lover; A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity. MARIA. This, and these pearl, to me sent Longaville; The letter is too long by half a mile. PRINCESS. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart The chain were longer and the letter short? MARIA. Ay, or I would these hands might never part. PRINCESS. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so. ROSALINE. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so. That same Berowne I'll torture ere I go. O that I knew he were but in by th' week! How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek, And wait the season, and observe the times, And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rimes, And shape his service wholly to my hests, And make him proud to make me proud that jests! So perttaunt-like would I o'ersway his state That he should be my fool, and I his fate. PRINCESS. None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd, As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd, Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool. ROSALINE. The blood of youth burns not with such excess As gravity's revolt to wantonness. MARIA. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note As fool'ry in the wise when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity. [Enter BOYET.] PRINCESS. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. BOYET. O! I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her Grace? PRINCESS. Thy news, Boyet? BOYET. Prepare, madam, prepare!-- Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are Against your peace: Love doth approach disguis'd, Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd: Muster your wits; stand in your own defence; Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence. PRINCESS. Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say. BOYET. Under the cool shade of a sycamore I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour; When, lo, to interrupt my purpos'd rest, Toward that shade I might behold addrest The king and his companions: warily I stole into a neighbour thicket by, And overheard what you shall overhear; That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here. Their herald is a pretty knavish page, That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage: Action and accent did they teach him there; 'Thus must thou speak' and 'thus thy body bear,' And ever and anon they made a doubt Presence majestical would put him out; 'For' quoth the King 'an angel shalt thou see; Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.' The boy replied 'An angel is not evil; I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.' With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder, Making the bold wag by their praises bolder. One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore A better speech was never spoke before. Another with his finger and his thumb Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.' The third he caper'd, and cried 'All goes well.' The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell. With that they all did tumble on the ground, With such a zealous laughter, so profound, That in this spleen ridiculous appears, To check their folly, passion's solemn tears. PRINCESS. But what, but what, come they to visit us? BOYET. They do, they do, and are apparell'd thus, Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess. Their purpose is to parley, court, and dance; And every one his love-feat will advance Unto his several mistress; which they'll know By favours several which they did bestow. PRINCESS. And will they so? The gallants shall be task'd: For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd; And not a man of them shall have the grace, Despite of suit, to see a lady's face. Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear, And then the king will court thee for his dear; Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine, So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline. And change you favours too; so shall your loves Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes. ROSALINE. Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight. KATHARINE. But, in this changing, what is your intent? PRINCESS. The effect of my intent is to cross theirs; They do it but in mocking merriment; And mock for mock is only my intent. Their several counsels they unbosom shall To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal Upon the next occasion that we meet With visages display'd to talk and greet. ROSALINE. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't? PRINCESS. No, to the death, we will not move a foot, Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace; But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face. BOYET. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart, And quite divorce his memory from his part. PRINCESS. Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out. There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown, To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own: So shall we stay, mocking intended game, And they well mock'd, depart away with shame. [Trumpet sounds within.] BOYET. The trumpet sounds: be mask'd; the maskers come. [The LADIES mask.] [Enter BLACKAMOORS with music; MOTH, the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAINE in Russian habits, and masked.] MOTH. 'All hail, the richest heauties on the earth!' BOYET. Beauties no richer than rich taffeta. MOTH. 'A holy parcel of the fairest dames [The LADIES turn their backs to him.] That ever turn'd their--backs--to mortal views! BEROWNE. 'Their eyes,' villain, 'their eyes.' MOTH. 'That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views! Out'-- BOYET. True; 'out,' indeed. MOTH. 'Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe Not to behold'-- BEROWNE. 'Once to behold,' rogue. MOTH. 'Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes--with your sun-beamed eyes'-- BOYET. They will not answer to that epithet; You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.' MOTH. They do not mark me, and that brings me out. BEROWNE. Is this your perfectness? be gone, you rogue. [Exit MOTH.] ROSALINE. What would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet. If they do speak our language, 'tis our will That some plain man recount their purposes: Know what they would. BOYET. What would you with the princess? BEROWNE. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation. ROSALINE. What would they, say they? BOYET. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation. ROSALINE. Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone. BOYET. She says you have it, and you may be gone. KING. Say to her we have measur'd many miles To tread a measure with her on this grass. BOYET. They say that they have measur'd many a mile To tread a measure with you on this grass. ROSALINE. It is not so. Ask them how many inches Is in one mile? If they have measured many, The measure then of one is easily told. BOYET. If to come hither you have measur'd miles, And many miles, the Princess bids you tell How many inches doth fill up one mile. BEROWNE. Tell her we measure them by weary steps. BOYET. She hears herself. ROSALINE. How many weary steps Of many weary miles you have o'ergone Are number'd in the travel of one mile? BEROWNE. We number nothing that we spend for you; Our duty is so rich, so infinite, That we may do it still without accompt. Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face, That we, like savages, may worship it. ROSALINE. My face is but a moon, and clouded too. KING. Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do! Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine, Those clouds remov'd, upon our watery eyne. ROSALINE. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter; Thou now requests'st but moonshine in the water. KING. Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change. Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange. ROSALINE. Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon. [Music plays.] Not yet! No dance! thus change I like the moon. KING. Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged? ROSALINE. You took the moon at full; but now she's chang'd. KING. Yet still she is the moon, and I the man. The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it. ROSALINE. Our ears vouchsafe it. KING. But your legs should do it. ROSALINE. Since you are strangers, and come here by chance, We'll not be nice: take hands; we will not dance. KING. Why take we hands then? ROSALINE. Only to part friends. Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends. KING. More measure of this measure: be not nice. ROSALINE. We can afford no more at such a price. KING. Price you yourselves? what buys your company? ROSALINE. Your absence only. KING. That can never be. ROSALINE. Then cannot we be bought: and so adieu; Twice to your visor, and half once to you! KING. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat. ROSALINE. In private then. KING. I am best pleas'd with that. [They converse apart.] BEROWNE. White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee. PRINCESS. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three. BEROWNE. Nay, then, two treys, an if you grow so nice, Metheglin, wort, and malmsey: well run, dice! There's half a dozen sweets. PRINCESS. Seventh sweet, adieu: Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you. BEROWNE. One word in secret. PRINCESS. Let it not be sweet. BEROWNE. Thou griev'st my gall. PRINCESS. Gall! bitter. BEROWNE. Therefore meet. [They converse apart.] DUMAINE. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word? MARIA. Name it. DUMAINE. Fair lady,-- MARIA. Say you so? Fair lord, Take that for your fair lady. DUMAINE. Please it you, As much in private, and I'll bid adieu. [They converse apart.] KATHARINE. What, was your visord made without a tongue? LONGAVILLE. I know the reason, lady, why you ask. KATHARINE. O! for your reason! quickly, sir; I long. LONGAVILLE. You have a double tongue within your mask, And would afford my speechless visor half. KATHARINE. 'Veal' quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf? LONGAVILLE. A calf, fair lady! KATHARINE. No, a fair lord calf. LONGAVILLE. Let's part the word. KATHARINE. No, I'll not be your half. Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox. LONGAVILLE. Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks! Will you give horns, chaste lady? do not so. KATHARINE. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow. LONGAVILLE. One word in private with you ere I die. KATHARINE. Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry. [They converse apart.] BOYET. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor's edge invisible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen, Above the sense of sense; so sensible Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings, Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things. ROSALINE. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off. BEROWNE. By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff! KING. Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits. PRINCESS. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits. [Exeunt KING, LORDS, Music, and Attendants.] Are these the breed of wits so wondered at? BOYET. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out. ROSALINE. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat. PRINCESS. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout! Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night? Or ever, but in vizors, show their faces? This pert Berowne was out of countenance quite. ROSALINE. O! They were all in lamentable cases! The King was weeping-ripe for a good word. PRINCESS. Berowne did swear himself out of all suit. MARIA. Dumaine was at my service, and his sword: 'No point' quoth I; my servant straight was mute. KATHARINE. Lord Longaville said, I came o'er his heart; And trow you what he call'd me? PRINCESS. Qualm, perhaps. KATHARINE. Yes, in good faith. PRINCESS. Go, sickness as thou art! ROSALINE. Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps. But will you hear? The king is my love sworn. PRINCESS. And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to me. KATHARINE. And Longaville was for my service born. MARIA. Dumaine is mine, as sure as bark on tree. BOYET. Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear: Immediately they will again be here In their own shapes; for it can never be They will digest this harsh indignity. PRINCESS. Will they return? BOYET. They will, they will, God knows, And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows; Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair, Blow like sweet roses in this summer air. PRINCESS. How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood. BOYET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud: Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown, Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown. PRINCESS. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do If they return in their own shapes to woo? ROSALINE. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd, Let's mock them still, as well known as disguis'd. Let us complain to them what fools were here, Disguis'd like Muscovites, in shapeless gear; And wonder what they were, and to what end Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd, And their rough carriage so ridiculous, Should be presented at our tent to us. BOYET. Ladies, withdraw: the gallants are at hand. PRINCESS. Whip to our tents, as roes run over land. [Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA.] [Re-enter the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAINE in their proper habits.] KING. Fair sir, God save you! Where's the princess? BOYET. Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty Command me any service to her thither? KING. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word. BOYET. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord. [Exit.] BEROWNE. This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease, And utters it again when God doth please: He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs; And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know, Have not the grace to grace it with such show. This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve; Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve: He can carve too, and lisp: why this is he That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy; This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice In honourable terms; nay, he can sing A mean most meanly; and in ushering Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet; The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet. This is the flower that smiles on every one, To show his teeth as white as whales-bone; And consciences that will not die in debt Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet. KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart, That put Armado's page out of his part! [Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, and Attendants.] BEROWNE. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou, Till this man show'd thee? and what art thou now? KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day! PRINCESS. 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive. KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may. PRINCESS. Then wish me better: I will give you leave. KING. We came to visit you, and purpose now To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then. PRINCESS. This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow: Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men. KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke: The virtue of your eye must break my oath. PRINCESS. You nickname virtue: vice you should have spoke; For virtue's office never breaks men's troth. Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure As the unsullied lily, I protest, A world of torments though I should endure, I would not yield to be your house's guest; So much I hate a breaking cause to be Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity. KING. O! you have liv'd in desolation here, Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame. PRINCESS. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear; We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game. A mess of Russians left us but of late. KING. How, madam! Russians? PRINCESS. Ay, in truth, my lord; Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state. ROSALINE. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord: My lady, to the manner of the days, In courtesy gives undeserving praise. We four indeed confronted were with four In Russian habit: here they stay'd an hour, And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord, They did not bless us with one happy word. I dare not call them fools; but this I think, When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink. BEROWNE. This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet, Your wit makes wise things foolish:when we greet, With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye, By light we lose light: your capacity Is of that nature that to your huge store Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor. ROSALINE. This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye- BEROWNE. I am a fool, and full of poverty. ROSALINE. But that you take what doth to you belong, It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue. BEROWNE. O! am yours, and all that I possess. ROSALINE. All the fool mine? BEROWNE. I cannot give you less. ROSALINE. Which of the visors was it that you wore? BEROWNE. Where? when? what visor? why demand you this? ROSALINE. There, then, that visor; that superfluous case That hid the worse,and show'd the better face. KING. We are descried: they'll mock us now downright. DUMAINE. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest. PRINCESS. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness sad? ROSALINE. Help! hold his brows! he'll swound. Why look you pale? Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy. BEROWNE. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury. Can any face of brass hold longer out?-- Here stand I, lady; dart thy skill at me; Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout; Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance; Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit; And I will wish thee never more to dance, Nor never more in Russian habit wait. O! never will I trust to speeches penn'd, Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue, Nor never come in visor to my friend, Nor woo in rime, like a blind harper's song. Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical; these summer-flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation: I do forswear them; and I here protest, By this white glove,--how white the hand, God knows!-- Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes; And, to begin, wench,--so God help me, la!-- My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. ROSALINE. Sans 'sans,' I pray you. BEROWNE. Yet I have a trick Of the old rage: bear with me, I am sick; I'll leave it by degrees. Soft! let us see: Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three; They are infected; in their hearts it lies; They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes: These lords are visited; you are not free, For the Lord's tokens on you do I see. PRINCESS. No, they are free that gave these tokens to us. BEROWNE. Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us. ROSALINE. It is not so. For how can this be true, That you stand forfeit, being those that sue? BEROWNE. Peace! for I will not have to do with you. ROSALINE. Nor shall not, if I do as I intend. BEROWNE. Speak for yourselves: my wit is at an end. KING. Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression Some fair excuse. PRINCESS. The fairest is confession. Were not you here but even now, disguis'd? KING. Madam, I was. PRINCESS. And were you well advis'd? KING. I was, fair madam. PRINCESS. When you then were here, What did you whisper in your lady's ear? KING. That more than all the world I did respect her. PRINCESS. When she shall challenge this, you will reject her. KING. Upon mine honour, no. PRINCESS. Peace! peace! forbear; Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear. KING. Despise me when I break this oath of mine. PRINCESS. I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline, What did the Russian whisper in your ear? ROSALINE. Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear As precious eyesight, and did value me Above this world; adding thereto, moreover, That he would wed me, or else die my lover. PRINCESS. God give thee joy of him! The noble lord Most honourably doth uphold his word. KING. What mean you, madam? by my life, my troth, I never swore this lady such an oath. ROSALINE. By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain, You gave me this: but take it, sir, again. KING. My faith and this the princess I did give; I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve. PRINCESS. Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear; And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear. What, will you have me, or your pearl again? BEROWNE. Neither of either; I remit both twain. I see the trick on't: here was a consent, Knowing aforehand of our merriment, To dash it like a Christmas comedy. Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany, Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick, That smiles his cheek in years, and knows the trick To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd, Told our intents before; which once disclos'd, The ladies did change favours, and then we, Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she. Now, to our perjury to add more terror, We are again forsworn, in will and error. Much upon this it is: [To BOYET.] and might not you Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue? Do not you know my lady's foot by the squire, And laugh upon the apple of her eye? And stand between her back, sir, and the fire, Holding a trencher, jesting merrily? You put our page out: go, you are allow'd; Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud. You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye Wounds like a leaden sword. BOYET. Full merrily Hath this brave manage, this career, been run. BEROWNE. Lo! he is tilting straight! Peace! I have done. [Enter COSTARD Welcome, pure wit! thou part'st a fair fray. COSTARD. O Lord, sir, they would know Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no? BEROWNE. What, are there but three? COSTARD. No, sir; but it is vara fine, For every one pursents three. BEROWNE. And three times thrice is nine. COSTARD. Not so, sir; under correction, sir, I hope it is not so. You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we know: I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir,-- BEROWNE. Is not nine. COSTARD. Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount. BEROWNE. By Jove, I always took three threes for nine. COSTARD. O Lord, sir! it were pity you should get your living by reckoning, sir. BEROWNE. How much is it? COSTARD. O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will show whereuntil it doth amount: for mine own part, I am, as they say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the Great, sir. BEROWNE. Art thou one of the Worthies? COSTARD. It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the Great; for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I am to stand for him. BEROWNE. Go, bid them prepare. COSTARD. We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care. [Exit COSTARD.] KING. Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach. BEROWNE. We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy To have one show worse than the king's and his company. KING. I say they shall not come. PRINCESS. Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now. That sport best pleases that doth least know how; Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Die in the zeal of those which it presents; Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, When great things labouring perish in their birth. BEROWNE. A right description of our sport, my lord. [Enter ARMADO.] ARMADO. Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet breath as will utter a brace of words. [Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper to him.] PRINCESS. Doth this man serve God? BEROWNE. Why ask you? PRINCESS. He speaks not like a man of God his making. ARMADO. That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too-too vain, too-too vain: but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement! [Exit.] KING. Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate, Alexander; Armado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas Maccabaeus: And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive, These four will change habits and present the other five. BEROWNE. There is five in the first show. KING. You are deceived, 'tis not so. BEROWNE. The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and the boy:-- Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein. KING. The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain. [Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY.] COSTARD. 'I Pompey am'-- BEROWNE. You lie, you are not he. COSTARD. 'I Pompey am'-- BOYET. With libbard's head on knee. BEROWNE. Well said, old mocker: I must needs be friends with thee. COSTARD. 'I Pompey am, Pompey surnam'd the Big'-- DUMAINE. 'The Great.' COSTARD. It is 'Great,' sir; 'Pompey surnam'd the Great, That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to sweat: And travelling along this coast, I here am come by chance, And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France. If your ladyship would say 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done. PRINCESS. Great thanks, great Pompey. COSTARD. 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect. I made a little fault in 'Great.' BEROWNE. My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy. [Enter SIR NATHANIEL armed, for ALEXANDER.] NATHANIEL. 'When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander; By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might: My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander'-- BOYET. Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands to right. BEROWNE. Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling knight. PRINCESS. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good Alexander. NATHANIEL. 'When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;'-- BOYET. Most true; 'tis right, you were so, Alisander. BEROWNE. Pompey the Great,-- COSTARD. Your servant, and Costard. BEROWNE. Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander. COSTARD. [To Sir Nathaniel.] O! sir, you have overthrown Alisander the conqueror! You will be scraped out of the painted cloth for this; your lion, that holds his poll-axe sitting on a close-stool, will be given to Ajax: he will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror, and afeard to speak! Run away for shame, Alisander. [Nathaniel retires.] There, an't shall please you: a foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed! He is a marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler; but for Alisander,--alas! you see how 'tis--a little o'erparted. But there are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort. PRINCESS. Stand aside, good Pompey. [Enter HOLOFERNES armed, for JUDAS; and MOTH armed, for HERCULES.] HOLOFERNES. 'Great Hercules is presented by this imp, Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canis; And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp, Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus. Quoniam he seemeth in minority, Ergo I come with this apology.' Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.--[MOTH retires.] 'Judas I am.'-- DUMAINE. A Judas! HOLOFERNES. Not Iscariot, sir. 'Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.' DUMAINE. Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas. BEROWNE. A kissing traitor. How art thou prov'd Judas? HOLOFERNES. 'Judas I am.'-- DUMAINE. The more shame for you, Judas. HOLOFERNES. What mean you, sir? BOYET. To make Judas hang himself. HOLOFERNES. Begin, sir; you are my elder. BEROWNE. Well follow'd: Judas was hanged on an elder. HOLOFERNES. I will not be put out of countenance. BEROWNE. Because thou hast no face. HOLOFERNES. What is this? BOYET. A cittern-head. DUMAINE. The head of a bodkin. BEROWNE. A death's face in a ring. @@@ LONGAVILLE. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen. BOYET. The pommel of Caesar's falchion. DUMAINE. The carved-bone face on a flask. BEROWNE. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch. DUMAINE. Ay, and in a brooch of lead. BEROWNE. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. And now, forward; for we have put thee in countenance. HOLOFERNES. You have put me out of countenance. BEROWNE. False: we have given thee faces. HOLOFERNES. But you have outfaced them all. BEROWNE. An thou wert a lion we would do so. BOYET. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go. And so adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay? DUMAINE. For the latter end of his name. BEROWNE. For the ass to the Jude? give it him:--Jud-as, away! HOLOFERNES. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble. BOYET. A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may stumble. PRINCESS. Alas! poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited. [Enter ARMADO armed, for HECTOR.] BEROWNE. Hide thy head, Achilles: here comes Hector in arms. DUMAINE. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry. KING. Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this. BOYET. But is this Hector? DUMAINE. I think Hector was not so clean-timber'd. LONGAVILLE. His leg is too big for Hector's. DUMAINE. More calf, certain. BOYET. No; he is best indued in the small. BEROWNE. This cannot be Hector. DUMAINE. He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces. ARMADO. 'The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty, Gave Hector a gift,'-- DUMAINE. A gilt nutmeg. BEROWNE. A lemon. LONGAVILLE. Stuck with cloves. DUMAINE. No, cloven. ARMADO. Peace! 'The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty, Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion; A man so breath'd that certain he would fight ye, From morn till night, out of his pavilion. I am that flower,'-- DUMAINE. That mint. LONGAVILLE. That columbine. ARMADO. Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue. LONGAVILLE. I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against Hector. DUMAINE. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound. ARMADO. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man. But I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS.] Sweet royalty, bestow on me the sense of hearing. PRINCESS. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted. ARMADO. I do adore thy sweet Grace's slipper. BOYET. [Aside to DUMAIN.] Loves her by the foot. DUMAINE. [Aside to BOYET.] He may not by the yard. ARMADO. 'This Hector far surmounted Hannibal,'-- COSTARD. The party is gone; fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two months on her way. ARMADO. What meanest thou? COSTARD. Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already; 'tis yours. ARMADO. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? Thou shalt die. COSTARD. Then shall Hector be whipped for Jaquenetta that is quick by him, and hanged for Pompey that is dead by him. DUMAINE. Most rare Pompey! BOYET. Renowned Pompey! BEROWNE. Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the Huge! DUMAINE. Hector trembles. BEROWNE. Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! Stir them on! stir them on! DUMAINE. Hector will challenge him. BEROWNE. Ay, if a' have no more man's blood in his belly than will sup a flea. ARMADO. By the north pole, I do challenge thee. COSTARD. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man: I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow my arms again. DUMAINE. Room for the incensed Worthies! COSTARD. I'll do it in my shirt. DUMAINE. Most resolute Pompey! MOTH. Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will lose your reputation. ARMADO. Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my shirt. DUMAINE. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge. ARMADO. Sweet bloods, I both may and will. BEROWNE. What reason have you for 't? ARMADO. The naked truth of it is: I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance. BOYET. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen; since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dish-clout of Jaquenetta's, and that a' wears next his heart for a favour. [Enter MONSIEUR MARCADE, a messenger.] MARCADE. God save you, madam! PRINCESS. Welcome, Marcade; But that thou interrupt'st our merriment. MARCADE. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father-- PRINCESS. Dead, for my life! MARCADE. Even so: my tale is told. BEROWNE. Worthies away! the scene begins to cloud. ARMADO. For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier. [Exeunt WORTHIES.] KING. How fares your Majesty? PRINCESS. Boyet, prepare: I will away to-night. KING. Madam, not so: I do beseech you stay. PRINCESS. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords, For all your fair endeavours; and entreat, Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide The liberal opposition of our spirits, If over-boldly we have borne ourselves In the converse of breath; your gentleness Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord! A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue. Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks For my great suit so easily obtain'd. KING. The extreme parts of time extremely forms All causes to the purpose of his speed, And often at his very loose decides That which long process could not arbitrate: And though the mourning brow of progeny Forbid the smiling courtesy of love The holy suit which fain it would convince; Yet, since love's argument was first on foot, Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends lost Is not by much so wholesome-profitable As to rejoice at friends but newly found. PRINCESS. I understand you not: my griefs are double. BEROWNE. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief; And by these badges understand the king. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play'd foul play with our oaths. Your beauty, ladies, Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours Even to the opposed end of our intents; And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,-- As love is full of unbefitting strains; All wanton as a child, skipping and vain; Form'd by the eye, and, therefore, like the eye, Full of strange shapes, of habits and of forms, Varying in subjects, as the eye doth roll To every varied object in his glance: Which parti-coated presence of loose love Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes, Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities, Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies, Our love being yours, the error that love makes Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false, By being once false for ever to be true To those that make us both,--fair ladies, you: And even that falsehood, in itself a sin, Thus purifies itself and turns to grace. PRINCESS. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love; Your favours, the ambassadors of love; And, in our maiden council, rated them At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy, As bombast and as lining to the time; But more devout than this in our respects Have we not been; and therefore met your loves In their own fashion, like a merriment. DUMAINE. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest. LONGAVILLE. So did our looks. ROSALINE. We did not quote them so. KING. Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves. PRINCESS. A time, methinks, too short To make a world-without-end bargain in. No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much, Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this: If for my love,--as there is no such cause,-- You will do aught, this shall you do for me: Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed To some forlorn and naked hermitage, Remote from all the pleasures of the world; There stay until the twelve celestial signs Have brought about the annual reckoning. If this austere insociable life Change not your offer made in heat of blood, If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds, Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love, But that it bear this trial, and last love, Then, at the expiration of the year, Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts; And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine, I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut My woeful self up in a mournful house, Raining the tears of lamentation For the remembrance of my father's death. If this thou do deny, let our hands part, Neither intitled in the other's heart. KING. If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up these powers of mine with rest, The sudden hand of death close up mine eye! Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast. BEROWNE. And what to me, my love? and what to me? ROSALINE. You must he purged too, your sins are rack'd; You are attaint with faults and perjury; Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, But seek the weary beds of people sick. DUMAINE. But what to me, my love? but what to me? KATHARINE. A wife! A beard, fair health, and honesty; With three-fold love I wish you all these three. DUMAINE. O! shall I say I thank you, gentle wife? KATHARINE. No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say. Come when the King doth to my lady come; Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some. DUMAINE. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. KATHARINE. Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again. LONGAVILLE. What says Maria? MARIA. At the twelvemonth's end I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. LONGAVILLE. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long. MARIA. The liker you; few taller are so young. BEROWNE. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me; Behold the window of my heart, mine eye, What humble suit attends thy answer there. Impose some service on me for thy love. ROSALINE. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne, Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks; Full of comparisons and wounding flouts, Which you on all estates will execute That lie within the mercy of your wit: To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain, And therewithal to win me, if you please,-- Without the which I am not to be won,-- You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day, Visit the speechless sick, and still converse With groaning wretches; and your task shall be, With all the fierce endeavour of your wit To enforce the pained impotent to smile. BEROWNE. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. ROSALINE. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools. A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears, Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans, Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, And I will have you and that fault withal; But if they will not, throw away that spirit, And I shall find you empty of that fault, Right joyful of your reformation. BEROWNE. A twelvemonth! well, befall what will befall, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. PRINCESS. [To the King.] Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. KING. No, madam; we will bring you on your way. BEROWNE. Our wooing doth not end like an old play: Jack hath not Jill; these ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. KING. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end. BEROWNE. That's too long for a play. [Enter ARMADO.] ARMADO. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me,-- PRINCESS. Was not that not Hector? DUMAINE. The worthy knight of Troy. ARMADO. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary: I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three yeasr. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? It should have followed in the end of our show. KING. Call them forth quickly; we will do so. ARMADO. Holla! approach. [Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others.] This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. SPRING I. When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then on every tree Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! II. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he: Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! WINTER III. When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl: Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who--a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. IV. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl: Tu-who; Tu-whit, to-who--a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. ARMADO. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way: we this way. [Exeunt.]

The princess and her ladies have received love letters and tokens of affection from the four "book-mates." They show their gifts to each other and complain about the verbosity of the letters. Rosaline is of the opinion that there is "much in the letters, nothing in the praise." Katherine states that she has been presented with "some thousand verses." Maria believes that her letter is "too long by half a mile." In actuality, all of the women are amused, not flattered, by the overpowering declarations of love. They all seem somewhat wary of love and guarded against the men's eager and effusive propositions. They also agree that the men, though they have learned the impossibility of keeping their vows, have yet to admit their own fleshly weaknesses and fallibility. The foursome decides to humble the foolish men before they submit to their courtship. Boyet enters with the news that he has overheard the men in the park. Rather than admit to the women that they can no longer keep their vows, the men have decided to come to the women in disguise, courting them as Russian Muscovites. Irritated by the presumptuousness of the lords and their continued resistance to surrendering, the princess suggests to the women that they, too, don masks and pretend to be one another in order to confuse their lovers. With this plan of action, they exchange gifts with one another and wait on the arrival of the lords. Oblivious to the plot against them, the men approach the women whom they incorrectly 'recognize' from the gifts they carry. The ladies resist the men, refusing to dance or even flirt. At last, the men leave, deciding to come back as themselves. Goaded by Boyet, the ladies decide to continue the game when the men return. Upon re-entering, the King and the lords, now themselves, are told by the women about the foolish and unwelcome Russian suitors who have been pestering them. Crestfallen, Biron promises not to be like the Russians; he will not take recourse to "taffeta phrases, silken terms precise/ three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation" to express his love to Rosaline. Instead, he promises to use plain and simple speech to express himself. Rosaline, finding his words quite humorous and hypocritical, finishes Biron off by indicating she knows of his Russian disguise. She asks him, "Which of the visors was it that you wore?" Revealing that they have known the men's plot all along, the women then disclose to the lords that they had been wooing the wrong ladies. Finally, everything is sorted out, and the ladies graciously take their suitors in hand. As the are still reeling under the shock of being discovered, Costard enters to inform the nobles that the Masque of the Nine Worthies is ready to be performed. The King is doubtful about the performance, for he fears "they will shame us." Biron, however, claims that "we are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy/To have one show worse than the King's and his company." The Princess also intervenes, asking for the show. The performers enter one by one, each playing his part: Armado as Hector of Troy; Costard as Pompeii the Great; Nathaniel as Alexander the Great; Moth as Hercules; and Holofernes as Judas Maccabaeus. Each of the actors is interrupted mid-speech and raucously ridiculed. Holofernes is forced to leave the stage, utterly humiliated. When incited by Biron, Costard accuses Armado of getting Jaquenetta pregnant; in return, Armado challenges him to a duel, but then backs down because he is not wearing a shirt under his outer garments. In the midst of the confusion, a messenger, Mercade, brings the sad news of the death of the King of France, immediately changing the comic mood to one of seriousness. The Princess, who became Queen on the death of her father, prepares to leave for France with her ladies. Before they depart, the women are willing to consider the proposals of the men, since they have forsaken their foolish notions and decided to be honest and truthful; however, the women are to have the last word. They ask for a twelve-month waiting period, during which time each lord must prove himself by performing the tasks set for him. For example, the King must live in isolation, and Biron must use his wit to entertain the sick to help alleviate their pain. The play comes to a close with songs of spring and winter, written by "the two learned men."

TWO years after I left Lincoln I completed my academic course at Harvard. Before I entered the Law School I went home for the summer vacation. On the night of my arrival Mrs. Harling and Frances and Sally came over to greet me. Everything seemed just as it used to be. My grandparents looked very little older. Frances Harling was married now, and she and her husband managed the Harling interests in Black Hawk. When we gathered in grandmother's parlor, I could hardly believe that I had been away at all. One subject, however, we avoided all evening. When I was walking home with Frances, after we had left Mrs. Harling at her gate, she said simply, "You know, of course, about poor Antonia." Poor Antonia! Every one would be saying that now, I thought bitterly. I replied that grandmother had written me how Antonia went away to marry Larry Donovan at some place where he was working; that he had deserted her, and that there was now a baby. This was all I knew. "He never married her," Frances said. "I have n't seen her since she came back. She lives at home, on the farm, and almost never comes to town. She brought the baby in to show it to mama once. I'm afraid she's settled down to be Ambrosch's drudge for good." I tried to shut Antonia out of my mind. I was bitterly disappointed in her. I could not forgive her for becoming an object of pity, while Lena Lingard, for whom people had always foretold trouble, was now the leading dressmaker of Lincoln, much respected in Black Hawk. Lena gave her heart away when she felt like it, but she kept her head for her business and had got on in the world. Just then it was the fashion to speak indulgently of Lena and severely of Tiny Soderball, who had quietly gone West to try her fortune the year before. A Black Hawk boy, just back from Seattle, brought the news that Tiny had not gone to the coast on a venture, as she had allowed people to think, but with very definite plans. One of the roving promoters that used to stop at Mrs. Gardener's hotel owned idle property along the water-front in Seattle, and he had offered to set Tiny up in business in one of his empty buildings. She was now conducting a sailors' lodging-house. This, every one said, would be the end of Tiny. Even if she had begun by running a decent place, she could n't keep it up; all sailors' boarding-houses were alike. When I thought about it, I discovered that I had never known Tiny as well as I knew the other girls. I remembered her tripping briskly about the dining-room on her high heels, carrying a big tray full of dishes, glancing rather pertly at the spruce traveling men, and contemptuously at the scrubby ones--who were so afraid of her that they did n't dare to ask for two kinds of pie. Now it occurred to me that perhaps the sailors, too, might be afraid of Tiny. How astonished we would have been, as we sat talking about her on Frances Harling's front porch, if we could have known what her future was really to be! Of all the girls and boys who grew up together in Black Hawk, Tiny Soderball was to lead the most adventurous life and to achieve the most solid worldly success. This is what actually happened to Tiny: While she was running her lodging-house in Seattle, gold was discovered in Alaska. Miners and sailors came back from the North with wonderful stories and pouches of gold. Tiny saw it and weighed it in her hands. That daring which nobody had ever suspected in her, awoke. She sold her business and set out for Circle City, in company with a carpenter and his wife whom she had persuaded to go along with her. They reached Skaguay in a snowstorm, went in dog sledges over the Chilkoot Pass, and shot the Yukon in flatboats. They reached Circle City on the very day when some Siwash Indians came into the settlement with the report that there had been a rich gold strike farther up the river, on a certain Klondike Creek. Two days later Tiny and her friends, and nearly every one else in Circle City, started for the Klondike fields on the last steamer that went up the Yukon before it froze for the winter. That boatload of people founded Dawson City. Within a few weeks there were fifteen hundred homeless men in camp. Tiny and the carpenter's wife began to cook for them, in a tent. The miners gave her a lot, and the carpenter put up a log hotel for her. There she sometimes fed a hundred and fifty men a day. Miners came in on snowshoes from their placer claims twenty miles away to buy fresh bread from her, and paid for it in gold. That winter Tiny kept in her hotel a Swede whose legs had been frozen one night in a storm when he was trying to find his way back to his cabin. The poor fellow thought it great good fortune to be cared for by a woman, and a woman who spoke his own tongue. When he was told that his feet must be amputated, he said he hoped he would not get well; what could a working-man do in this hard world without feet? He did, in fact, die from the operation, but not before he had deeded Tiny Soderball his claim on Hunker Creek. Tiny sold her hotel, invested half her money in Dawson building lots, and with the rest she developed her claim. She went off into the wilds and lived on it. She bought other claims from discouraged miners, traded or sold them on percentages. After nearly ten years in the Klondike, Tiny returned, with a considerable fortune, to live in San Francisco. I met her in Salt Lake City in 1908. She was a thin, hard-faced woman, very well-dressed, very reserved in manner. Curiously enough, she reminded me of Mrs. Gardener, for whom she had worked in Black Hawk so long ago. She told me about some of the desperate chances she had taken in the gold country, but the thrill of them was quite gone. She said frankly that nothing interested her much now but making money. The only two human beings of whom she spoke with any feeling were the Swede, Johnson, who had given her his claim, and Lena Lingard. She had persuaded Lena to come to San Francisco and go into business there. "Lincoln was never any place for her," Tiny remarked. "In a town of that size Lena would always be gossiped about. Frisco's the right field for her. She has a fine class of trade. Oh, she's just the same as she always was! She's careless, but she's level-headed. She's the only person I know who never gets any older. It's fine for me to have her there; somebody who enjoys things like that. She keeps an eye on me and won't let me be shabby. When she thinks I need a new dress, she makes it and sends it home--with a bill that's long enough, I can tell you!" Tiny limped slightly when she walked. The claim on Hunker Creek took toll from its possessors. Tiny had been caught in a sudden turn of weather, like poor Johnson. She lost three toes from one of those pretty little feet that used to trip about Black Hawk in pointed slippers and striped stockings. Tiny mentioned this mutilation quite casually--did n't seem sensitive about it. She was satisfied with her success, but not elated. She was like some one in whom the faculty of becoming interested is worn out.

After graduating from Harvard two years later, Jim goes home for a visit before starting law school. He sees the Harlings and his grandparents, who look exactly the same. He is told that "poor Antonia" had a baby after Larry Donovan ran off and is now living at the farm with Ambrosch, where she is barely heard of. Jim is heartbroken that Antonia is now an object of pity in the town. In contrast, Lena Lingard is now a very respectable, successful dressmaker in Black Hawk. Apparently, Tiny Soderball is running a sailors' lodging house in Seattle, and people insinuate that it will soon become a brothel. What actually happens is that Tiny becomes the most successful person from Black Hawk: After hearing about the gold rush in Alaska, Tiny sells the boarding house and travels to Dawson City, where she sets up a hotel and cooks for hundreds of homeless, single men. A Swedish man named Johnson leaves his land claim to her after she nurses him before his death, and she begins buying, trading, and selling other land claims. After ten years, she amasses a fortune and moves to San Francisco, where Jim later meets up with her. By this time, she is "hard-faced" and reserved, bored with everything except making money, and only cares about the Swedish man Johnson and Lena Lingard, who she persuades to move to San Francisco. Tiny says that Lincoln is too small for someone like Lena. Tiny is satisfied with her life, but essentially bored.

ACT II. SCENE 3. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES Enter THERSITES, solus THERSITES. How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy fury? Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him. O worthy satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that I could beat him, whilst he rail'd at me! 'Sfoot, I'll learn to conjure and raise devils, but I'll see some issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there's Achilles, a rare engineer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that little little less-than-little wit from them that they have! which short-arm'd ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp! or, rather, the Neapolitan bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the curse depending on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers; and devil Envy say 'Amen.' What ho! my Lord Achilles! Enter PATROCLUS PATROCLUS. Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail. THERSITES. If I could 'a rememb'red a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not have slipp'd out of my contemplation; but it is no matter; thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death. Then if she that lays thee out says thou art a fair corse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where's Achilles? PATROCLUS. What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer? THERSITES. Ay, the heavens hear me! PATROCLUS. Amen. Enter ACHILLES ACHILLES. Who's there? PATROCLUS. Thersites, my lord. ACHILLES. Where, where? O, where? Art thou come? Why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so many meals? Come, what's Agamemnon? THERSITES. Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what's Achilles? PATROCLUS. Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what's Thersites? THERSITES. Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou? PATROCLUS. Thou must tell that knowest. ACHILLES. O, tell, tell, THERSITES. I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus' knower; and Patroclus is a fool. PATROCLUS. You rascal! THERSITES. Peace, fool! I have not done. ACHILLES. He is a privileg'd man. Proceed, Thersites. THERSITES. Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool; and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool. ACHILLES. Derive this; come. THERSITES. Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool; and this Patroclus is a fool positive. PATROCLUS. Why am I a fool? THERSITES. Make that demand of the Creator. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who comes here? ACHILLES. Come, Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites. Exit THERSITES. Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery. All the argument is a whore and a cuckold-a good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on the subject, and war and lechery confound all! Exit Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, AJAX, and CALCHAS AGAMEMNON. Where is Achilles? PATROCLUS. Within his tent; but ill-dispos'd, my lord. AGAMEMNON. Let it be known to him that we are here. He shent our messengers; and we lay by Our appertainings, visiting of him. Let him be told so; lest, perchance, he think We dare not move the question of our place Or know not what we are. PATROCLUS. I shall say so to him. Exit ULYSSES. We saw him at the opening of his tent. He is not sick. AJAX. Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, 'tis pride. But why, why? Let him show us a cause. A word, my lord. [Takes AGAMEMNON aside] NESTOR. What moves Ajax thus to bay at him? ULYSSES. Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him. NESTOR.Who, Thersites? ULYSSES. He. NESTOR. Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument ULYSSES. No; you see he is his argument that has his argument- Achilles. NESTOR. All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their faction. But it was a strong composure a fool could disunite! ULYSSES. The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie. Re-enter PATROCLUS Here comes Patroclus. NESTOR. No Achilles with him. ULYSSES. The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure. PATROCLUS. Achilles bids me say he is much sorry If any thing more than your sport and pleasure Did move your greatness and this noble state To call upon him; he hopes it is no other But for your health and your digestion sake, An after-dinner's breath. AGAMEMNON. Hear you, Patroclus. We are too well acquainted with these answers; But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn, Cannot outfly our apprehensions. Much attribute he hath, and much the reason Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues, Not virtuously on his own part beheld, Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss; Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish, Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin If you do say we think him over-proud And under-honest, in self-assumption greater Than in the note of judgment; and worthier than himself Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on, Disguise the holy strength of their command, And underwrite in an observing kind His humorous predominance; yea, watch His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if The passage and whole carriage of this action Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and ad That if he overhold his price so much We'll none of him, but let him, like an engine Not portable, lie under this report: Bring action hither; this cannot go to war. A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so. PATROCLUS. I shall, and bring his answer presently. Exit AGAMEMNON. In second voice we'll not be satisfied; We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you. Exit ULYSSES AJAX. What is he more than another? AGAMEMNON. No more than what he thinks he is. AJAX. Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am? AGAMEMNON. No question. AJAX. Will you subscribe his thought and say he is? AGAMEMNON. No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable. AJAX. Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride is. AGAMEMNON. Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed devours the deed in the praise. Re-enter ULYSSES AJAX. I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engend'ring of toads. NESTOR. [Aside] And yet he loves himself: is't not strange? ULYSSES. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow. AGAMEMNON. What's his excuse? ULYSSES. He doth rely on none; But carries on the stream of his dispose, Without observance or respect of any, In will peculiar and in self-admission. AGAMEMNON. Why will he not, upon our fair request, Untent his person and share the air with us? ULYSSES. Things small as nothing, for request's sake only, He makes important; possess'd he is with greatness, And speaks not to himself but with a pride That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin'd worth Holds in his blood such swol'n and hot discourse That 'twixt his mental and his active parts Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages, And batters down himself. What should I say? He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it Cry 'No recovery.' AGAMEMNON. Let Ajax go to him. Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent. 'Tis said he holds you well; and will be led At your request a little from himself. ULYSSES. O Agamemnon, let it not be so! We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord That bastes his arrogance with his own seam And never suffers matter of the world Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve And ruminate himself-shall he be worshipp'd Of that we hold an idol more than he? No, this thrice-worthy and right valiant lord Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd, Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit, As amply titled as Achilles is, By going to Achilles. That were to enlard his fat-already pride, And add more coals to Cancer when he burns With entertaining great Hyperion. This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid, And say in thunder 'Achilles go to him.' NESTOR. [Aside] O, this is well! He rubs the vein of him. DIOMEDES. [Aside] And how his silence drinks up this applause! AJAX. If I go to him, with my armed fist I'll pash him o'er the face. AGAMEMNON. O, no, you shall not go. AJAX. An 'a be proud with me I'll pheeze his pride. Let me go to him. ULYSSES. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel. AJAX. A paltry, insolent fellow! NESTOR. [Aside] How he describes himself! AJAX. Can he not be sociable? ULYSSES. [Aside] The raven chides blackness. AJAX. I'll let his humours blood. AGAMEMNON. [Aside] He will be the physician that should be the patient. AJAX. An all men were a my mind- ULYSSES. [Aside] Wit would be out of fashion. AJAX. 'A should not bear it so, 'a should eat's words first. Shall pride carry it? NESTOR. [Aside] An 'twould, you'd carry half. ULYSSES. [Aside] 'A would have ten shares. AJAX. I will knead him, I'll make him supple. NESTOR. [Aside] He's not yet through warm. Force him with praises; pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry. ULYSSES. [To AGAMEMNON] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike. NESTOR. Our noble general, do not do so. DIOMEDES. You must prepare to fight without Achilles. ULYSSES. Why 'tis this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man-but 'tis before his face; I will be silent. NESTOR. Wherefore should you so? He is not emulous, as Achilles is. ULYSSES. Know the whole world, he is as valiant. AJAX. A whoreson dog, that shall palter with us thus! Would he were a Troyan! NESTOR. What a vice were it in Ajax now- ULYSSES. If he were proud. DIOMEDES. Or covetous of praise. ULYSSES. Ay, or surly borne. DIOMEDES. Or strange, or self-affected. ULYSSES. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck; Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature Thrice-fam'd beyond, beyond all erudition; But he that disciplin'd thine arms to fight- Let Mars divide eternity in twain And give him half; and, for thy vigour, Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom, Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here's Nestor, Instructed by the antiquary times- He must, he is, he cannot but be wise; But pardon, father Nestor, were your days As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd, You should not have the eminence of him, But be as Ajax. AJAX. Shall I call you father? NESTOR. Ay, my good son. DIOMEDES. Be rul'd by him, Lord Ajax. ULYSSES. There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles Keeps thicket. Please it our great general To call together all his state of war; Fresh kings are come to Troy. To-morrow We must with all our main of power stand fast; And here's a lord-come knights from east to west And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best. AGAMEMNON. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep. Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep. Exeunt

Thersites enters on his own. He is still railing about the beating he got from Ajax. He wishes he could be the one to beat Ajax while the latter railed. He says that hell learn to raise devils unless he becomes capable of seeing some issue of his spiteful execrations. Then he dwells on Achilles whom he calls a maker of rare military machines and a plotter. If Troy is not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves, he says. He prays that Jove forgets he is king of the gods, and that Mercury lose all the magical powers that bestow prosperity and settle quarrels. If they dont take away the little intelligence that the Greeks have - which ignorance itself knows is so scarce that they will not deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their swords to cut the web. He curses the whole camp with venereal disease. He thinks that it the most appropriate curse for those who war over a skirt or a woman. He concludes his prayer by saying that Envy - one of the seven deadly sins, says Amen. He then hails my Lord Achilles! Patroclus calls Thersites from inside and asks him to come into Achilles tent and rail. Continuing in the vein of a prayer, Thersites mutters that if he could have remembered a false coin, Patroclus himself could not possibly have slipped out of his thoughts. But that was no problem, as for Patroclus to remain himself was his own worst punishment! He prays that folly and ignorance, the common curse of mankind would be Patroclus in great measure. Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! He continues with his mock prayer for Patroclus and hopes that he continues to be fleshly and passionate until his death so that if the woman who lays him out says his corpse is beautiful, Thersites himself will know that she has shrouded anyone but lepers. Like a real prayer, he ends this with an Amen. Patroclus enters. Thersites asks him the whereabouts of Achilles. Patroclus asks him if he was praying. Thersites says he was praying and adds that he hopes the heavens would hear him. The unsuspecting Patroclus says Amen. Achilles is heard looking for Thersites and when he happens on the two of them he greets him with much eagerness and asks him why he hadnt presented himself at his table. Right off he asks him Whats Agamemnon - a cue to begin the usual games of imitation and ridicule. Thersites engages in attempting to irritate Achilles and Patroclus. He tells Achilles that Agamemnon is a fool, Achilles is a fool, he himself is a fool and Patroclus is also a fool. He explains that Agamemnon is a fool to command Achilles, Achilles is a fool to be commanded by him, Thersites a fool to serves such a fool and Patroclus is an absolute fool, a fool positive. Patroclus asks Thersites why he is being labeled a fool. Thersites asks him to make that demand of the Creator, and then turns to the entry of Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes and Ajax. Achilles tells Patroclus that he will speak with nobody and retreats into his tent. He invites Thersites in with him. Before he leaves, Thersites comments that the whole war is fools play, clownage and cheating. Referring to the Helen-Menelaus-Paris triangle that has caused the conflict, he defines the entire War as All the argument is a whore and a cuckold: a good quarrel to draw emulous factions, and bleed to death upon. He then exits railing as usual and calling creeping skin diseases down upon the subject of War and exclaiming that lechery confound all! Agamemnon asks for Achilles. Patroclus tells him he is unwell and is in his tent. Agamemnon tells Patroclus to announce his presence. He remarks that Achilles had ignored his messengers and so he had eventually laid aside the apparent signs of authority and visited him. He tells Patroclus to especially tell Achilles this lest the latter think that he, Agamemnon dares not assert his position as his commander.

I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctor's Commons; which I read with some surprise: 'MY DEAR SIR, 'Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description. This fact, my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth, by the familiar appellation of Copperfield! It is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself the honour to refer, will ever be treasured among the muniments of our house (I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers, preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem amounting to affection. 'It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination), who now takes up the pen to address you--it is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of congratulation. That he leaves to abler and to purer hands. 'If your more important avocations should admit of your ever tracing these imperfect characters thus far--which may be, or may not be, as circumstances arise--you will naturally inquire by what object am I influenced, then, in inditing the present missive? Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry, and proceed to develop it; premising that it is not an object of a pecuniary nature. 'Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled--that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed--that my heart is no longer in the right place--and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. 'Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished. 'I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr. Copperfield, or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me, and renew (so far as may be) our past relations of the olden time. I confine myself to throwing out the observation, that, at the hour and place I have indicated, may be found such ruined vestiges as yet 'Remain, 'Of 'A 'Fallen Tower, 'WILKINS MICAWBER. 'P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement that Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential possession of my intentions.' I read the letter over several times. Making due allowance for Mr. Micawber's lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary relish with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and impossible occasions, I still believed that something important lay hidden at the bottom of this roundabout communication. I put it down, to think about it; and took it up again, to read it once more; and was still pursuing it, when Traddles found me in the height of my perplexity. 'My dear fellow,' said I, 'I never was better pleased to see you. You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgement at a most opportune time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles, from Mr. Micawber.' 'No?' cried Traddles. 'You don't say so? And I have received one from Mrs. Micawber!' With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair, under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an exchange with me. I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber's letter, and returned the elevation of eyebrows with which he said "'Wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame!" Bless me, Copperfield!'--and then entered on the perusal of Mrs. Micawber's epistle. It ran thus: 'My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted with him, may I beg a few moments of his leisure time? I assure Mr. T. T. that I would not intrude upon his kindness, were I in any other position than on the confines of distraction. 'Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr. Micawber (formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and soliciting his best indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr. Micawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It has gradually augmented, until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes, I assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to buy 'lemon-stunners'--a local sweetmeat--he presented an oyster-knife at the twins! 'I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these details. Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest conception of my heart-rending situation. 'May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter? Will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? Oh yes, for I know his heart! 'The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the female sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously concealed his hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the direction-card which he attached to the little brown valise of happier days, the eagle-glance of matrimonial anxiety detected, d, o, n, distinctly traced. The West-End destination of the coach, is the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T. to see my misguided husband, and to reason with him? Dare I ask Mr. T. to endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his agonized family? Oh no, for that would be too much! 'If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will Mr. T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties? In any case, he will have the benevolence to consider this communication strictly private, and on no account whatever to be alluded to, however distantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber. If Mr. T. should ever reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be most improbable), a letter addressed to M. E., Post Office, Canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any addressed immediately to one, who subscribes herself, in extreme distress, 'Mr. Thomas Traddles's respectful friend and suppliant, 'EMMA MICAWBER.' 'What do you think of that letter?' said Traddles, casting his eyes upon me, when I had read it twice. 'What do you think of the other?' said I. For he was still reading it with knitted brows. 'I think that the two together, Copperfield,' replied Traddles, 'mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their correspondence--but I don't know what. They are both written in good faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor thing!' he was now alluding to Mrs. Micawber's letter, and we were standing side by side comparing the two; 'it will be a charity to write to her, at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to see Mr. Micawber.' I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself with having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set me thinking a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its place; but my absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the family, and my hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismissing the subject. I had often thought of the Micawbers, but chiefly to wonder what 'pecuniary liabilities' they were establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy Mr. Micawber was of me when he became clerk to Uriah Heep. However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post it, Traddles and I held a long conference, and launched into a number of speculations, which I need not repeat. We took my aunt into our counsels in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion was, that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber's appointment. Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour before the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was standing with his arms folded, over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top, with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs of trees that had shaded him in his youth. When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and something less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his legal suit of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore the old surtout and tights, but not quite with the old air. He gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed with him; but, his very eye-glass seemed to hang less easily, and his shirt-collar, though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather drooped. 'Gentlemen!' said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, 'you are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. Copperfield in esse, and Mrs. Traddles in posse,--presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr. Traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections, for weal and for woe.' We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning, 'I assure you, gentlemen,' when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form of address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. 'My dear Copperfield,' he returned, pressing my hand, 'your cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment of the Temple once called Man--if I may be permitted so to express myself--bespeaks a heart that is an honour to our common nature. I was about to observe that I again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by.' 'Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber,' said I. 'I hope she is well?' 'Thank you,' returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this reference, 'she is but so-so. And this,' said Mr. Micawber, nodding his head sorrowfully, 'is the Bench! Where, for the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed, from day to day, by importune voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and detainees were merely lodged at the gate! Gentlemen,' said Mr. Micawber, 'when the shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure has been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks. I have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray weakness, you will know how to excuse me.' 'We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber,' said I. 'Mr. Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, bitterly, 'when I was an inmate of that retreat I could look my fellow-man in the face, and punch his head if he offended me. My fellow-man and myself are no longer on those glorious terms!' Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber accepted my proffered arm on one side, and the proffered arm of Traddles on the other, and walked away between us. 'There are some landmarks,' observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly back over his shoulder, 'on the road to the tomb, which, but for the impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such is the Bench in my chequered career.' 'Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber,' said Traddles. 'I am, sir,' interposed Mr. Micawber. 'I hope,' said Traddles, 'it is not because you have conceived a dislike to the law--for I am a lawyer myself, you know.' Mr. Micawber answered not a word. 'How is our friend Heep, Mr. Micawber?' said I, after a silence. 'My dear Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state of much excitement, and turning pale, 'if you ask after my employer as YOUR friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as MY friend, I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this--that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity.' I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that roused him so much. 'May I ask,' said I, 'without any hazard of repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are?' 'Miss Wickfield,' said Mr. Micawber, now turning red, 'is, as she always is, a pattern, and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love and truth, and goodness!--Take me,' said Mr. Micawber, 'down a turning, for, upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this!' We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his pocket-handkerchief, and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as gravely at him as Traddles did, he must have found our company by no means inspiriting. 'It is my fate,' said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly sobbing, but doing even that, with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel; 'it is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield, is a flight of arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you please, to walk the earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle my business in double-quick time.' Without attending to this invocation, we stood by, until he put up his pocket-handkerchief, pulled up his shirt-collar, and, to delude any person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned--not knowing what might be lost if we lost sight of him yet--that it would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt, if he would ride out to Highgate, where a bed was at his service. 'You shall make us a glass of your own punch, Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'and forget whatever you have on your mind, in pleasanter reminiscences.' 'Or, if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber,' said Traddles, prudently. 'Gentlemen,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'do with me as you will! I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants--I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements.' We walked on, arm-in-arm, again; found the coach in the act of starting; and arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties by the way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do for the best--so was Traddles, evidently. Mr. Micawber was for the most part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself, and hum the fag-end of a tune; but his relapses into profound melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side, and a shirt-collar pulled up to his eyes. We went to my aunt's house rather than to mine, because of Dora's not being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for, and welcomed Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand, retired to the window, and pulling out his pocket-handkerchief, had a mental wrestle with himself. Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of anyone who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such person out, that he shook hands with Mr. Micawber, at least half-a-dozen times in five minutes. To Mr. Micawber, in his trouble, this warmth, on the part of a stranger, was so extremely touching, that he could only say, on the occasion of each successive shake, 'My dear sir, you overpower me!' Which gratified Mr. Dick so much, that he went at it again with greater vigour than before. 'The friendliness of this gentleman,' said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, 'if you will allow me, ma'am, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabulary of our coarser national sports--floors me. To a man who is struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet, such a reception is trying, I assure you.' 'My friend Mr. Dick,' replied my aunt proudly, 'is not a common man.' 'That I am convinced of,' said Mr. Micawber. 'My dear sir!' for Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him again; 'I am deeply sensible of your cordiality!' 'How do you find yourself?' said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look. 'Indifferent, my dear sir,' returned Mr. Micawber, sighing. 'You must keep up your spirits,' said Mr. Dick, 'and make yourself as comfortable as possible.' Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words, and by finding Mr. Dick's hand again within his own. 'It has been my lot,' he observed, 'to meet, in the diversified panorama of human existence, with an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing, as the present!' At another time I should have been amused by this; but I felt that we were all constrained and uneasy, and I watched Mr. Micawber so anxiously, in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal something, and a counter-disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a perfect fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his chair, with his eyes wide open, and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at Mr. Micawber, without so much as attempting to put in a word. My aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her wits than either of us; for she held him in conversation, and made it necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or not. 'You are a very old friend of my nephew's, Mr. Micawber,' said my aunt. 'I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before.' 'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'I wish I had had the honour of knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you at present behold.' 'I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir,' said my aunt. Mr. Micawber inclined his head. 'They are as well, ma'am,' he desperately observed after a pause, 'as Aliens and Outcasts can ever hope to be.' 'Lord bless you, sir!' exclaimed my aunt, in her abrupt way. 'What are you talking about?' 'The subsistence of my family, ma'am,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'trembles in the balance. My employer--' Here Mr. Micawber provokingly left off; and began to peel the lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the other appliances he used in making punch. 'Your employer, you know,' said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a gentle reminder. 'My good sir,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'you recall me, I am obliged to you.' They shook hands again. 'My employer, ma'am--Mr. Heep--once did me the favour to observe to me, that if I were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should probably be a mountebank about the country, swallowing a sword-blade, and eating the devouring element. For anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural feats by playing the barrel-organ.' Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, signified that these performances might be expected to take place after he was no more; then resumed his peeling with a desperate air. My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion with which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was not prepared to make voluntarily, I should have taken him up at this point, but for the strange proceedings in which I saw him engaged; whereof his putting the lemon-peel into the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer-tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came. He clattered all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and burst into tears. 'My dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, behind his handkerchief, 'this is an occupation, of all others, requiring an untroubled mind, and self-respect. I cannot perform it. It is out of the question.' 'Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'what is the matter? Pray speak out. You are among friends.' 'Among friends, sir!' repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had reserved came breaking out of him. 'Good heavens, it is principally because I AM among friends that my state of mind is what it is. What is the matter, gentlemen? What is NOT the matter? Villainy is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole atrocious mass is--HEEP!' My aunt clapped her hands, and we all started up as if we were possessed. 'The struggle is over!' said Mr. Micawber violently gesticulating with his pocket-handkerchief, and fairly striking out from time to time with both arms, as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. 'I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. I have been under a Taboo in that infernal scoundrel's service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family, substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and I'll do it. With an appetite!' I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him, that we might come to something rational; but he got hotter and hotter, and wouldn't hear a word. 'I'll put my hand in no man's hand,' said Mr. Micawber, gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water, 'until I have--blown to fragments--the--a--detestable--serpent--HEEP! I'll partake of no one's hospitality, until I have--a--moved Mount Vesuvius--to eruption--on--a--the abandoned rascal--HEEP! Refreshment--a--underneath this roof--particularly punch--would--a--choke me--unless--I had--previously--choked the eyes--out of the head--a--of--interminable cheat, and liar--HEEP! I--a--I'll know nobody--and--a--say nothing--and--a--live nowhere--until I have crushed--to--a--undiscoverable atoms--the--transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer--HEEP!' I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber's dying on the spot. The manner in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences, and, whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep, fought his way on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a vehemence little less than marvellous, was frightful; but now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us, with every possible colour in his face that had no business there, and an endless procession of lumps following one another in hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to shoot into his forehead, he had the appearance of being in the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me off, and wouldn't hear a word. 'No, Copperfield!--No communication--a--until--Miss Wickfield--a--redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel--HEEP!' (I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words, but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired him when he felt it coming.) 'Inviolable secret--a--from the whole world--a--no exceptions--this day week--a--at breakfast-time--a--everybody present--including aunt--a--and extremely friendly gentleman--to be at the hotel at Canterbury--a--where--Mrs. Micawber and myself--Auld Lang Syne in chorus--and--a--will expose intolerable ruffian--HEEP! No more to say--a--or listen to persuasion--go immediately--not capable--a--bear society--upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor--HEEP!' With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at all, and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. Micawber rushed out of the house; leaving us in a state of excitement, hope, and wonder, that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted; for while we were yet in the height of our excitement, hope, and wonder, the following pastoral note was brought to me from a neighbouring tavern, at which he had called to write it:-- 'Most secret and confidential. 'MY DEAR SIR, 'I beg to be allowed to convey, through you, my apologies to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived than described. 'I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morning of this day week, at the house of public entertainment at Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honour of uniting our voices to yours, in the well-known strain of the Immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the Tweed. 'The duty done, and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort, where Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep, '--With the plain Inscription, 'WILKINS MICAWBER.'

David receives a letter at his law office that shocks him. The letter is from Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber writes that he has hit a run of bad luck, and that he wants to confide in his old friend. Mr. Micawber has decided that he must take a brief vacation from Canterbury because life has become awful. He hopes that both David and Mr. Traddles will meet him when he comes to London for two days. Mr. Micawber stresses that Mrs. Micawber is unaware of his plan to come to the city. David is sure that there is something important going on in the letter, though Mr. Micawber doesn't come out and say it. Traddles finds David because he has just received a letter from Mrs. Micawber. In it, Mrs. Micawber says that she is still unhappy about Mr. Micawber's secretiveness with his family. Apparently, Mr. Micawber is just growing more and more unhappy: he has said that he has sold his soul to the devil. Mrs. Micawber has figured out that Mr. Micawber is planning a secret trip to London. She asks Traddles and David to meet with Mr. Micawber and reason with him. Traddles thinks these letters are significant, but he can't think what's behind them. David writes a letter to Mrs. Micawber on behalf of both him and Traddles assuring her of their plan to meet Mr. Micawber. Traddles and David go to meet Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber is looking less genteel and dapper than before. He seems low-spirited. He starts talking very formally to Traddles and David, and David asks him to relax. Mr. Micawber is moved by David's affection. Micawber recalls those long-ago days when he was an inmate in debtors prison. At least then, he could look his fellow men in the face! David finally asks Mr. Micawber point-blank how Uriah Heep is. Mr. Micawber says that he's a devilish horrible person. David then asks how Mr. Wickfield and Agnes are. Mr. Micawber says that Agnes is a lovely girl of superior character. Thinking of her is painful to Mr. Micawber. David invites Mr. Micawber to come out to Highgate and meet Miss Betsey. There, Mr. Micawber can tell Traddles and David all about his troubles. They all set off to Miss Betsey's house because Dora is ill. Mr. Dick shakes Mr. Micawber's hand in a very friendly manner, which cheers up Mr. Micawber a tiny bit. Miss Betsey addresses Mr. Micawber directly: she asks after Mrs. Micawber and his family. They are all well for now, but Mr. Micawber is worried because he's about to lose his job. Mr. Micawber keeps talking around the problem, saying that all is ruined and that everything is the matter. And it all comes back to one Uriah Heep. Mr. Micawber has decided that he can no longer live this life; he wants to return to his family. Uriah Heep, Mr. Micawber shouts, is a complete scoundrel. Micawber works himself into such a state over Uriah Heep that he rushes out the door. Still, in the midst of all his passion, he finds the time to write a letter: Mr. Micawber apologizes to Miss Betsey for his excitement that night. He asks for another meeting in a week's time at a restaurant in Canterbury.

Sharpshooters Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. Gentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear, broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers, and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero, and more crime than is in Newgate. For howsoever bad the devil can be in fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a more designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin in his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or colour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about bills and promissory notes than in any other form he wears. And in such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading the tributary channels of Leicester Square. But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr. George of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, roll up and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself before a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out, bare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and exceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel, blowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs, and puffs, and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to take in the superfluous health his master throws off. When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil, shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr. George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes gravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is devoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave. "And so, Phil," says George of the shooting gallery after several turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?" Phil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled out of bed. "Yes, guv'ner." "What was it like?" "I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said Phil, considering. "How did you know it was the country?" "On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it," says Phil after further consideration. "What were the swans doing on the grass?" "They was a-eating of it, I expect," says Phil. The master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of breakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being limited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for two and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty grate; but as Phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at once, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast is ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his pipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and sits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit, sitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his plate on his knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened hands, or because it is his natural manner of eating. "The country," says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; "why, I suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?" "I see the marshes once," says Phil, contentedly eating his breakfast. "What marshes?" "THE marshes, commander," returns Phil. "Where are they?" "I don't know where they are," says Phil; "but I see 'em, guv'ner. They was flat. And miste." Governor and commander are interchangeable terms with Phil, expressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to nobody but Mr. George. "I was born in the country, Phil." "Was you indeed, commander?" "Yes. And bred there." Phil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still staring at him. "There's not a bird's note that I don't know," says Mr. George. "Not many an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many a tree that I couldn't climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real country boy, once. My good mother lived in the country." "She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," Phil observes. "Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago," says Mr. George. "But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright as me, and near as broad across the shoulders." "Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires Phil. "No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!" says the trooper. "What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and good-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes upon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?" Phil shakes his head. "Do you want to see it?" "N-no, I don't know as I do, particular," says Phil. "The town's enough for you, eh?" "Why, you see, commander," says Phil, "I ain't acquainted with anythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to novelties." "How old ARE you, Phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his smoking saucer to his lips. "I'm something with a eight in it," says Phil. "It can't be eighty. Nor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres." Mr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil--" when he stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers. "I was just eight," says Phil, "agreeable to the parish calculation, when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery comfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my man?' I says 'Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself, 'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after that, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight in it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is how I always know there's a eight in it." "Ah!" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. "And where's the tinker?" "Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him--in a glass-case, I HAVE heerd," Phil replies mysteriously. "By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?" "Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't much of a beat--round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld, and there--poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till they're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings. But they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. He could sing 'em a good song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot you please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing with a pot but mend it or bile it--never had a note of music in me. Besides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me." "They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd, Phil!" says the trooper with a pleasant smile. "No, guv'ner," returns Phil, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't. I was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and swallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, almost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was almost always--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at the firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!" Resigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied manner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. While drinking it, he says, "It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see you, commander. You remember?" "I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun." "Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall--" "True, Phil--shouldering your way on--" "In a night-cap!" exclaims Phil, excited. "In a night-cap--" "And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more excited. "With a couple of sticks. When--" "When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and saucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was like a glass of something hot, 'What accident have you met with? You have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, you says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and here I am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries Phil, who has started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "If a mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers take aim at me. They can't spoil MY beauty. I'M all right. Come on! If they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me well about the head. I don't mind. If they want a light-weight to be throwed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em throw me. They won't hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of styles, all my life!" With this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied by action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his head, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to clear away the breakfast. Mr. George, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the shoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the gallery into business order. That done, he takes a turn at the dumb-bells, and afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is getting "too fleshy," engages with great gravity in solitary broadsword practice. Meanwhile Phil has fallen to work at his usual table, where he screws and unscrews, and cleans, and files, and whistles into small apertures, and blackens himself more and more, and seems to do and undo everything that can be done and undone about a gun. Master and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage, where they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual company. These steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery, bring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any day in the year but the fifth of November. It consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two bearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched mask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular verses commemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow Old England up alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly closed as the chair is put down. At which point the figure in it gasping, "O Lord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!" adds, "How de do, my dear friend, how de do?" Mr. George then descries, in the procession, the venerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his granddaughter Judy as body-guard. "Mr. George, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, removing his right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has nearly throttled coming along, "how de do? You're surprised to see me, my dear friend." "I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in the city," returns Mr. George. "I am very seldom out," pants Mr. Smallweed. "I haven't been out for many months. It's inconvenient--and it comes expensive. But I longed so much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?" "I am well enough," says Mr. George. "I hope you are the same." "You can't be too well, my dear friend." Mr. Smallweed takes him by both hands. "I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn't keep her away. She longed so much to see you." "Hum! She bears it calmly!" mutters Mr. George. "So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the corner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried me here that I might see my dear friend in his own establishment! This," says Grandfather Smallweed, alluding to the bearer, who has been in danger of strangulation and who withdraws adjusting his windpipe, "is the driver of the cab. He has nothing extra. It is by agreement included in his fare. This person," the other bearer, "we engaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. Which is twopence. Judy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of your own here, my dear friend, or we needn't have employed this person." Grandfather Smallweed refers to Phil with a glance of considerable terror and a half-subdued "O Lord! Oh, dear me!" Nor in his apprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for Phil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap before, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the air of a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off as an ugly old bird of the crow species. "Judy, my child," says Grandfather Smallweed, "give the person his twopence. It's a great deal for what he has done." The person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human fungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of London, ready dressed in an old red jacket, with a "mission" for holding horses and calling coaches, received his twopence with anything but transport, tosses the money into the air, catches it over-handed, and retires. "My dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, "would you be so kind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, and I am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!" His closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by the suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up, chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone. "O Lord!" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my stars! My dear friend, your workman is very strong--and very prompt. O Lord, he is very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. I'm being scorched in the legs," which indeed is testified to the noses of all present by the smell of his worsted stockings. The gentle Judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from the fire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released his overshadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, Mr. Smallweed again says, "Oh, dear me! O Lord!" and looking about and meeting Mr. George's glance, again stretches out both hands. "My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your establishment? It's a delightful place. It's a picture! You never find that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear friend?" adds Grandfather Smallweed, very ill at ease. "No, no. No fear of that." "And your workman. He--Oh, dear me!--he never lets anything off without meaning it, does he, my dear friend?" "He has never hurt anybody but himself," says Mr. George, smiling. "But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal, and he might hurt somebody else," the old gentleman returns. "He mightn't mean it--or he even might. Mr. George, will you order him to leave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?" Obedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires, empty-handed, to the other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed, reassured, falls to rubbing his legs. "And you're doing well, Mr. George?" he says to the trooper, squarely standing faced about towards him with his broadsword in his hand. "You are prospering, please the Powers?" Mr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, "Go on. You have not come to say that, I know." "You are so sprightly, Mr. George," returns the venerable grandfather. "You are such good company." "Ha ha! Go on!" says Mr. George. "My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George. Curse him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "He owes me money, and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head off." Mr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old man, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says quietly, "Now for it!" "Ho!" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle. "Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?" "For a pipe," says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his chair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills it and lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully. This tends to the discomfiture of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so difficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes exasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent vindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the visage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long and leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and watery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he claws, to slide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he becomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed eyes of Judy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something more than the ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and pokes him in divers parts of his body, but particularly in that part which the science of self-defence would call his wind, that in his grievous distress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's rammer. When Judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at the fire. "Aye, aye! Ho, ho! U--u--u--ugh!" chatters Grandfather Smallweed, swallowing his rage. "My dear friend!" (still clawing). "I tell you what," says Mr. George. "If you want to converse with me, you must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can't go about and about. I haven't the art to do it. I am not clever enough. It don't suit me. When you go winding round and round me," says the trooper, putting his pipe between his lips again, "damme, if I don't feel as if I was being smothered!" And he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to assure himself that he is not smothered yet. "If you have come to give me a friendly call," continues Mr. George, "I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see whether there's any property on the premises, look about you; you are welcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!" The blooming Judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives her grandfather one ghostly poke. "You see! It's her opinion too. And why the devil that young woman won't sit down like a Christian," says Mr. George with his eyes musingly fixed on Judy, "I can't comprehend." "She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir," says Grandfather Smallweed. "I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some attention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot" (snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), "but I need attention, my dear friend." "Well!" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old man. "Now then?" "My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a pupil of yours." "Has he?" says Mr. George. "I am sorry to hear it." "Yes, sir." Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. "He is a fine young soldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came forward and paid it all up, honourable." "Did they?" returns Mr. George. "Do you think your friend in the city would like a piece of advice?" "I think he would, my dear friend. From you." "I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. There's no more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is brought to a dead halt." "No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir," remonstrates Grandfather Smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare legs. "Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and he is good for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his chance in a wife, and--oh, do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend would consider the young gentleman good for something yet?" says Grandfather Smallweed, turning up his velvet cap and scratching his ear like a monkey. Mr. George, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his chair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he were not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has taken. "But to pass from one subject to another," resumes Mr. Smallweed. "'To promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. To pass, Mr. George, from the ensign to the captain." "What are you up to, now?" asks Mr. George, pausing with a frown in stroking the recollection of his moustache. "What captain?" "Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon." "Oh! That's it, is it?" says Mr. George with a low whistle as he sees both grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. "You are there! Well? What about it? Come, I won't be smothered any more. Speak!" "My dear friend," returns the old man, "I was applied--Judy, shake me up a little!--I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my opinion still is that the captain is not dead." "Bosh!" observes Mr. George. "What was your remark, my dear friend?" inquires the old man with his hand to his ear. "Bosh!" "Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Mr. George, of my opinion you can judge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the reasons given for asking 'em. Now, what do you think the lawyer making the inquiries wants?" "A job," says Mr. George. "Nothing of the kind!" "Can't be a lawyer, then," says Mr. George, folding his arms with an air of confirmed resolution. "My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see some fragment in Captain Hawdon's writing. He don't want to keep it. He only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his possession." "Well?" "Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning Captain Hawdon and any information that could be given respecting him, he looked it up and came to me--just as you did, my dear friend. WILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I should have missed forming such a friendship if you hadn't come!" "Well, Mr. Smallweed?" says Mr. George again after going through the ceremony with some stiffness. "I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague pestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him," says the old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances of a prayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry hands, "I have half a million of his signatures, I think! But you," breathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as Judy re-adjusts the cap on his skittle-ball of a head, "you, my dear Mr. George, are likely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose. Anything would suit the purpose, written in the hand." "Some writing in that hand," says the trooper, pondering; "may be, I have." "My dearest friend!" "May be, I have not." "Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed, crest-fallen. "But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make a cartridge without knowing why." "Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you why." "Not enough," says the trooper, shaking his head. "I must know more, and approve it." "Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come and see the gentleman?" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a lean old silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. "I told him it was probable I might call upon him between ten and eleven this forenoon, and it's now half after ten. Will you come and see the gentleman, Mr. George?" "Hum!" says he gravely. "I don't mind that. Though why this should concern you so much, I don't know." "Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything to light about him. Didn't he take us all in? Didn't he owe us immense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything about him concern more than me? Not, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, lowering his tone, "that I want YOU to betray anything. Far from it. Are you ready to come, my dear friend?" "Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know." "No, my dear Mr. George; no." "And you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place, wherever it is, without charging for it?" Mr. George inquires, getting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves. This pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs, long and low, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over his paralytic shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he unlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the gallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately takes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it in his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed once, and Mr. Smallweed pokes Judy once. "I am ready," says the trooper, coming back. "Phil, you can carry this old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him." "Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!" says Mr. Smallweed. "He's so very prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?" Phil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles away, tightly hugged by the now speechless Mr. Smallweed, and bolts along the passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old gentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, however, terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and Mr. George takes the vacant place upon the box. Mr. George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time to time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind him, where the grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and looking upward at him out of his other eye with a helpless expression of being jolted in the back.

Morning time at Mr. George's place. His gym shooting gallery is in the neighborhood where all the card sharks and con artists live. He's the only one who gets up early in the morning. He and Phil get up and talk about Phil's dream about seeing swans in the country. This is a surprising dream, because Phil has never actually been to the country. Mr. George has kind of a day-dreamy moment and tells Phil that he actually grew up in the country and knows all sorts of trees and animals. Then they talk about the past. Phil doesn't know how old he is because it's a number higher than he can count. But he does remember being an orphan and becoming a helper to a traveling tinkerer. It was a hard life, maybe one or two steps up from being a straight-out beggar. When his boss died, Phil tried to take over the business, but he was too awkward with people and too hideously ugly to make it work. Phil's face is marked with every kind of thing imaginable - burns from working near a fire, scars from fistfights with his drunken boss, weird bald patches from burns. It's not a good look. He knows it but it doesn't seem to bother him. In any case, one day, when he was still a tinkerer, Mr. George stopped him in the street thinking he was a war veteran. One thing led to another, and here they are. One thing is clear: Phil worships the ground Mr. George walks on. All of a sudden visitors arrive. It's Grandpa Smallweed and Judy. Smallweed is all freaked out at being in the shooting gallery, what with all the weapons around. At least he's self-aware enough to know there's ample reason to want to kill him. There's a lot of Judy trying to prop up and adjust her grandfather. This is something she does with the least amount of niceness possible. She's pretty clearly just waiting for him to finally die. At long last, Smallweed gets to the point. He would like a piece of Captain Hawdon's handwriting, not for himself, but for a famous lawyer who's been asking about it. Mr. George doesn't want to even admit he has any such thing, but he's willing to go talk to the lawyer face to face to figure out what this is all about. Before they go, Smallweed busts out with the news that Richard has been borrowing money from him. Mr. George tries to get him to leave Richard alone, but Smallweed is pretty clever and knows all about Richard's various collaterals: "He has good friends, and he is good for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his chance in a wife, and - " . As they're about to leave, Judy sees Mr. George put something in his breast pocket.

Dr. Flint, a physician in the neighborhood, had married the sister of my mistress, and I was now the property of their little daughter. It was not without murmuring that I prepared for my new home; and what added to my unhappiness, was the fact that my brother William was purchased by the same family. My father, by his nature, as well as by the habit of transacting business as a skillful mechanic, had more of the feelings of a freeman than is common among slaves. My brother was a spirited boy; and being brought up under such influences, he daily detested the name of master and mistress. One day, when his father and his mistress both happened to call him at the same time, he hesitated between the two; being perplexed to know which had the strongest claim upon his obedience. He finally concluded to go to his mistress. When my father reproved him for it, he said, "You both called me, and I didn't know which I ought to go to first." "You are _my_ child," replied our father, "and when I call you, you should come immediately, if you have to pass through fire and water." Poor Willie! He was now to learn his first lesson of obedience to a master. Grandmother tried to cheer us with hopeful words, and they found an echo in the credulous hearts of youth. When we entered our new home we encountered cold looks, cold words, and cold treatment. We were glad when the night came. On my narrow bed I moaned and wept, I felt so desolate and alone. I had been there nearly a year, when a dear little friend of mine was buried. I heard her mother sob, as the clods fell on the coffin of her only child, and I turned away from the grave, feeling thankful that I still had something left to love. I met my grandmother, who said, "Come with me, Linda;" and from her tone I knew that something sad had happened. She led me apart from the people, and then said, "My child, your father is dead." Dead! How could I believe it? He had died so suddenly I had not even heard that he was sick. I went home with my grandmother. My heart rebelled against God, who had taken from me mother, father, mistress, and friend. The good grandmother tried to comfort me. "Who knows the ways of God?" said she. "Perhaps they have been kindly taken from the evil days to come." Years afterwards I often thought of this. She promised to be a mother to her grandchildren, so far as she might be permitted to do so; and strengthened by her love, I returned to my master's. I thought I should be allowed to go to my father's house the next morning; but I was ordered to go for flowers, that my mistress's house might be decorated for an evening party. I spent the day gathering flowers and weaving them into festoons, while the dead body of my father was lying within a mile of me. What cared my owners for that? he was merely a piece of property. Moreover, they thought he had spoiled his children, by teaching them to feel that they were human beings. This was blasphemous doctrine for a slave to teach; presumptuous in him, and dangerous to the masters. The next day I followed his remains to a humble grave beside that of my dear mother. There were those who knew my father's worth, and respected his memory. My home now seemed more dreary than ever. The laugh of the little slave-children sounded harsh and cruel. It was selfish to feel so about the joy of others. My brother moved about with a very grave face. I tried to comfort him, by saying, "Take courage, Willie; brighter days will come by and by." "You don't know any thing about it, Linda," he replied. "We shall have to stay here all our days; we shall never be free." I argued that we were growing older and stronger, and that perhaps we might, before long, be allowed to hire our own time, and then we could earn money to buy our freedom. William declared this was much easier to say than to do; moreover, he did not intend to _buy_ his freedom. We held daily controversies upon this subject. Little attention was paid to the slaves' meals in Dr. Flint's house. If they could catch a bit of food while it was going, well and good. I gave myself no trouble on that score, for on my various errands I passed my grandmother's house, where there was always something to spare for me. I was frequently threatened with punishment if I stopped there; and my grandmother, to avoid detaining me, often stood at the gate with something for my breakfast or dinner. I was indebted to _her_ for all my comforts, spiritual or temporal. It was _her_ labor that supplied my scanty wardrobe. I have a vivid recollection of the linsey-woolsey dress given me every winter by Mrs. Flint. How I hated it! It was one of the badges of slavery. While my grandmother was thus helping to support me from her hard earnings, the three hundred dollars she had lent her mistress were never repaid. When her mistress died, her son-in-law, Dr. Flint, was appointed executor. When grandmother applied to him for payment, he said the estate was insolvent, and the law prohibited payment. It did not, however, prohibit him from retaining the silver candelabra, which had been purchased with that money. I presume they will be handed down in the family, from generation to generation. My grandmother's mistress had always promised her that, at her death, she should be free; and it was said that in her will she made good the promise. But when the estate was settled, Dr. Flint told the faithful old servant that, under existing circumstances, it was necessary she should be sold. On the appointed day, the customary advertisement was posted up, proclaiming that there would be a "public sale of negroes, horses, &c." Dr. Flint called to tell my grandmother that he was unwilling to wound her feelings by putting her up at auction, and that he would prefer to dispose of her at private sale. My grandmother saw through his hypocrisy; she understood very well that he was ashamed of the job. She was a very spirited woman, and if he was base enough to sell her, when her mistress intended she should be free, she was determined the public should know it. She had for a long time supplied many families with crackers and preserves; consequently, "Aunt Marthy," as she was called, was generally known, and every body who knew her respected her intelligence and good character. Her long and faithful service in the family was also well known, and the intention of her mistress to leave her free. When the day of sale came, she took her place among the chattels, and at the first call she sprang upon the auction-block. Many voices called out, "Shame! Shame! Who is going to sell _you_, aunt Marthy? Don't stand there! That is no place for _you_." Without saying a word, she quietly awaited her fate. No one bid for her. At last, a feeble voice said, "Fifty dollars." It came from a maiden lady, seventy years old, the sister of my grandmother's deceased mistress. She had lived forty years under the same roof with my grandmother; she knew how faithfully she had served her owners, and how cruelly she had been defrauded of her rights; and she resolved to protect her. The auctioneer waited for a higher bid; but her wishes were respected; no one bid above her. She could neither read nor write; and when the bill of sale was made out, she signed it with a cross. But what consequence was that, when she had a big heart overflowing with human kindness? She gave the old servant her freedom. At that time, my grandmother was just fifty years old. Laborious years had passed since then; and now my brother and I were slaves to the man who had defrauded her of her money, and tried to defraud her of her freedom. One of my mother's sisters, called Aunt Nancy, was also a slave in his family. She was a kind, good aunt to me; and supplied the place of both housekeeper and waiting maid to her mistress. She was, in fact, at the beginning and end of every thing. Mrs. Flint, like many southern women, was totally deficient in energy. She had not strength to superintend her household affairs; but her nerves were so strong, that she could sit in her easy chair and see a woman whipped, till the blood trickled from every stroke of the lash. She was a member of the church; but partaking of the Lord's supper did not seem to put her in a Christian frame of mind. If dinner was not served at the exact time on that particular Sunday, she would station herself in the kitchen, and wait till it was dished, and then spit in all the kettles and pans that had been used for cooking. She did this to prevent the cook and her children from eking out their meagre fare with the remains of the gravy and other scrapings. The slaves could get nothing to eat except what she chose to give them. Provisions were weighed out by the pound and ounce, three times a day. I can assure you she gave them no chance to eat wheat bread from her flour barrel. She knew how many biscuits a quart of flour would make, and exactly what size they ought to be. Dr. Flint was an epicure. The cook never sent a dinner to his table without fear and trembling; for if there happened to be a dish not to his liking, he would either order her to be whipped, or compel her to eat every mouthful of it in his presence. The poor, hungry creature might not have objected to eating it; but she did object to having her master cram it down her throat till she choked. They had a pet dog, that was a nuisance in the house. The cook was ordered to make some Indian mush for him. He refused to eat, and when his head was held over it, the froth flowed from his mouth into the basin. He died a few minutes after. When Dr. Flint came in, he said the mush had not been well cooked, and that was the reason the animal would not eat it. He sent for the cook, and compelled her to eat it. He thought that the woman's stomach was stronger than the dog's; but her sufferings afterwards proved that he was mistaken. This poor woman endured many cruelties from her master and mistress; sometimes she was locked up, away from her nursing baby, for a whole day and night. When I had been in the family a few weeks, one of the plantation slaves was brought to town, by order of his master. It was near night when he arrived, and Dr. Flint ordered him to be taken to the work house, and tied up to the joist, so that his feet would just escape the ground. In that situation he was to wait till the doctor had taken his tea. I shall never forget that night. Never before, in my life, had I heard hundreds of blows fall; in succession, on a human being. His piteous groans, and his "O, pray don't, massa," rang in my ear for months afterwards. There were many conjectures as to the cause of this terrible punishment. Some said master accused him of stealing corn; others said the slave had quarrelled with his wife, in presence of the overseer, and had accused his master of being the father of her child. They were both black, and the child was very fair. I went into the work house next morning, and saw the cowhide still wet with blood, and the boards all covered with gore. The poor man lived, and continued to quarrel with his wife. A few months afterwards Dr. Flint handed them both over to a slave-trader. The guilty man put their value into his pocket, and had the satisfaction of knowing that they were out of sight and hearing. When the mother was delivered into the trader's hands, she said. "You _promised_ to treat me well." To which he replied, "You have let your tongue run too far; damn you!" She had forgotten that it was a crime for a slave to tell who was the father of her child. From others than the master persecution also comes in such cases. I once saw a young slave girl dying soon after the birth of a child nearly white. In her agony she cried out, "O Lord, come and take me!" Her mistress stood by, and mocked at her like an incarnate fiend. "You suffer, do you?" she exclaimed. "I am glad of it. You deserve it all, and more too." The girl's mother said, "The baby is dead, thank God; and I hope my poor child will soon be in heaven, too." "Heaven!" retorted the mistress. "There is no such place for the like of her and her bastard." The poor mother turned away, sobbing. Her dying daughter called her, feebly, and as she bent over her, I heard her say, "Don't grieve so, mother; God knows all about it; and HE will have mercy upon me." Her sufferings, afterwards, became so intense, that her mistress felt unable to stay; but when she left the room, the scornful smile was still on her lips. Seven children called her mother. The poor black woman had but the one child, whose eyes she saw closing in death, while she thanked God for taking her away from the greater bitterness of life.

The narrator and her brother William move in with their new family, headed by local physician Dr. Flint. They are not immediately made welcome. We finally get the narrator's name, courtesy of her grandmother. It's Linda. More sadness: Linda's dad dies. You'd think she might get the day off, but instead Mrs. Flint orders her to pick flowers to decorate the house. Remember Grandma's mistress, who borrowed all that money? She dies with the debt still outstanding. Grandma goes to the guy who inherited the mistress's estate to ask for the money back, which goes about as well as you'd expect: he basically laughs in her face.

LUCULLUS' house FLAMINIUS waiting to speak with LUCULLUS. Enter SERVANT to him SERVANT. I have told my lord of you; he is coming down to you. FLAMINIUS. I thank you, sir. Enter LUCULLUS SERVANT. Here's my lord. LUCULLUS. [Aside] One of Lord Timon's men? A gift, I warrant. Why, this hits right; I dreamt of a silver basin and ewer to-night- Flaminius, honest Flaminius, you are very respectively welcome, sir. Fill me some wine. [Exit SERVANT] And how does that honourable, complete, freehearted gentleman of Athens, thy very bountiful good lord and master? FLAMINIUS. His health is well, sir. LUCULLUS. I am right glad that his health is well, sir. And what hast thou there under thy cloak, pretty Flaminius? FLAMINIUS. Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir, which in my lord's behalf I come to entreat your honour to supply; who, having great and instant occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent to your lordship to furnish him, nothing doubting your present assistance therein. LUCULLIUS. La, la, la, la! 'Nothing doubting' says he? Alas, good lord! a noble gentleman 'tis, if he would not keep so good a house. Many a time and often I ha' din'd with him and told him on't; and come again to supper to him of purpose to have him spend less; and yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning by my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty is his. I ha' told him on't, but I could ne'er get him from't. Re-enter SERVANT, with wine SERVANT. Please your lordship, here is the wine. LUCULLUS. Flaminius, I have noted thee always wise. Here's to thee. FLAMINIUS. Your lordship speaks your pleasure. LUCULLUS. I have observed thee always for a towardly prompt spirit, give thee thy due, and one that knows what belongs to reason, and canst use the time well, if the time use thee well. Good parts in thee. [To SERVANT] Get you gone, sirrah. [Exit SERVANT] Draw nearer, honest Flaminius. Thy lord's a bountiful gentleman; but thou art wise, and thou know'st well enough, although thou com'st to me, that this is no time to lend money, especially upon bare friendship without security. Here's three solidares for thee. Good boy, wink at me, and say thou saw'st me not. Fare thee well. FLAMINIUS. Is't possible the world should so much differ, And we alive that liv'd? Fly, damned baseness, To him that worships thee. [Throwing the money back] LUCULLUS. Ha! Now I see thou art a fool, and fit for thy master. Exit FLAMINIUS. May these add to the number that may scald thee! Let molten coin be thy damnation, Thou disease of a friend and not himself! Has friendship such a faint and milky heart It turns in less than two nights? O you gods, I feel my master's passion! This slave Unto his honour has my lord's meat in him; Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment When he is turn'd to poison? O, may diseases only work upon't! And when he's sick to death, let not that part of nature Which my lord paid for be of any power To expel sickness, but prolong his hour! Exit

One of Timon's servants, Flaminius, shows up at Lucullus's house with an empty box. Lucullus sees the box and thinks, hey, it's present time. But when Flaminius explains that the box is empty, and Timon needs a favor from him this time, Lucullus changes his tune. People shouldn't really be that extravagant in their gifts, Lucullus says: it's not normal. Timon should put the brakes on once in a while. Flaminius walks away empty-handed, but not before he notes that Lucullus is still full of Timon's meat since he was happy with Timon's generosity at the banquet only two nights ago.

SCENE VI. Near the camp of COMINIUS Enter COMINIUS, as it were in retire, with soldiers COMINIUS. Breathe you, my friends. Well fought; we are come off Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands Nor cowardly in retire. Believe me, sirs, We shall be charg'd again. Whiles we have struck, By interims and conveying gusts we have heard The charges of our friends. The Roman gods, Lead their successes as we wish our own, That both our powers, with smiling fronts encount'ring, May give you thankful sacrifice! Enter A MESSENGER Thy news? MESSENGER. The citizens of Corioli have issued And given to Lartius and to Marcius battle; I saw our party to their trenches driven, And then I came away. COMINIUS. Though thou speak'st truth, Methinks thou speak'st not well. How long is't since? MESSENGER. Above an hour, my lord. COMINIUS. 'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums. How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour, And bring thy news so late? MESSENGER. Spies of the Volsces Held me in chase, that I was forc'd to wheel Three or four miles about; else had I, sir, Half an hour since brought my report. Enter MARCIUS COMINIUS. Who's yonder That does appear as he were flay'd? O gods! He has the stamp of Marcius, and I have Before-time seen him thus. MARCIUS. Come I too late? COMINIUS. The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabor More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue From every meaner man. MARCIUS. Come I too late? COMINIUS. Ay, if you come not in the blood of others, But mantled in your own. MARCIUS. O! let me clip ye In arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart As merry as when our nuptial day was done, And tapers burn'd to bedward. COMINIUS. Flower of warriors, How is't with Titus Lartius? MARCIUS. As with a man busied about decrees: Condemning some to death and some to exile; Ransoming him or pitying, threat'ning th' other; Holding Corioli in the name of Rome Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash, To let him slip at will. COMINIUS. Where is that slave Which told me they had beat you to your trenches? Where is he? Call him hither. MARCIUS. Let him alone; He did inform the truth. But for our gentlemen, The common file- a plague! tribunes for them! The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge From rascals worse than they. COMINIUS. But how prevail'd you? MARCIUS. Will the time serve to tell? I do not think. Where is the enemy? Are you lords o' th' field? If not, why cease you till you are so? COMINIUS. Marcius, We have at disadvantage fought, and did Retire to win our purpose. MARCIUS. How lies their battle? Know you on which side They have plac'd their men of trust? COMINIUS. As I guess, Marcius, Their bands i' th' vaward are the Antiates, Of their best trust; o'er them Aufidius, Their very heart of hope. MARCIUS. I do beseech you, By all the battles wherein we have fought, By th' blood we have shed together, by th' vows We have made to endure friends, that you directly Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates; And that you not delay the present, but, Filling the air with swords advanc'd and darts, We prove this very hour. COMINIUS. Though I could wish You were conducted to a gentle bath And balms applied to you, yet dare I never Deny your asking: take your choice of those That best can aid your action. MARCIUS. Those are they That most are willing. If any such be here- As it were sin to doubt- that love this painting Wherein you see me smear'd; if any fear Lesser his person than an ill report; If any think brave death outweighs bad life And that his country's dearer than himself; Let him alone, or so many so minded, Wave thus to express his disposition, And follow Marcius. [They all shout and wave their swords, take him up in their arms and cast up their caps] O, me alone! Make you a sword of me? If these shows be not outward, which of you But is four Volsces? None of you but is Able to bear against the great Aufidius A shield as hard as his. A certain number, Though thanks to all, must I select from all; the rest Shall bear the business in some other fight, As cause will be obey'd. Please you to march; And four shall quickly draw out my command, Which men are best inclin'd. COMINIUS. March on, my fellows; Make good this ostentation, and you shall Divide in all with us. Exeunt

This scene opens with Cominius and his soldiers taking a break after they have retreated. Since they have heard nothing from Marcius and Lartius, Cominius prays for their success. A messenger then enters bearing the old news that the Romans have been forced to retreat back to their trenches. When Cominius learns that it has taken the messenger more than an hour to arrive, he hopes that the situation in Corioli has taken a turn for the better. Marcius enters; he is bleeding so profusely from his wounds that for a moment Cominius cannot recognize him. He then informs Cominius of their victory. When Cominius asks him for the details, Marcius impatiently tells him that the time is not right for telling stories and questions Cominius about why they are not fighting. Marcius is disgusted when Cominius tells how he has been forced to retreat. Marcius then inquires about Aufidius and learns that he is head of the army. Marcius pleads for permission to attack Aufidius without any further delay. Marcius orders four offices to select the most valiant soldiers. He leads them into the battlefield with the cry, O me alone! Make you a sword of me!

CHAPTER XXIX SHE had walked up the railroad track with Hugh, this Sunday afternoon. She saw Erik Valborg coming, in an ancient highwater suit, tramping sullenly and alone, striking at the rails with a stick. For a second she unreasoningly wanted to avoid him, but she kept on, and she serenely talked about God, whose voice, Hugh asserted, made the humming in the telegraph wires. Erik stared, straightened. They greeted each other with "Hello." "Hugh, say how-do-you-do to Mr. Valborg." "Oh, dear me, he's got a button unbuttoned," worried Erik, kneeling. Carol frowned, then noted the strength with which he swung the baby in the air. "May I walk along a piece with you?" "I'm tired. Let's rest on those ties. Then I must be trotting back." They sat on a heap of discarded railroad ties, oak logs spotted with cinnamon-colored dry-rot and marked with metallic brown streaks where iron plates had rested. Hugh learned that the pile was the hiding-place of Injuns; he went gunning for them while the elders talked of uninteresting things. The telegraph wires thrummed, thrummed, thrummed above them; the rails were glaring hard lines; the goldenrod smelled dusty. Across the track was a pasture of dwarf clover and sparse lawn cut by earthy cow-paths; beyond its placid narrow green, the rough immensity of new stubble, jagged with wheat-stacks like huge pineapples. Erik talked of books; flamed like a recent convert to any faith. He exhibited as many titles and authors as possible, halting only to appeal, "Have you read his last book? Don't you think he's a terribly strong writer?" She was dizzy. But when he insisted, "You've been a librarian; tell me; do I read too much fiction?" she advised him loftily, rather discursively. He had, she indicated, never studied. He had skipped from one emotion to another. Especially--she hesitated, then flung it at him--he must not guess at pronunciations; he must endure the nuisance of stopping to reach for the dictionary. "I'm talking like a cranky teacher," she sighed. "No! And I will study! Read the damned dictionary right through." He crossed his legs and bent over, clutching his ankle with both hands. "I know what you mean. I've been rushing from picture to picture, like a kid let loose in an art gallery for the first time. You see, it's so awful recent that I've found there was a world--well, a world where beautiful things counted. I was on the farm till I was nineteen. Dad is a good farmer, but nothing else. Do you know why he first sent me off to learn tailoring? I wanted to study drawing, and he had a cousin that'd made a lot of money tailoring out in Dakota, and he said tailoring was a lot like drawing, so he sent me down to a punk hole called Curlew, to work in a tailor shop. Up to that time I'd only had three months' schooling a year--walked to school two miles, through snow up to my knees--and Dad never would stand for my having a single book except schoolbooks. "I never read a novel till I got 'Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall' out of the library at Curlew. I thought it was the loveliest thing in the world! Next I read 'Barriers Burned Away' and then Pope's translation of Homer. Some combination, all right! When I went to Minneapolis, just two years ago, I guess I'd read pretty much everything in that Curlew library, but I'd never heard of Rossetti or John Sargent or Balzac or Brahms. But----Yump, I'll study. Look here! Shall I get out of this tailoring, this pressing and repairing?" "I don't see why a surgeon should spend very much time cobbling shoes." "But what if I find I can't really draw and design? After fussing around in New York or Chicago, I'd feel like a fool if I had to go back to work in a gents' furnishings store!" "Please say 'haberdashery.'" "Haberdashery? All right. I'll remember." He shrugged and spread his fingers wide. She was humbled by his humility; she put away in her mind, to take out and worry over later, a speculation as to whether it was not she who was naive. She urged, "What if you do have to go back? Most of us do! We can't all be artists--myself, for instance. We have to darn socks, and yet we're not content to think of nothing but socks and darning-cotton. I'd demand all I could get--whether I finally settled down to designing frocks or building temples or pressing pants. What if you do drop back? You'll have had the adventure. Don't be too meek toward life! Go! You're young, you're unmarried. Try everything! Don't listen to Nat Hicks and Sam Clark and be a 'steady young man'--in order to help them make money. You're still a blessed innocent. Go and play till the Good People capture you!" "But I don't just want to play. I want to make something beautiful. God! And I don't know enough. Do you get it? Do you understand? Nobody else ever has! Do you understand?" "Yes." "And so----But here's what bothers me: I like fabrics; dinky things like that; little drawings and elegant words. But look over there at those fields. Big! New! Don't it seem kind of a shame to leave this and go back to the East and Europe, and do what all those people have been doing so long? Being careful about words, when there's millions of bushels off wheat here! Reading this fellow Pater, when I've helped Dad to clear fields!" "It's good to clear fields. But it's not for you. It's one of our favorite American myths that broad plains necessarily make broad minds, and high mountains make high purpose. I thought that myself, when I first came to the prairie. 'Big--new.' Oh, I don't want to deny the prairie future. It will be magnificent. But equally I'm hanged if I want to be bullied by it, go to war on behalf of Main Street, be bullied and BULLIED by the faith that the future is already here in the present, and that all of us must stay and worship wheat-stacks and insist that this is 'God's Country'--and never, of course, do anything original or gay-colored that would help to make that future! Anyway, you don't belong here. Sam Clark and Nat Hicks, that's what our big newness has produced. Go! Before it's too late, as it has been for--for some of us. Young man, go East and grow up with the revolution! Then perhaps you may come back and tell Sam and Nat and me what to do with the land we've been clearing--if we'll listen--if we don't lynch you first!" He looked at her reverently. She could hear him saying, "I've always wanted to know a woman who would talk to me like that." Her hearing was faulty. He was saying nothing of the sort. He was saying: "Why aren't you happy with your husband?" "I--you----" "He doesn't care for the 'blessed innocent' part of you, does he!" "Erik, you mustn't----" "First you tell me to go and be free, and then you say that I 'mustn't'!" "I know. But you mustn't----You must be more impersonal!" He glowered at her like a downy young owl. She wasn't sure but she thought that he muttered, "I'm damned if I will." She considered with wholesome fear the perils of meddling with other people's destinies, and she said timidly, "Hadn't we better start back now?" He mused, "You're younger than I am. Your lips are for songs about rivers in the morning and lakes at twilight. I don't see how anybody could ever hurt you. . . . Yes. We better go." He trudged beside her, his eyes averted. Hugh experimentally took his thumb. He looked down at the baby seriously. He burst out, "All right. I'll do it. I'll stay here one year. Save. Not spend so much money on clothes. And then I'll go East, to art-school. Work on the side-tailor shop, dressmaker's. I'll learn what I'm good for: designing clothes, stage-settings, illustrating, or selling collars to fat men. All settled." He peered at her, unsmiling. "Can you stand it here in town for a year?" "With you to look at?" "Please! I mean: Don't the people here think you're an odd bird? (They do me, I assure you!)" "I don't know. I never notice much. Oh, they do kid me about not being in the army--especially the old warhorses, the old men that aren't going themselves. And this Bogart boy. And Mr. Hicks's son--he's a horrible brat. But probably he's licensed to say what he thinks about his father's hired man!" "He's beastly!" They were in town. They passed Aunt Bessie's house. Aunt Bessie and Mrs. Bogart were at the window, and Carol saw that they were staring so intently that they answered her wave only with the stiffly raised hands of automatons. In the next block Mrs. Dr. Westlake was gaping from her porch. Carol said with an embarrassed quaver: "I want to run in and see Mrs. Westlake. I'll say good-by here." She avoided his eyes. Mrs. Westlake was affable. Carol felt that she was expected to explain; and while she was mentally asserting that she'd be hanged if she'd explain, she was explaining: "Hugh captured that Valborg boy up the track. They became such good friends. And I talked to him for a while. I'd heard he was eccentric, but really, I found him quite intelligent. Crude, but he reads--reads almost the way Dr. Westlake does." "That's fine. Why does he stick here in town? What's this I hear about his being interested in Myrtle Cass?" "I don't know. Is he? I'm sure he isn't! He said he was quite lonely! Besides, Myrtle is a babe in arms!" "Twenty-one if she's a day!" "Well----Is the doctor going to do any hunting this fall?" II The need of explaining Erik dragged her back into doubting. For all his ardent reading, and his ardent life, was he anything but a small-town youth bred on an illiberal farm and in cheap tailor shops? He had rough hands. She had been attracted only by hands that were fine and suave, like those of her father. Delicate hands and resolute purpose. But this boy--powerful seamed hands and flabby will. "It's not appealing weakness like his, but sane strength that will animate the Gopher Prairies. Only----Does that mean anything? Or am I echoing Vida? The world has always let 'strong' statesmen and soldiers--the men with strong voices--take control, and what have the thundering boobies done? What is 'strength'? "This classifying of people! I suppose tailors differ as much as burglars or kings. "Erik frightened me when he turned on me. Of course he didn't mean anything, but I mustn't let him be so personal. "Amazing impertinence! "But he didn't mean to be. "His hands are FIRM. I wonder if sculptors don't have thick hands, too? "Of course if there really is anything I can do to HELP the boy---- "Though I despise these people who interfere. He must be independent." III She wasn't altogether pleased, the week after, when Erik was independent and, without asking for her inspiration, planned the tennis tournament. It proved that he had learned to play in Minneapolis; that, next to Juanita Haydock, he had the best serve in town. Tennis was well spoken of in Gopher Prairie and almost never played. There were three courts: one belonging to Harry Haydock, one to the cottages at the lake, and one, a rough field on the outskirts, laid out by a defunct tennis association. Erik had been seen in flannels and an imitation panama hat, playing on the abandoned court with Willis Woodford, the clerk in Stowbody's bank. Suddenly he was going about proposing the reorganization of the tennis association, and writing names in a fifteen-cent note-book bought for the purpose at Dyer's. When he came to Carol he was so excited over being an organizer that he did not stop to talk of himself and Aubrey Beardsley for more than ten minutes. He begged, "Will you get some of the folks to come in?" and she nodded agreeably. He proposed an informal exhibition match to advertise the association; he suggested that Carol and himself, the Haydocks, the Woodfords, and the Dillons play doubles, and that the association be formed from the gathered enthusiasts. He had asked Harry Haydock to be tentative president. Harry, he reported, had promised, "All right. You bet. But you go ahead and arrange things, and I'll O.K. 'em." Erik planned that the match should be held Saturday afternoon, on the old public court at the edge of town. He was happy in being, for the first time, part of Gopher Prairie. Through the week Carol heard how select an attendance there was to be. Kennicott growled that he didn't care to go. Had he any objections to her playing with Erik? No; sure not; she needed the exercise. Carol went to the match early. The court was in a meadow out on the New Antonia road. Only Erik was there. He was dashing about with a rake, trying to make the court somewhat less like a plowed field. He admitted that he had stage fright at the thought of the coming horde. Willis and Mrs. Woodford arrived, Willis in home-made knickers and black sneakers through at the toe; then Dr. and Mrs. Harvey Dillon, people as harmless and grateful as the Woodfords. Carol was embarrassed and excessively agreeable, like the bishop's lady trying not to feel out of place at a Baptist bazaar. They waited. The match was scheduled for three. As spectators there assembled one youthful grocery clerk, stopping his Ford delivery wagon to stare from the seat, and one solemn small boy, tugging a smaller sister who had a careless nose. "I wonder where the Haydocks are? They ought to show up, at least," said Erik. Carol smiled confidently at him, and peered down the empty road toward town. Only heat-waves and dust and dusty weeds. At half-past three no one had come, and the grocery boy reluctantly got out, cranked his Ford, glared at them in a disillusioned manner, and rattled away. The small boy and his sister ate grass and sighed. The players pretended to be exhilarated by practising service, but they startled at each dust-cloud from a motor car. None of the cars turned into the meadow-none till a quarter to four, when Kennicott drove in. Carol's heart swelled. "How loyal he is! Depend on him! He'd come, if nobody else did. Even though he doesn't care for the game. The old darling!" Kennicott did not alight. He called out, "Carrie! Harry Haydock 'phoned me that they've decided to hold the tennis matches, or whatever you call 'em, down at the cottages at the lake, instead of here. The bunch are down there now: Haydocks and Dyers and Clarks and everybody. Harry wanted to know if I'd bring you down. I guess I can take the time--come right back after supper." Before Carol could sum it all up, Erik stammered, "Why, Haydock didn't say anything to me about the change. Of course he's the president, but----" Kennicott looked at him heavily, and grunted, "I don't know a thing about it. . . . Coming, Carrie?" "I am not! The match was to be here, and it will be here! You can tell Harry Haydock that he's beastly rude!" She rallied the five who had been left out, who would always be left out. "Come on! We'll toss to see which four of us play the Only and Original First Annual Tennis Tournament of Forest Hills, Del Monte, and Gopher Prairie!" "Don't know as I blame you," said Kennicott. "Well have supper at home then?" He drove off. She hated him for his composure. He had ruined her defiance. She felt much less like Susan B. Anthony as she turned to her huddled followers. Mrs. Dillon and Willis Woodford lost the toss. The others played out the game, slowly, painfully, stumbling on the rough earth, muffing the easiest shots, watched only by the small boy and his sniveling sister. Beyond the court stretched the eternal stubble-fields. The four marionettes, awkwardly going through exercises, insignificant in the hot sweep of contemptuous land, were not heroic; their voices did not ring out in the score, but sounded apologetic; and when the game was over they glanced about as though they were waiting to be laughed at. They walked home. Carol took Erik's arm. Through her thin linen sleeve she could feel the crumply warmth of his familiar brown jersey coat. She observed that there were purple and red gold threads interwoven with the brown. She remembered the first time she had seen it. Their talk was nothing but improvisations on the theme: "I never did like this Haydock. He just considers his own convenience." Ahead of them, the Dillons and Woodfords spoke of the weather and B. J. Gougerling's new bungalow. No one referred to their tennis tournament. At her gate Carol shook hands firmly with Erik and smiled at him. Next morning, Sunday morning, when Carol was on the porch, the Haydocks drove up. "We didn't mean to be rude to you, dearie!" implored Juanita. "I wouldn't have you think that for anything. We planned that Will and you should come down and have supper at our cottage." "No. I'm sure you didn't mean to be." Carol was super-neighborly. "But I do think you ought to apologize to poor Erik Valborg. He was terribly hurt." "Oh. Valborg. I don't care so much what he thinks," objected Harry. "He's nothing but a conceited buttinsky. Juanita and I kind of figured he was trying to run this tennis thing too darn much anyway." "But you asked him to make arrangements." "I know, but I don't like him. Good Lord, you couldn't hurt his feelings! He dresses up like a chorus man--and, by golly, he looks like one!--but he's nothing but a Swede farm boy, and these foreigners, they all got hides like a covey of rhinoceroses ." "But he IS hurt!" "Well----I don't suppose I ought to have gone off half-cocked, and not jollied him along. I'll give him a cigar. He'll----" Juanita had been licking her lips and staring at Carol. She interrupted her husband, "Yes, I do think Harry ought to fix it up with him. You LIKE him, DON'T you, Carol??" Over and through Carol ran a frightened cautiousness. "Like him? I haven't an i-dea. He seems to be a very decent young man. I just felt that when he'd worked so hard on the plans for the match, it was a shame not to be nice to him." "Maybe there's something to that," mumbled Harry; then, at sight of Kennicott coming round the corner tugging the red garden hose by its brass nozzle, he roared in relief, "What d' you think you're trying to do, doc?" While Kennicott explained in detail all that he thought he was trying to do, while he rubbed his chin and gravely stated, "Struck me the grass was looking kind of brown in patches--didn't know but what I'd give it a sprinkling," and while Harry agreed that this was an excellent idea, Juanita made friendly noises and, behind the gilt screen of an affectionate smile, watched Carol's face. IV She wanted to see Erik. She wanted some one to play with! There wasn't even so dignified and sound an excuse as having Kennicott's trousers pressed; when she inspected them, all three pairs looked discouragingly neat. She probably would not have ventured on it had she not spied Nat Hicks in the pool-parlor, being witty over bottle-pool. Erik was alone! She fluttered toward the tailor shop, dashed into its slovenly heat with the comic fastidiousness of a humming bird dipping into a dry tiger-lily. It was after she had entered that she found an excuse. Erik was in the back room, cross-legged on a long table, sewing a vest. But he looked as though he were doing this eccentric thing to amuse himself. "Hello. I wonder if you couldn't plan a sports-suit for me?" she said breathlessly. He stared at her; he protested, "No, I won't! God! I'm not going to be a tailor with you!" "Why, Erik!" she said, like a mildly shocked mother. It occurred to her that she did not need a suit, and that the order might have been hard to explain to Kennicott. He swung down from the table. "I want to show you something." He rummaged in the roll-top desk on which Nat Hicks kept bills, buttons, calendars, buckles, thread-channeled wax, shotgun shells, samples of brocade for "fancy vests," fishing-reels, pornographic post-cards, shreds of buckram lining. He pulled out a blurred sheet of Bristol board and anxiously gave it to her. It was a sketch for a frock. It was not well drawn; it was too finicking; the pillars in the background were grotesquely squat. But the frock had an original back, very low, with a central triangular section from the waist to a string of jet beads at the neck. "It's stunning. But how it would shock Mrs. Clark!" "Yes, wouldn't it!" "You must let yourself go more when you're drawing." "Don't know if I can. I've started kind of late. But listen! What do you think I've done this two weeks? I've read almost clear through a Latin grammar, and about twenty pages of Caesar." "Splendid! You are lucky. You haven't a teacher to make you artificial." "You're my teacher!" There was a dangerous edge of personality to his voice. She was offended and agitated. She turned her shoulder on him, stared through the back window, studying this typical center of a typical Main Street block, a vista hidden from casual strollers. The backs of the chief establishments in town surrounded a quadrangle neglected, dirty, and incomparably dismal. From the front, Howland & Gould's grocery was smug enough, but attached to the rear was a lean-to of storm streaked pine lumber with a sanded tar roof--a staggering doubtful shed behind which was a heap of ashes, splintered packing-boxes, shreds of excelsior, crumpled straw-board, broken olive-bottles, rotten fruit, and utterly disintegrated vegetables: orange carrots turning black, and potatoes with ulcers. The rear of the Bon Ton Store was grim with blistered black-painted iron shutters, under them a pile of once glossy red shirt-boxes, now a pulp from recent rain. As seen from Main Street, Oleson & McGuire's Meat Market had a sanitary and virtuous expression with its new tile counter, fresh sawdust on the floor, and a hanging veal cut in rosettes. But she now viewed a back room with a homemade refrigerator of yellow smeared with black grease. A man in an apron spotted with dry blood was hoisting out a hard slab of meat. Behind Billy's Lunch, the cook, in an apron which must long ago have been white, smoked a pipe and spat at the pest of sticky flies. In the center of the block, by itself, was the stable for the three horses of the drayman, and beside it a pile of manure. The rear of Ezra Stowbody's bank was whitewashed, and back of it was a concrete walk and a three-foot square of grass, but the window was barred, and behind the bars she saw Willis Woodford cramped over figures in pompous books. He raised his head, jerkily rubbed his eyes, and went back to the eternity of figures. The backs of the other shops were an impressionistic picture of dirty grays, drained browns, writhing heaps of refuse. "Mine is a back-yard romance--with a journeyman tailor!" She was saved from self-pity as she began to think through Erik's mind. She turned to him with an indignant, "It's disgusting that this is all you have to look at." He considered it. "Outside there? I don't notice much. I'm learning to look inside. Not awful easy!" "Yes. . . . I must be hurrying." As she walked home--without hurrying--she remembered her father saying to a serious ten-year-old Carol, "Lady, only a fool thinks he's superior to beautiful bindings, but only a double-distilled fool reads nothing but bindings." She was startled by the return of her father, startled by a sudden conviction that in this flaxen boy she had found the gray reticent judge who was divine love, perfect under-standing. She debated it, furiously denied it, reaffirmed it, ridiculed it. Of one thing she was unhappily certain: there was nothing of the beloved father image in Will Kennicott. V She wondered why she sang so often, and why she found so many pleasant things--lamplight seen though trees on a cool evening, sunshine on brown wood, morning sparrows, black sloping roofs turned to plates of silver by moonlight. Pleasant things, small friendly things, and pleasant places--a field of goldenrod, a pasture by the creek--and suddenly a wealth of pleasant people. Vida was lenient to Carol at the surgical-dressing class; Mrs. Dave Dyer flattered her with questions about her health, baby, cook, and opinions on the war. Mrs. Dyer seemed not to share the town's prejudice against Erik. "He's a nice-looking fellow; we must have him go on one of our picnics some time." Unexpectedly, Dave Dyer also liked him. The tight-fisted little farceur had a confused reverence for anything that seemed to him refined or clever. He answered Harry Haydock's sneers, "That's all right now! Elizabeth may doll himself up too much, but he's smart, and don't you forget it! I was asking round trying to find out where this Ukraine is, and darn if he didn't tell me. What's the matter with his talking so polite? Hell's bells, Harry, no harm in being polite. There's some regular he-men that are just as polite as women, prett' near." Carol found herself going about rejoicing, "How neighborly the town is!" She drew up with a dismayed "Am I falling in love with this boy? That's ridiculous! I'm merely interested in him. I like to think of helping him to succeed." But as she dusted the living-room, mended a collar-band, bathed Hugh, she was picturing herself and a young artistan Apollo nameless and evasive--building a house in the Berkshires or in Virginia; exuberantly buying a chair with his first check; reading poetry together, and frequently being earnest over valuable statistics about labor; tumbling out of bed early for a Sunday walk, and chattering (where Kennicott would have yawned) over bread and butter by a lake. Hugh was in her pictures, and he adored the young artist, who made castles of chairs and rugs for him. Beyond these playtimes she saw the "things I could do for Erik"--and she admitted that Erik did partly make up the image of her altogether perfect artist. In panic she insisted on being attentive to Kennicott, when he wanted to be left alone to read the newspaper. VI She needed new clothes. Kennicott had promised, "We'll have a good trip down to the Cities in the fall, and take plenty of time for it, and you can get your new glad-rags then." But as she examined her wardrobe she flung her ancient black velvet frock on the floor and raged, "They're disgraceful. Everything I have is falling to pieces." There was a new dressmaker and milliner, a Mrs. Swiftwaite. It was said that she was not altogether an elevating influence in the way she glanced at men; that she would as soon take away a legally appropriated husband as not; that if there WAS any Mr. Swiftwaite, "it certainly was strange that nobody seemed to know anything about him!" But she had made for Rita Gould an organdy frock and hat to match universally admitted to be "too cunning for words," and the matrons went cautiously, with darting eyes and excessive politeness, to the rooms which Mrs. Swiftwaite had taken in the old Luke Dawson house, on Floral Avenue. With none of the spiritual preparation which normally precedes the buying of new clothes in Gopher Prairie, Carol marched into Mrs. Swiftwaite's, and demanded, "I want to see a hat, and possibly a blouse." In the dingy old front parlor which she had tried to make smart with a pier glass, covers from fashion magazines, anemic French prints, Mrs. Swiftwaite moved smoothly among the dress-dummies and hat-rests, spoke smoothly as she took up a small black and red turban. "I am sure the lady will find this extremely attractive." "It's dreadfully tabby and small-towny," thought Carol, while she soothed, "I don't believe it quite goes with me." "It's the choicest thing I have, and I'm sure you'll find it suits you beautifully. It has a great deal of chic. Please try it on," said Mrs. Swiftwaite, more smoothly than ever. Carol studied the woman. She was as imitative as a glass diamond. She was the more rustic in her effort to appear urban. She wore a severe high-collared blouse with a row of small black buttons, which was becoming to her low-breasted slim neatness, but her skirt was hysterically checkered, her cheeks were too highly rouged, her lips too sharply penciled. She was magnificently a specimen of the illiterate divorcee of forty made up to look thirty, clever, and alluring. While she was trying on the hat Carol felt very condescending. She took it off, shook her head, explained with the kind smile for inferiors, "I'm afraid it won't do, though it's unusually nice for so small a town as this." "But it's really absolutely New-Yorkish." "Well, it----" "You see, I know my New York styles. I lived in New York for years, besides almost a year in Akron!" "You did?" Carol was polite, and edged away, and went home unhappily. She was wondering whether her own airs were as laughable as Mrs. Swiftwaite's. She put on the eye-glasses which Kennicott had recently given to her for reading, and looked over a grocery bill. She went hastily up to her room, to her mirror. She was in a mood of self-depreciation. Accurately or not, this was the picture she saw in the mirror: Neat rimless eye-glasses. Black hair clumsily tucked under a mauve straw hat which would have suited a spinster. Cheeks clear, bloodless. Thin nose. Gentle mouth and chin. A modest voile blouse with an edging of lace at the neck. A virginal sweetness and timorousness--no flare of gaiety, no suggestion of cities, music, quick laughter. "I have become a small-town woman. Absolute. Typical. Modest and moral and safe. Protected from life. GENTEEL! The Village Virus--the village virtuousness. My hair--just scrambled together. What can Erik see in that wedded spinster there? He does like me! Because I'm the only woman who's decent to him! How long before he'll wake up to me? . . . I've waked up to myself. . . . Am I as old as--as old as I am? "Not really old. Become careless. Let myself look tabby. "I want to chuck every stitch I own. Black hair and pale cheeks--they'd go with a Spanish dancer's costume--rose behind my ear, scarlet mantilla over one shoulder, the other bare." She seized the rouge sponge, daubed her cheeks, scratched at her lips with the vermilion pencil until they stung, tore open her collar. She posed with her thin arms in the attitude of the fandango. She dropped them sharply. She shook her head. "My heart doesn't dance," she said. She flushed as she fastened her blouse. "At least I'm much more graceful than Fern Mullins. Heavens! When I came here from the Cities, girls imitated me. Now I'm trying to imitate a city girl."

While on a walk with Hugh by the railroad tracks Carol encounters Erik and they sit down to talk. He tells her of his unstructured but vigilant reading and is happy when she encourages him to pursue his dream to study drawing. He wants to create something beautiful and, reminded of herself, Carol tells him that she understands. He boldly asks her why she isn't happy with her husband. She is shocked by his effrontery. He promises to behave. On the way into town Carol notices that the matrons are staring as she walks with Erik. Erik organizes a tennis tournament to promote a new tennis association on the abandoned court just outside of town. Carol agrees to help and Harry Haydock agrees to be president of the association if Erik will put it all together. On the day of the match, however, Carol, Erik and a few other unpopular members of the town are stood up when the Haydocks hold their own tournament at their lake cottage. When Carol next sees the Haydocks she insists that they apologize to Erik and Juanita senses Carol's affection for the young man. Later that week, Carol visits Erik in the tailor shop where he shows her a rude sketch of an original dress design. On the way home she is surprised to find that Erik has evoked memories of her father, something Will has never inspired. In the following weeks she fantasizes about a life lived with a young artist whom she admits to herself resembles Erik. Desperate for new clothes, Carol visits the controversial milliner Mrs. Swiftwaite and is disappointed to find that the notorious woman is merely a 40 something divorc with the bad taste to pretend to be thirty. Carol hurries home and, evaluating herself in the mirror, and agonizes over her spinsterish, unstylish appearance. She realizes that she used to be the fashionable city girl but now she merely imitates them

The next morning at breakfast Jotham Powell was between them, and Ethan tried to hide his joy under an air of exaggerated indifference, lounging back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, growling at the weather, and not so much as offering to help Mattie when she rose to clear away the dishes. He did not know why he was so irrationally happy, for nothing was changed in his life or hers. He had not even touched the tip of her fingers or looked her full in the eyes. But their evening together had given him a vision of what life at her side might be, and he was glad now that he had done nothing to trouble the sweetness of the picture. He had a fancy that she knew what had restrained him... There was a last load of lumber to be hauled to the village, and Jotham Powell--who did not work regularly for Ethan in winter--had "come round" to help with the job. But a wet snow, melting to sleet, had fallen in the night and turned the roads to glass. There was more wet in the air and it seemed likely to both men that the weather would "milden" toward afternoon and make the going safer. Ethan therefore proposed to his assistant that they should load the sledge at the wood-lot, as they had done on the previous morning, and put off the "teaming" to Starkfield till later in the day. This plan had the advantage of enabling him to send Jotham to the Flats after dinner to meet Zenobia, while he himself took the lumber down to the village. He told Jotham to go out and harness up the greys, and for a moment he and Mattie had the kitchen to themselves. She had plunged the breakfast dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils on the traveller's joy. Ethan stood looking at her, his heart in his throat. He wanted to say: "We shall never be alone again like this." Instead, he reached down his tobacco-pouch from a shelf of the dresser, put it into his pocket and said: "I guess I can make out to be home for dinner." She answered "All right, Ethan," and he heard her singing over the dishes as he went. As soon as the sledge was loaded he meant to send Jotham back to the farm and hurry on foot into the village to buy the glue for the pickle-dish. With ordinary luck he should have had time to carry out this plan; but everything went wrong from the start. On the way over to the wood-lot one of the greys slipped on a glare of ice and cut his knee; and when they got him up again Jotham had to go back to the barn for a strip of rag to bind the cut. Then, when the loading finally began, a sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree trunks were so slippery that it took twice as long as usual to lift them and get them in place on the sledge. It was what Jotham called a sour morning for work, and the horses, shivering and stamping under their wet blankets, seemed to like it as little as the men. It was long past the dinner-hour when the job was done, and Ethan had to give up going to the village because he wanted to lead the injured horse home and wash the cut himself. He thought that by starting out again with the lumber as soon as he had finished his dinner he might get back to the farm with the glue before Jotham and the old sorrel had had time to fetch Zenobia from the Flats; but he knew the chance was a slight one. It turned on the state of the roads and on the possible lateness of the Bettsbridge train. He remembered afterward, with a grim flash of self-derision, what importance he had attached to the weighing of these probabilities... As soon as dinner was over he set out again for the wood-lot, not daring to linger till Jotham Powell left. The hired man was still drying his wet feet at the stove, and Ethan could only give Mattie a quick look as he said beneath his breath: "I'll be back early." He fancied that she nodded her comprehension; and with that scant solace he had to trudge off through the rain. He had driven his load half-way to the village when Jotham Powell overtook him, urging the reluctant sorrel toward the Flats. "I'll have to hurry up to do it," Ethan mused, as the sleigh dropped down ahead of him over the dip of the school-house hill. He worked like ten at the unloading, and when it was over hastened on to Michael Eady's for the glue. Eady and his assistant were both "down street," and young Denis, who seldom deigned to take their place, was lounging by the stove with a knot of the golden youth of Starkfield. They hailed Ethan with ironic compliment and offers of conviviality; but no one knew where to find the glue. Ethan, consumed with the longing for a last moment alone with Mattie, hung about impatiently while Denis made an ineffectual search in the obscurer corners of the store. "Looks as if we were all sold out. But if you'll wait around till the old man comes along maybe he can put his hand on it." "I'm obliged to you, but I'll try if I can get it down at Mrs. Homan's," Ethan answered, burning to be gone. Denis's commercial instinct compelled him to aver on oath that what Eady's store could not produce would never be found at the widow Homan's; but Ethan, heedless of this boast, had already climbed to the sledge and was driving on to the rival establishment. Here, after considerable search, and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted it for, and whether ordinary flour paste wouldn't do as well if she couldn't find it, the widow Homan finally hunted down her solitary bottle of glue to its hiding-place in a medley of cough-lozenges and corset-laces. "I hope Zeena ain't broken anything she sets store by," she called after him as he turned the greys toward home. The fitful bursts of sleet had changed into a steady rain and the horses had heavy work even without a load behind them. Once or twice, hearing sleigh-bells, Ethan turned his head, fancying that Zeena and Jotham might overtake him; but the old sorrel was not in sight, and he set his face against the rain and urged on his ponderous pair. The barn was empty when the horses turned into it and, after giving them the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received from him, he strode up to the house and pushed open the kitchen door. Mattie was there alone, as he had pictured her. She was bending over a pan on the stove; but at the sound of his step she turned with a start and sprang to him. "See, here, Matt, I've got some stuff to mend the dish with! Let me get at it quick," he cried, waving the bottle in one hand while he put her lightly aside; but she did not seem to hear him. "Oh, Ethan--Zeena's come," she said in a whisper, clutching his sleeve. They stood and stared at each other, pale as culprits. "But the sorrel's not in the barn!" Ethan stammered. "Jotham Powell brought some goods over from the Flats for his wife, and he drove right on home with them," she explained. He gazed blankly about the kitchen, which looked cold and squalid in the rainy winter twilight. "How is she?" he asked, dropping his voice to Mattie's whisper. She looked away from him uncertainly. "I don't know. She went right up to her room." "She didn't say anything?" "No." Ethan let out his doubts in a low whistle and thrust the bottle back into his pocket. "Don't fret; I'll come down and mend it in the night," he said. He pulled on his wet coat again and went back to the barn to feed the greys. While he was there Jotham Powell drove up with the sleigh, and when the horses had been attended to Ethan said to him: "You might as well come back up for a bite." He was not sorry to assure himself of Jotham's neutralising presence at the supper table, for Zeena was always "nervous" after a journey. But the hired man, though seldom loth to accept a meal not included in his wages, opened his stiff jaws to answer slowly: "I'm obliged to you, but I guess I'll go along back." Ethan looked at him in surprise. "Better come up and dry off. Looks as if there'd be something hot for supper." Jotham's facial muscles were unmoved by this appeal and, his vocabulary being limited, he merely repeated: "I guess I'll go along back." To Ethan there was something vaguely ominous in this stolid rejection of free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened on the drive to nerve Jotham to such stoicism. Perhaps Zeena had failed to see the new doctor or had not liked his counsels: Ethan knew that in such cases the first person she met was likely to be held responsible for her grievance. When he re-entered the kitchen the lamp lit up the same scene of shining comfort as on the previous evening. The table had been as carefully laid, a clear fire glowed in the stove, the cat dozed in its warmth, and Mattie came forward carrying a plate of dough-nuts. She and Ethan looked at each other in silence; then she said, as she had said the night before: "I guess it's about time for supper."

Jotham Powell, the hired man, arrives early in the morning to help with the last of the lumber. All through breakfast, Ethan is inexplicably happy. Although nothing has changed, he feels like he has tasted what life would be like with Mattie. He plans to get the work done early enough so that he can buy some glue and fix the dish before Zeena arrives. But the work is hard going. Sleet makes the roads treacherous, and the logs are so slick that loading them takes much longer than usual. Ethan is unable to set out for town until late. He hopes to make it back before Jotham retrieves Zeena from the station, but in town he has trouble finding the glue. When his sleigh pulls back into the barn, Ethan sees that the sorrel isn't there and assumes that Zeena hasn't gotten home yet. He bursts into the kitchen, announcing proudly to Mattie that there is still time to fix the dish. She hushes him, whispering that Zeena has arrived. The sorrel isn't in the barn because Jotham Powell borrowed it to bring some supplies back to his house. Zeena has gone straight up to her bedroom, and has not emerged. When Jotham returns with the horse, Ethan invites him in for dinner. Jotham refuses, which makes Ethan curious: Jotham never turns down a meal. Zeena must be in a foul mood because of something that happened on her trip. Jotham leaves, and Ethan goes back inside the kitchen to find it ready for supper.

The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and cloud. There could be no going out today. "What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked Martha. "Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered. "Eh! there does seem a lot of us then. Mother's a good-tempered woman but she gets fair moithered. The biggest ones goes out in th' cow-shed and plays there. Dickon he doesn't mind th' wet. He goes out just th' same as if th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees things on rainy days as doesn't show when it's fair weather. He once found a little fox cub half drowned in its hole and he brought it home in th' bosom of his shirt to keep it warm. Its mother had been killed nearby an' th' hole was swum out an' th' rest o' th' litter was dead. He's got it at home now. He found a half-drowned young crow another time an' he brought it home, too, an' tamed it. It's named Soot because it's so black, an' it hops an' flies about with him everywhere." The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar talk. She had even begun to find it interesting and to be sorry when she stopped or went away. The stories she had been told by her Ayah when she lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the moorland cottage which held fourteen people who lived in four little rooms and never had quite enough to eat. The children seemed to tumble about and amuse themselves like a litter of rough, good-natured collie puppies. Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon. When Martha told stories of what "mother" said or did they always sounded comfortable. "If I had a raven or a fox cub I could play with it," said Mary. "But I have nothing." Martha looked perplexed. "Can tha' knit?" she asked. "No," answered Mary. "Can tha' sew?" "No." "Can tha' read?" "Yes." "Then why doesn't tha, read somethin', or learn a bit o' spellin'? Tha'st old enough to be learnin' thy book a good bit now." "I haven't any books," said Mary. "Those I had were left in India." "That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd let thee go into th' library, there's thousands o' books there." Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly inspired by a new idea. She made up her mind to go and find it herself. She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock seemed always to be in her comfortable housekeeper's sitting-room downstairs. In this queer place one scarcely ever saw any one at all. In fact, there was no one to see but the servants, and when their master was away they lived a luxurious life below stairs, where there was a huge kitchen hung about with shining brass and pewter, and a large servants' hall where there were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and where a great deal of lively romping went on when Mrs. Medlock was out of the way. Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no one troubled themselves about her in the least. Mrs. Medlock came and looked at her every day or two, but no one inquired what she did or told her what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English way of treating children. In India she had always been attended by her Ayah, who had followed her about and waited on her, hand and foot. She had often been tired of her company. Now she was followed by nobody and was learning to dress herself because Martha looked as though she thought she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed to her and put on. "Hasn't tha' got good sense?" she said once, when Mary had stood waiting for her to put on her gloves for her. "Our Susan Ann is twice as sharp as thee an' she's only four year' old. Sometimes tha' looks fair soft in th' head." Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her think several entirely new things. She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone downstairs. She was thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the library. She did not care very much about the library itself, because she had read very few books; but to hear of it brought back to her mind the hundred rooms with closed doors. She wondered if they were all really locked and what she would find if she could get into any of them. Were there a hundred really? Why shouldn't she go and see how many doors she could count? It would be something to do on this morning when she could not go out. She had never been taught to ask permission to do things, and she knew nothing at all about authority, so she would not have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock if she might walk about the house, even if she had seen her. She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then she began her wanderings. It was a long corridor and it branched into other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to others again. There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the walls. Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious landscapes, but oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes made of satin and velvet. She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits. She had never thought there could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down this place and stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her. She felt as if they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their house. Some were pictures of children--little girls in thick satin frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about them, and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs around their necks. She always stopped to look at the children, and wonder what their names were, and where they had gone, and why they wore such odd clothes. There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like herself. She wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look. "Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to her. "I wish you were here." Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning. It seemed as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small self, wandering about upstairs and down, through narrow passages and wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever walked. Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it true. It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of turning the handle of a door. All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one of them and turned it. She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon the door itself it slowly and heavily opened. It was a massive door and opened into a big bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India stood about the room. A broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor; and over the mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever. "Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary. "She stares at me so that she makes me feel queer." After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred, though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them. There were curious pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them. In one room, which looked like a lady's sitting-room, the hangings were all embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little elephants made of ivory. They were of different sizes, and some had their mahouts or palanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than the others and some were so tiny that they seemed only babies. Mary had seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants. She opened the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with these for quite a long time. When she got tired she set the elephants in order and shut the door of the cabinet. In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms, she had seen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something. Just after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound. It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from which it seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa there was a cushion, and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out of the hole peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it. Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to a little gray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were seven mice who did not look lonely at all. "If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me," said Mary. She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any farther, and she turned back. Two or three times she lost her way by turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor again, though she was some distance from her own room and did not know exactly where she was. "I believe I have taken a wrong turning again," she said, standing still at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the wall. "I don't know which way to go. How still everything is!" It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that the stillness was broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not quite like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a fretful childish whine muffled by passing through walls. "It's nearer than it was," said Mary, her heart beating rather faster. "And it is crying." She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then sprang back, feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of a door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face. "What are you doing here?" she said, and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away. "What did I tell you?" "I turned round the wrong corner," explained Mary. "I didn't know which way to go and I heard some one crying." She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next. "You didn't hear anything of the sort," said the housekeeper. "You come along back to your own nursery or I'll box your ears." And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own room. "Now," she said, "you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find yourself locked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as he said he would. You're one that needs some one to look sharp after you. I've got enough to do." She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground her teeth. "There was some one crying--there was--there was!" she said to herself. She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had found out a great deal this morning. She felt as if she had been on a long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all the time, and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the gray mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion.

The following day, a rainstorm keeps Mary indoors. She realizes that she is beginning to like both Martha and her stories of her family, and feels an affinity with both Dickon and Martha's mother, though she has never met either of them. To keep herself occupied despite the rain, Mary sets out to search for Misselthwaite's library, and to explore its hundreds of shuttered rooms. She is not concerned that anyone will try to stop her, because no one in the manor much troubles themselves with her. In Yorkshire, unlike in India, Mary must fend for herself. As she walks through the manor's corridors, Mary notices many portraits of grand, antique-looking men and women hanging upon the walls; their faces seem to wonder at how a girl from India came to live on their estate. She is much interested in the portraits of children, and even speaks to one of a girl who looks like Mary herself: the girl is curious-looking, and a green parrot is perched upon her finger. Mary wishes the girl in the portrait were there to keep her company; she feels that there is no one at all alive in Misselthwaite save for herself. Upon entering one of the rooms that open onto the corridor, Mary finds yet another portrait of the girl who looks so like her. The girl's stare unnerves her, and she leaves to explore a number of other rooms, stopping finally in one that might have once been a lady's sitting room. There, Mary happens upon a collection of ivory elephants; as she knows all about both ivory and elephants from her life in India, she is quite taken with them. Suddenly, she hears a soft rustling sound behind her, and turns to find a family of gray mice living in one of the room's velvet cushions. Mary thinks to herself that, though the mice and she may be the only living things in the manor at that moment, the mice, having each other, are not lonely at all. Upon going back into the corridor, Mary again hears a child's cry; when she goes off in search of its source, she is apprehended by a furious Mrs. Medlock, who takes her back to her room.

SCENE II. The same. Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL. NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth. NATHANIEL. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: but, sir, I assure ye it was a buck of the first head. HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. DULL. Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. HOLOFERNES. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination,--after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather, unlettered, or ratherest, unconfirmed fashion,--to insert again my haud credo for a deer. DULL. I sthe deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket. HOLOFERNES. Twice sod simplicity, bis coctus! O! thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look! NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred of a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts: And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should be, Which we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that do fructify in us more than he; For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool, So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school. But, omne bene, say I; being of an old Father's mind: Many can brook the weather that love not the wind. DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit, What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old as yet? HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull. DULL. What is Dictynna? NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon. HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more, And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score. The allusion holds in the exchange. DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange. HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say, the allusion holds in the exchange. DULL. And I say the pollusion holds in the exchange, for the moon is never but a month old; and I say beside that 'twas a pricket that the Princess killed. HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, I have call'd the deer the Princess killed, a pricket. NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge; so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility. HOLOFERNES. I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility. The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket; Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with shooting. The dogs did yell; put L to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket- Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting. If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores one sorel! Of one sore I an hundred make, by adding but one more L. NATHANIEL. A rare talent! DULL. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it. NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my parishioners; for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit very greatly under you: you are a good member of the commonwealth. HOLOFERNES. Mehercle! if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it to them; but, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine saluteth us. [Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD.] JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master parson. HOLOFERNES. Master parson, quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierced, which is the one? COSTARD. Marry, Master schoolmaster, he that is likest to a hogshead. HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre or conceit in a turf of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine; 'tis pretty; it is well. JAQUENETTA. Good Master parson [Giving a letter to NATHANIEL.], be so good as read me this letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado: I beseech you read it. HOLOFERNES. 'Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat,' and so forth. Ah! good old Mantuan. I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: --Venetia, Venetia, Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia. Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as Horace says in his-- What, my soul, verses? NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned. HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine. NATHANIEL. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah! never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd; Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed. Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend: If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice. Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend; All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire. Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O! pardon love this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue. HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent: let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the 'tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin, was this directed to you? JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir; from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange queen's lords. HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all desired employment, Berowne.'--Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen's, which, accidentally, or by the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet; deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty. Adieu. JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life! COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl. [Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA.] NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain Father saith-- HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the Father; I do fear colourable colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel? NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen. HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society. NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society,--saith the text,--is the happiness of life. HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it. [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt.]

This scene introduces two new characters - Holofernes, who is a pedantic schoolteacher, and Sir Nathaniel, who is a curate that is greatly impressed with the bookish knowledge of Holofernes. These two, along with the constable Dull, are involved in an utterly senseless debate on the age of the deer killed by the princess. With pomposity, Holofernes draws every excessive word and phrase out of the subject that he can, in an attempt to sound learned and educated. The conversation continues in almost a slapstick manner as the other characters mis-hear and misunderstand each other completely. Jaquenetta enters with Costard, who still bears the letter that was intended for Rosaline. She greets the curate and asks him to read the letter for her, thinking it is from Armado. The letter, instead, contains Biron's gracious poem to Rosaline. Holofernes tries to sound intelligent as he dissects and criticizes the poem, stating it has little literary merit. He then tries to show his own flashy and educated use of language, sounding much less graceful than the poem he has criticized. He finally advises Jaquenetta to take the letter to the king to explain the error of the mis-delivered letter from Biron. When Jaquenetta and Costard leave, Holofernes invites Nathaniel to dine with him at his pupil's house, where he promises to show the poor construction of the verses he considers "very unlearned." He then extemporizes on his own, using extremely excessive alliteration. Nathaniel eagerly accepts the invitation, calling Holofernes "a rare talent".

It seemed to Lily, as Mrs. Peniston's door closed on her, that she was taking a final leave of her old life. The future stretched before her dull and bare as the deserted length of Fifth Avenue, and opportunities showed as meagrely as the few cabs trailing in quest of fares that did not come. The completeness of the analogy was, however, disturbed as she reached the sidewalk by the rapid approach of a hansom which pulled up at sight of her. From beneath its luggage-laden top, she caught the wave of a signalling hand; and the next moment Mrs. Fisher, springing to the street, had folded her in a demonstrative embrace. "My dear, you don't mean to say you're still in town? When I saw you the other day at Sherry's I didn't have time to ask----" She broke off, and added with a burst of frankness: "The truth is I was HORRID, Lily, and I've wanted to tell you so ever since." "Oh----" Miss Bart protested, drawing back from her penitent clasp; but Mrs. Fisher went on with her usual directness: "Look here, Lily, don't let's beat about the bush: half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn't any. That's not my way, and I can only say I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself for following the other women's lead. But we'll talk of that by and bye--tell me now where you're staying and what your plans are. I don't suppose you're keeping house in there with Grace Stepney, eh?--and it struck me you might be rather at loose ends." In Lily's present mood there was no resisting the honest friendliness of this appeal, and she said with a smile: "I am at loose ends for the moment, but Gerty Farish is still in town, and she's good enough to let me be with her whenever she can spare the time." Mrs. Fisher made a slight grimace. "H'm--that's a temperate joy. Oh, I know--Gerty's a trump, and worth all the rest of us put together; but A LA LONGUE you're used to a little higher seasoning, aren't you, dear? And besides, I suppose she'll be off herself before long--the first of August, you say? Well, look here, you can't spend your summer in town; we'll talk of that later too. But meanwhile, what do you say to putting a few things in a trunk and coming down with me to the Sam Gormers' tonight?" And as Lily stared at the breathless suddenness of the suggestion, she continued with her easy laugh: "You don't know them and they don't know you; but that don't make a rap of difference. They've taken the Van Alstyne place at Roslyn, and I've got CARTE BLANCHE to bring my friends down there--the more the merrier. They do things awfully well, and there's to be rather a jolly party there this week----" she broke off, checked by an undefinable change in Miss Bart's expression. "Oh, I don't mean YOUR particular set, you know: rather a different crowd, but very good fun. The fact is, the Gormers have struck out on a line of their own: what they want is to have a good time, and to have it in their own way. They gave the other thing a few months' trial, under my distinguished auspices, and they were really doing extremely well--getting on a good deal faster than the Brys, just because they didn't care as much--but suddenly they decided that the whole business bored them, and that what they wanted was a crowd they could really feel at home with. Rather original of them, don't you think so? Mattie Gormer HAS got aspirations still; women always have; but she's awfully easy-going, and Sam won't be bothered, and they both like to be the most important people in sight, so they've started a sort of continuous performance of their own, a kind of social Coney Island, where everybody is welcome who can make noise enough and doesn't put on airs. I think it's awfully good fun myself--some of the artistic set, you know, any pretty actress that's going, and so on. This week, for instance, they have Audrey Anstell, who made such a hit last spring in 'The Winning of Winny'; and Paul Morpeth--he's painting Mattie Gormer--and the Dick Bellingers, and Kate Corby--well, every one you can think of who's jolly and makes a row. Now don't stand there with your nose in the air, my dear--it will be a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town, and you'll find clever people as well as noisy ones--Morpeth, who admires Mattie enormously, always brings one or two of his set." Mrs. Fisher drew Lily toward the hansom with friendly authority. "Jump in now, there's a dear, and we'll drive round to your hotel and have your things packed, and then we'll have tea, and the two maids can meet us at the train." It was a good deal better than a broiling Sunday in town--of that no doubt remained to Lily as, reclining in the shade of a leafy verandah, she looked seaward across a stretch of greensward picturesquely dotted with groups of ladies in lace raiment and men in tennis flannels. The huge Van Alstyne house and its rambling dependencies were packed to their fullest capacity with the Gormers' week-end guests, who now, in the radiance of the Sunday forenoon, were dispersing themselves over the grounds in quest of the various distractions the place afforded: distractions ranging from tennis-courts to shooting-galleries, from bridge and whiskey within doors to motors and steam-launches without. Lily had the odd sense of having been caught up into the crowd as carelessly as a passenger is gathered in by an express train. The blonde and genial Mrs. Gormer might, indeed, have figured the conductor, calmly assigning seats to the rush of travellers, while Carry Fisher represented the porter pushing their bags into place, giving them their numbers for the dining-car, and warning them when their station was at hand. The train, meanwhile, had scarcely slackened speed--life whizzed on with a deafening' rattle and roar, in which one traveller at least found a welcome refuge from the sound of her own thoughts. The Gormer MILIEU represented a social out-skirt which Lily had always fastidiously avoided; but it struck her, now that she was in it, as only a flamboyant copy of her own world, a caricature approximating the real thing as the "society play" approaches the manners of the drawing-room. The people about her were doing the same things as the Trenors, the Van Osburghs and the Dorsets: the difference lay in a hundred shades of aspect and manner, from the pattern of the men's waistcoats to the inflexion of the women's voices. Everything was pitched in a higher key, and there was more of each thing: more noise, more colour, more champagne, more familiarity--but also greater good-nature, less rivalry, and a fresher capacity for enjoyment. Miss Bart's arrival had been welcomed with an uncritical friendliness that first irritated her pride and then brought her to a sharp sense of her own situation--of the place in life which, for the moment, she must accept and make the best of. These people knew her story--of that her first long talk with Carry Fisher had left no doubt: she was publicly branded as the heroine of a "queer" episode--but instead of shrinking from her as her own friends had done, they received her without question into the easy promiscuity of their lives. They swallowed her past as easily as they did Miss Anstell's, and with no apparent sense of any difference in the size of the mouthful: all they asked was that she should--in her own way, for they recognized a diversity of gifts--contribute as much to the general amusement as that graceful actress, whose talents, when off the stage, were of the most varied order. Lily felt at once that any tendency to be "stuck-up," to mark a sense of differences and distinctions, would be fatal to her continuance in the Gormer set. To be taken in on such terms--and into such a world!--was hard enough to the lingering pride in her; but she realized, with a pang of self-contempt, that to be excluded from it would, after all, be harder still. For, almost at once, she had felt the insidious charm of slipping back into a life where every material difficulty was smoothed away. The sudden escape from a stifling hotel in a dusty deserted city to the space and luxury of a great country-house fanned by sea breezes, had produced a state of moral lassitude agreeable enough after the nervous tension and physical discomfort of the past weeks. For the moment she must yield to the refreshment her senses craved--after that she would reconsider her situation, and take counsel with her dignity. Her enjoyment of her surroundings was, indeed, tinged by the unpleasant consideration that she was accepting the hospitality and courting the approval of people she had disdained under other conditions. But she was growing less sensitive on such points: a hard glaze of indifference was fast forming over her delicacies and susceptibilities, and each concession to expediency hardened the surface a little more. On the Monday, when the party disbanded with uproarious adieux, the return to town threw into stronger relief the charms of the life she was leaving. The other guests were dispersing to take up the same existence in a different setting: some at Newport, some at Bar Harbour, some in the elaborate rusticity of an Adirondack camp. Even Gerty Farish, who welcomed Lily's return with tender solicitude, would soon be preparing to join the aunt with whom she spent her summers on Lake George: only Lily herself remained without plan or purpose, stranded in a backwater of the great current of pleasure. But Carry Fisher, who had insisted on transporting her to her own house, where she herself was to perch for a day or two on the way to the Brys' camp, came to the rescue with a new suggestion. "Look here, Lily--I'll tell you what it is: I want you to take my place with Mattie Gormer this summer. They're taking a party out to Alaska next month in their private car, and Mattie, who is the laziest woman alive, wants me to go with them, and relieve her of the bother of arranging things; but the Brys want me too--oh, yes, we've made it up: didn't I tell you?--and, to put it frankly, though I like the Gormers best, there's more profit for me in the Brys. The fact is, they want to try Newport this summer, and if I can make it a success for them they--well, they'll make it a success for me." Mrs. Fisher clasped her hands enthusiastically. "Do you know, Lily, the more I think of my idea the better I like it--quite as much for you as for myself. The Gormers have both taken a tremendous fancy to you, and the trip to Alaska is--well--the very thing I should want for you just at present." Miss Bart lifted her eyes with a keen glance. "To take me out of my friends' way, you mean?" she said quietly; and Mrs. Fisher responded with a deprecating kiss: "To keep you out of their sight till they realize how much they miss you." Miss Bart went with the Gormers to Alaska; and the expedition, if it did not produce the effect anticipated by her friend, had at least the negative advantage of removing her from the fiery centre of criticism and discussion. Gerty Farish had opposed the plan with all the energy of her somewhat inarticulate nature. She had even offered to give up her visit to Lake George, and remain in town with Miss Bart, if the latter would renounce her journey; but Lily could disguise her real distaste for this plan under a sufficiently valid reason. "You dear innocent, don't you see," she protested, "that Carry is quite right, and that I must take up my usual life, and go about among people as much as possible? If my old friends choose to believe lies about me I shall have to make new ones, that's all; and you know beggars mustn't be choosers. Not that I don't like Mattie Gormer--I DO like her: she's kind and honest and unaffected; and don't you suppose I feel grateful to her for making me welcome at a time when, as you've yourself seen, my own family have unanimously washed their hands of me?" Gerty shook her head, mutely unconvinced. She felt not only that Lily was cheapening herself by making use of an intimacy she would never have cultivated from choice, but that, in drifting back now to her former manner of life, she was forfeiting her last chance of ever escaping from it. Gerty had but an obscure conception of what Lily's actual experience had been: but its consequences had established a lasting hold on her pity since the memorable night when she had offered up her own secret hope to her friend's extremity. To characters like Gerty's such a sacrifice constitutes a moral claim on the part of the person in whose behalf it has been made. Having once helped Lily, she must continue to help her; and helping her, must believe in her, because faith is the main-spring of such natures. But even if Miss Bart, after her renewed taste of the amenities of life, could have returned to the barrenness of a New York August, mitigated only by poor Gerty's presence, her worldly wisdom would have counselled her against such an act of abnegation. She knew that Carry Fisher was right: that an opportune absence might be the first step toward rehabilitation, and that, at any rate, to linger on in town out of season was a fatal admission of defeat. From the Gormers' tumultuous progress across their native continent, she returned with an altered view of her situation. The renewed habit of luxury--the daily waking to an assured absence of care and presence of material ease--gradually blunted her appreciation of these values, and left her more conscious of the void they could not fill. Mattie Gormer's undiscriminating good-nature, and the slap-dash sociability of her friends, who treated Lily precisely as they treated each other--all these characteristic notes of difference began to wear upon her endurance; and the more she saw to criticize in her companions, the less justification she found for making use of them. The longing to get back to her former surroundings hardened to a fixed idea; but with the strengthening of her purpose came the inevitable perception that, to attain it, she must exact fresh concessions from her pride. These, for the moment, took the unpleasant form of continuing to cling to her hosts after their return from Alaska. Little as she was in the key of their MILIEU, her immense social facility, her long habit of adapting herself to others without suffering her own outline to be blurred, the skilled manipulation of all the polished implements of her craft, had won for her an important place in the Gormer group. If their resonant hilarity could never be hers, she contributed a note of easy elegance more valuable to Mattie Gormer than the louder passages of the band. Sam Gormer and his special cronies stood indeed a little in awe of her; but Mattie's following, headed by Paul Morpeth, made her feel that they prized her for the very qualities they most conspicuously lacked. If Morpeth, whose social indolence was as great as his artistic activity, had abandoned himself to the easy current of the Gormer existence, where the minor exactions of politeness were unknown or ignored, and a man could either break his engagements, or keep them in a painting-jacket and slippers, he still preserved his sense of differences, and his appreciation of graces he had no time to cultivate. During the preparations for the Brys' TABLEAUX he had been immensely struck by Lily's plastic possibilities--"not the face: too self-controlled for expression; but the rest of her--gad, what a model she'd make!"--and though his abhorrence of the world in which he had seen her was too great for him to think of seeking her there, he was fully alive to the privilege of having her to look at and listen to while he lounged in Mattie Gormer's dishevelled drawing-room. Lily had thus formed, in the tumult of her surroundings, a little nucleus of friendly relations which mitigated the crudeness of her course in lingering with the Gormers after their return. Nor was she without pale glimpses of her own world, especially since the breaking-up of the Newport season had set the social current once more toward Long Island. Kate Corby, whose tastes made her as promiscuous as Carry Fisher was rendered by her necessities, occasionally descended on the Gormers, where, after a first stare of surprise, she took Lily's presence almost too much as a matter of course. Mrs. Fisher, too, appearing frequently in the neighbourhood, drove over to impart her experiences and give Lily what she called the latest report from the weather-bureau; and the latter, who had never directly invited her confidence, could yet talk with her more freely than with Gerty Farish, in whose presence it was impossible even to admit the existence of much that Mrs. Fisher conveniently took for granted. Mrs. Fisher, moreover, had no embarrassing curiosity. She did not wish to probe the inwardness of Lily's situation, but simply to view it from the outside, and draw her conclusions accordingly; and these conclusions, at the end of a confidential talk, she summed up to her friend in the succinct remark: "You must marry as soon as you can." Lily uttered a faint laugh--for once Mrs. Fisher lacked originality. "Do you mean, like Gerty Farish, to recommend the unfailing panacea of 'a good man's love'?" "No--I don't think either of my candidates would answer to that description," said Mrs. Fisher after a pause of reflection. "Either? Are there actually two?" "Well, perhaps I ought to say one and a half--for the moment." Miss Bart received this with increasing amusement. "Other things being equal, I think I should prefer a half-husband: who is he?" "Don't fly out at me till you hear my reasons--George Dorset." "Oh----" Lily murmured reproachfully; but Mrs. Fisher pressed on unrebuffed. "Well, why not? They had a few weeks' honeymoon when they first got back from Europe, but now things are going badly with them again. Bertha has been behaving more than ever like a madwoman, and George's powers of credulity are very nearly exhausted. They're at their place here, you know, and I spent last Sunday with them. It was a ghastly party--no one else but poor Neddy Silverton, who looks like a galley-slave (they used to talk of my making that poor boy unhappy!)--and after luncheon George carried me off on a long walk, and told me the end would have to come soon." Miss Bart made an incredulous gesture. "As far as that goes, the end will never come--Bertha will always know how to get him back when she wants him." Mrs. Fisher continued to observe her tentatively. "Not if he has any one else to turn to! Yes--that's just what it comes to: the poor creature can't stand alone. And I remember him such a good fellow, full of life and enthusiasm." She paused, and went on, dropping her glance from Lily's: "He wouldn't stay with her ten minutes if he KNEW----" "Knew----?" Miss Bart repeated. "What YOU must, for instance--with the opportunities you've had! If he had positive proof, I mean----" Lily interrupted her with a deep blush of displeasure. "Please let us drop the subject, Carry: it's too odious to me." And to divert her companion's attention she added, with an attempt at lightness: "And your second candidate? We must not forget him." Mrs. Fisher echoed her laugh. "I wonder if you'll cry out just as loud if I say--Sim Rosedale?" Miss Bart did not cry out: she sat silent, gazing thoughtfully at her friend. The suggestion, in truth, gave expression to a possibility which, in the last weeks, had more than once recurred to her; but after a moment she said carelessly: "Mr. Rosedale wants a wife who can establish him in the bosom of the Van Osburghs and Trenors." Mrs. Fisher caught her up eagerly. "And so YOU could--with his money! Don't you see how beautifully it would work out for you both?" "I don't see any way of making him see it," Lily returned, with a laugh intended to dismiss the subject. But in reality it lingered with her long after Mrs. Fisher had taken leave. She had seen very little of Rosedale since her annexation by the Gormers, for he was still steadily bent on penetrating to the inner Paradise from which she was now excluded; but once or twice, when nothing better offered, he had turned up for a Sunday, and on these occasions he had left her in no doubt as to his view of her situation. That he still admired her was, more than ever, offensively evident; for in the Gormer circle, where he expanded as in his native element, there were no puzzling conventions to check the full expression of his approval. But it was in the quality of his admiration that she read his shrewd estimate of her case. He enjoyed letting the Gormers see that he had known "Miss Lily"--she was "Miss Lily" to him now--before they had had the faintest social existence: enjoyed more especially impressing Paul Morpeth with the distance to which their intimacy dated back. But he let it be felt that that intimacy was a mere ripple on the surface of a rushing social current, the kind of relaxation which a man of large interests and manifold preoccupations permits himself in his hours of ease. The necessity of accepting this view of their past relation, and of meeting it in the key of pleasantry prevalent among her new friends, was deeply humiliating to Lily. But she dared less than ever to quarrel with Rosedale. She suspected that her rejection rankled among the most unforgettable of his rebuffs, and the fact that he knew something of her wretched transaction with Trenor, and was sure to put the basest construction on it, seemed to place her hopelessly in his power. Yet at Carry Fisher's suggestion a new hope had stirred in her. Much as she disliked Rosedale, she no longer absolutely despised him. For he was gradually attaining his object in life, and that, to Lily, was always less despicable than to miss it. With the slow unalterable persistency which she had always felt in him, he was making his way through the dense mass of social antagonisms. Already his wealth, and the masterly use he had made of it, were giving him an enviable prominence in the world of affairs, and placing Wall Street under obligations which only Fifth Avenue could repay. In response to these claims, his name began to figure on municipal committees and charitable boards; he appeared at banquets to distinguished strangers, and his candidacy at one of the fashionable clubs was discussed with diminishing opposition. He had figured once or twice at the Trenor dinners, and had learned to speak with just the right note of disdain of the big Van Osburgh crushes; and all he now needed was a wife whose affiliations would shorten the last tedious steps of his ascent. It was with that object that, a year earlier, he had fixed his affections on Miss Bart; but in the interval he had mounted nearer to the goal, while she had lost the power to abbreviate the remaining steps of the way. All this she saw with the clearness of vision that came to her in moments of despondency. It was success that dazzled her--she could distinguish facts plainly enough in the twilight of failure. And the twilight, as she now sought to pierce it, was gradually lighted by a faint spark of reassurance. Under the utilitarian motive of Rosedale's wooing she had felt, clearly enough, the heat of personal inclination. She would not have detested him so heartily had she not known that he dared to admire her. What, then, if the passion persisted, though the other motive had ceased to sustain it? She had never even tried to please him--he had been drawn to her in spite of her manifest disdain. What if she now chose to exert the power which, even in its passive state, he had felt so strongly? What if she made him marry her for love, now that he had no other reason for marrying her?

As Lily leaves Grace's, she feels completely hopeless. It's a ripe opportunity for Mrs. Fisher to pull up in a carriage and tell Lily that she should come away with her to dinner at the Gormers'. Remember that Mrs. Fisher became their social coordinator after she left the Brys in Monte Carlo. The Gormers are sort of second tier socialites, as opposed to the most elite group with whom Mrs. Fisher and Lily associated with in Monte Carlo. The wife, Mattie Gormer, has big aspirations to join the social elite. Lily agrees and joins them all for dinner, and is pleased to see that none of them take issue with the rumors of her recent past. At first, it hurts Lily's pride to be a part of the lower social tier. Then, again, she enjoys schmoozing around in luxury once again. Afterwards, she is faced with the question of where to spend her summer. Mrs. Fisher comes to the rescue again. The Gormers want Carry to go with them to Alaska, but the Brys also want her back to spend the summer in Newport with them. She decides she'll go with the Brys - who are higher on the social ladder - so she gives Mattie Gormer and the Alaska trip to Lily. Lily realizes that Mrs. Fisher's strategy is to keep her away from the elite crowd who want to see her ruined right now, but Mrs. Fisher kindly responds that the idea is for them to all realize how much they miss Lily when she's not there. So, Lily goes to Alaska with the Gormers. Gerty disapproves, because she thinks Lily is "cheapening" herself by hanging out with people she otherwise wouldn't have. Gerty is committed to continue helping Lily, and has been ever since that night when she gave up her own hopes for Lawrence Selden in order to rescue Lily from despair. Meanwhile, Lily starts to appreciate all the differences between the second tier and the top tier of the social ladder, and she longs for the old crowd. Still, she doesn't have another option at the moment, so she stays with the Gormers after they come back from Alaska. Among the set is Paul Morpeth who, as an artist, especially appreciates Lily's beauty. There are also those - like Kate Corby and Mrs. Fisher - who spend in time both in the world of the Dorsets and Trenors, and also in the world of the Gormers. One day, Mrs. Fisher takes Lily aside and tells her that she has to marry as soon as possible. Mrs. Fisher has two candidates in mind. The first is George Dorset. Mrs. Fisher says all Lily has to do is firmly state that Bertha indeed had an affair with Ned - to give weight to Dorset's suspicions - and then he'll divorce his wife and marry Lily. Lily vetoes this. The second option she has in mind is Simon Rosedale. Lily certainly doesn't object to this as much as she used to, but she thinks that Simon is probably no longer interested in her, since her fall from grace. Later, Lily re-considers. She knows Rosedale is very much attracted to her and has been for a long time. But she also knows he wants a wife who will keep him in the good graces of people like Bertha and Judy. She decides that, since she can't make him marry her for the social benefits, she'll try and make him marry her for love.

CHAPTER V. TURNING A NEW LEAF. My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for a new place. About this time I might be a little--a very little--shaken in nerves. I grant I was not looking well, but, on the contrary, thin, haggard, and hollow-eyed; like a sitter-up at night, like an overwrought servant, or a placeless person in debt. In debt, however, I was not; nor quite poor; for though Miss Marchmont had not had time to benefit me, as, on that last night, she said she intended, yet, after the funeral, my wages were duly paid by her second cousin, the heir, an avaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and narrow temples, who, indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough miser: a direct contrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her memory, blessed to this day by the poor and needy. The possessor, then, of fifteen pounds; of health, though worn, not broken, and of a spirit in similar condition; I might still; in comparison with many people, be regarded as occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing one it was, however, at the same time; as I felt with some acuteness on a certain day, of which the corresponding one in the next week was to see my departure from my present abode, while with another I was not provided. In this dilemma I went, as a last and sole resource, to see and consult an old servant of our family; once my nurse, now housekeeper at a grand mansion not far from Miss Marchmont's. I spent some hours with her; she comforted, but knew not how to advise me. Still all inward darkness, I left her about twilight; a walk of two miles lay before me; it was a clear, frosty night. In spite of my solitude, my poverty, and my perplexity, my heart, nourished and nerved with the vigour of a youth that had not yet counted twenty-three summers, beat light and not feebly. Not feebly, I am sure, or I should have trembled in that lonely walk, which lay through still fields, and passed neither village nor farmhouse, nor cottage: I should have quailed in the absence of moonlight, for it was by the leading of stars only I traced the dim path; I should have quailed still more in the unwonted presence of that which to-night shone in the north, a moving mystery--the Aurora Borealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me otherwise than through my fears. Some new power it seemed to bring. I drew in energy with the keen, low breeze that blew on its path. A bold thought was sent to my mind; my mind was made strong to receive it. "Leave this wilderness," it was said to me, "and go out hence." "Where?" was the query. I had not very far to look; gazing from this country parish in that flat, rich middle of England--I mentally saw within reach what I had never yet beheld with my bodily eyes: I saw London. The next day I returned to the hall, and asking once more to see the housekeeper, I communicated to her my plan. Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little more of the world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she did not charge me with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staid manner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as cloak and hood of hodden grey, since under its favour I had been enabled to achieve with impunity, and even approbation, deeds that, if attempted with an excited and unsettled air, would in some minds have stamped me as a dreamer and zealot. The housekeeper was slowly propounding some difficulties, while she prepared orange-rind for marmalade, when a child ran past the window and came bounding into the room. It was a pretty child, and as it danced, laughing, up to me--for we were not strangers (nor, indeed, was its mother--a young married daughter of the house--a stranger)--I took it on my knee. Different as were our social positions now, this child's mother and I had been schoolfellows, when I was a girl of ten and she a young lady of sixteen; and I remembered her, good-looking, but dull, in a lower class than mine. I was admiring the boy's handsome dark eyes, when the mother, young Mrs. Leigh, entered. What a beautiful and kind-looking woman was the good-natured and comely, but unintellectual, girl become! Wifehood and maternity had changed her thus, as I have since seen them change others even less promising than she. Me she had forgotten. I was changed too, though not, I fear, for the better. I made no attempt to recall myself to her memory; why should I? She came for her son to accompany her in a walk, and behind her followed a nurse, carrying an infant. I only mention the incident because, in addressing the nurse, Mrs. Leigh spoke French (very bad French, by the way, and with an incorrigibly bad accent, again forcibly reminding me of our school-days): and I found the woman was a foreigner. The little boy chattered volubly in French too. When the whole party were withdrawn, Mrs. Barrett remarked that her young lady had brought that foreign nurse home with her two years ago, on her return from a Continental excursion; that she was treated almost as well as a governess, and had nothing to do but walk out with the baby and chatter French with Master Charles; "and," added Mrs. Barrett, "she says there are many Englishwomen in foreign families as well placed as she." I stored up this piece of casual information, as careful housewives store seemingly worthless shreds and fragments for which their prescient minds anticipate a possible use some day. Before I left my old friend, she gave me the address of a respectable old-fashioned inn in the City, which, she said, my uncles used to frequent in former days. In going to London, I ran less risk and evinced less enterprise than the reader may think. In fact, the distance was only fifty miles. My means would suffice both to take me there, to keep me a few days, and also to bring me back if I found no inducement to stay. I regarded it as a brief holiday, permitted for once to work-weary faculties, rather than as an adventure of life and death. There is nothing like taking all you do at a moderate estimate: it keeps mind and body tranquil; whereas grandiloquent notions are apt to hurry both into fever. Fifty miles were then a day's journey (for I speak of a time gone by: my hair, which, till a late period, withstood the frosts of time, lies now, at last white, under a white cap, like snow beneath snow). About nine o'clock of a wet February night I reached London. My reader, I know, is one who would not thank me for an elaborate reproduction of poetic first impressions; and it is well, inasmuch as I had neither time nor mood to cherish such; arriving as I did late, on a dark, raw, and rainy evening, in a Babylon and a wilderness, of which the vastness and the strangeness tried to the utmost any powers of clear thought and steady self-possession with which, in the absence of more brilliant faculties, Nature might have gifted me. When I left the coach, the strange speech of the cabmen and others waiting round, seemed to me odd as a foreign tongue. I had never before heard the English language chopped up in that way. However, I managed to understand and to be understood, so far as to get myself and trunk safely conveyed to the old inn whereof I had the address. How difficult, how oppressive, how puzzling seemed my flight! In London for the first time; at an inn for the first time; tired with travelling; confused with darkness; palsied with cold; unfurnished with either experience or advice to tell me how to act, and yet--to act obliged. Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense, however, was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, and it was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that she spasmodically executed her trust. Thus urged, she paid the porter: considering the crisis, I did not blame her too much that she was hugely cheated; she asked the waiter for a room; she timorously called for the chambermaid; what is far more, she bore, without being wholly overcome, a highly supercilious style of demeanour from that young lady, when she appeared. I recollect this same chambermaid was a pattern of town prettiness and smartness. So trim her waist, her cap, her dress--I wondered how they had all been manufactured. Her speech had an accent which in its mincing glibness seemed to rebuke mine as by authority; her spruce attire flaunted an easy scorn to my plain country garb. "Well, it can't be helped," I thought, "and then the scene is new, and the circumstances; I shall gain good." Maintaining a very quiet manner towards this arrogant little maid, and subsequently observing the same towards the parsonic-looking, black-coated, white-neckclothed waiter, I got civility from them ere long. I believe at first they thought I was a servant; but in a little while they changed their minds, and hovered in a doubtful state between patronage and politeness. I kept up well till I had partaken of some refreshment, warmed myself by a fire, and was fairly shut into my own room; but, as I sat down by the bed and rested my head and arms on the pillow, a terrible oppression overcame me. All at once my position rose on me like a ghost. Anomalous, desolate, almost blank of hope it stood. What was I doing here alone in great London? What should I do on the morrow? What prospects had I in life? What friends had I on, earth? Whence did I come? Whither should I go? What should I do? I wet the pillow, my arms, and my hair, with rushing tears. A dark interval of most bitter thought followed this burst; but I did not regret the step taken, nor wish to retract it. A strong, vague persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I _could_ go forward--that a way, however narrow and difficult, would in time open--predominated over other feelings: its influence hushed them so far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be able to say my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my candle and lain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the night. At first I knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at the twelfth colossal hum and trembling knell, I said: "I lie in the shadow of St. Paul's."

"London," finds Lucy strangely elated. In the morning, she walks about London and takes in the city, finding it exciting and exhilarating. She returns to her inn. The waiter, who remembers Lucy's uncles when they stayed there in past days, advises her how to go abroad. Lucy has made the decision all of a sudden, perhaps prompted by the sight of the French nurse-governess in the home where she visited Mrs. Barrett. A ship, The Vivid, is leaving port the next morning, and aided by the kindly waiter, Lucy takes a berth and prepares to embark. She sails for Boue-Marine in the fictional kingdom of Labassecour. She knows nothing of these places, but she has "nothing to lose. She arrives at The Vivid, cheated by the boatmen and porters on her way, and boards the ship. She is looked down upon by the ladies' cabin stewardess, and she awaits the arrival of the other passengers. Her fellow passengers include a wealthy family of four, the Watsons, among them a pretty young woman married to a much older, ugly, rich man. A young plainly-dressed lady, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe, is also aboard. She is on her way to school in Villette. The two young women strike up a conversation, and Ginevra lets slip her relationship to a M. de Bassompierre, who is her uncle, godfather, and benefactor. The passengers are seasick for the last part of the voyage, and Ginevra shows herself to be selfish and given to complaining. Lucy rebukes her gently but is not disliked for it. Upon arriving in port, Lucy tips the stewardess well and asks for directions to a respectable inn. She is taken there, and there is some confusion because her money is English money and the porter and innkeeper do not want to take it. She exchanges a sovereign and goes to bed exhausted and still ill from seasickness, worrying what she will do tomorrow to find a way to earn a living

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours' exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four o'clock a.m., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight. Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the "boots" placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts. It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell. "Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?" I asked of the waiter who answered the summons. "Thornfield? I don't know, ma'am; I'll inquire at the bar." He vanished, but reappeared instantly-- "Is your name Eyre, Miss?" "Yes." "Person here waiting for you." I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance. "This will be your luggage, I suppose?" said the man rather abruptly when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage. "Yes." He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield. "A matter of six miles." "How long shall we be before we get there?" "Happen an hour and a half." He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease. "I suppose," thought I, "judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our road now, I wonder?" I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic. The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said-- "You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now." Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in. "Will you walk this way, ma'am?" said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view. A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high- backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me. "How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire." "Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?" said I. "Yes, you are right: do sit down." She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble. "Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of the storeroom." And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered them to the servant. "Now, then, draw nearer to the fire," she continued. "You've brought your luggage with you, haven't you, my dear?" "Yes, ma'am." "I'll see it carried into your room," she said, and bustled out. "She treats me like a visitor," thought I. "I little expected such a reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult too soon." She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities quietly. "Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?" I asked, when I had partaken of what she offered me. "What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf," returned the good lady, approaching her ear to my mouth. I repeated the question more distinctly. "Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your future pupil." "Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?" "No,--I have no family." I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time. "I am so glad," she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat on her knee; "I am so glad you are come; it will be quite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say alone--Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can't converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one's authority. I'm sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay." My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated. "But I'll not keep you sitting up late to-night," said she; "it is on the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I'll show you your bedroom. I've had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself." I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style. When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly: when I awoke it was broad day. The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefinite future period. I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain--for I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity--I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock--which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety--and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth. Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates. I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door. "What! out already?" said she. "I see you are an early riser." I went up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand. "How do you like Thornfield?" she asked. I told her I liked it very much. "Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor." "Mr. Rochester!" I exclaimed. "Who is he?" "The owner of Thornfield," she responded quietly. "Did you not know he was called Rochester?" Of course I did not--I had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct. "I thought," I continued, "Thornfield belonged to you." "To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the housekeeper--the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay--that little village yonder on the hill--and that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester's mother was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the connection--in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I expect nothing more." "And the little girl--my pupil!" "She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her. He intended to have her brought up in ---shire, I believe. Here she comes, with her 'bonne,' as she calls her nurse." The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but a dependant like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much the better--my position was all the freer. As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist. "Good morning, Miss Adela," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day." She approached. "C'est la ma gouverante!" said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse; who answered-- "Mais oui, certainement." "Are they foreigners?" I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language. "The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a little: I don't understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will make out her meaning very well, I dare say." Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently. "Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked--how it did smoke!--and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. And Mademoiselle--what is your name?" "Eyre--Jane Eyre." "Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs." "Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax. I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot. "I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?" "Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?" "I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?" She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her. The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I thought so. Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the _naivete_ of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, "Now, Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry." Assuming an attitude, she began, "La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine." She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained. "Was it your mama who taught you that piece?" I asked. "Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: 'Qu' avez vous donc? lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!' She made me lift my hand--so--to remind me to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?" "No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did you live then?" "With Madame Frederic and her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic, and he was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never see him." After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes. I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her use. As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me: "Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose," said she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard. "What a beautiful room!" I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen any half so imposing. "Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault." She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire. "In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!" said I. "No dust, no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily." "Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness." "Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?" "Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them." "Do you like him? Is he generally liked?" "Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind." "Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?" "I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never lived much amongst them." "But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?" "Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him." "In what way is he peculiar?" "I don't know--it is not easy to describe--nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly understand him, in short--at least, I don't: but it is of no consequence, he is a very good master." This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor--nothing more: she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity. When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,--all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight. "Do the servants sleep in these rooms?" I asked. "No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt." "So I think: you have no ghost, then?" "None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling. "Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?" "I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now." "Yes--'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered. "Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?" for she was moving away. "On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?" I followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight. Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard's castle. While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued. "Mrs. Fairfax!" I called out: for I now heard her descending the great stairs. "Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?" "Some of the servants, very likely," she answered: "perhaps Grace Poole." "Did you hear it?" I again inquired. "Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together." The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur. "Grace!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax. I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise. The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,--a woman of between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived. "Too much noise, Grace," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Remember directions!" Grace curtseyed silently and went in. "She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid's work," continued the widow; "not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?" The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached the light and cheerful region below. Adele came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming-- "Mesdames, vous etes servies!" adding, "J'ai bien faim, moi!" We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.

Jane stages the beginning of the next chapter almost like a play, describing the scene as she sits by the fire at an inn, waiting nervously to get to Thornfield and meet this mysterious Mrs. Fairfax and her daughter. Notice that Jane addresses the reader directly here, something that happens only a few times in the novel, but always at key points . A servant meets Jane and drives her in a coach to Thornfield. Jane guesses that his plain clothes mean that Mrs. Fairfax isn't too wealthy. It's amazing, in fact, how little Jane knows about the job that she's heading into. We hope you would never take some random job based on one letter from someone you didn't know and then travel across the country alone to live who-knows-where. Jane arrives at Thornfield and is brought in to see Mrs. Fairfax, who looks almost exactly as she had expected; she's an old woman dressed in black clothes and a widow's cap, which probably means she's mourning her husband. Jane is surprised that Mrs. Fairfax welcomes her kindly, chatting with her and offering her tea; she's never been treated so politely by anyone, especially an employer. She's really relieved that this situation is better than her previous ones. Suddenly, a surprise: Jane finds out that her new student isn't Mrs. Fairfax's daughter; her name is Miss Varens, and Mrs. Fairfax doesn't have any kids. Unfortunately, Jane is too shy to ask more about Miss Varens at this point. Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane more about the household; it's been somewhat lonely for her, because she can't socialize with the maid, Leah, or the other servants, who are a married couple. Jane, however, will be closer to Mrs. Fairfax's "level," whatever that is. Jane goes to bed; her room is small but nice, and she feels very secure in it... although the long, dark corridors of the house are, she admits, a little bit creepy. Jane wakes up on her first day at Thornfield, soothed by the luxurious surroundings, and dresses in her plain Lowood-style clothes and heads downstairs. She meets Mrs. Fairfax again and learns that the owner of Thornfield is a Mr. Rochester--Mrs. Fairfax is just the housekeeper, although she is a distant cousin of Rochester's. Adele, Mrs. Fairfax explains, is Mr. Rochester's ward. Jane meets Adele, a French girl about seven or eight years old who only speaks a little English. It's lucky that Jane learned French from a native speaker; she's able to understand Adele easily, even when Adele talks really fast. Adele tells Jane how she came to England about six months ago. Long before that, the first thing Adele remembers is living with her mother, who taught her to sing and dance and had a lot of, erm, let's call them "gentlemen admirers." There were ladies who liked to hear Madame Varens sing, too, but there seem to have been quite a few gentlemen, as well, if you take our meaning. Adele offers to sing for Jane, and sings a song from an opera that's really far too mature for her. The contrast between Adele's childishness and the extremes of jealousy and passion in the song seems crass to Jane. Then Adele recites a poem with similar strange adult motifs and techniques. Jane's pretty weirded out by her and stops her before she can dance. Jane questions Adele further about her history; Adele explains that, after her mother died, Mr. Rochester offered to take her with him to live in England, and she and her nurse Sophie came with him on a steamship across the Channel. Unfortunately, Mr. Rochester took her to Thornfield, left her there, and went traveling, so Adele doesn't actually get to live with him. Jane teaches Adele her first lesson that morning; Adele is obedient, but not very studious. She's never really been asked to apply herself. Jane decides to take it slow and lets her have the afternoon free. In the afternoon, Jane talks to Mrs. Fairfax about Thornfield and Mr. Rochester while Mrs. Fairfax does some light housework. Jane is amazed at how beautiful and fancy the house is. Jane practically cross-examines Mrs. Fairfax about the absent Mr. Rochester. She really wants to know what kind of a person he is, but it's hard for the housekeeper to describe him. Most people like him, she tells Jane, but he is "rather peculiar," whatever that means . Jane follows Mrs. Fairfax through the house, admiring everything she sees, but feeling a little creeped out by all the empty rooms full of strange furnishings and decorations. She asks Mrs. Fairfax if there are any ghost stories about Thornfield, but there aren't. However, Mrs. Fairfax does admit that the members of the Rochester family have been "rather a violent than a quiet race in their time" . So there may not be any ghosts... but there are some metaphorical skeletons in the closet. Jane and Mrs. Fairfax make their way to the attic and then to the roof, and Jane is able to look out across all of the land surrounding Thornfield. It's an incredible view. After a good, long look, they head back; Mrs. Fairfax is fastening the trap door and Jane is a bit further away in the attic when she hears an eerie, unearthly laugh. Mrs. Fairfax says that it must be one of the servants, perhaps a woman named Grace Poole who does the sewing. Jane's convinced there is no Grace and that the laugh is a ghost, but at Mrs. Fairfax's call Grace comes out of a room nearby. She's a squat, heavyset, middle-aged redhead--not a ghost. Mrs. Fairfax tells her there should be less noise, sends her off, and changes the subject. Oh, that's not suspicious at all.

ACT I. SCENE 1. Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace. [Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with CHATILLON.] KING JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us? CHATILLON. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France, In my behaviour, to the majesty, The borrow'd majesty of England here. ELINOR. A strange beginning:--borrow'd majesty! KING JOHN. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy. CHATILLON. Philip of France, in right and true behalf Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son, Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim To this fair island and the territories,-- To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine; Desiring thee to lay aside the sword Which sways usurpingly these several titles, And put the same into young Arthur's hand, Thy nephew and right royal sovereign. KING JOHN. What follows if we disallow of this? CHATILLON. The proud control of fierce and bloody war, To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld. KING JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, Controlment for controlment;--so answer France. CHATILLON. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth, The farthest limit of my embassy. KING JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace: Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France; For ere thou canst report I will be there, The thunder of my cannon shall be heard: So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath, And sullen presage of your own decay.-- An honourable conduct let him have:-- Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon. [Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE.] ELINOR. What now, my son! Have I not ever said How that ambitious Constance would not cease Till she had kindled France and all the world Upon the right and party of her son? This might have been prevented and made whole With very easy arguments of love; Which now the manage of two kingdoms must With fearful bloody issue arbitrate. KING JOHN. Our strong possession and our right for us. ELINOR. Your strong possession much more than your right, Or else it must go wrong with you and me: So much my conscience whispers in your ear, Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear. [Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers to Essex.] ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy, Come from the country to be judg'd by you, That e'er I heard: shall I produce the men? KING JOHN. Let them approach.-- [Exit SHERIFF.] Our abbeys and our priories shall pay This expedition's charge. [Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard Brother.] What men are you? BASTARD. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son, As I suppose, to Robert Falconbridge,-- A soldier by the honour-giving hand Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field. KING JOHN. What art thou? ROBERT. The son and heir to that same Falconbridge. KING JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir? You came not of one mother then, it seems. BASTARD. Most certain of one mother, mighty king,-- That is well known; and, as I think, one father: But for the certain knowledge of that truth I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother:-- Of that I doubt, as all men's children may. ELINOR. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother, And wound her honour with this diffidence. BASTARD. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it,-- That is my brother's plea, and none of mine; The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out At least from fair five hundred pound a-year: Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land! KING JOHN. A good blunt fellow.--Why, being younger born, Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance? BASTARD. I know not why, except to get the land. But once he slander'd me with bastardy: But whe'er I be as true begot or no, That still I lay upon my mother's head; But that I am as well begot, my liege,-- Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!-- Compare our faces and be judge yourself. If old Sir Robert did beget us both, And were our father, and this son like him,-- O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee! KING JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here! ELINOR. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face; The accent of his tongue affecteth him: Do you not read some tokens of my son In the large composition of this man? KING JOHN. Mine eye hath well examined his parts, And finds them perfect Richard.--Sirrah, speak, What doth move you to claim your brother's land? BASTARD. Because he hath a half-face, like my father; With half that face would he have all my land: A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a-year! ROBERT. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd, Your brother did employ my father much,-- BASTARD. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land: Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother. ROBERT. And once despatch'd him in an embassy To Germany, there with the emperor To treat of high affairs touching that time. The advantage of his absence took the King, And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's; Where how he did prevail I shame to speak,-- But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores Between my father and my mother lay,-- As I have heard my father speak himself,-- When this same lusty gentleman was got. Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd His lands to me; and took it, on his death, That this, my mother's son, was none of his; And if he were, he came into the world Full fourteen weeks before the course of time. Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine, My father's land, as was my father's will. KING JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate; Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him; And if she did play false, the fault was hers; Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother, Who, as you say, took pains to get this son, Had of your father claim'd this son for his? In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world; In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's, My brother might not claim him; nor your father, Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes,-- My mother's son did get your father's heir; Your father's heir must have your father's land. ROBERT. Shall then my father's will be of no force To dispossess that child which is not his? BASTARD. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir, Than was his will to get me, as I think. ELINOR. Whether hadst thou rather be a Falconbridge, And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land, Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion, Lord of thy presence and no land beside? BASTARD. Madam, an if my brother had my shape And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him; And if my legs were two such riding-rods, My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!' And, to his shape, were heir to all this land, Would I might never stir from off this place, I would give it every foot to have this face; I would not be Sir Nob in any case. ELINOR. I like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune, Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me? I am a soldier, and now bound to France. BASTARD. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance: Your face hath got five hundred pound a-year; Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.-- Madam, I'll follow you unto the death. ELINOR. Nay, I would have you go before me thither. BASTARD. Our country manners give our betters way. KING JOHN. What is thy name? BASTARD. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun; Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son. KING JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bear'st: Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great,-- Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet. BASTARD. Brother by the mother's side, give me your hand: My father gave me honour, yours gave land.-- Now blessed be the hour, by night or day, When I was got, Sir Robert was away! ELINOR. The very spirit of Plantagenet!-- I am thy grandam, Richard; call me so. BASTARD. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though? Something about, a little from the right, In at the window, or else o'er the hatch; Who dares not stir by day must walk by night; And have is have, however men do catch: Near or far off, well won is still well shot; And I am I, howe'er I was begot. KING JOHN. Go, Falconbridge; now hast thou thy desire: A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.-- Come, madam,--and come, Richard; we must speed For France, for France, for it is more than need. BASTARD. Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee! For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty. [Exeunt all but the BASTARD.] A foot of honour better than I was; But many a many foot of land the worse. Well, now can I make any Joan a lady:-- 'Good den, Sir Richard:'--'God-a-mercy, fellow:'-- And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter: For new-made honour doth forget men's names: 'Tis too respective and too sociable For your conversion. Now your traveller,-- He and his toothpick at my worship's mess;-- And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd, Why then I suck my teeth, and catechize My picked man of countries:--'My dear sir,'-- Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin,-- 'I shall beseech you'--that is question now; And then comes answer like an ABC-book:-- 'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command; At your employment; at your service, sir:'-- 'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours: And so, ere answer knows what question would,-- Saving in dialogue of compliment, And talking of the Alps and Apennines, The Pyrenean and the river Po,-- It draws toward supper in conclusion so. But this is worshipful society, And fits the mounting spirit like myself: For he is but a bastard to the time, That doth not smack of observation,-- And so am I, whether I smack or no; And not alone in habit and device, Exterior form, outward accoutrement, But from the inward motion to deliver Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth; Which, though I will not practise to deceive, Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn; For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.-- But who comes in such haste in riding-robes? What woman-post is this? hath she no husband That will take pains to blow a horn before her? [Enter LADY FALCONBRIDGE, and JAMES GURNEY.] O me, 'tis my mother!--w now, good lady! What brings you here to court so hastily? LADY FALCONBRIDGE. Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he That holds in chase mine honour up and down? BASTARD. My brother Robert? old Sir Robert's son? Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man? Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so? LADY FalcoNBRIDGE. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy, Sir Robert's son: why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert? He is Sir Robert's son, and so art thou. BASTARD. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile? GURNEY. Good leave, good Philip. BASTARD. Philip--sparrow!--James, There's toys abroad:--anon I'll tell thee more. [Exit GURNEY.] Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son; Sir Robert might have eat his part in me Upon Good-Friday, and ne'er broke his fast. Sir Robert could do well: marry, to confess, Could not get me; Sir Robert could not do it,-- We know his handiwork:--therefore, good mother, To whom am I beholding for these limbs? Sir Robert never holp to make this leg. LADY FALCONBRIDGE. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too, That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour? What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave? BASTARD. Knight, knight, good mother,--Basilisco-like; What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder. But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son: I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land; Legitimation, name, and all is gone: Then, good my mother, let me know my father,-- Some proper man, I hope: who was it, mother? LADY FalcoNBRIDGE. Hast thou denied thyself a Falconbridge? BASTARD. As faithfully as I deny the devil. LADY FALCONBRIDGE. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father: By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd To make room for him in my husband's bed:-- Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!-- Thou art the issue of my dear offence, Which was so strongly urg'd, past my defence. BASTARD. Now, by this light, were I to get again, Madam, I would not wish a better father. Some sins do bear their privilege on earth, And so doth yours; your fault was not your folly: Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,-- Subjected tribute to commanding love,-- Against whose fury and unmatched force The aweless lion could not wage the fight Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand: He that perforce robs lions of their hearts May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother, With all my heart I thank thee for my father! Who lives and dares but say, thou didst not well When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell. Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin; And they shall say when Richard me begot, If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin: Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not. [Exeunt.]

At the royal court of England, King John chills out on his big, shiny throne, surrounded by his posse: the noblemen Pembroke, Essex, and Salisbury. King John's posse also includes the adviser he trusts most all... his mom, Queen Eleanor. Yep. King John's kind of a mama's boy--and we don't mean that in a bad way. Eleanor was one powerful lady. But King John and his cronies aren't the only ones there: there's also a visitor, Chatillon, the snooty French ambassador. Chatillon's got a message from King Philip of France: Philip doesn't think John has a legal right to the throne and wants him to step down ASAP. Better yet, King John should just go ahead and fork over the English crown and a bunch of territories to John's young nephew, Arthur, who should have inherited the throne. Like any self-respecting English monarch would, King John politely tells the French ambassador to take a hike. Oh yeah, and he also says that he's going to invade France himself, just to teach that nasty French king a lesson. Before Chatillon leaves, King John tells him to hurry on home because the English army will be on France's doorstep faster than you can say "cannonball." Once the French ambassador is gone, Queen Eleanor chimes in. She says this is all that "ambitious" Constance's fault. Constance is Arthur's mom, and she really wants her little boy to be king. We'll meet her later. Queen Eleanor's also not crazy about her son going to war over what should be a private family matter, and she's not afraid to tell him about it. At this point, the Earl of Essex announces that two people have come from the countryside to have the king settle a dispute. "Sure. Why not?" says our King. Then King John makes a side comment about how he's going to let the monasteries pay for his war with France. That's Shakespeare's big shout-out to the historical King John's famous habit of increasing taxes. In come the plaintiff and the defendant: Robert Falconbridge and his older brother Philip. As it turns out, the case totally belongs in front of someone like Judge Judy, but this is a Shakespeare play so it goes before the king. The defendant, a guy named "Philip the Bastard" claims to be the firstborn son of a dead guy named Robert Falconbridge Sr.--and therefore the rightful heir to his wealth. The plaintiff, Robert Falconbridge, Jr., claims that Philip had another father and is thus a bastard without any legal right to inherit from Robert Falconbridge, Sr. Brain Snack: This whole showdown between Philip the Bastard and Robert is about something called primogeniture, the system by which the eldest legitimate sons inherits all his father's wealth, titles, lands, power, debt, etc. In other words, younger brothers, "bastards," and daughters usually get shafted. Because Philip is a "bastard," his little brother Robert thinks he shouldn't get all his dead dad's money. If you've read King Lear, then you know that Shakespeare's kind of obsessed with primogeniture and "bastards." While Philip is talking, Queen Eleanor and King John are all, "Gee, that Philip sure does look a lot like King Richard I." Richard I would be John's dead brother and Queen Eleanor's dead son. Then Robert speaks up. He says that, actually, King Richard was Philip's dad: Richard got busy with his mom while his dad was away a business trip. Robert finishes his tale by saying that his father, on his deathbed, disinherited Philip and made him his heir. King John believes Robert's story . But King John disagrees about the legal consequences. He cites a law that states that once a woman is married, her husband is technically considered the legal baby-daddy of any child she bears, no matter who the biological father actually is. Robert objects, but it doesn't get him anywhere. What's worse, the Bastard now starts bagging on him for not getting to inherit his father's land. At this point, Queen Eleanor is all, "Hey, kid. who would you rather have as a father? That lame Robert Falconbridge guy? Or my awesome dead son, Richard the Lionheart?" Guess who the Bastard picks? Philip agrees to stop claiming Robert Falconbridge, Sr., as his dad. He also gives up the land he inherited. In return, King John makes Philip a knight, and Eleanor tells him to start calling her Grandma. After this episode is over, King John announces that they have to hurry up and get ready to go to war with France. Everybody leaves the stage except for Philip the Bastard. The Bastard goes into a soliloquy . In his speech, the Bastard imagines how awesome his new life is going to be. Then he announces his plans to use deception to climb further up the social ladder. At the end of this speech, the Bastard sees someone arriving on horseback: it's his mom , and she's with some guy named James Gurney. The Bastard wants to have a private chat with mom, so he sends away her friend. The Bastard breaks the news to his mom that he just renounced her dead husband . Lady Falconbridge is cool with that. In fact, she's sort of relieved and fesses up to having had a torrid affair with the Bastard's real bio dad. The Bastard and his mom then leave the stage together, and he promises to introduce her to his "new" relatives.

Dearest People, Here I really sit at a front window of the Bath Hotel, Piccadilly. It's not a fashionable place, but Uncle stopped here years ago, and won't go anywhere else. However, we don't mean to stay long, so it's no great matter. Oh, I can't begin to tell you how I enjoy it all! I never can, so I'll only give you bits out of my notebook, for I've done nothing but sketch and scribble since I started. I sent a line from Halifax, when I felt pretty miserable, but after that I got on delightfully, seldom ill, on deck all day, with plenty of pleasant people to amuse me. Everyone was very kind to me, especially the officers. Don't laugh, Jo, gentlemen really are very necessary aboard ship, to hold on to, or to wait upon one, and as they have nothing to do, it's a mercy to make them useful, otherwise they would smoke themselves to death, I'm afraid. Aunt and Flo were poorly all the way, and liked to be let alone, so when I had done what I could for them, I went and enjoyed myself. Such walks on deck, such sunsets, such splendid air and waves! It was almost as exciting as riding a fast horse, when we went rushing on so grandly. I wish Beth could have come, it would have done her so much good. As for Jo, she would have gone up and sat on the maintop jib, or whatever the high thing is called, made friends with the engineers, and tooted on the captain's speaking trumpet, she'd have been in such a state of rapture. It was all heavenly, but I was glad to see the Irish coast, and found it very lovely, so green and sunny, with brown cabins here and there, ruins on some of the hills, and gentlemen's countryseats in the valleys, with deer feeding in the parks. It was early in the morning, but I didn't regret getting up to see it, for the bay was full of little boats, the shore so picturesque, and a rosy sky overhead. I never shall forget it. At Queenstown one of my new acquaintances left us, Mr. Lennox, and when I said something about the Lakes of Killarney, he sighed, and sung, with a look at me... "Oh, have you e'er heard of Kate Kearney? She lives on the banks of Killarney; From the glance of her eye, Shun danger and fly, For fatal's the glance of Kate Kearney." Wasn't that nonsensical? We only stopped at Liverpool a few hours. It's a dirty, noisy place, and I was glad to leave it. Uncle rushed out and bought a pair of dogskin gloves, some ugly, thick shoes, and an umbrella, and got shaved _a la_ mutton chop, the first thing. Then he flattered himself that he looked like a true Briton, but the first time he had the mud cleaned off his shoes, the little bootblack knew that an American stood in them, and said, with a grin, "There yer har, sir. I've given 'em the latest Yankee shine." It amused Uncle immensely. Oh, I must tell you what that absurd Lennox did! He got his friend Ward, who came on with us, to order a bouquet for me, and the first thing I saw in my room was a lovely one, with "Robert Lennox's compliments," on the card. Wasn't that fun, girls? I like traveling. I never shall get to London if I don't hurry. The trip was like riding through a long picture gallery, full of lovely landscapes. The farmhouses were my delight, with thatched roofs, ivy up to the eaves, latticed windows, and stout women with rosy children at the doors. The very cattle looked more tranquil than ours, as they stood knee-deep in clover, and the hens had a contented cluck, as if they never got nervous like Yankee biddies. Such perfect color I never saw, the grass so green, sky so blue, grain so yellow, woods so dark, I was in a rapture all the way. So was Flo, and we kept bouncing from one side to the other, trying to see everything while we were whisking along at the rate of sixty miles an hour. Aunt was tired and went to sleep, but Uncle read his guidebook, and wouldn't be astonished at anything. This is the way we went on. Amy, flying up--"Oh, that must be Kenilworth, that gray place among the trees!" Flo, darting to my window--"How sweet! We must go there sometime, won't we Papa?" Uncle, calmly admiring his boots--"No, my dear, not unless you want beer, that's a brewery." A pause--then Flo cried out, "Bless me, there's a gallows and a man going up." "Where, where?" shrieks Amy, staring out at two tall posts with a crossbeam and some dangling chains. "A colliery," remarks Uncle, with a twinkle of the eye. "Here's a lovely flock of lambs all lying down," says Amy. "See, Papa, aren't they pretty?" added Flo sentimentally. "Geese, young ladies," returns Uncle, in a tone that keeps us quiet till Flo settles down to enjoy the _Flirtations of Captain Cavendish_, and I have the scenery all to myself. Of course it rained when we got to London, and there was nothing to be seen but fog and umbrellas. We rested, unpacked, and shopped a little between the showers. Aunt Mary got me some new things, for I came off in such a hurry I wasn't half ready. A white hat and blue feather, a muslin dress to match, and the loveliest mantle you ever saw. Shopping in Regent Street is perfectly splendid. Things seem so cheap, nice ribbons only sixpence a yard. I laid in a stock, but shall get my gloves in Paris. Doesn't that sound sort of elegant and rich? Flo and I, for the fun of it, ordered a hansom cab, while Aunt and Uncle were out, and went for a drive, though we learned afterward that it wasn't the thing for young ladies to ride in them alone. It was so droll! For when we were shut in by the wooden apron, the man drove so fast that Flo was frightened, and told me to stop him, but he was up outside behind somewhere, and I couldn't get at him. He didn't hear me call, nor see me flap my parasol in front, and there we were, quite helpless, rattling away, and whirling around corners at a breakneck pace. At last, in my despair, I saw a little door in the roof, and on poking it open, a red eye appeared, and a beery voice said... "Now, then, mum?" I gave my order as soberly as I could, and slamming down the door, with an "Aye, aye, mum," the man made his horse walk, as if going to a funeral. I poked again and said, "A little faster," then off he went, helter-skelter as before, and we resigned ourselves to our fate. Today was fair, and we went to Hyde Park, close by, for we are more aristocratic than we look. The Duke of Devonshire lives near. I often see his footmen lounging at the back gate, and the Duke of Wellington's house is not far off. Such sights as I saw, my dear! It was as good as Punch, for there were fat dowagers rolling about in their red and yellow coaches, with gorgeous Jeameses in silk stockings and velvet coats, up behind, and powdered coachmen in front. Smart maids, with the rosiest children I ever saw, handsome girls, looking half asleep, dandies in queer English hats and lavender kids lounging about, and tall soldiers, in short red jackets and muffin caps stuck on one side, looking so funny I longed to sketch them. Rotten Row means 'Route de Roi', or the king's way, but now it's more like a riding school than anything else. The horses are splendid, and the men, especially the grooms, ride well, but the women are stiff, and bounce, which isn't according to our rules. I longed to show them a tearing American gallop, for they trotted solemnly up and down, in their scant habits and high hats, looking like the women in a toy Noah's Ark. Everyone rides--old men, stout ladies, little children--and the young folks do a deal of flirting here, I saw a pair exchange rose buds, for it's the thing to wear one in the button-hole, and I thought it rather a nice little idea. In the P.M. to Westminster Abbey, but don't expect me to describe it, that's impossible, so I'll only say it was sublime! This evening we are going to see Fechter, which will be an appropriate end to the happiest day of my life. It's very late, but I can't let my letter go in the morning without telling you what happened last evening. Who do you think came in, as we were at tea? Laurie's English friends, Fred and Frank Vaughn! I was so surprised, for I shouldn't have known them but for the cards. Both are tall fellows with whiskers, Fred handsome in the English style, and Frank much better, for he only limps slightly, and uses no crutches. They had heard from Laurie where we were to be, and came to ask us to their house, but Uncle won't go, so we shall return the call, and see them as we can. They went to the theater with us, and we did have such a good time, for Frank devoted himself to Flo, and Fred and I talked over past, present, and future fun as if we had known each other all our days. Tell Beth Frank asked for her, and was sorry to hear of her ill health. Fred laughed when I spoke of Jo, and sent his 'respectful compliments to the big hat'. Neither of them had forgotten Camp Laurence, or the fun we had there. What ages ago it seems, doesn't it? Aunt is tapping on the wall for the third time, so I must stop. I really feel like a dissipated London fine lady, writing here so late, with my room full of pretty things, and my head a jumble of parks, theaters, new gowns, and gallant creatures who say "Ah!" and twirl their blond mustaches with the true English lordliness. I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense am, as ever, your loving... AMY PARIS Dear girls, In my last I told you about our London visit, how kind the Vaughns were, and what pleasant parties they made for us. I enjoyed the trips to Hampton Court and the Kensington Museum more than anything else, for at Hampton I saw Raphael's cartoons, and at the Museum, rooms full of pictures by Turner, Lawrence, Reynolds, Hogarth, and the other great creatures. The day in Richmond Park was charming, for we had a regular English picnic, and I had more splendid oaks and groups of deer than I could copy, also heard a nightingale, and saw larks go up. We 'did' London to our heart's content, thanks to Fred and Frank, and were sorry to go away, for though English people are slow to take you in, when they once make up their minds to do it they cannot be outdone in hospitality, I think. The Vaughns hope to meet us in Rome next winter, and I shall be dreadfully disappointed if they don't, for Grace and I are great friends, and the boys very nice fellows, especially Fred. Well, we were hardly settled here, when he turned up again, saying he had come for a holiday, and was going to Switzerland. Aunt looked sober at first, but he was so cool about it she couldn't say a word. And now we get on nicely, and are very glad he came, for he speaks French like a native, and I don't know what we should do without him. Uncle doesn't know ten words, and insists on talking English very loud, as if it would make people understand him. Aunt's pronunciation is old-fashioned, and Flo and I, though we flattered ourselves that we knew a good deal, find we don't, and are very grateful to have Fred do the '_parley vooing_', as Uncle calls it. Such delightful times as we are having! Sight-seeing from morning till night, stopping for nice lunches in the gay _cafes_, and meeting with all sorts of droll adventures. Rainy days I spend in the Louvre, revelling in pictures. Jo would turn up her naughty nose at some of the finest, because she has no soul for art, but I have, and I'm cultivating eye and taste as fast as I can. She would like the relics of great people better, for I've seen her Napoleon's cocked hat and gray coat, his baby's cradle and his old toothbrush, also Marie Antoinette's little shoe, the ring of Saint Denis, Charlemagne's sword, and many other interesting things. I'll talk for hours about them when I come, but haven't time to write. The Palais Royale is a heavenly place, so full of _bijouterie_ and lovely things that I'm nearly distracted because I can't buy them. Fred wanted to get me some, but of course I didn't allow it. Then the Bois and Champs Elysees are _tres magnifique_. I've seen the imperial family several times, the emperor an ugly, hard-looking man, the empress pale and pretty, but dressed in bad taste, I thought--purple dress, green hat, and yellow gloves. Little Nap is a handsome boy, who sits chatting to his tutor, and kisses his hand to the people as he passes in his four-horse barouche, with postilions in red satin jackets and a mounted guard before and behind. We often walk in the Tuileries Gardens, for they are lovely, though the antique Luxembourg Gardens suit me better. Pere la Chaise is very curious, for many of the tombs are like small rooms, and looking in, one sees a table, with images or pictures of the dead, and chairs for the mourners to sit in when they come to lament. That is so Frenchy. Our rooms are on the Rue de Rivoli, and sitting on the balcony, we look up and down the long, brilliant street. It is so pleasant that we spend our evenings talking there when too tired with our day's work to go out. Fred is very entertaining, and is altogether the most agreeable young man I ever knew--except Laurie, whose manners are more charming. I wish Fred was dark, for I don't fancy light men, however, the Vaughns are very rich and come of an excellent family, so I won't find fault with their yellow hair, as my own is yellower. Next week we are off to Germany and Switzerland, and as we shall travel fast, I shall only be able to give you hasty letters. I keep my diary, and try to 'remember correctly and describe clearly all that I see and admire', as Father advised. It is good practice for me, and with my sketchbook will give you a better idea of my tour than these scribbles. Adieu, I embrace you tenderly. _"Votre Amie."_ HEIDELBERG My dear Mamma, Having a quiet hour before we leave for Berne, I'll try to tell you what has happened, for some of it is very important, as you will see. The sail up the Rhine was perfect, and I just sat and enjoyed it with all my might. Get Father's old guidebooks and read about it. I haven't words beautiful enough to describe it. At Coblentz we had a lovely time, for some students from Bonn, with whom Fred got acquainted on the boat, gave us a serenade. It was a moonlight night, and about one o'clock Flo and I were waked by the most delicious music under our windows. We flew up, and hid behind the curtains, but sly peeps showed us Fred and the students singing away down below. It was the most romantic thing I ever saw--the river, the bridge of boats, the great fortress opposite, moonlight everywhere, and music fit to melt a heart of stone. When they were done we threw down some flowers, and saw them scramble for them, kiss their hands to the invisible ladies, and go laughing away, to smoke and drink beer, I suppose. Next morning Fred showed me one of the crumpled flowers in his vest pocket, and looked very sentimental. I laughed at him, and said I didn't throw it, but Flo, which seemed to disgust him, for he tossed it out of the window, and turned sensible again. I'm afraid I'm going to have trouble with that boy, it begins to look like it. The baths at Nassau were very gay, so was Baden-Baden, where Fred lost some money, and I scolded him. He needs someone to look after him when Frank is not with him. Kate said once she hoped he'd marry soon, and I quite agree with her that it would be well for him. Frankfurt was delightful. I saw Goethe's house, Schiller's statue, and Dannecker's famous 'Ariadne.' It was very lovely, but I should have enjoyed it more if I had known the story better. I didn't like to ask, as everyone knew it or pretended they did. I wish Jo would tell me all about it. I ought to have read more, for I find I don't know anything, and it mortifies me. Now comes the serious part, for it happened here, and Fred has just gone. He has been so kind and jolly that we all got quite fond of him. I never thought of anything but a traveling friendship till the serenade night. Since then I've begun to feel that the moonlight walks, balcony talks, and daily adventures were something more to him than fun. I haven't flirted, Mother, truly, but remembered what you said to me, and have done my very best. I can't help it if people like me. I don't try to make them, and it worries me if I don't care for them, though Jo says I haven't got any heart. Now I know Mother will shake her head, and the girls say, "Oh, the mercenary little wretch!", but I've made up my mind, and if Fred asks me, I shall accept him, though I'm not madly in love. I like him, and we get on comfortably together. He is handsome, young, clever enough, and very rich--ever so much richer than the Laurences. I don't think his family would object, and I should be very happy, for they are all kind, well-bred, generous people, and they like me. Fred, as the eldest twin, will have the estate, I suppose, and such a splendid one it is! A city house in a fashionable street, not so showy as our big houses, but twice as comfortable and full of solid luxury, such as English people believe in. I like it, for it's genuine. I've seen the plate, the family jewels, the old servants, and pictures of the country place, with its park, great house, lovely grounds, and fine horses. Oh, it would be all I should ask! And I'd rather have it than any title such as girls snap up so readily, and find nothing behind. I may be mercenary, but I hate poverty, and don't mean to bear it a minute longer than I can help. One of us _must_ marry well. Meg didn't, Jo won't, Beth can't yet, so I shall, and make everything okay all round. I wouldn't marry a man I hated or despised. You may be sure of that, and though Fred is not my model hero, he does very well, and in time I should get fond enough of him if he was very fond of me, and let me do just as I liked. So I've been turning the matter over in my mind the last week, for it was impossible to help seeing that Fred liked me. He said nothing, but little things showed it. He never goes with Flo, always gets on my side of the carriage, table, or promenade, looks sentimental when we are alone, and frowns at anyone else who ventures to speak to me. Yesterday at dinner, when an Austrian officer stared at us and then said something to his friend, a rakish-looking baron, about '_ein wonderschones Blondchen'_, Fred looked as fierce as a lion, and cut his meat so savagely it nearly flew off his plate. He isn't one of the cool, stiff Englishmen, but is rather peppery, for he has Scotch blood in him, as one might guess from his bonnie blue eyes. Well, last evening we went up to the castle about sunset, at least all of us but Fred, who was to meet us there after going to the Post Restante for letters. We had a charming time poking about the ruins, the vaults where the monster tun is, and the beautiful gardens made by the elector long ago for his English wife. I liked the great terrace best, for the view was divine, so while the rest went to see the rooms inside, I sat there trying to sketch the gray stone lion's head on the wall, with scarlet woodbine sprays hanging round it. I felt as if I'd got into a romance, sitting there, watching the Neckar rolling through the valley, listening to the music of the Austrian band below, and waiting for my lover, like a real storybook girl. I had a feeling that something was going to happen and I was ready for it. I didn't feel blushy or quakey, but quite cool and only a little excited. By-and-by I heard Fred's voice, and then he came hurrying through the great arch to find me. He looked so troubled that I forgot all about myself, and asked what the matter was. He said he'd just got a letter begging him to come home, for Frank was very ill. So he was going at once on the night train and only had time to say good-by. I was very sorry for him, and disappointed for myself, but only for a minute because he said, as he shook hands, and said it in a way that I could not mistake, "I shall soon come back, you won't forget me, Amy?" I didn't promise, but I looked at him, and he seemed satisfied, and there was no time for anything but messages and good-byes, for he was off in an hour, and we all miss him very much. I know he wanted to speak, but I think, from something he once hinted, that he had promised his father not to do anything of the sort yet a while, for he is a rash boy, and the old gentleman dreads a foreign daughter-in-law. We shall soon meet in Rome, and then, if I don't change my mind, I'll say "Yes, thank you," when he says "Will you, please?" Of course this is all _very private_, but I wished you to know what was going on. Don't be anxious about me, remember I am your 'prudent Amy', and be sure I will do nothing rashly. Send me as much advice as you like. I'll use it if I can. I wish I could see you for a good talk, Marmee. Love and trust me. Ever your AMY

Amy writes a series of letters from Europe and England. In England she meets up with Laurie's English friends, Fred and Frank Vaughan. Later Fred travels with Amy's party throughout France. Fred speaks French fluently and takes Amy everywhere. One night they go for a sail on the Rhine River and a group of students serenade them. Amy begins to think of Fred as something more than a traveling companion. In her letter home, she confesses that she is not truly in love with him, but she does like him and they get along comfortably. She resolves to accept Fred if he should propose to her. Later he has to leave as Frank is in poor health in England. He asks Amy if she will be there when he comes back, and she implies that she will be available.

In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonary, flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length at the feet of the astonished Miss Jemima, the young lady's countenance, which had before worn an almost livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying--"So much for the Dixonary; and, thank God, I'm out of Chiswick." Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, "I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine." Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, "Boy, take down your pant--"? Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination. "How could you do so, Rebecca?" at last she said, after a pause. "Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to the black-hole?" said Rebecca, laughing. "No: but--" "I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a fury. "I hope I may never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in the bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were there, I wouldn't pick her out, that I wouldn't. O how I should like to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry." "Hush!" cried Miss Sedley. "Why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried Miss Rebecca, laughing. "He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he would; and I wish I had a means of proving it, too. For two years I have only had insults and outrage from her. I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen. I have never had a friend or a kind word, except from you. I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses, until I grew sick of my mother tongue. But that talking French to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn't it? She doesn't know a word of French, and was too proud to confess it. I believe it was that which made her part with me; and so thank Heaven for French. Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!" "O Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!" cried Miss Sedley; for this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, in England, to say, "Long live Bonaparte!" was as much as to say, "Long live Lucifer!" "How can you--how dare you have such wicked, revengeful thoughts?" "Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered Miss Rebecca. "I'm no angel." And, to say the truth, she certainly was not. For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the river side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in the least kind or placable. All the world used her ill, said this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice. This is certain, that if the world neglected Miss Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action in behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four young ladies should all be as amiable as the heroine of this work, Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for the very reason that she was the best-natured of all, otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from putting up Miss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as heroine in her place!) it could not be expected that every one should be of the humble and gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley; should take every opportunity to vanquish Rebecca's hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and, by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once at least, her hostility to her kind. Miss Sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality had given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school. He was a clever man; a pleasant companion; a careless student; with a great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. When he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning, with a headache, he would rail at the world for its neglect of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness, and sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother painters. As it was with the utmost difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French nation, who was by profession an opera-girl. The humble calling of her female parent Miss Sharp never alluded to, but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were a noble family of Gascony, and took great pride in her descent from them. And curious it is that as she advanced in life this young lady's ancestors increased in rank and splendour. Rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere, and her daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent. It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to her engagement with the orthodox Miss Pinkerton. For her mother being dead, her father, finding himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French, as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and, with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school. She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up they were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive that the Reverend Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr. Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which was fired all the way across Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the reading-desk. This infatuated young man used sometimes to take tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been presented by his mamma, and actually proposed something like marriage in an intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged to deliver. Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, and abruptly carried off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in the Chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter in the breast of Miss Pinkerton, who would have sent away Miss Sharp but that she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never could thoroughly believe the young lady's protestations that she had never exchanged a single word with Mr. Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions when she had met him at tea. By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked to, and turned away from her father's door; many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more. She sate commonly with her father, who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions--often but ill-suited for a girl to hear. But she never had been a girl, she said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old. Oh, why did Miss Pinkerton let such a dangerous bird into her cage? The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her father brought her to Chiswick, used Rebecca to perform the part of the ingenue; and only a year before the arrangement by which Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of a doll--which was, by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how Miss Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll. Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of Newman Street, Gerrard Street, and the Artists' quarter: and the young painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home: she was as well known to them, poor soul! as Mr. Lawrence or President West. Once Rebecca had the honour to pass a few days at Chiswick; after which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as Miss Jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister. The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as to her home. The rigid formality of the place suffocated her: the prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were arranged with a conventual regularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance; and she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father. She had a little room in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, and not with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign. She had never mingled in the society of women: her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle tender-hearted Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least; and who could help attaching herself to Amelia? The happiness--the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. "What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl's grand-daughter," she said of one. "How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth. I am as well bred as the Earl's grand-daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here. And yet, when I was at my father's, did not the men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me?" She determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first time to make connected plans for the future. She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study which was considered necessary for ladies in those days. Her music she practised incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that Minerva thought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct them in music for the future. The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of the majestic mistress of the school. "I am here to speak French with the children," Rebecca said abruptly, "not to teach them music, and save money for you. Give me money, and I will teach them." Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that day. "For five-and-thirty years," she said, and with great justice, "I never have seen the individual who has dared in my own house to question my authority. I have nourished a viper in my bosom." "A viper--a fiddlestick," said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almost fainting with astonishment. "You took me because I was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I hate this place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do." It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the schoolmistress into fits. "Give me a sum of money," said the girl, "and get rid of me--or, if you like better, get me a good place as governess in a nobleman's family--you can do so if you please." And in their further disputes she always returned to this point, "Get me a situation--we hate each other, and I am ready to go." Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to overawe her. Attempting once to scold her in public, Rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of answering her in French, which quite routed the old woman. In order to maintain authority in her school, it became necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley's family was in want of a governess, she actually recommended Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. "I cannot, certainly," she said, "find fault with Miss Sharp's conduct, except to myself; and must allow that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order. As far as the head goes, at least, she does credit to the educational system pursued at my establishment." And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice was free. The battle here described in a few lines, of course, lasted for some months. And as Miss Sedley, being now in her seventeenth year, was about to leave school, and had a friendship for Miss Sharp ("'tis the only point in Amelia's behaviour," said Minerva, "which has not been satisfactory to her mistress"), Miss Sharp was invited by her friend to pass a week with her at home, before she entered upon her duties as governess in a private family. Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For Amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. It was not quite a new one for Rebecca--(indeed, if the truth must be told with respect to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody, who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more than was made public regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp, and that his letter was in answer to another letter). But who can tell you the real truth of the matter? At all events, if Rebecca was not beginning the world, she was beginning it over again. By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike, Amelia had not forgotten her companions, but had dried her tears, and had blushed very much and been delighted at a young officer of the Life Guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and said, "A dem fine gal, egad!" and before the carriage arrived in Russell Square, a great deal of conversation had taken place about the Drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore powder as well as hoops when presented, and whether she was to have that honour: to the Lord Mayor's ball she knew she was to go. And when at length home was reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out on Sambo's arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of London. Both he and coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother, and so did every one of the servants in the house, as they stood bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to welcome their young mistress. You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room of the house, and everything in every one of her drawers; and her books, and her piano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces, brooches, laces, and gimcracks. She insisted upon Rebecca accepting the white cornelian and the turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin, which was too small for her now, though it would fit her friend to a nicety; and she determined in her heart to ask her mother's permission to present her white Cashmere shawl to her friend. Could she not spare it? and had not her brother Joseph just brought her two from India? When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls which Joseph Sedley had brought home to his sister, she said, with perfect truth, "that it must be delightful to have a brother," and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia for being alone in the world, an orphan without friends or kindred. "Not alone," said Amelia; "you know, Rebecca, I shall always be your friend, and love you as a sister--indeed I will." "Ah, but to have parents, as you have--kind, rich, affectionate parents, who give you everything you ask for; and their love, which is more precious than all! My poor papa could give me nothing, and I had but two frocks in all the world! And then, to have a brother, a dear brother! Oh, how you must love him!" Amelia laughed. "What! don't you love him? you, who say you love everybody?" "Yes, of course, I do--only--" "Only what?" "Only Joseph doesn't seem to care much whether I love him or not. He gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after ten years' absence! He is very kind and good, but he scarcely ever speaks to me; I think he loves his pipe a great deal better than his"--but here Amelia checked herself, for why should she speak ill of her brother? "He was very kind to me as a child," she added; "I was but five years old when he went away." "Isn't he very rich?" said Rebecca. "They say all Indian nabobs are enormously rich." "I believe he has a very large income." "And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?" "La! Joseph is not married," said Amelia, laughing again. Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but that young lady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, vowed and protested that she expected to see a number of Amelia's nephews and nieces. She was quite disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married; she was sure Amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little children. "I think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick," said Amelia, rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend's part; and indeed in later days Miss Sharp would never have committed herself so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been so easily detected. But we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making her own experience in her own person. The meaning of the above series of queries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious young woman, was simply this: "If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I have only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying." And she determined within herself to make this laudable attempt. She redoubled her caresses to Amelia; she kissed the white cornelian necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never, never part with it. When the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm round her friend's waist, as is the habit of young ladies. She was so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly find courage to enter. "Feel my heart, how it beats, dear!" said she to her friend. "No, it doesn't," said Amelia. "Come in, don't be frightened. Papa won't do you any harm."

Becky is wickedly satisfied with the heroic act she has just performed. She tells Amelia that she was treated with contempt and compelled to teach French at the mall and that she was glad to bid it goodbye. Amelia, excitedly, shows Becky around her house and gifts her a Cashmere shawl , besides a lot of other things. The knowledge that Amelias brother, Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried fills hope into Beckys heart and she is determined to make an attempt to woo him.

"THIS Rector of Broxton is little better than a pagan!" I hear one of my readers exclaim. "How much more edifying it would have been if you had made him give Arthur some truly spiritual advice! You might have put into his mouth the most beautiful things--quite as good as reading a sermon." Certainly I could, if I held it the highest vocation of the novelist to represent things as they never have been and never will be. Then, of course, I might refashion life and character entirely after my own liking; I might select the most unexceptionable type of clergyman and put my own admirable opinions into his mouth on all occasions. But it happens, on the contrary, that my strongest effort is to avoid any such arbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of men and things as they have mirrored themselves in my mind. The mirror is doubtless defective, the outlines will sometimes be disturbed, the reflection faint or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you as precisely as I can what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box, narrating my experience on oath. Sixty years ago--it is a long time, so no wonder things have changed--all clergymen were not zealous; indeed, there is reason to believe that the number of zealous clergymen was small, and it is probable that if one among the small minority had owned the livings of Broxton and Hayslope in the year 1799, you would have liked him no better than you like Mr. Irwine. Ten to one, you would have thought him a tasteless, indiscreet, methodistical man. It is so very rarely that facts hit that nice medium required by our own enlightened opinions and refined taste! Perhaps you will say, "Do improve the facts a little, then; make them more accordant with those correct views which it is our privilege to possess. The world is not just what we like; do touch it up with a tasteful pencil, and make believe it is not quite such a mixed entangled affair. Let all people who hold unexceptionable opinions act unexceptionably. Let your most faulty characters always be on the wrong side, and your virtuous ones on the right. Then we shall see at a glance whom we are to condemn and whom we are to approve. Then we shall be able to admire, without the slightest disturbance of our prepossessions: we shall hate and despise with that true ruminant relish which belongs to undoubting confidence." But, my good friend, what will you do then with your fellow-parishioner who opposes your husband in the vestry? With your newly appointed vicar, whose style of preaching you find painfully below that of his regretted predecessor? With the honest servant who worries your soul with her one failing? With your neighbour, Mrs. Green, who was really kind to you in your last illness, but has said several ill-natured things about you since your convalescence? Nay, with your excellent husband himself, who has other irritating habits besides that of not wiping his shoes? These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people--amongst whom your life is passed--that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire--for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience. And I would not, even if I had the choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so much better than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our daily work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder eye on the dusty streets and the common green fields--on the real breathing men and women, who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by your prejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling, your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice. So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make things seem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity, which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread. Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin--the longer the claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings--much harder than to say something fine about them which is NOT the exact truth. It is for this rare, precious quality of truthfulness that I delight in many Dutch paintings, which lofty-minded people despise. I find a source of delicious sympathy in these faithful pictures of a monotonous homely existence, which has been the fate of so many more among my fellow-mortals than a life of pomp or of absolute indigence, of tragic suffering or of world-stirring actions. I turn, without shrinking, from cloud-borne angels, from prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to an old woman bending over her flower-pot, or eating her solitary dinner, while the noonday light, softened perhaps by a screen of leaves, falls on her mob-cap, and just touches the rim of her spinning-wheel, and her stone jug, and all those cheap common things which are the precious necessaries of life to her--or I turn to that village wedding, kept between four brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the dance with a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride, while elderly and middle-aged friends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, and probably with quart-pots in their hands, but with an expression of unmistakable contentment and goodwill. "Foh!" says my idealistic friend, "what vulgar details! What good is there in taking all these pains to give an exact likeness of old women and clowns? What a low phase of life! What clumsy, ugly people!" But bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope? I am not at all sure that the majority of the human race have not been ugly, and even among those "lords of their kind," the British, squat figures, ill-shapen nostrils, and dingy complexions are not startling exceptions. Yet there is a great deal of family love amongst us. I have a friend or two whose class of features is such that the Apollo curl on the summit of their brows would be decidedly trying; yet to my certain knowledge tender hearts have beaten for them, and their miniatures--flattering, but still not lovely--are kissed in secret by motherly lips. I have seen many an excellent matron, who could have never in her best days have been handsome, and yet she had a packet of yellow love-letters in a private drawer, and sweet children showered kisses on her sallow cheeks. And I believe there have been plenty of young heroes, of middle stature and feeble beards, who have felt quite sure they could never love anything more insignificant than a Diana, and yet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a wife who waddles. Yes! Thank God; human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty--it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it. All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate it to the utmost in men, women, and children--in our gardens and in our houses. But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret of proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy. Paint us an angel, if you can, with a floating violet robe, and a face paled by the celestial light; paint us yet oftener a Madonna, turning her mild face upward and opening her arms to welcome the divine glory; but do not impose on us any aesthetic rules which shall banish from the region of Art those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, those heavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pot-house, those rounded backs and stupid weather-beaten faces that have bent over the spade and done the rough work of the world--those homes with their tin pans, their brown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions. In this world there are so many of these common coarse people, who have no picturesque sentimental wretchedness! It is so needful we should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes. Therefore, let Art always remind us of them; therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of a life to the faithful representing of commonplace things--men who see beauty in these commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindly the light of heaven falls on them. There are few prophets in the world; few sublimely beautiful women; few heroes. I can't afford to give all my love and reverence to such rarities: I want a great deal of those feelings for my every-day fellow-men, especially for the few in the foreground of the great multitude, whose faces I know, whose hands I touch, for whom I have to make way with kindly courtesy. Neither are picturesque lazzaroni or romantic criminals half so frequent as your common labourer, who gets his own bread and eats it vulgarly but creditably with his own pocket-knife. It is more needful that I should have a fibre of sympathy connecting me with that vulgar citizen who weighs out my sugar in a vilely assorted cravat and waistcoat, than with the handsomest rascal in red scarf and green feathers--more needful that my heart should swell with loving admiration at some trait of gentle goodness in the faulty people who sit at the same hearth with me, or in the clergyman of my own parish, who is perhaps rather too corpulent and in other respects is not an Oberlin or a Tillotson, than at the deeds of heroes whom I shall never know except by hearsay, or at the sublimest abstract of all clerical graces that was ever conceived by an able novelist. And so I come back to Mr. Irwine, with whom I desire you to be in perfect charity, far as he may be from satisfying your demands on the clerical character. Perhaps you think he was not--as he ought to have been--a living demonstration of the benefits attached to a national church? But I am not sure of that; at least I know that the people in Broxton and Hayslope would have been very sorry to part with their clergyman, and that most faces brightened at his approach; and until it can be proved that hatred is a better thing for the soul than love, I must believe that Mr. Irwine's influence in his parish was a more wholesome one than that of the zealous Mr. Ryde, who came there twenty years afterwards, when Mr. Irwine had been gathered to his fathers. It is true, Mr. Ryde insisted strongly on the doctrines of the Reformation, visited his flock a great deal in their own homes, and was severe in rebuking the aberrations of the flesh--put a stop, indeed, to the Christmas rounds of the church singers, as promoting drunkenness and too light a handling of sacred things. But I gathered from Adam Bede, to whom I talked of these matters in his old age, that few clergymen could be less successful in winning the hearts of their parishioners than Mr. Ryde. They learned a great many notions about doctrine from him, so that almost every church-goer under fifty began to distinguish as well between the genuine gospel and what did not come precisely up to that standard, as if he had been born and bred a Dissenter; and for some time after his arrival there seemed to be quite a religious movement in that quiet rural district. "But," said Adam, "I've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides notions. It isn't notions sets people doing the right thing--it's feelings. It's the same with the notions in religion as it is with math'matics--a man may be able to work problems straight off in's head as he sits by the fire and smokes his pipe, but if he has to make a machine or a building, he must have a will and a resolution and love something else better than his own ease. Somehow, the congregation began to fall off, and people began to speak light o' Mr. Ryde. I believe he meant right at bottom; but, you see, he was sourish-tempered, and was for beating down prices with the people as worked for him; and his preaching wouldn't go down well with that sauce. And he wanted to be like my lord judge i' the parish, punishing folks for doing wrong; and he scolded 'em from the pulpit as if he'd been a Ranter, and yet he couldn't abide the Dissenters, and was a deal more set against 'em than Mr. Irwine was. And then he didn't keep within his income, for he seemed to think at first go-off that six hundred a-year was to make him as big a man as Mr. Donnithorne. That's a sore mischief I've often seen with the poor curates jumping into a bit of a living all of a sudden. Mr. Ryde was a deal thought on at a distance, I believe, and he wrote books, but as for math'matics and the natur o' things, he was as ignorant as a woman. He was very knowing about doctrines, and used to call 'em the bulwarks of the Reformation; but I've always mistrusted that sort o' learning as leaves folks foolish and unreasonable about business. Now Mester Irwine was as different as could be: as quick!--he understood what you meant in a minute, and he knew all about building, and could see when you'd made a good job. And he behaved as much like a gentleman to the farmers, and th' old women, and the labourers, as he did to the gentry. You never saw HIM interfering and scolding, and trying to play th' emperor. Ah, he was a fine man as ever you set eyes on; and so kind to's mother and sisters. That poor sickly Miss Anne--he seemed to think more of her than of anybody else in the world. There wasn't a soul in the parish had a word to say against him; and his servants stayed with him till they were so old and pottering, he had to hire other folks to do their work." "Well," I said, "that was an excellent way of preaching in the weekdays; but I daresay, if your old friend Mr. Irwine were to come to life again, and get into the pulpit next Sunday, you would be rather ashamed that he didn't preach better after all your praise of him." "Nay, nay," said Adam, broadening his chest and throwing himself back in his chair, as if he were ready to meet all inferences, "nobody has ever heard me say Mr. Irwine was much of a preacher. He didn't go into deep speritial experience; and I know there s a deal in a man's inward life as you can't measure by the square, and say, 'Do this and that 'll follow,' and, 'Do that and this 'll follow.' There's things go on in the soul, and times when feelings come into you like a rushing mighty wind, as the Scripture says, and part your life in two a'most, so you look back on yourself as if you was somebody else. Those are things as you can't bottle up in a 'do this' and 'do that'; and I'll go so far with the strongest Methodist ever you'll find. That shows me there's deep speritial things in religion. You can't make much out wi' talking about it, but you feel it. Mr. Irwine didn't go into those things--he preached short moral sermons, and that was all. But then he acted pretty much up to what he said; he didn't set up for being so different from other folks one day, and then be as like 'em as two peas the next. And he made folks love him and respect him, and that was better nor stirring up their gall wi' being overbusy. Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know she would have her word about everything--she said, Mr. Irwine was like a good meal o' victual, you were the better for him without thinking on it, and Mr. Ryde was like a dose o' physic, he gripped you and worreted you, and after all he left you much the same." "But didn't Mr. Ryde preach a great deal more about that spiritual part of religion that you talk of, Adam? Couldn't you get more out of his sermons than out of Mr. Irwine's?" "Eh, I knowna. He preached a deal about doctrines. But I've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides doctrines and notions. I look at it as if the doctrines was like finding names for your feelings, so as you can talk of 'em when you've never known 'em, just as a man may talk o' tools when he knows their names, though he's never so much as seen 'em, still less handled 'em. I've heard a deal o' doctrine i' my time, for I used to go after the Dissenting preachers along wi' Seth, when I was a lad o' seventeen, and got puzzling myself a deal about th' Arminians and the Calvinists. The Wesleyans, you know, are strong Arminians; and Seth, who could never abide anything harsh and was always for hoping the best, held fast by the Wesleyans from the very first; but I thought I could pick a hole or two in their notions, and I got disputing wi' one o' the class leaders down at Treddles'on, and harassed him so, first o' this side and then o' that, till at last he said, 'Young man, it's the devil making use o' your pride and conceit as a weapon to war against the simplicity o' the truth.' I couldn't help laughing then, but as I was going home, I thought the man wasn't far wrong. I began to see as all this weighing and sifting what this text means and that text means, and whether folks are saved all by God's grace, or whether there goes an ounce o' their own will to't, was no part o' real religion at all. You may talk o' these things for hours on end, and you'll only be all the more coxy and conceited for't. So I took to going nowhere but to church, and hearing nobody but Mr. Irwine, for he said nothing but what was good and what you'd be the wiser for remembering. And I found it better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand. And they're poor foolish questions after all; for what have we got either inside or outside of us but what comes from God? If we've got a resolution to do right, He gave it us, I reckon, first or last; but I see plain enough we shall never do it without a resolution, and that's enough for me." Adam, you perceive, was a warm admirer, perhaps a partial judge, of Mr. Irwine, as, happily, some of us still are of the people we have known familiarly. Doubtless it will be despised as a weakness by that lofty order of minds who pant after the ideal, and are oppressed by a general sense that their emotions are of too exquisite a character to find fit objects among their everyday fellowmen. I have often been favoured with the confidence of these select natures, and find them to concur in the experience that great men are overestimated and small men are insupportable; that if you would love a woman without ever looking back on your love as a folly, she must die while you are courting her; and if you would maintain the slightest belief in human heroism, you must never make a pilgrimage to see the hero. I confess I have often meanly shrunk from confessing to these accomplished and acute gentlemen what my own experience has been. I am afraid I have often smiled with hypocritical assent, and gratified them with an epigram on the fleeting nature of our illusions, which any one moderately acquainted with French literature can command at a moment's notice. Human converse, I think some wise man has remarked, is not rigidly sincere. But I herewith discharge my conscience, and declare that I have had quite enthusiastic movements of admiration towards old gentlemen who spoke the worst English, who were occasionally fretful in their temper, and who had never moved in a higher sphere of influence than that of parish overseer; and that the way in which I have come to the conclusion that human nature is lovable--the way I have learnt something of its deep pathos, its sublime mysteries--has been by living a great deal among people more or less commonplace and vulgar, of whom you would perhaps hear nothing very surprising if you were to inquire about them in the neighbourhoods where they dwelt. Ten to one most of the small shopkeepers in their vicinity saw nothing at all in them. For I have observed this remarkable coincidence, that the select natures who pant after the ideal, and find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command their reverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest and pettiest. For example, I have often heard Mr. Gedge, the landlord of the Royal Oak, who used to turn a bloodshot eye on his neighbours in the village of Shepperton, sum up his opinion of the people in his own parish--and they were all the people he knew--in these emphatic words: "Aye, sir, I've said it often, and I'll say it again, they're a poor lot i' this parish--a poor lot, sir, big and little." I think he had a dim idea that if he could migrate to a distant parish, he might find neighbours worthy of him; and indeed he did subsequently transfer himself to the Saracen's Head, which was doing a thriving business in the back street of a neighbouring market-town. But, oddly enough, he has found the people up that back street of precisely the same stamp as the inhabitants of Shepperton--"a poor lot, sir, big and little, and them as comes for a go o' gin are no better than them as comes for a pint o' twopenny--a poor lot."

Stop what you're doing: George Eliot has something important to say! Or rather, one of her imaginary readers does. Eliot opens Chapter 17 by imagining a reader who is turned off by Mr. Irwine--who finds the jolly fellow "little better than a pagan" and wishes he had "the most beautiful things" to say instead" . And what does Eliot's narrator have to say to Mr. Totally Nonexistent Reader? Try this on for size: "My strongest effort is to avoid any such arbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of men and things as they have mirrored themselves in my mind" . In short: accept Mr. Irwine, defects and all, because real people have defects. In fact, Eliot's narrator is hooked on the whole reality thing. In real life, we have to "tolerate, pity, and love" a whole bunch of "more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people" . Characters aren't much different. Love 'em, hate 'em, but don't dismiss them out of hand because they aren't "perfect." Okay, Mr. Imaginary Reader has pretty much been booed offstage by now. So Eliot's narrator has room to explain why "falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult" in fiction . Falsehood--melodrama, perfect people, acts of heroism in Eliot's book--is entertaining, and can speak to our love of beautiful things. But we are often challenged to find the beauty in "true" things, like the "common coarse people" of the world . Remember the ugly duckling? We're all ugly ducklings in this narrator's book. So Eliot's narrator returns to the guy who got us all going like this in the first place, Mr. Irwine. We've all drummed it into your head that "Mr. Irwine wasn't perfect." But for many of his parishioners, he was better than his successor, Mr. Ryde, who was "severe in rebuking the aberrations of the flesh" . In theory, Mr. Ryde was an excellent clergyman. In practice, um, not so much. Even Adam Bede had some harsh words for Mr. Ryde, who presided over Hayslope in Adam's later years: "He preached a deal about doctrines. But I've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides doctrines and notions" . Adam's religion, to put it bluntly, is a matter of getting your hands a bit dirty. Mr. Irwine wasn't a "doctrine guy," but he gave practical advice and always had an ear for his parishioners' troubles. The Ryde guy: doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. And not much compassion or common sense. All this is offered as a roundabout way of criticizing "that lofty order of minds who pant after the ideal" . Instead, Eliot's narrator believes you can learn a lot from observing even the most "commonplace and vulgar" people . People are flawed everywhere. Why not accept that, and make the best of it? By now Mr. Imaginary Reader is long, long gone. Eliot won't have him to kick around any more.

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.]

Back in Rome, Caesar rails against Antony. He tells Agrippa and Maecenas that Antony has gone to Egypt to sit alongside Cleopatra as her king. He has given her rule over much of the Middle East, making her absolute queen of lower Syria, Cyprus, and Lydia. Caesar reports that Antony is displeased that he has not yet been allotted a fair portion of the lands that Caesar wrested from Pompey and Lepidus. He will divide his lot, he says, if Antony responds in kind and grants him part of Armenia and other kingdoms that Antony conquered. No sooner does Maecenas predict that Antony will never concede to those terms than Octavia enters. Caesar laments that the woman travels so plainly, without the fanfare that should attend the wife of Antony. Caesar reveals to her that Antony has joined Cleopatra in Egypt, where he has assembled a large alliance to fight Rome. Octavia is heartbroken, and Maecenas assures her that she has the sympathy of every Roman citizen

It was all very well to join them, but speaking to them proved quite as much as ever an effort beyond my strength--offered, in close quarters, difficulties as insurmountable as before. This situation continued a month, and with new aggravations and particular notes, the note above all, sharper and sharper, of the small ironic consciousness on the part of my pupils. It was not, I am as sure today as I was sure then, my mere infernal imagination: it was absolutely traceable that they were aware of my predicament and that this strange relation made, in a manner, for a long time, the air in which we moved. I don't mean that they had their tongues in their cheeks or did anything vulgar, for that was not one of their dangers: I do mean, on the other hand, that the element of the unnamed and untouched became, between us, greater than any other, and that so much avoidance could not have been so successfully effected without a great deal of tacit arrangement. It was as if, at moments, we were perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, closing with a little bang that made us look at each other--for, like all bangs, it was something louder than we had intended--the doors we had indiscreetly opened. All roads lead to Rome, and there were times when it might have struck us that almost every branch of study or subject of conversation skirted forbidden ground. Forbidden ground was the question of the return of the dead in general and of whatever, in especial, might survive, in memory, of the friends little children had lost. There were days when I could have sworn that one of them had, with a small invisible nudge, said to the other: "She thinks she'll do it this time--but she WON'T!" To "do it" would have been to indulge for instance--and for once in a way--in some direct reference to the lady who had prepared them for my discipline. They had a delightful endless appetite for passages in my own history, to which I had again and again treated them; they were in possession of everything that had ever happened to me, had had, with every circumstance the story of my smallest adventures and of those of my brothers and sisters and of the cat and the dog at home, as well as many particulars of the eccentric nature of my father, of the furniture and arrangement of our house, and of the conversation of the old women of our village. There were things enough, taking one with another, to chatter about, if one went very fast and knew by instinct when to go round. They pulled with an art of their own the strings of my invention and my memory; and nothing else perhaps, when I thought of such occasions afterward, gave me so the suspicion of being watched from under cover. It was in any case over MY life, MY past, and MY friends alone that we could take anything like our ease--a state of affairs that led them sometimes without the least pertinence to break out into sociable reminders. I was invited--with no visible connection--to repeat afresh Goody Gosling's celebrated mot or to confirm the details already supplied as to the cleverness of the vicarage pony. It was partly at such junctures as these and partly at quite different ones that, with the turn my matters had now taken, my predicament, as I have called it, grew most sensible. The fact that the days passed for me without another encounter ought, it would have appeared, to have done something toward soothing my nerves. Since the light brush, that second night on the upper landing, of the presence of a woman at the foot of the stair, I had seen nothing, whether in or out of the house, that one had better not have seen. There was many a corner round which I expected to come upon Quint, and many a situation that, in a merely sinister way, would have favored the appearance of Miss Jessel. The summer had turned, the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance--all strewn with crumpled playbills. There were exactly states of the air, conditions of sound and of stillness, unspeakable impressions of the KIND of ministering moment, that brought back to me, long enough to catch it, the feeling of the medium in which, that June evening out of doors, I had had my first sight of Quint, and in which, too, at those other instants, I had, after seeing him through the window, looked for him in vain in the circle of shrubbery. I recognized the signs, the portents--I recognized the moment, the spot. But they remained unaccompanied and empty, and I continued unmolested; if unmolested one could call a young woman whose sensibility had, in the most extraordinary fashion, not declined but deepened. I had said in my talk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of Flora's by the lake--and had perplexed her by so saying--that it would from that moment distress me much more to lose my power than to keep it. I had then expressed what was vividly in my mind: the truth that, whether the children really saw or not--since, that is, it was not yet definitely proved--I greatly preferred, as a safeguard, the fullness of my own exposure. I was ready to know the very worst that was to be known. What I had then had an ugly glimpse of was that my eyes might be sealed just while theirs were most opened. Well, my eyes WERE sealed, it appeared, at present--a consummation for which it seemed blasphemous not to thank God. There was, alas, a difficulty about that: I would have thanked him with all my soul had I not had in a proportionate measure this conviction of the secret of my pupils. How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? There were times of our being together when I would have been ready to swear that, literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they had visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I not been deterred by the very chance that such an injury might prove greater than the injury to be averted, my exultation would have broken out. "They're here, they're here, you little wretches," I would have cried, "and you can't deny it now!" The little wretches denied it with all the added volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in just the crystal depths of which--like the flash of a fish in a stream--the mockery of their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk into me still deeper than I knew on the night when, looking out to see either Quint or Miss Jessel under the stars, I had beheld the boy over whose rest I watched and who had immediately brought in with him--had straightway, there, turned it on me--the lovely upward look with which, from the battlements above me, the hideous apparition of Quint had played. If it was a question of a scare, my discovery on this occasion had scared me more than any other, and it was in the condition of nerves produced by it that I made my actual inductions. They harassed me so that sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself up audibly to rehearse--it was at once a fantastic relief and a renewed despair--the manner in which I might come to the point. I approached it from one side and the other while, in my room, I flung myself about, but I always broke down in the monstrous utterance of names. As they died away on my lips, I said to myself that I should indeed help them to represent something infamous, if, by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare a little case of instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, had ever known. When I said to myself: "THEY have the manners to be silent, and you, trusted as you are, the baseness to speak!" I felt myself crimson and I covered my face with my hands. After these secret scenes I chattered more than ever, going on volubly enough till one of our prodigious, palpable hushes occurred--I can call them nothing else--the strange, dizzy lift or swim (I try for terms!) into a stillness, a pause of all life, that had nothing to do with the more or less noise that at the moment we might be engaged in making and that I could hear through any deepened exhilaration or quickened recitation or louder strum of the piano. Then it was that the others, the outsiders, were there. Though they were not angels, they "passed," as the French say, causing me, while they stayed, to tremble with the fear of their addressing to their younger victims some yet more infernal message or more vivid image than they had thought good enough for myself. What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, whatever I had seen, Miles and Flora saw MORE--things terrible and unguessable and that sprang from dreadful passages of intercourse in the past. Such things naturally left on the surface, for the time, a chill which we vociferously denied that we felt; and we had, all three, with repetition, got into such splendid training that we went, each time, almost automatically, to mark the close of the incident, through the very same movements. It was striking of the children, at all events, to kiss me inveterately with a kind of wild irrelevance and never to fail--one or the other--of the precious question that had helped us through many a peril. "When do you think he WILL come? Don't you think we OUGHT to write?"--there was nothing like that inquiry, we found by experience, for carrying off an awkwardness. "He" of course was their uncle in Harley Street; and we lived in much profusion of theory that he might at any moment arrive to mingle in our circle. It was impossible to have given less encouragement than he had done to such a doctrine, but if we had not had the doctrine to fall back upon we should have deprived each other of some of our finest exhibitions. He never wrote to them--that may have been selfish, but it was a part of the flattery of his trust of me; for the way in which a man pays his highest tribute to a woman is apt to be but by the more festal celebration of one of the sacred laws of his comfort; and I held that I carried out the spirit of the pledge given not to appeal to him when I let my charges understand that their own letters were but charming literary exercises. They were too beautiful to be posted; I kept them myself; I have them all to this hour. This was a rule indeed which only added to the satiric effect of my being plied with the supposition that he might at any moment be among us. It was exactly as if my charges knew how almost more awkward than anything else that might be for me. There appears to me, moreover, as I look back, no note in all this more extraordinary than the mere fact that, in spite of my tension and of their triumph, I never lost patience with them. Adorable they must in truth have been, I now reflect, that I didn't in these days hate them! Would exasperation, however, if relief had longer been postponed, finally have betrayed me? It little matters, for relief arrived. I call it relief, though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush. Walking to church a certain Sunday morning, I had little Miles at my side and his sister, in advance of us and at Mrs. Grose's, well in sight. It was a crisp, clear day, the first of its order for some time; the night had brought a touch of frost, and the autumn air, bright and sharp, made the church bells almost gay. It was an odd accident of thought that I should have happened at such a moment to be particularly and very gratefully struck with the obedience of my little charges. Why did they never resent my inexorable, my perpetual society? Something or other had brought nearer home to me that I had all but pinned the boy to my shawl and that, in the way our companions were marshaled before me, I might have appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. I was like a gaoler with an eye to possible surprises and escapes. But all this belonged--I mean their magnificent little surrender--just to the special array of the facts that were most abysmal. Turned out for Sunday by his uncle's tailor, who had had a free hand and a notion of pretty waistcoats and of his grand little air, Miles's whole title to independence, the rights of his sex and situation, were so stamped upon him that if he had suddenly struck for freedom I should have had nothing to say. I was by the strangest of chances wondering how I should meet him when the revolution unmistakably occurred. I call it a revolution because I now see how, with the word he spoke, the curtain rose on the last act of my dreadful drama, and the catastrophe was precipitated. "Look here, my dear, you know," he charmingly said, "when in the world, please, am I going back to school?" Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough, particularly as uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, at all interlocutors, but above all at his eternal governess, he threw off intonations as if he were tossing roses. There was something in them that always made one "catch," and I caught, at any rate, now so effectually that I stopped as short as if one of the trees of the park had fallen across the road. There was something new, on the spot, between us, and he was perfectly aware that I recognized it, though, to enable me to do so, he had no need to look a whit less candid and charming than usual. I could feel in him how he already, from my at first finding nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he had gained. I was so slow to find anything that he had plenty of time, after a minute, to continue with his suggestive but inconclusive smile: "You know, my dear, that for a fellow to be with a lady ALWAYS--!" His "my dear" was constantly on his lips for me, and nothing could have expressed more the exact shade of the sentiment with which I desired to inspire my pupils than its fond familiarity. It was so respectfully easy. But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! I remember that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed to see in the beautiful face with which he watched me how ugly and queer I looked. "And always with the same lady?" I returned. He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing was virtually out between us. "Ah, of course, she's a jolly, 'perfect' lady; but, after all, I'm a fellow, don't you see? that's--well, getting on." I lingered there with him an instant ever so kindly. "Yes, you're getting on." Oh, but I felt helpless! I have kept to this day the heartbreaking little idea of how he seemed to know that and to play with it. "And you can't say I've not been awfully good, can you?" I laid my hand on his shoulder, for, though I felt how much better it would have been to walk on, I was not yet quite able. "No, I can't say that, Miles." "Except just that one night, you know--!" "That one night?" I couldn't look as straight as he. "Why, when I went down--went out of the house." "Oh, yes. But I forget what you did it for." "You forget?"--he spoke with the sweet extravagance of childish reproach. "Why, it was to show you I could!" "Oh, yes, you could." "And I can again." I felt that I might, perhaps, after all, succeed in keeping my wits about me. "Certainly. But you won't." "No, not THAT again. It was nothing." "It was nothing," I said. "But we must go on." He resumed our walk with me, passing his hand into my arm. "Then when AM I going back?" I wore, in turning it over, my most responsible air. "Were you very happy at school?" He just considered. "Oh, I'm happy enough anywhere!" "Well, then," I quavered, "if you're just as happy here--!" "Ah, but that isn't everything! Of course YOU know a lot--" "But you hint that you know almost as much?" I risked as he paused. "Not half I want to!" Miles honestly professed. "But it isn't so much that." "What is it, then?" "Well--I want to see more life." "I see; I see." We had arrived within sight of the church and of various persons, including several of the household of Bly, on their way to it and clustered about the door to see us go in. I quickened our step; I wanted to get there before the question between us opened up much further; I reflected hungrily that, for more than an hour, he would have to be silent; and I thought with envy of the comparative dusk of the pew and of the almost spiritual help of the hassock on which I might bend my knees. I seemed literally to be running a race with some confusion to which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that he had got in first when, before we had even entered the churchyard, he threw out-- "I want my own sort!" It literally made me bound forward. "There are not many of your own sort, Miles!" I laughed. "Unless perhaps dear little Flora!" "You really compare me to a baby girl?" This found me singularly weak. "Don't you, then, LOVE our sweet Flora?" "If I didn't--and you, too; if I didn't--!" he repeated as if retreating for a jump, yet leaving his thought so unfinished that, after we had come into the gate, another stop, which he imposed on me by the pressure of his arm, had become inevitable. Mrs. Grose and Flora had passed into the church, the other worshippers had followed, and we were, for the minute, alone among the old, thick graves. We had paused, on the path from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb. "Yes, if you didn't--?" He looked, while I waited, at the graves. "Well, you know what!" But he didn't move, and he presently produced something that made me drop straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. "Does my uncle think what YOU think?" I markedly rested. "How do you know what I think?" "Ah, well, of course I don't; for it strikes me you never tell me. But I mean does HE know?" "Know what, Miles?" "Why, the way I'm going on." I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, no answer that would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer. Yet it appeared to me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make that venial. "I don't think your uncle much cares." Miles, on this, stood looking at me. "Then don't you think he can be made to?" "In what way?" "Why, by his coming down." "But who'll get him to come down?" "_I_ will!" the boy said with extraordinary brightness and emphasis. He gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched off alone into church. The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed him. It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but my being aware of this had somehow no power to restore me. I only sat there on my tomb and read into what my little friend had said to me the fullness of its meaning; by the time I had grasped the whole of which I had also embraced, for absence, the pretext that I was ashamed to offer my pupils and the rest of the congregation such an example of delay. What I said to myself above all was that Miles had got something out of me and that the proof of it, for him, would be just this awkward collapse. He had got out of me that there was something I was much afraid of and that he should probably be able to make use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, more freedom. My fear was of having to deal with the intolerable question of the grounds of his dismissal from school, for that was really but the question of the horrors gathered behind. That his uncle should arrive to treat with me of these things was a solution that, strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired to bring on; but I could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it that I simply procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep discomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position to say to me: "Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you a life that's so unnatural for a boy." What was so unnatural for the particular boy I was concerned with was this sudden revelation of a consciousness and a plan. That was what really overcame me, what prevented my going in. I walked round the church, hesitating, hovering; I reflected that I had already, with him, hurt myself beyond repair. Therefore I could patch up nothing, and it was too extreme an effort to squeeze beside him into the pew: he would be so much more sure than ever to pass his arm into mine and make me sit there for an hour in close, silent contact with his commentary on our talk. For the first minute since his arrival I wanted to get away from him. As I paused beneath the high east window and listened to the sounds of worship, I was taken with an impulse that might master me, I felt, completely should I give it the least encouragement. I might easily put an end to my predicament by getting away altogether. Here was my chance; there was no one to stop me; I could give the whole thing up--turn my back and retreat. It was only a question of hurrying again, for a few preparations, to the house which the attendance at church of so many of the servants would practically have left unoccupied. No one, in short, could blame me if I should just drive desperately off. What was it to get away if I got away only till dinner? That would be in a couple of hours, at the end of which--I had the acute prevision--my little pupils would play at innocent wonder about my nonappearance in their train. "What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world, to worry us so--and take our thoughts off, too, don't you know?--did you desert us at the very door?" I couldn't meet such questions nor, as they asked them, their false little lovely eyes; yet it was all so exactly what I should have to meet that, as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last let myself go. I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came straight out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps through the park. It seemed to me that by the time I reached the house I had made up my mind I would fly. The Sunday stillness both of the approaches and of the interior, in which I met no one, fairly excited me with a sense of opportunity. Were I to get off quickly, this way, I should get off without a scene, without a word. My quickness would have to be remarkable, however, and the question of a conveyance was the great one to settle. Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties and obstacles, I remember sinking down at the foot of the staircase--suddenly collapsing there on the lowest step and then, with a revulsion, recalling that it was exactly where more than a month before, in the darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, I had seen the specter of the most horrible of women. At this I was able to straighten myself; I went the rest of the way up; I made, in my bewilderment, for the schoolroom, where there were objects belonging to me that I should have to take. But I opened the door to find again, in a flash, my eyes unsealed. In the presence of what I saw I reeled straight back upon my resistance. Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom, without my previous experience, I should have taken at the first blush for some housemaid who might have stayed at home to look after the place and who, availing herself of rare relief from observation and of the schoolroom table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself to the considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart. There was an effort in the way that, while her arms rested on the table, her hands with evident weariness supported her head; but at the moment I took this in I had already become aware that, in spite of my entrance, her attitude strangely persisted. Then it was--with the very act of its announcing itself--that her identity flared up in a change of posture. She rose, not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable grand melancholy of indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me, stood there as my vile predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she was all before me; but even as I fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image passed away. Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It was as a wild protest against it that, actually addressing her--"You terrible, miserable woman!"--I heard myself break into a sound that, by the open door, rang through the long passage and the empty house. She looked at me as if she heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air. There was nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine and a sense that I must stay.

In the ensuing days, the governess often thinks that her pupils are conspiring against her, and she wonders when they would openly admit that they know about Miss Jessel and Peter Quint. Sometimes she wants to cry out: "They're here, they're here, you little wretches . . . and you can't deny it now." But her charges do deny it with all of their sweetness and obedience. For many days, the governess spends as much time as possible in the presence of the children. As she tells Mrs. Grose, she feels safe as long as she also has the gift of seeing the ghosts. She believes that she must constantly observe, since it has not yet been definitely proved that the children have really seen the ghosts. But at the same time, she is unable to reject the idea that whatever she saw, "Miles and Flora saw more." Often in the classroom, Flora and Miles write letters to their uncle requesting him to come for a visit, but the governess never allows these to be sent. She explains that the letters are "charming literary exercises." While walking to church one Sunday, Miles surprises the governess by asking when he will be allowed to go back to school. He does not consider it good for a little boy to be always in the company of a lady, even though that lady is ideal. He wants to know what his uncle has done about his return to school and thinks that he should write to his uncle soon if something is not done. The manner in which little Miles insists upon returning to school shocks the governess so much that she is not able to attend the church services. Instead, she returns to Bly. Upon entering the schoolroom, she finds herself in the presence of Miss Jessel, who is seated at the governess' desk as though she has more right to be there than did the present governess. Drawing upon all of her strength, the governess addresses the intruder directly, saying: "You terrible, miserable woman." In an instant, she has "cleared the air" and she is alone in the room with the sense that she must stay at Bly and fight against this evil influence.

A week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby Royal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband, a jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests. It was tea-time, and the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the table lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at which the duchess was presiding. Her white hands were moving daintily among the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that Dorian had whispered to her. Lord Henry was lying back in a silk-draped wicker chair, looking at them. On a peach-coloured divan sat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of the last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection. Three young men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of the women. The house-party consisted of twelve people, and there were more expected to arrive on the next day. "What are you two talking about?" said Lord Henry, strolling over to the table and putting his cup down. "I hope Dorian has told you about my plan for rechristening everything, Gladys. It is a delightful idea." "But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry," rejoined the duchess, looking up at him with her wonderful eyes. "I am quite satisfied with my own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his." "My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world. They are both perfect. I was thinking chiefly of flowers. Yesterday I cut an orchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as effective as the seven deadly sins. In a thoughtless moment I asked one of the gardeners what it was called. He told me it was a fine specimen of _Robinsoniana_, or something dreadful of that kind. It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for." "Then what should we call you, Harry?" she asked. "His name is Prince Paradox," said Dorian. "I recognize him in a flash," exclaimed the duchess. "I won't hear of it," laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair. "From a label there is no escape! I refuse the title." "Royalties may not abdicate," fell as a warning from pretty lips. "You wish me to defend my throne, then?" "Yes." "I give the truths of to-morrow." "I prefer the mistakes of to-day," she answered. "You disarm me, Gladys," he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood. "Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear." "I never tilt against beauty," he said, with a wave of his hand. "That is your error, Harry, believe me. You value beauty far too much." "How can you say that? I admit that I think that it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand, no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly." "Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?" cried the duchess. "What becomes of your simile about the orchid?" "Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good Tory, must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made our England what she is." "You don't like your country, then?" she asked. "I live in it." "That you may censure it the better." "Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?" he inquired. "What do they say of us?" "That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop." "Is that yours, Harry?" "I give it to you." "I could not use it. It is too true." "You need not be afraid. Our countrymen never recognize a description." "They are practical." "They are more cunning than practical. When they make up their ledger, they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy." "Still, we have done great things." "Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys." "We have carried their burden." "Only as far as the Stock Exchange." She shook her head. "I believe in the race," she cried. "It represents the survival of the pushing." "It has development." "Decay fascinates me more." "What of art?" she asked. "It is a malady." "Love?" "An illusion." "Religion?" "The fashionable substitute for belief." "You are a sceptic." "Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith." "What are you?" "To define is to limit." "Give me a clue." "Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth." "You bewilder me. Let us talk of some one else." "Our host is a delightful topic. Years ago he was christened Prince Charming." "Ah! don't remind me of that," cried Dorian Gray. "Our host is rather horrid this evening," answered the duchess, colouring. "I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely scientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern butterfly." "Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess," laughed Dorian. "Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me." "And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?" "For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you. Usually because I come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by half-past eight." "How unreasonable of her! You should give her warning." "I daren't, Mr. Gray. Why, she invents hats for me. You remember the one I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party? You don't, but it is nice of you to pretend that you do. Well, she made it out of nothing. All good hats are made out of nothing." "Like all good reputations, Gladys," interrupted Lord Henry. "Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity." "Not with women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all." "It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmured Dorian. "Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray," answered the duchess with mock sadness. "My dear Gladys!" cried Lord Henry. "How can you say that? Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible." "Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?" asked the duchess after a pause. "Especially when one has been wounded by it," answered Lord Henry. The duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression in her eyes. "What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?" she inquired. Dorian hesitated for a moment. Then he threw his head back and laughed. "I always agree with Harry, Duchess." "Even when he is wrong?" "Harry is never wrong, Duchess." "And does his philosophy make you happy?" "I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure." "And found it, Mr. Gray?" "Often. Too often." The duchess sighed. "I am searching for peace," she said, "and if I don't go and dress, I shall have none this evening." "Let me get you some orchids, Duchess," cried Dorian, starting to his feet and walking down the conservatory. "You are flirting disgracefully with him," said Lord Henry to his cousin. "You had better take care. He is very fascinating." "If he were not, there would be no battle." "Greek meets Greek, then?" "I am on the side of the Trojans. They fought for a woman." "They were defeated." "There are worse things than capture," she answered. "You gallop with a loose rein." "Pace gives life," was the _riposte_. "I shall write it in my diary to-night." "What?" "That a burnt child loves the fire." "I am not even singed. My wings are untouched." "You use them for everything, except flight." "Courage has passed from men to women. It is a new experience for us." "You have a rival." "Who?" He laughed. "Lady Narborough," he whispered. "She perfectly adores him." "You fill me with apprehension. The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us who are romanticists." "Romanticists! You have all the methods of science." "Men have educated us." "But not explained you." "Describe us as a sex," was her challenge. "Sphinxes without secrets." She looked at him, smiling. "How long Mr. Gray is!" she said. "Let us go and help him. I have not yet told him the colour of my frock." "Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys." "That would be a premature surrender." "Romantic art begins with its climax." "I must keep an opportunity for retreat." "In the Parthian manner?" "They found safety in the desert. I could not do that." "Women are not always allowed a choice," he answered, but hardly had he finished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall. Everybody started up. The duchess stood motionless in horror. And with fear in his eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian Gray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon. He was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of the sofas. After a short time, he came to himself and looked round with a dazed expression. "What has happened?" he asked. "Oh! I remember. Am I safe here, Harry?" He began to tremble. "My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, "you merely fainted. That was all. You must have overtired yourself. You had better not come down to dinner. I will take your place." "No, I will come down," he said, struggling to his feet. "I would rather come down. I must not be alone." He went to his room and dressed. There was a wild recklessness of gaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of terror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the window of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the face of James Vane watching him. The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself. The consciousness of being hunted, snared, tracked down, had begun to dominate him. If the tapestry did but tremble in the wind, he shook. The dead leaves that were blown against the leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild regrets. When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face peering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to lay its hand upon his heart. But perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of the night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him. Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all. Besides, had any stranger been prowling round the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the keepers. Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the gardeners would have reported it. Yes, it had been merely fancy. Sibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him. He had sailed away in his ship to founder in some winter sea. From him, at any rate, he was safe. Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he was. The mask of youth had saved him. And yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them visible form, and make them move before one! What sort of life would his be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from silent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear as he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep! As the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and the air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder. Oh! in what a wild hour of madness he had killed his friend! How ghastly the mere memory of the scene! He saw it all again. Each hideous detail came back to him with added horror. Out of the black cave of time, terrible and swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin. When Lord Henry came in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will break. It was not till the third day that he ventured to go out. There was something in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that seemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life. But it was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had caused the change. His own nature had revolted against the excess of anguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm. With subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so. Their strong passions must either bruise or bend. They either slay the man, or themselves die. Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude. Besides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a terror-stricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with something of pity and not a little of contempt. After breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden and then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp frost lay like salt upon the grass. The sky was an inverted cup of blue metal. A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake. At the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey Clouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of his gun. He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take the mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered bracken and rough undergrowth. "Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?" he asked. "Not very good, Dorian. I think most of the birds have gone to the open. I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new ground." Dorian strolled along by his side. The keen aromatic air, the brown and red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the beaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns that followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful freedom. He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the high indifference of joy. Suddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front of them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it forward, started a hare. It bolted for a thicket of alders. Sir Geoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the animal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he cried out at once, "Don't shoot it, Geoffrey. Let it live." "What nonsense, Dorian!" laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded into the thicket, he fired. There were two cries heard, the cry of a hare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is worse. "Good heavens! I have hit a beater!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. "What an ass the man was to get in front of the guns! Stop shooting there!" he called out at the top of his voice. "A man is hurt." The head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand. "Where, sir? Where is he?" he shouted. At the same time, the firing ceased along the line. "Here," answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket. "Why on earth don't you keep your men back? Spoiled my shooting for the day." Dorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the lithe swinging branches aside. In a few moments they emerged, dragging a body after them into the sunlight. He turned away in horror. It seemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went. He heard Sir Geoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of the keeper. The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with faces. There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of voices. A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the boughs overhead. After a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, like endless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. He started and looked round. "Dorian," said Lord Henry, "I had better tell them that the shooting is stopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on." "I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry," he answered bitterly. "The whole thing is hideous and cruel. Is the man ...?" He could not finish the sentence. "I am afraid so," rejoined Lord Henry. "He got the whole charge of shot in his chest. He must have died almost instantaneously. Come; let us go home." They walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly fifty yards without speaking. Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and said, with a heavy sigh, "It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen." "What is?" asked Lord Henry. "Oh! this accident, I suppose. My dear fellow, it can't be helped. It was the man's own fault. Why did he get in front of the guns? Besides, it is nothing to us. It is rather awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It makes people think that one is a wild shot. And Geoffrey is not; he shoots very straight. But there is no use talking about the matter." Dorian shook his head. "It is a bad omen, Harry. I feel as if something horrible were going to happen to some of us. To myself, perhaps," he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of pain. The elder man laughed. "The only horrible thing in the world is _ennui_, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. But we are not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering about this thing at dinner. I must tell them that the subject is to be tabooed. As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian? You have everything in the world that a man can want. There is no one who would not be delighted to change places with you." "There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry. Don't laugh like that. I am telling you the truth. The wretched peasant who has just died is better off than I am. I have no terror of death. It is the coming of death that terrifies me. Its monstrous wings seem to wheel in the leaden air around me. Good heavens! don't you see a man moving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?" Lord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand was pointing. "Yes," he said, smiling, "I see the gardener waiting for you. I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on the table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow! You must come and see my doctor, when we get back to town." Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching. The man touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating manner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master. "Her Grace told me to wait for an answer," he murmured. Dorian put the letter into his pocket. "Tell her Grace that I am coming in," he said, coldly. The man turned round and went rapidly in the direction of the house. "How fond women are of doing dangerous things!" laughed Lord Henry. "It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most. A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on." "How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry! In the present instance, you are quite astray. I like the duchess very much, but I don't love her." "And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you are excellently matched." "You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for scandal." "The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty," said Lord Henry, lighting a cigarette. "You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram." "The world goes to the altar of its own accord," was the answer. "I wish I could love," cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in his voice. "But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget. It was silly of me to come down here at all. I think I shall send a wire to Harvey to have the yacht got ready. On a yacht one is safe." "Safe from what, Dorian? You are in some trouble. Why not tell me what it is? You know I would help you." "I can't tell you, Harry," he answered sadly. "And I dare say it is only a fancy of mine. This unfortunate accident has upset me. I have a horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me." "What nonsense!" "I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it. Ah! here is the duchess, looking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown. You see we have come back, Duchess." "I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray," she answered. "Poor Geoffrey is terribly upset. And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare. How curious!" "Yes, it was very curious. I don't know what made me say it. Some whim, I suppose. It looked the loveliest of little live things. But I am sorry they told you about the man. It is a hideous subject." "It is an annoying subject," broke in Lord Henry. "It has no psychological value at all. Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on purpose, how interesting he would be! I should like to know some one who had committed a real murder." "How horrid of you, Harry!" cried the duchess. "Isn't it, Mr. Gray? Harry, Mr. Gray is ill again. He is going to faint." Dorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled. "It is nothing, Duchess," he murmured; "my nerves are dreadfully out of order. That is all. I am afraid I walked too far this morning. I didn't hear what Harry said. Was it very bad? You must tell me some other time. I think I must go and lie down. You will excuse me, won't you?" They had reached the great flight of steps that led from the conservatory on to the terrace. As the glass door closed behind Dorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous eyes. "Are you very much in love with him?" he asked. She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape. "I wish I knew," she said at last. He shook his head. "Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful." "One may lose one's way." "All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys." "What is that?" "Disillusion." "It was my _debut_ in life," she sighed. "It came to you crowned." "I am tired of strawberry leaves." "They become you." "Only in public." "You would miss them," said Lord Henry. "I will not part with a petal." "Monmouth has ears." "Old age is dull of hearing." "Has he never been jealous?" "I wish he had been." He glanced about as if in search of something. "What are you looking for?" she inquired. "The button from your foil," he answered. "You have dropped it." She laughed. "I have still the mask." "It makes your eyes lovelier," was his reply. She laughed again. Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet fruit. Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror in every tingling fibre of his body. Life had suddenly become too hideous a burden for him to bear. The dreadful death of the unlucky beater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to pre-figure death for himself also. He had nearly swooned at what Lord Henry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting. At five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to pack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham at the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another night at Selby Royal. It was an ill-omened place. Death walked there in the sunlight. The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood. Then he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to town to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in his absence. As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to the door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see him. He frowned and bit his lip. "Send him in," he muttered, after some moments' hesitation. As soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a drawer and spread it out before him. "I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this morning, Thornton?" he said, taking up a pen. "Yes, sir," answered the gamekeeper. "Was the poor fellow married? Had he any people dependent on him?" asked Dorian, looking bored. "If so, I should not like them to be left in want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary." "We don't know who he is, sir. That is what I took the liberty of coming to you about." "Don't know who he is?" said Dorian, listlessly. "What do you mean? Wasn't he one of your men?" "No, sir. Never saw him before. Seems like a sailor, sir." The pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart had suddenly stopped beating. "A sailor?" he cried out. "Did you say a sailor?" "Yes, sir. He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on both arms, and that kind of thing." "Was there anything found on him?" said Dorian, leaning forward and looking at the man with startled eyes. "Anything that would tell his name?" "Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any kind. A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we think." Dorian started to his feet. A terrible hope fluttered past him. He clutched at it madly. "Where is the body?" he exclaimed. "Quick! I must see it at once." "It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir. The folk don't like to have that sort of thing in their houses. They say a corpse brings bad luck." "The Home Farm! Go there at once and meet me. Tell one of the grooms to bring my horse round. No. Never mind. I'll go to the stables myself. It will save time." In less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the long avenue as hard as he could go. The trees seemed to sweep past him in spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his path. Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him. He lashed her across the neck with his crop. She cleft the dusky air like an arrow. The stones flew from her hoofs. At last he reached the Home Farm. Two men were loitering in the yard. He leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them. In the farthest stable a light was glimmering. Something seemed to tell him that the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand upon the latch. There he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a discovery that would either make or mar his life. Then he thrust the door open and entered. On a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man dressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers. A spotted handkerchief had been placed over the face. A coarse candle, stuck in a bottle, sputtered beside it. Dorian Gray shuddered. He felt that his could not be the hand to take the handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to come to him. "Take that thing off the face. I wish to see it," he said, clutching at the door-post for support. When the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward. A cry of joy broke from his lips. The man who had been shot in the thicket was James Vane. He stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body. As he rode home, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe.

One week has passed, and Dorian has retreated to his country estate, Selby Royal. His guests include the beautiful Duchess of Monmouth ; her older, boring, somewhat jaded husband; Lady Narborough, old and flirtatious but seldom boring; and Lord Henry. The conversation is light and superficial. Lord Henry wants to re-christen some things -- especially, flowers. Beautiful objects should have beautiful names, he says. The duchess asks what new name Lord Henry shall have, and Dorian immediately answers appropriately, "Prince Paradox." The duchess tries to flirt with Dorian, and he excuses himself to fetch her some of his orchids. Lord Henry lightheartedly warns the duchess about loving Dorian. Suddenly the group hears a muted groan and the sound of a heavy fall. Lord Henry rushes to find that Dorian has fainted. When Dorian comes to, he refuses to be alone. Despite his condition, he joins the others at dinner and tries to act jolly. Now and then, however, terror shoots through him as he recalls the cause of his faint: the face of James Vane observing him through a window. Dorian spends most of the next day in his room. Feeling hunted, stalked, and sick with fear of death, he alternates between the certainty of punishment and an equal certainty that the wicked receive no such fate in this world. He concludes that the only morality is the success of the strong and the failure of the weak. On the third day, Dorian finally goes out. He has decided that he imagined James' face in the window. After breakfast, he strolls in the garden with the duchess for an hour. Then he joins her brother, Sir Geoffrey Clouston, and others who are shooting birds. A hare bursts forth, and Sir Geoffrey aims, but Dorian so admires the beauty and grace of the animal that he cries, "Let it live." Lord Geoffrey finds Dorian's plea silly and fires as the hare jumps into a thicket. Two sounds come from the brush: the cry of a hare and the cry of a man. Incredibly, a dead human body is pulled from the brush. Lord Henry recommends calling off the hunt for the day. Dorian would like to cancel the "hideous and cruel" hunt for good; he fears that the death is a bad omen. Lord Henry laughs at Dorian's concern, saying that the only thing horrible in life is boredom. There are no omens, he says. In his room, Dorian lies in terror on the sofa. Later, he calls his servant and tells him to pack. Dorian will leave at eight-thirty to catch the night express to London. He writes a note to Lord Henry, asking him to take care of the guests because he is going to London to see his doctor. Thornton, Dorian's chief gamekeeper, enters with startling news. The dead man cannot be identified. He was not one of the beaters, after all. In fact, he seems to be a sailor, armed with a gun. Dorian rushes to where the body lies. Identifying the body as James Vane's, Dorian feels safe at last.

The young heir of the Carterets had thriven apace, and at six months old was, according to Mammy Jane, whose experience qualified her to speak with authority, the largest, finest, smartest, and altogether most remarkable baby that had ever lived in Wellington. Mammy Jane had recently suffered from an attack of inflammatory rheumatism, as the result of which she had returned to her own home. She nevertheless came now and then to see Mrs. Carteret. A younger nurse had been procured to take her place, but it was understood that Jane would come whenever she might be needed. "You really mean that about Dodie, do you, Mammy Jane?" asked the delighted mother, who never tired of hearing her own opinion confirmed concerning this wonderful child, which had come to her like an angel from heaven. "Does I mean it!" exclaimed Mammy Jane, with a tone and an expression which spoke volumes of reproach. "Now, Mis' 'Livy, what is I ever uttered er said er spoke er done dat would make you s'pose I could tell you a lie 'bout yo' own chile?" "No, Mammy Jane, I'm sure you wouldn't." "'Deed, ma'am, I'm tellin' you de Lawd's truf. I don' haf ter tell no lies ner strain no p'ints 'bout my ole mist'ess's gran'chile. Dis yer boy is de ve'y spit an' image er yo' brother, young Mars Alick, w'at died w'en he wuz 'bout eight mont's ole, w'iles I wuz laid off havin' a baby er my own, an' couldn' be roun' ter look after 'im. An' dis chile is a rale quality chile, he is,--I never seed a baby wid sech fine hair fer his age, ner sech blue eyes, ner sech a grip, ner sech a heft. W'y, dat chile mus' weigh 'bout twenty-fo' poun's, an' he not but six mont's ole. Does dat gal w'at does de nussin' w'iles I'm gone ten' ter dis chile right, Mis' 'Livy?" "She does fairly well, Mammy Jane, but I could hardly expect her to love the baby as you do. There's no one like you, Mammy Jane." "'Deed dere ain't, honey; you is talkin' de gospel truf now! None er dese yer young folks ain' got de trainin' my ole mist'ess give me. Dese yer new-fangle' schools don' l'arn 'em nothin' ter compare wid it. I'm jes' gwine ter give dat gal a piece er my min', befo' I go, so she'll ten' ter dis chile right." The nurse came in shortly afterwards, a neat-looking brown girl, dressed in a clean calico gown, with a nurse's cap and apron. "Look a-here, gal," said Mammy Jane sternly, "I wants you ter understan' dat you got ter take good keer er dis chile; fer I nussed his mammy dere, an' his gran'mammy befo' 'im, an' you is got a priv'lege dat mos' lackly you don' 'preciate. I wants you to 'member, in yo' incomin's an' outgoin's, dat I got my eye on you, an' am gwine ter see dat you does yo' wo'k right." "Do you need me for anything, ma'am?" asked the young nurse, who had stood before Mrs. Carteret, giving Mammy Jane a mere passing glance, and listening impassively to her harangue. The nurse belonged to the younger generation of colored people. She had graduated from the mission school, and had received some instruction in Dr. Miller's class for nurses. Standing, like most young people of her race, on the border line between two irreconcilable states of life, she had neither the picturesqueness of the slave, nor the unconscious dignity of those of whom freedom has been the immemorial birthright; she was in what might be called the chip-on-the-shoulder stage, through which races as well as individuals must pass in climbing the ladder of life,--not an interesting, at least not an agreeable stage, but an inevitable one, and for that reason entitled to a paragraph in a story of Southern life, which, with its as yet imperfect blending of old with new, of race with race, of slavery with freedom, is like no other life under the sun. Had this old woman, who had no authority over her, been a little more polite, or a little less offensive, the nurse might have returned her a pleasant answer. These old-time negroes, she said to herself, made her sick with their slavering over the white folks, who, she supposed, favored them and made much of them because they had once belonged to them,--much the same reason why they fondled their cats and dogs. For her own part, they gave her nothing but her wages, and small wages at that, and she owed them nothing more than equivalent service. It was purely a matter of business; she sold her time for their money. There was no question of love between them. Receiving a negative answer from Mrs. Carteret, she left the room without a word, ignoring Mammy Jane completely, and leaving that venerable relic of ante-bellum times gasping in helpless astonishment. "Well, I nevuh!" she ejaculated, as soon as she could get her breath, "ef dat ain' de beatinis' pe'fo'mance I ever seed er heared of! Dese yer young niggers ain' got de manners dey wuz bawned wid! I don' know w'at dey're comin' to, w'en dey ain' got no mo' rispec' fer ole age--I don' know--I don' know!" "Now what are you croaking about, Jane?" asked Major Carteret, who came into the room and took the child into his arms. Mammy Jane hobbled to her feet and bobbed a curtsy. She was never lacking in respect to white people of proper quality; but Major Carteret, the quintessence of aristocracy, called out all her reserves of deference. The major was always kind and considerate to these old family retainers, brought up in the feudal atmosphere now so rapidly passing away. Mammy Jane loved Mrs. Carteret; toward the major she entertained a feeling bordering upon awe. "Well, Jane," returned the major sadly, when the old nurse had related her grievance, "the old times have vanished, the old ties have been ruptured. The old relations of dependence and loyal obedience on the part of the colored people, the responsibility of protection and kindness upon that of the whites, have passed away forever. The young negroes are too self-assertive. Education is spoiling them, Jane; they have been badly taught. They are not content with their station in life. Some time they will overstep the mark. The white people are patient, but there is a limit to their endurance." "Dat's w'at I tells dese young niggers," groaned Mammy Jane, with a portentous shake of her turbaned head, "w'en I hears 'em gwine on wid deir foolishniss; but dey don' min' me. Dey 'lows dey knows mo' d'n I does, 'ca'se dey be'n l'arnt ter look in a book. But, pshuh! my ole mist'ess showed me mo' d'n dem niggers 'll l'arn in a thousan' years! I 's fetch' my gran'son' Jerry up ter be 'umble, an' keep in 'is place. An' I tells dese other niggers dat ef dey'd do de same, an' not crowd de w'ite folks, dey'd git ernuff ter eat, an' live out deir days in peace an' comfo't. But dey don' min' me--dey don' min' me!" "If all the colored people were like you and Jerry, Jane," rejoined the major kindly, "there would never be any trouble. You have friends upon whom, in time of need, you can rely implicitly for protection and succor. You served your mistress faithfully before the war; you remained by her when the other negroes were running hither and thither like sheep without a shepherd; and you have transferred your allegiance to my wife and her child. We think a great deal of you, Jane." "Yes, indeed, Mammy Jane," assented Mrs. Carteret, with sincere affection, glancing with moist eyes from the child in her husband's arms to the old nurse, whose dark face was glowing with happiness at these expressions of appreciation, "you shall never want so long as we have anything. We would share our last crust with you." "Thank y', Mis' 'Livy," said Jane with reciprocal emotion, "I knows who my frien's is, an' I ain' gwine ter let nothin' worry me. But fer de Lawd's sake, Mars Philip, gimme dat chile, an' lemme pat 'im on de back, er he'll choke hisse'f ter death!" The old nurse had been the first to observe that little Dodie, for some reason, was gasping for breath. Catching the child from the major's arms, she patted it on the back, and shook it gently. After a moment of this treatment, the child ceased to gasp, but still breathed heavily, with a strange, whistling noise. "Oh, my child!" exclaimed the mother, in great alarm, taking the baby in her own arms, "what can be the matter with him, Mammy Jane?" "Fer de Lawd's sake, ma'am, I don' know, 'less he's swallered somethin'; an' he ain' had nothin' in his han's but de rattle Mis' Polly give 'im." Mrs. Carteret caught up the ivory rattle, which hung suspended by a ribbon from the baby's neck. "He has swallowed the little piece off the end of the handle," she cried, turning pale with fear, "and it has lodged in his throat. Telephone Dr. Price to come immediately, Philip, before my baby chokes to death! Oh, my baby, my precious baby!" An anxious half hour passed, during which the child lay quiet, except for its labored breathing. The suspense was relieved by the arrival of Dr. Price, who examined the child carefully. "It's a curious accident," he announced at the close of his inspection. "So far as I can discover, the piece of ivory has been drawn into the trachea, or windpipe, and has lodged in the mouth of the right bronchus. I'll try to get it out without an operation, but I can't guarantee the result." At the end of another half hour Dr. Price announced his inability to remove the obstruction without resorting to more serious measures. "I do not see," he declared, "how an operation can be avoided." "Will it be dangerous?" inquired the major anxiously, while Mrs. Carteret shivered at the thought. "It will be necessary to cut into his throat from the outside. All such operations are more or less dangerous, especially on small children. If this were some other child, I might undertake the operation unassisted; but I know how you value this one, major, and I should prefer to share the responsibility with a specialist." "Is there one in town?" asked the major. "No, but we can get one from out of town." "Send for the best one in the country," said the major, "who can be got here in time. Spare no expense, Dr. Price. We value this child above any earthly thing." "The best is the safest," replied Dr. Price. "I will send for Dr. Burns, of Philadelphia, the best surgeon in that line in America. If he can start at once, he can reach here in sixteen or eighteen hours, and the case can wait even longer, if inflammation does not set in." The message was dispatched forthwith. By rare good fortune the eminent specialist was able to start within an hour or two after the receipt of Dr. Price's telegram. Meanwhile the baby remained restless and uneasy, the doctor spending most of his time by its side. Mrs. Carteret, who had never been quite strong since the child's birth, was a prey to the most agonizing apprehensions. Mammy Jane, while not presuming to question the opinion of Dr. Price, and not wishing to add to her mistress's distress, was secretly oppressed by forebodings which she was unable to shake off. The child was born for bad luck. The mole under its ear, just at the point where the hangman's knot would strike, had foreshadowed dire misfortune. She had already observed several little things which had rendered her vaguely anxious. For instance, upon one occasion, on entering the room where the baby had been left alone, asleep in his crib, she had met a strange cat hurrying from the nursery, and, upon examining closely the pillow upon which the child lay, had found a depression which had undoubtedly been due to the weight of the cat's body. The child was restless and uneasy, and Jane had ever since believed that the cat had been sucking little Dodie's breath, with what might have been fatal results had she not appeared just in the nick of time. This untimely accident of the rattle, a fatality for which no one could be held responsible, had confirmed the unlucky omen. Jane's duties in the nursery did not permit her to visit her friend the conjure woman; but she did find time to go out in the back yard at dusk, and to dig up the charm which she had planted there. It had protected the child so far; but perhaps its potency had become exhausted. She picked up the bottle, shook it vigorously, and then laid it back, with the other side up. Refilling the hole, she made a cross over the top with the thumb of her left hand, and walked three times around it. What this strange symbolism meant, or whence it derived its origin, Aunt Jane did not know. The cross was there, and the Trinity, though Jane was scarcely conscious of these, at this moment, as religious emblems. But she hoped, on general principles, that this performance would strengthen the charm and restore little Dodie's luck. It certainly had its moral effect upon Jane's own mind, for she was able to sleep better, and contrived to impress Mrs. Carteret with her own hopefulness.

Mammy Jane is ebullient over Dodie Carterets health and growth in six months. According to Mammy Jane, he "weigh 'bout twenty-fo' poun's. Her praise of the child greatly encourages Mrs. Carteret. However, Mammy Jane is being forced to leave the household because of her inflamed arthritis. The Carteret's have hired a new, young nursemaid. Mammy Jane does not trust this new maid. She tries to give the new nursemaid a stern talking-to, but the maid ignores her. This young woman is in the "chip-on-the-shoulder stage, through which races as well as individuals must pass in climbing the ladder of life. In an aside, the narrator tells the reader that this young woman is worth mentioning in the story because of this stage of Southern life, "which, with its as yet imperfect blending of old with new, of race with race, of slavery with freedom, is like no other life under the sun. Major Carteret enters and he and Mammy Jane lament of the "old times. They both agree, "The young negroes are too self-assertive. Education is spoiling them. They are not content with their station in life. The white people are patient, but there is a limit to their endurance. Mammy Jane tells the Major that she teaches humility and obedience to these younger generations. They do not listen to her, however. When she sees that little Dodie is coughing, Mammy Jane takes the baby from the Major. Something is wrong, however, and they discover that the baby has swallowed a small piece of his rattle. Dr. Price is called for. His diagnosis is that the piece of rattle has lodged itself in the child's trachea and that surgery is needed. The family calls a specialist in Philadelphia to assist. Mammy Jane reburies the vial of water in the front yard and makes symbols of the cross over it. She hopes that this will protect the child, but she is worried because of the mole behind the child's ear. It is a symbol of bad luck

HAVING fully resolved to leave the vessel clandestinely, and having acquired all the knowledge concerning the bay that I could obtain under the circumstances in which I was placed, I now deliberately turned over in my mind every plan to escape that suggested itself, being determined to act with all possible prudence in an attempt where failure would be attended with so many disagreeable consequences. The idea of being taken and brought back ignominiously to the ship was so inexpressibly repulsive to me, that I was determined by no hasty and imprudent measures to render such an event probable. I knew that our worthy captain, who felt, such a paternal solicitude for the welfare of his crew, would not willingly consent that one of his best hands should encounter the perils of a sojourn among the natives of a barbarous island; and I was certain that in the event of my disappearance, his fatherly anxiety would prompt him to offer, by way of a reward, yard upon yard of gaily printed calico for my apprehension. He might even have appreciated my services at the value of a musket, in which case I felt perfectly certain that the whole population of the bay would be immediately upon my track, incited by the prospect of so magnificent a bounty. Having ascertained the fact before alluded to, that the islanders,--from motives of precaution, dwelt altogether in the depths of the valleys, and avoided wandering about the more elevated portions of the shore, unless bound on some expedition of war or plunder, I concluded that if I could effect unperceived a passage to the mountain, I might easily remain among them, supporting myself by such fruits as came in my way until the sailing of the ship, an event of which I could not fail to be immediately apprised, as from my lofty position I should command a view of the entire harbour. The idea pleased me greatly. It seemed to combine a great deal of practicability with no inconsiderable enjoyment in a quiet way; for how delightful it would be to look down upon the detested old vessel from the height of some thousand feet, and contrast the verdant scenery about me with the recollection of her narrow decks and gloomy forecastle! Why, it was really refreshing even to think of it; and so I straightway fell to picturing myself seated beneath a cocoanut tree on the brow of the mountain, with a cluster of plantains within easy reach, criticizing her nautical evolutions as she was working her way out of the harbour. To be sure there was one rather unpleasant drawback to these agreeable anticipations--the possibility of falling in with a foraging party of these same bloody-minded Typees, whose appetites, edged perhaps by the air of so elevated a region, might prompt them to devour one. This, I must confess, was a most disagreeable view of the matter. Just to think of a party of these unnatural gourmands taking it into their heads to make a convivial meal of a poor devil, who would have no means of escape or defence: however, there was no help for it. I was willing to encounter some risks in order to accomplish my object, and counted much upon my ability to elude these prowling cannibals amongst the many coverts which the mountains afforded. Besides, the chances were ten to one in my favour that they would none of them quit their own fastnesses. I had determined not to communicate my design of withdrawing from the vessel to any of my shipmates, and least of all to solicit any one to accompany me in my flight. But it so happened one night, that being upon deck, revolving over in my mind various plans of escape, I perceived one of the ship's company leaning over the bulwarks, apparently plunged in a profound reverie. He was a young fellow about my own age, for whom I had all along entertained a great regard; and Toby, such was the name by which he went among us, for his real name he would never tell us, was every way worthy of it. He was active, ready and obliging, of dauntless courage, and singularly open and fearless in the expression of his feelings. I had on more than one occasion got him out of scrapes into which this had led him; and I know not whether it was from this cause, or a certain congeniality of sentiment between us, that he had always shown a partiality for my society. We had battled out many a long watch together, beguiling the weary hours with chat, song, and story, mingled with a good many imprecations upon the hard destiny it seemed our common fortune to encounter. Toby, like myself, had evidently moved in a different sphere of life, and his conversation at times betrayed this, although he was anxious to conceal it. He was one of that class of rovers you sometimes meet at sea, who never reveal their origin, never allude to home, and go rambling over the world as if pursued by some mysterious fate they cannot possibly elude. There was much even in the appearance of Toby calculated to draw me towards him, for while the greater part of the crew were as coarse in person as in mind, Toby was endowed with a remarkably prepossessing exterior. Arrayed in his blue frock and duck trousers, he was as smart a looking sailor as ever stepped upon a deck; he was singularly small and slightly made, with great flexibility of limb. His naturally dark complexion had been deepened by exposure to the tropical sun, and a mass of jetty locks clustered about his temples, and threw a darker shade into his large black eyes. He was a strange wayward being, moody, fitful, and melancholy--at times almost morose. He had a quick and fiery temper too, which, when thoroughly roused, transported him into a state bordering on delirium. It is strange the power that a mind of deep passion has over feebler natures. I have seen a brawny, fellow, with no lack of ordinary courage, fairly quail before this slender stripling, when in one of his curious fits. But these paroxysms seldom occurred, and in them my big-hearted shipmate vented the bile which more calm-tempered individuals get rid of by a continual pettishness at trivial annoyances. No one ever saw Toby laugh. I mean in the hearty abandonment of broad-mouthed mirth. He did smile sometimes, it is true; and there was a good deal of dry, sarcastic humour about him, which told the more from the imperturbable gravity of his tone and manner. Latterly I had observed that Toby's melancholy had greatly increased, and I had frequently seen him since our arrival at the island gazing wistfully upon the shore, when the remainder of the crew would be rioting below. I was aware that he entertained a cordial detestation of the ship, and believed that, should a fair chance of escape present itself, he would embrace it willingly. But the attempt was so perilous in the place where we then lay, that I supposed myself the only individual on board the ship who was sufficiently reckless to think of it. In this, however, I was mistaken. When I perceived Toby leaning, as I have mentioned, against the bulwarks and buried in thought, it struck me at once that the subject of his meditations might be the same as my own. And if it be so, thought I, is he not the very one of all my shipmates whom I would choose: for the partner of my adventure? and why should I not have some comrade with me to divide its dangers and alleviate its hardships? Perhaps I might be obliged to lie concealed among the mountains for weeks. In such an event what a solace would a companion be? These thoughts passed rapidly through my mind, and I wondered why I had not before considered the matter in this light. But it was not too late. A tap upon the shoulder served to rouse Toby from his reverie; I found him ripe for the enterprise, and a very few words sufficed for a mutual understanding between us. In an hour's time we had arranged all the preliminaries, and decided upon our plan of action. We then ratified our engagement with an affectionate wedding of palms, and to elude suspicion repaired each to his hammock, to spend the last night on board the Dolly. The next day the starboard watch, to which we both belonged, was to be sent ashore on liberty; and, availing ourselves of this opportunity, we determined, as soon after landing as possible, to separate ourselves from the rest of the men without exciting their suspicions, and strike back at once for the mountains. Seen from the ship, their summits appeared inaccessible, but here and there sloping spurs extended from them almost into the sea, buttressing the lofty elevations with which they were connected, and forming those radiating valleys I have before described. One of these ridges, which appeared more practicable than the rest, we determined to climb, convinced that it would conduct us to the heights beyond. Accordingly, we carefully observed its bearings and locality from the ship, so that when ashore we should run no chance of missing it. In all this the leading object we had in view was to seclude ourselves from sight until the departure of the vessel; then to take our chance as to the reception the Nukuheva natives might give us; and after remaining upon the island as long as we found our stay agreeable, to leave it the first favourable opportunity that offered.

Now that Tommo's decided he'll escape his post on the ship, he begins to make preparations. He decides that, if he can get to the mountains and stay with the kind Happars, he can watch his ship sail off, then return to the coast and catch a ride on a different boat home. All he needs to do is avoid those fearsome Typees. Tommo is planning on leaving alone, and in secret, but as he's hanging out with his shipmate Toby one night, it becomes obvious that Toby is also unhappy on the ship. Tommo decides to tell him the plan, and invite him along. Within an hour, Toby has taken up the escape planning and the two friends spend the next day gathering information.

II. The Mail It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, before the first of the persons with whom this history has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter's Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers did; not because they had the least relish for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of war which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team had capitulated and returned to their duty. With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary "Wo-ho! so-ho-then!" the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it--like an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind. There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all. Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in "the Captain's" pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass. The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey. "Wo-ho!" said the coachman. "So, then! One more pull and you're at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to it!--Joe!" "Halloa!" the guard replied. "What o'clock do you make it, Joe?" "Ten minutes, good, past eleven." "My blood!" ejaculated the vexed coachman, "and not atop of Shooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!" The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of the three had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman. The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel for the descent, and open the coach-door to let the passengers in. "Tst! Joe!" cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down from his box. "What do you say, Tom?" They both listened. "I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe." "_I_ say a horse at a gallop, Tom," returned the guard, leaving his hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. "Gentlemen! In the king's name, all of you!" With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on the offensive. The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting. The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouring of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding the breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation. The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill. "So-ho!" the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. "Yo there! Stand! I shall fire!" The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, a man's voice called from the mist, "Is that the Dover mail?" "Never you mind what it is!" the guard retorted. "What are you?" "_Is_ that the Dover mail?" "Why do you want to know?" "I want a passenger, if it is." "What passenger?" "Mr. Jarvis Lorry." Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, the coachman, and the two other passengers eyed him distrustfully. "Keep where you are," the guard called to the voice in the mist, "because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight." "What is the matter?" asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering speech. "Who wants me? Is it Jerry?" ("I don't like Jerry's voice, if it is Jerry," growled the guard to himself. "He's hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.") "Yes, Mr. Lorry." "What is the matter?" "A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co." "I know this messenger, guard," said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the road--assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door, and pulled up the window. "He may come close; there's nothing wrong." "I hope there ain't, but I can't make so 'Nation sure of that," said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. "Hallo you!" "Well! And hallo you!" said Jerry, more hoarsely than before. "Come on at a footpace! d'ye mind me? And if you've got holsters to that saddle o' yourn, don't let me see your hand go nigh 'em. For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form of Lead. So now let's look at you." The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed the passenger a small folded paper. The rider's horse was blown, and both horse and rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of the man. "Guard!" said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence. The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, answered curtly, "Sir." "There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson's Bank. You must know Tellson's Bank in London. I am going to Paris on business. A crown to drink. I may read this?" "If so be as you're quick, sir." He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and read--first to himself and then aloud: "'Wait at Dover for Mam'selle.' It's not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answer was, RECALLED TO LIFE." Jerry started in his saddle. "That's a Blazing strange answer, too," said he, at his hoarsest. "Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night." With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in; not at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots, and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originating any other kind of action. The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his blunderbuss in his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, and having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a few smith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was furnished with that completeness that if the coach-lamps had been blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he were lucky) in five minutes. "Tom!" softly over the coach roof. "Hallo, Joe." "Did you hear the message?" "I did, Joe." "What did you make of it, Tom?" "Nothing at all, Joe." "That's a coincidence, too," the guard mused, "for I made the same of it myself." Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which might be capable of holding about half a gallon. After standing with the bridle over his heavily-splashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing and the night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill. "After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won't trust your fore-legs till I get you on the level," said this hoarse messenger, glancing at his mare. "'Recalled to life.' That's a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn't do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You'd be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!"

The Mail Mr. Jarvis Lorry, a confidential clerk at Tellson's Bank of London, is on his way to Dover in a mail-coach. It is a cold night and he is wrapped up to the ears, so his physical appearance is concealed from his fellow-passengers, all of whom are strangers. The coachman fears his passengers just as they fear one another, since highway robberies are exceedingly common and any of them could be in league with robbers. So when he hears a horse galloping towards the coach on the road, he becomes fearful. Jerry Cruncher, the rider of the horse, asks for Mr. Lorry, giving him a paper message to wait at Dover for a young lady. Mr. Lorry's cryptic reply is, "recalled to life. After this exchange, Mr. Lorry gets back in the coach, which continues to Dover. Jerry pauses and reflects on the long, hard gallop he had from London and muses to himself that he has been given a very strange message

The SAME. Cyrano. CYRANO (appearing from the tent, very calm, with a pen stuck behind his ear and a book in his hand): What is wrong? (Silence. To the first cadet): Why drag you your legs so sorrowfully? THE CADET: I have something in my heels which weighs them down. CYRANO: And what may that be? THE CADET: My stomach! CYRANO: So have I, 'faith! THE CADET: It must be in your way? CYRANO: Nay, I am all the taller. A THIRD: My stomach's hollow. CYRANO: 'Faith, 'twill make a fine drum to sound the assault. ANOTHER: I have a ringing in my ears. CYRANO: No, no, 'tis false; a hungry stomach has no ears. ANOTHER: Oh, to eat something--something oily! CYRANO (pulling off the cadet's helmet and holding it out to him): Behold your salad! ANOTHER: What, in God's name, can we devour? CYRANO (throwing him the book which he is carrying): The 'Iliad'. ANOTHER: The first minister in Paris has his four meals a day! CYRANO: 'Twere courteous an he sent you a few partridges! THE SAME: And why not? with wine, too! CYRANO: A little Burgundy. Richelieu, s'il vous plait! THE SAME: He could send it by one of his friars. CYRANO: Ay! by His Eminence Joseph himself. ANOTHER: I am as ravenous as an ogre! CYRANO: Eat your patience, then. THE FIRST CADET (shrugging his shoulders): Always your pointed word! CYRANO: Ay, pointed words! I would fain die thus, some soft summer eve, Making a pointed word for a good cause. --To make a soldier's end by soldier's sword, Wielded by some brave adversary--die On blood-stained turf, not on a fever-bed, A point upon my lips, a point within my heart. CRIES FROM ALL: I'm hungry! CYRANO (crossing his arms): All your thoughts of meat and drink! Bertrand the fifer!--you were shepherd once,-- Draw from its double leathern case your fife, Play to these greedy, guzzling soldiers. Play Old country airs with plaintive rhythm recurring, Where lurk sweet echoes of the dear home-voices, Each note of which calls like a little sister, Those airs slow, slow ascending, as the smoke-wreaths Rise from the hearthstones of our native hamlets, Their music strikes the ear like Gascon patois!. . . (The old man seats himself, and gets his flute ready): Your flute was now a warrior in durance; But on its stem your fingers are a-dancing A bird-like minuet! O flute! Remember That flutes were made of reeds first, not laburnum; Make us a music pastoral days recalling-- The soul-time of your youth, in country pastures!. . . (The old man begins to play the airs of Languedoc): Hark to the music, Gascons!. . .'Tis no longer The piercing fife of camp--but 'neath his fingers The flute of the woods! No more the call to combat, 'Tis now the love-song of the wandering goat-herds!. . . Hark!. . .'tis the valley, the wet landes, the forest, The sunburnt shepherd-boy with scarlet beret, The dusk of evening on the Dordogne river,-- 'Tis Gascony! Hark, Gascons, to the music! (The cadets sit with bowed heads; their eyes have a far-off look as if dreaming, and they surreptitiously wipe away their tears with their cuffs and the corner of their cloaks.) CARBON (to Cyrano in a whisper): But you make them weep! CYRANO: Ay, for homesickness. A nobler pain than hunger,--'tis of the soul, not of the body! I am well pleased to see their pain change its viscera. Heart-ache is better than stomach-ache. CARBON: But you weaken their courage by playing thus on their heart-strings! CYRANO (making a sign to a drummer to approach): Not I. The hero that sleeps in Gascon blood is ever ready to awake in them. 'Twould suffice. . . (He makes a signal; the drum beats.) ALL THE CADETS (stand up and rush to take arms): What? What is it? CYRANO (smiling): You see! One roll of the drum is enough! Good-by dreams, regrets, native land, love. . .All that the pipe called forth the drum has chased away! A CADET (looking toward the back of the stage): Ho! here comes Monsieur de Guiche. ALL THE CADETS (muttering): Ugh!. . .Ugh!. . . CYRANO (smiling): A flattering welcome! A CADET: We are sick to death of him! ANOTHER CADET: --With his lace collar over his armor, playing the fine gentleman! ANOTHER: As if one wore linen over steel! THE FIRST: It were good for a bandage had he boils on his neck. THE SECOND: Another plotting courtier! ANOTHER CADET: His uncle's own nephew! CARBON: For all that--a Gascon. THE FIRST: Ay, false Gascon!. . .trust him not. . . Gascons should ever be crack-brained. . . Naught more dangerous than a rational Gascon. LE BRET: How pale he is! ANOTHER: Oh! he is hungry, just like us poor devils; but under his cuirass, with its fine gilt nails, his stomach-ache glitters brave in the sun. CYRANO (hurriedly): Let us not seem to suffer either! Out with your cards, pipes, and dice. . . (All begin spreading out the games on the drums, the stools, the ground, and on their cloaks, and light long pipes): And I shall read Descartes. (He walks up and down, reading a little book which he has drawn from his pocket. Tableau. Enter De Guiche. All appear absorbed and happy. He is very pale. He goes up to Carbon.)

Cyrano comes out of the tent and restores the men's morale with his witty banter. He gets a piper to play an old Gascon song, which reminds the men of their homeland. There is a murmur of disapproval as de Guiche is seen approaching. Cyrano asks the men to start a game of cards, so that de Guiche will not see them suffer

X. THE P. C. AND P. O. As spring came on, a new set of amusements became the fashion, and the lengthening days gave long afternoons for work and play of all sorts. The garden had to be put in order, and each sister had a quarter of the little plot to do what she liked with. Hannah used to say, "I'd know which each of them gardings belonged to, ef I see 'em in Chiny;" and so she might, for the girls' tastes differed as much as their characters. Meg's had roses and heliotrope, myrtle, and a little orange-tree in it. Jo's bed was never alike two seasons, for she was always trying experiments; this year it was to be a plantation of sun-flowers, the seeds of which cheerful and aspiring plant were to feed "Aunt Cockle-top" and her family of chicks. Beth had old-fashioned, fragrant flowers in her garden,--sweet peas and mignonette, larkspur, pinks, pansies, and southernwood, with chickweed for the bird, and catnip for the pussies. Amy had a bower in hers,--rather small and earwiggy, but very pretty to look at,--with honeysuckles and morning-glories hanging their colored horns and bells in graceful wreaths all over it; tall, white lilies, delicate ferns, and as many brilliant, picturesque plants as would consent to blossom there. Gardening, walks, rows on the river, and flower-hunts employed the fine days; and for rainy ones, they had house diversions,--some old, some new,--all more or less original. One of these was the "P. C."; for, as secret societies were the fashion, it was thought proper to have one; and, as all of the girls admired Dickens, they called themselves the Pickwick Club. With a few interruptions, they had kept this up for a year, and met every Saturday evening in the big garret, on which occasions the ceremonies were as follows: Three chairs were arranged in a row before a table, on which was a lamp, also four white badges, with a big "P. C." in different colors on each, and the weekly newspaper, called "The Pickwick Portfolio," to which all contributed something; while Jo, who revelled in pens and ink, was the editor. At seven o'clock, the four members ascended to the club-room, tied their badges round their heads, and took their seats with great solemnity. Meg, as the eldest, was Samuel Pickwick; Jo, being of a literary turn, Augustus Snodgrass; Beth, because she was round and rosy, Tracy Tupman, and Amy, who was always trying to do what she couldn't, was Nathaniel Winkle. Pickwick, the president, read the paper, which was filled with original tales, poetry, local news, funny advertisements, and hints, in which they good-naturedly reminded each other of their faults and short-comings. [Illustration: Mr. Pickwick] On one occasion, Mr. Pickwick put on a pair of spectacles without any glasses, rapped upon the table, hemmed, and, having stared hard at Mr. Snodgrass, who was tilting back in his chair, till he arranged himself properly, began to read:-- The Pickwick Portfolio. MAY 20, 18-- Poet's Corner. ANNIVERSARY ODE. Again we meet to celebrate With badge and solemn rite, Our fifty-second anniversary, In Pickwick Hall, to-night. We all are here in perfect health, None gone from our small band; Again we see each well-known face, And press each friendly hand. Our Pickwick, always at his post, With reverence we greet, As, spectacles on nose, he reads Our well-filled weekly sheet. Although he suffers from a cold, We joy to hear him speak, For words of wisdom from him fall, In spite of croak or squeak. Old six-foot Snodgrass looms on high, With elephantine grace, And beams upon the company, With brown and jovial face. Poetic fire lights up his eye, He struggles 'gainst his lot. Behold ambition on his brow, And on his nose a blot! Next our peaceful Tupman comes, So rosy, plump, and sweet. Who chokes with laughter at the puns, And tumbles off his seat. Prim little Winkle too is here, With every hair in place, A model of propriety, Though he hates to wash his face. The year is gone, we still unite To joke and laugh and read, And tread the path of literature That doth to glory lead. Long may our paper prosper well, Our club unbroken be, And coming years their blessings pour On the useful, gay "P. C." A. SNODGRASS. THE MASKED MARRIAGE. A TALE OF VENICE. Gondola after gondola swept up to the marble steps, and left its lovely load to swell the brilliant throng that filled the stately halls of Count de Adelon. Knights and ladies, elves and pages, monks and flower-girls, all mingled gayly in the dance. Sweet voices and rich melody filled the air; and so with mirth and music the masquerade went on. "Has your Highness seen the Lady Viola to-night?" asked a gallant troubadour of the fairy queen who floated down the hall upon his arm. "Yes; is she not lovely, though so sad! Her dress is well chosen, too, for in a week she weds Count Antonio, whom she passionately hates." "By my faith, I envy him. Yonder he comes, arrayed like a bridegroom, except the black mask. When that is off we shall see how he regards the fair maid whose heart he cannot win, though her stern father bestows her hand," returned the troubadour. "'Tis whispered that she loves the young English artist who haunts her steps, and is spurned by the old count," said the lady, as they joined the dance. The revel was at its height when a priest appeared, and, withdrawing the young pair to an alcove hung with purple velvet, he motioned them to kneel. Instant silence fell upon the gay throng; and not a sound, but the dash of fountains or the rustle of orange-groves sleeping in the moonlight, broke the hush, as Count de Adelon spoke thus:-- "My lords and ladies, pardon the ruse by which I have gathered you here to witness the marriage of my daughter. Father, we wait your services." All eyes turned toward the bridal party, and a low murmur of amazement went through the throng, for neither bride nor groom removed their masks. Curiosity and wonder possessed all hearts, but respect restrained all tongues till the holy rite was over. Then the eager spectators gathered round the count, demanding an explanation. "Gladly would I give it if I could; but I only know that it was the whim of my timid Viola, and I yielded to it. Now, my children, let the play end. Unmask, and receive my blessing." But neither bent the knee; for the young bridegroom replied, in a tone that startled all listeners, as the mask fell, disclosing the noble face of Ferdinand Devereux, the artist lover; and, leaning on the breast where now flashed the star of an English earl, was the lovely Viola, radiant with joy and beauty. "My lord, you scornfully bade me claim your daughter when I could boast as high a name and vast a fortune as the Count Antonio. I can do more; for even your ambitious soul cannot refuse the Earl of Devereux and De Vere, when he gives his ancient name and boundless wealth in return for the beloved hand of this fair lady, now my wife." The count stood like one changed to stone; and, turning to the bewildered crowd, Ferdinand added, with a gay smile of triumph, "To you, my gallant friends, I can only wish that your wooing may prosper as mine has done; and that you may all win as fair a bride as I have, by this masked marriage." S. PICKWICK. * * * * * Why is the P. C. like the Tower of Babel? It is full of unruly members. * * * * * THE HISTORY OF A SQUASH. Once upon a time a farmer planted a little seed in his garden, and after a while it sprouted and became a vine, and bore many squashes. One day in October, when they were ripe, he picked one and took it to market. A grocer-man bought and put it in his shop. That same morning, a little girl, in a brown hat and blue dress, with a round face and snub nose, went and bought it for her mother. She lugged it home, cut it up, and boiled it in the big pot; mashed some of it, with salt and butter, for dinner; and to the rest she added a pint of milk, two eggs, four spoons of sugar, nutmeg, and some crackers; put it in a deep dish, and baked it till it was brown and nice; and next day it was eaten by a family named March. T. TUPMAN. * * * * * MR. PICKWICK, _Sir_:-- I address you upon the subject of sin the sinner I mean is a man named Winkle who makes trouble in his club by laughing and sometimes won't write his piece in this fine paper I hope you will pardon his badness and let him send a French fable because he can't write out of his head as he has so many lessons to do and no brains in future I will try to take time by the fetlock and prepare some work which will be all _commy la fo_ that means all right I am in haste as it is nearly school time Yours respectably, N. WINKLE. [The above is a manly and handsome acknowledgment of past misdemeanors. If our young friend studied punctuation, it would be well.] A SAD ACCIDENT. On Friday last, we were startled by a violent shock in our basement, followed by cries of distress. On rushing, in a body, to the cellar, we discovered our beloved President prostrate upon the floor, having tripped and fallen while getting wood for domestic purposes. A perfect scene of ruin met our eyes; for in his fall Mr. Pickwick had plunged his head and shoulders into a tub of water, upset a keg of soft soap upon his manly form, and torn his garments badly. On being removed from this perilous situation, it was discovered that he had suffered no injury but several bruises; and, we are happy to add, is now doing well. ED. *************************************************************** * * * THE PUBLIC BEREAVEMENT. * * * * It is our painful duty to record the sudden and mysterious * * disappearance of our cherished friend, Mrs. Snowball Pat * * Paw. This lovely and beloved cat was the pet of a large * * circle of warm and admiring friends; for her beauty * * attracted all eyes, her graces and virtues endeared her to * * all hearts, and her loss is deeply felt by the whole * * community. * * * * When last seen, she was sitting at the gate, watching the * * butcher's cart; and it is feared that some villain, tempted * * by her charms, basely stole her. Weeks have passed, but no * * trace of her has been discovered; and we relinquish all * * hope, tie a black ribbon to her basket, set aside her dish, * * and weep for her as one lost to us forever. * * * *************************************************************** * * * * * A sympathizing friend sends the following gem:-- A LAMENT FOR S. B. PAT PAW. We mourn the loss of our little pet, And sigh o'er her hapless fate, For never more by the fire she'll sit, Nor play by the old green gate. The little grave where her infant sleeps, Is 'neath the chestnut tree; But o'er _her_ grave we may not weep, We know not where it may be. Her empty bed, her idle ball, Will never see her more; No gentle tap, no loving purr Is heard at the parlor-door. Another cat comes after her mice, A cat with a dirty face; But she does not hunt as our darling did, Nor play with her airy grace. Her stealthy paws tread the very hall Where Snowball used to play, But she only spits at the dogs our pet So gallantly drove away. She is useful and mild, and does her best, But she is not fair to see; And we cannot give her your place, dear, Nor worship her as we worship thee. A. S. ADVERTISEMENTS. MISS ORANTHY BLUGGAGE, the accomplished Strong-Minded Lecturer, will deliver her famous Lecture on "WOMAN AND HER POSITION," at Pickwick Hall, next Saturday Evening, after the usual performances. A WEEKLY MEETING will be held at Kitchen Place, to teach young ladies how to cook. Hannah Brown will preside; and all are invited to attend. THE DUSTPAN SOCIETY will meet on Wednesday next, and parade in the upper story of the Club House. All members to appear in uniform and shoulder their brooms at nine precisely. MRS. BETH BOUNCER will open her new assortment of Doll's Millinery next week. The latest Paris Fashions have arrived, and orders are respectfully solicited. A NEW PLAY will appear at the Barnville Theatre, in the course of a few weeks, which will surpass anything ever seen on the American stage. "THE GREEK SLAVE, or Constantine the Avenger," is the name of this thrilling drama!!! HINTS. If S. P. didn't use so much soap on his hands, he wouldn't always be late at breakfast. A. S. is requested not to whistle in the street. T. T. please don't forget Amy's napkin. N. W. must not fret because his dress has not nine tucks. WEEKLY REPORT. Meg--Good. Jo--Bad. Beth--Very good. Amy--Middling. As the President finished reading the paper (which I beg leave to assure my readers is a _bona fide_ copy of one written by _bona fide_ girls once upon a time), a round of applause followed, and then Mr. Snodgrass rose to make a proposition. "Mr. President and gentlemen," he began, assuming a parliamentary attitude and tone, "I wish to propose the admission of a new member,--one who highly deserves the honor, would be deeply grateful for it, and would add immensely to the spirit of the club, the literary value of the paper, and be no end jolly and nice. I propose Mr. Theodore Laurence as an honorary member of the P. C. Come now, do have him." Jo's sudden change of tone made the girls laugh; but all looked rather anxious, and no one said a word, as Snodgrass took his seat. "We'll put it to vote," said the President. "All in favor of this motion please to manifest it by saying 'Ay.'" A loud response from Snodgrass, followed, to everybody's surprise, by a timid one from Beth. "Contrary minded say 'No.'" Meg and Amy were contrary minded; and Mr. Winkle rose to say, with great elegance, "We don't wish any boys; they only joke and bounce about. This is a ladies' club, and we wish to be private and proper." "I'm afraid he'll laugh at our paper, and make fun of us afterward," observed Pickwick, pulling the little curl on her forehead, as she always did when doubtful. Up rose Snodgrass, very much in earnest. "Sir, I give you my word as a gentleman, Laurie won't do anything of the sort. He likes to write, and he'll give a tone to our contributions, and keep us from being sentimental, don't you see? We can do so little for him, and he does so much for us, I think the least we can do is to offer him a place here, and make him welcome if he comes." This artful allusion to benefits conferred brought Tupman to his feet, looking as if he had quite made up his mind. "Yes, we ought to do it, even if we _are_ afraid. I say he _may_ come, and his grandpa, too, if he likes." This spirited burst from Beth electrified the club, and Jo left her seat to shake hands approvingly. "Now then, vote again. Everybody remember it's our Laurie, and say 'Ay!'" cried Snodgrass excitedly. "Ay! ay! ay!" replied three voices at once. "Good! Bless you! Now, as there's nothing like 'taking time by the _fetlock_,' as Winkle characteristically observes, allow me to present the new member;" and, to the dismay of the rest of the club, Jo threw open the door of the closet, and displayed Laurie sitting on a rag-bag, flushed and twinkling with suppressed laughter. [Illustration: Jo threw open the door of the closet] "You rogue! you traitor! Jo, how could you?" cried the three girls, as Snodgrass led her friend triumphantly forth; and, producing both a chair and a badge, installed him in a jiffy. "The coolness of you two rascals is amazing," began Mr. Pickwick, trying to get up an awful frown, and only succeeding in producing an amiable smile. But the new member was equal to the occasion; and, rising, with a grateful salutation to the Chair, said, in the most engaging manner, "Mr. President and ladies,--I beg pardon, gentlemen,--allow me to introduce myself as Sam Weller, the very humble servant of the club." "Good! good!" cried Jo, pounding with the handle of the old warming-pan on which she leaned. "My faithful friend and noble patron," continued Laurie, with a wave of the hand, "who has so flatteringly presented me, is not to be blamed for the base stratagem of to-night. I planned it, and she only gave in after lots of teasing." "Come now, don't lay it all on yourself; you know I proposed the cupboard," broke in Snodgrass, who was enjoying the joke amazingly. "Never you mind what she says. I'm the wretch that did it, sir," said the new member, with a Welleresque nod to Mr. Pickwick. "But on my honor, I never will do so again, and henceforth _dewote_ myself to the interest of this immortal club." "Hear! hear!" cried Jo, clashing the lid of the warming-pan like a cymbal. "Go on, go on!" added Winkle and Tupman, while the President bowed benignly. "I merely wish to say, that as a slight token of my gratitude for the honor done me, and as a means of promoting friendly relations between adjoining nations, I have set up a post-office in the hedge in the lower corner of the garden; a fine, spacious building, with padlocks on the doors, and every convenience for the mails,--also the females, if I may be allowed the expression. It's the old martin-house; but I've stopped up the door, and made the roof open, so it will hold all sorts of things, and save our valuable time. Letters, manuscripts, books, and bundles can be passed in there; and, as each nation has a key, it will be uncommonly nice, I fancy. Allow me to present the club key; and, with many thanks for your favor, take my seat." Great applause as Mr. Weller deposited a little key on the table, and subsided; the warming-pan clashed and waved wildly, and it was some time before order could be restored. A long discussion followed, and every one came out surprising, for every one did her best; so it was an unusually lively meeting, and did not adjourn till a late hour, when it broke up with three shrill cheers for the new member. No one ever regretted the admittance of Sam Weller, for a more devoted, well-behaved, and jovial member no club could have. He certainly did add "spirit" to the meetings, and "a tone" to the paper; for his orations convulsed his hearers, and his contributions were excellent, being patriotic, classical, comical, or dramatic, but never sentimental. Jo regarded them as worthy of Bacon, Milton, or Shakespeare; and remodelled her own works with good effect, she thought. The P. O. was a capital little institution, and flourished wonderfully, for nearly as many queer things passed through it as through the real office. Tragedies and cravats, poetry and pickles, garden-seeds and long letters, music and gingerbread, rubbers, invitations, scoldings and puppies. The old gentleman liked the fun, and amused himself by sending odd bundles, mysterious messages, and funny telegrams; and his gardener, who was smitten with Hannah's charms, actually sent a love-letter to Jo's care. How they laughed when the secret came out, never dreaming how many love-letters that little post-office would hold in the years to come! [Illustration: Jo spent the morning on the river]

Spring comes and the girls each tend a corner of the family garden. Each sister plants things and takes care of her garden in a way that reflects her personality - Meg's is pretty and simple, Jo constantly experiments, Beth grows things for the birds, her pet cats, and other animals, and Amy makes hers beautiful and elegant. Symbolism! On rainy days, the girls hold meetings of their "Pickwick Club," which they call "the P.C." During the meetings of the P.C., each of the girls impersonates one of the characters in The Pickwick Papers. Meg is Samuel Pickwick, Jo is Augustus Snodgrass, Beth is Tracy Tupman, and Amy is Nathaniel Winkle. The P.C. produces a newsletter that they call The Pickwick Portfolio, in which each of the girls contributes articles. This is appropriate, since The Pickwick Papers is also about, well, papers. The clue's in the name! At their meetings, Meg, as Mr. Pickwick, reads the paper they've produced this time to her sisters. The edition of The Pickwick Portfolio that Meg reads in this chapter contains the following articles: A poem celebrating the anniversary of the club, written by Jo. A romantic tale about mistaken identity and marriage in Venice, written by Meg. A joke about the club. A recipe for baked squash, written by Beth. A letter explaining why she hasn't written anything for the newsletter, by Amy. A report of an accident that Meg had while getting firewood in the attic. A description of the family's missing cat, Snowball. A poem lamenting the lost cat, written by Jo. A variety of announcements about things that are going to happen soon, such as Hannah teaching the girls to cook and Beth displaying the new doll's clothes she has made. A comment on the behavior of each of the girls. Meg, in the character of Samuel Pickwick, finishes reading each of these items from the paper and the girls applaud. Jo gets up and, in the character of Augustus Snodgrass, proposes that they admit a new member to the club - Laurie. The girls vote on the proposal. Beth and Jo are in favor of letting Laurie join them. Meg and Amy are against it - Meg is worried Laurie will laugh at them, and Amy is still young enough that she doesn't want to play with a boy. Beth and Jo convince the girls to let Laurie join the club. They vote again, and everyone is in favor this time. Jo opens the closet door and reveals Laurie, who has been hiding there the whole time. Jo's sisters are a little irritated by the deception, but they're won over by Laurie, who immediately enters into the spirit of the club by announcing that he will play Sam Weller. . Laurie announces that, as a token of his gratitude for being allowed to join the club, he is going to give them a post-office box. The box looks like a large birdhouse, and he has put it in the middle of the hedge between the March and Laurence houses. This "post office," or "P.O." for short, will let them exchange letters - partly for the club newsletter, and partly just for fun. It has a lock and Laurie holds one key, while the girls hold the other. Laurie is an enthusiastic and wonderful member of the club, and the P.O. is a big hit.

It was already late at night, and as dark as it ever would be at that season of the year (and that is to say, it was still pretty bright), when Hoseason clapped his head into the round-house door. "Here," said he, "come out and see if ye can pilot." "Is this one of your tricks?" asked Alan. "Do I look like tricks?" cries the captain. "I have other things to think of--my brig's in danger!" By the concerned look of his face, and, above all, by the sharp tones in which he spoke of his brig, it was plain to both of us he was in deadly earnest; and so Alan and I, with no great fear of treachery, stepped on deck. The sky was clear; it blew hard, and was bitter cold; a great deal of daylight lingered; and the moon, which was nearly full, shone brightly. The brig was close hauled, so as to round the southwest corner of the Island of Mull, the hills of which (and Ben More above them all, with a wisp of mist upon the top of it) lay full upon the lar-board bow. Though it was no good point of sailing for the Covenant, she tore through the seas at a great rate, pitching and straining, and pursued by the westerly swell. Altogether it was no such ill night to keep the seas in; and I had begun to wonder what it was that sat so heavily upon the captain, when the brig rising suddenly on the top of a high swell, he pointed and cried to us to look. Away on the lee bow, a thing like a fountain rose out of the moonlit sea, and immediately after we heard a low sound of roaring. "What do ye call that?" asked the captain, gloomily. "The sea breaking on a reef," said Alan. "And now ye ken where it is; and what better would ye have?" "Ay," said Hoseason, "if it was the only one." And sure enough, just as he spoke there came a second fountain farther to the south. "There!" said Hoseason. "Ye see for yourself. If I had kent of these reefs, if I had had a chart, or if Shuan had been spared, it's not sixty guineas, no, nor six hundred, would have made me risk my brig in sic a stoneyard! But you, sir, that was to pilot us, have ye never a word?" "I'm thinking," said Alan, "these'll be what they call the Torran Rocks." "Are there many of them?" says the captain. "Truly, sir, I am nae pilot," said Alan; "but it sticks in my mind there are ten miles of them." Mr. Riach and the captain looked at each other. "There's a way through them, I suppose?" said the captain. "Doubtless," said Alan, "but where? But it somehow runs in my mind once more that it is clearer under the land." "So?" said Hoseason. "We'll have to haul our wind then, Mr. Riach; we'll have to come as near in about the end of Mull as we can take her, sir; and even then we'll have the land to kep the wind off us, and that stoneyard on our lee. Well, we're in for it now, and may as well crack on." With that he gave an order to the steersman, and sent Riach to the foretop. There were only five men on deck, counting the officers; these being all that were fit (or, at least, both fit and willing) for their work. So, as I say, it fell to Mr. Riach to go aloft, and he sat there looking out and hailing the deck with news of all he saw. "The sea to the south is thick," he cried; and then, after a while, "it does seem clearer in by the land." "Well, sir," said Hoseason to Alan, "we'll try your way of it. But I think I might as well trust to a blind fiddler. Pray God you're right." "Pray God I am!" says Alan to me. "But where did I hear it? Well, well, it will be as it must." As we got nearer to the turn of the land the reefs began to be sown here and there on our very path; and Mr. Riach sometimes cried down to us to change the course. Sometimes, indeed, none too soon; for one reef was so close on the brig's weather board that when a sea burst upon it the lighter sprays fell upon her deck and wetted us like rain. The brightness of the night showed us these perils as clearly as by day, which was, perhaps, the more alarming. It showed me, too, the face of the captain as he stood by the steersman, now on one foot, now on the other, and sometimes blowing in his hands, but still listening and looking and as steady as steel. Neither he nor Mr. Riach had shown well in the fighting; but I saw they were brave in their own trade, and admired them all the more because I found Alan very white. "Ochone, David," says he, "this is no the kind of death I fancy!" "What, Alan!" I cried, "you're not afraid?" "No," said he, wetting his lips, "but you'll allow, yourself, it's a cold ending." By this time, now and then sheering to one side or the other to avoid a reef, but still hugging the wind and the land, we had got round Iona and begun to come alongside Mull. The tide at the tail of the land ran very strong, and threw the brig about. Two hands were put to the helm, and Hoseason himself would sometimes lend a help; and it was strange to see three strong men throw their weight upon the tiller, and it (like a living thing) struggle against and drive them back. This would have been the greater danger had not the sea been for some while free of obstacles. Mr. Riach, besides, announced from the top that he saw clear water ahead. "Ye were right," said Hoseason to Alan. "Ye have saved the brig, sir. I'll mind that when we come to clear accounts." And I believe he not only meant what he said, but would have done it; so high a place did the Covenant hold in his affections. But this is matter only for conjecture, things having gone otherwise than he forecast. "Keep her away a point," sings out Mr. Riach. "Reef to windward!" And just at the same time the tide caught the brig, and threw the wind out of her sails. She came round into the wind like a top, and the next moment struck the reef with such a dunch as threw us all flat upon the deck, and came near to shake Mr. Riach from his place upon the mast. I was on my feet in a minute. The reef on which we had struck was close in under the southwest end of Mull, off a little isle they call Earraid, which lay low and black upon the larboard. Sometimes the swell broke clean over us; sometimes it only ground the poor brig upon the reef, so that we could hear her beat herself to pieces; and what with the great noise of the sails, and the singing of the wind, and the flying of the spray in the moonlight, and the sense of danger, I think my head must have been partly turned, for I could scarcely understand the things I saw. Presently I observed Mr. Riach and the seamen busy round the skiff, and, still in the same blank, ran over to assist them; and as soon as I set my hand to work, my mind came clear again. It was no very easy task, for the skiff lay amidships and was full of hamper, and the breaking of the heavier seas continually forced us to give over and hold on; but we all wrought like horses while we could. Meanwhile such of the wounded as could move came clambering out of the fore-scuttle and began to help; while the rest that lay helpless in their bunks harrowed me with screaming and begging to be saved. The captain took no part. It seemed he was struck stupid. He stood holding by the shrouds, talking to himself and groaning out aloud whenever the ship hammered on the rock. His brig was like wife and child to him; he had looked on, day by day, at the mishandling of poor Ransome; but when it came to the brig, he seemed to suffer along with her. All the time of our working at the boat, I remember only one other thing: that I asked Alan, looking across at the shore, what country it was; and he answered, it was the worst possible for him, for it was a land of the Campbells. We had one of the wounded men told off to keep a watch upon the seas and cry us warning. Well, we had the boat about ready to be launched, when this man sang out pretty shrill: "For God's sake, hold on!" We knew by his tone that it was something more than ordinary; and sure enough, there followed a sea so huge that it lifted the brig right up and canted her over on her beam. Whether the cry came too late, or my hold was too weak, I know not; but at the sudden tilting of the ship I was cast clean over the bulwarks into the sea. I went down, and drank my fill, and then came up, and got a blink of the moon, and then down again. They say a man sinks a third time for good. I cannot be made like other folk, then; for I would not like to write how often I went down, or how often I came up again. All the while, I was being hurled along, and beaten upon and choked, and then swallowed whole; and the thing was so distracting to my wits, that I was neither sorry nor afraid. Presently, I found I was holding to a spar, which helped me somewhat. And then all of a sudden I was in quiet water, and began to come to myself. It was the spare yard I had got hold of, and I was amazed to see how far I had travelled from the brig. I hailed her, indeed; but it was plain she was already out of cry. She was still holding together; but whether or not they had yet launched the boat, I was too far off and too low down to see. While I was hailing the brig, I spied a tract of water lying between us where no great waves came, but which yet boiled white all over and bristled in the moon with rings and bubbles. Sometimes the whole tract swung to one side, like the tail of a live serpent; sometimes, for a glimpse, it would all disappear and then boil up again. What it was I had no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it; but I now know it must have been the roost or tide race, which had carried me away so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of that play, had flung out me and the spare yard upon its landward margin. I now lay quite becalmed, and began to feel that a man can die of cold as well as of drowning. The shores of Earraid were close in; I could see in the moonlight the dots of heather and the sparkling of the mica in the rocks. "Well," thought I to myself, "if I cannot get as far as that, it's strange!" I had no skill of swimming, Essen Water being small in our neighbourhood; but when I laid hold upon the yard with both arms, and kicked out with both feet, I soon begun to find that I was moving. Hard work it was, and mortally slow; but in about an hour of kicking and splashing, I had got well in between the points of a sandy bay surrounded by low hills. The sea was here quite quiet; there was no sound of any surf; the moon shone clear; and I thought in my heart I had never seen a place so desert and desolate. But it was dry land; and when at last it grew so shallow that I could leave the yard and wade ashore upon my feet, I cannot tell if I was more tired or more grateful. Both, at least, I was: tired as I never was before that night; and grateful to God as I trust I have been often, though never with more cause.

Hoseason appears at the round-house door and tells Alan and David that the ship has sailed into an area with reefs, off the Scottish island of Earraid, and there is danger that it may run into them. David sees that Alan is afraid, though he will not admit it. Just as everyone thinks the ship is safely past the reefs, it strikes one. Many men are wounded. Hoseason seems struck dumb. Alan tells David that this is the worst possible place for him to go ashore, as it is the land of the Campbells. Just as the crew is trying to launch a boat in which they can escape, a great wave upends the ship, and David is thrown into the sea. David is able to get to dry land by holding onto a piece of wood from the wreckage

Early as day comes in the beginning of July, it was still dark when we reached our destination, a cleft in the head of a great mountain, with a water running through the midst, and upon the one hand a shallow cave in a rock. Birches grew there in a thin, pretty wood, which a little farther on was changed into a wood of pines. The burn was full of trout; the wood of cushat-doves; on the open side of the mountain beyond, whaups would be always whistling, and cuckoos were plentiful. From the mouth of the cleft we looked down upon a part of Mamore, and on the sea-loch that divides that country from Appin; and this from so great a height as made it my continual wonder and pleasure to sit and behold them. The name of the cleft was the Heugh of Corrynakiegh; and although from its height and being so near upon the sea, it was often beset with clouds, yet it was on the whole a pleasant place, and the five days we lived in it went happily. We slept in the cave, making our bed of heather bushes which we cut for that purpose, and covering ourselves with Alan's great-coat. There was a low concealed place, in a turning of the glen, where we were so bold as to make fire: so that we could warm ourselves when the clouds set in, and cook hot porridge, and grill the little trouts that we caught with our hands under the stones and overhanging banks of the burn. This was indeed our chief pleasure and business; and not only to save our meal against worse times, but with a rivalry that much amused us, we spent a great part of our days at the water-side, stripped to the waist and groping about or (as they say) guddling for these fish. The largest we got might have been a quarter of a pound; but they were of good flesh and flavour, and when broiled upon the coals, lacked only a little salt to be delicious. In any by-time Alan must teach me to use my sword, for my ignorance had much distressed him; and I think besides, as I had sometimes the upper-hand of him in the fishing, he was not sorry to turn to an exercise where he had so much the upper-hand of me. He made it somewhat more of a pain than need have been, for he stormed at me all through the lessons in a very violent manner of scolding, and would push me so close that I made sure he must run me through the body. I was often tempted to turn tail, but held my ground for all that, and got some profit of my lessons; if it was but to stand on guard with an assured countenance, which is often all that is required. So, though I could never in the least please my master, I was not altogether displeased with myself. In the meanwhile, you are not to suppose that we neglected our chief business, which was to get away. "It will be many a long day," Alan said to me on our first morning, "before the red-coats think upon seeking Corrynakiegh; so now we must get word sent to James, and he must find the siller for us." "And how shall we send that word?" says I. "We are here in a desert place, which yet we dare not leave; and unless ye get the fowls of the air to be your messengers, I see not what we shall be able to do." "Ay?" said Alan. "Ye're a man of small contrivance, David." Thereupon he fell in a muse, looking in the embers of the fire; and presently, getting a piece of wood, he fashioned it in a cross, the four ends of which he blackened on the coals. Then he looked at me a little shyly. "Could ye lend me my button?" says he. "It seems a strange thing to ask a gift again, but I own I am laith to cut another." I gave him the button; whereupon he strung it on a strip of his great-coat which he had used to bind the cross; and tying in a little sprig of birch and another of fir, he looked upon his work with satisfaction. "Now," said he, "there is a little clachan" (what is called a hamlet in the English) "not very far from Corrynakiegh, and it has the name of Koalisnacoan. There there are living many friends of mine whom I could trust with my life, and some that I am no just so sure of. Ye see, David, there will be money set upon our heads; James himsel' is to set money on them; and as for the Campbells, they would never spare siller where there was a Stewart to be hurt. If it was otherwise, I would go down to Koalisnacoan whatever, and trust my life into these people's hands as lightly as I would trust another with my glove." "But being so?" said I. "Being so," said he, "I would as lief they didnae see me. There's bad folk everywhere, and what's far worse, weak ones. So when it comes dark again, I will steal down into that clachan, and set this that I have been making in the window of a good friend of mine, John Breck Maccoll, a bouman* of Appin's." *A bouman is a tenant who takes stock from the landlord and shares with him the increase. "With all my heart," says I; "and if he finds it, what is he to think?" "Well," says Alan, "I wish he was a man of more penetration, for by my troth I am afraid he will make little enough of it! But this is what I have in my mind. This cross is something in the nature of the crosstarrie, or fiery cross, which is the signal of gathering in our clans; yet he will know well enough the clan is not to rise, for there it is standing in his window, and no word with it. So he will say to himsel', THE CLAN IS NOT TO RISE, BUT THERE IS SOMETHING. Then he will see my button, and that was Duncan Stewart's. And then he will say to himsel', THE SON OF DUNCAN IS IN THE HEATHER, AND HAS NEED OF ME." "Well," said I, "it may be. But even supposing so, there is a good deal of heather between here and the Forth." "And that is a very true word," says Alan. "But then John Breck will see the sprig of birch and the sprig of pine; and he will say to himsel' (if he is a man of any penetration at all, which I misdoubt), ALAN WILL BE LYING IN A WOOD WHICH IS BOTH OF PINES AND BIRCHES. Then he will think to himsel', THAT IS NOT SO VERY RIFE HEREABOUT; and then he will come and give us a look up in Corrynakiegh. And if he does not, David, the devil may fly away with him, for what I care; for he will no be worth the salt to his porridge." "Eh, man," said I, drolling with him a little, "you're very ingenious! But would it not be simpler for you to write him a few words in black and white?" "And that is an excellent observe, Mr. Balfour of Shaws," says Alan, drolling with me; "and it would certainly be much simpler for me to write to him, but it would be a sore job for John Breck to read it. He would have to go to the school for two-three years; and it's possible we might be wearied waiting on him." So that night Alan carried down his fiery cross and set it in the bouman's window. He was troubled when he came back; for the dogs had barked and the folk run out from their houses; and he thought he had heard a clatter of arms and seen a red-coat come to one of the doors. On all accounts we lay the next day in the borders of the wood and kept a close look-out, so that if it was John Breck that came we might be ready to guide him, and if it was the red-coats we should have time to get away. About noon a man was to be spied, straggling up the open side of the mountain in the sun, and looking round him as he came, from under his hand. No sooner had Alan seen him than he whistled; the man turned and came a little towards us: then Alan would give another "peep!" and the man would come still nearer; and so by the sound of whistling, he was guided to the spot where we lay. He was a ragged, wild, bearded man, about forty, grossly disfigured with the small pox, and looked both dull and savage. Although his English was very bad and broken, yet Alan (according to his very handsome use, whenever I was by) would suffer him to speak no Gaelic. Perhaps the strange language made him appear more backward than he really was; but I thought he had little good-will to serve us, and what he had was the child of terror. Alan would have had him carry a message to James; but the bouman would hear of no message. "She was forget it," he said in his screaming voice; and would either have a letter or wash his hands of us. I thought Alan would be gravelled at that, for we lacked the means of writing in that desert. But he was a man of more resources than I knew; searched the wood until he found the quill of a cushat-dove, which he shaped into a pen; made himself a kind of ink with gunpowder from his horn and water from the running stream; and tearing a corner from his French military commission (which he carried in his pocket, like a talisman to keep him from the gallows), he sat down and wrote as follows: "DEAR KINSMAN,--Please send the money by the bearer to the place he kens of. "Your affectionate cousin, "A. S." This he intrusted to the bouman, who promised to make what manner of speed he best could, and carried it off with him down the hill. He was three full days gone, but about five in the evening of the third, we heard a whistling in the wood, which Alan answered; and presently the bouman came up the water-side, looking for us, right and left. He seemed less sulky than before, and indeed he was no doubt well pleased to have got to the end of such a dangerous commission. He gave us the news of the country; that it was alive with red-coats; that arms were being found, and poor folk brought in trouble daily; and that James and some of his servants were already clapped in prison at Fort William, under strong suspicion of complicity. It seemed it was noised on all sides that Alan Breck had fired the shot; and there was a bill issued for both him and me, with one hundred pounds reward. This was all as bad as could be; and the little note the bouman had carried us from Mrs. Stewart was of a miserable sadness. In it she besought Alan not to let himself be captured, assuring him, if he fell in the hands of the troops, both he and James were no better than dead men. The money she had sent was all that she could beg or borrow, and she prayed heaven we could be doing with it. Lastly, she said, she enclosed us one of the bills in which we were described. This we looked upon with great curiosity and not a little fear, partly as a man may look in a mirror, partly as he might look into the barrel of an enemy's gun to judge if it be truly aimed. Alan was advertised as "a small, pock-marked, active man of thirty-five or thereby, dressed in a feathered hat, a French side-coat of blue with silver buttons, and lace a great deal tarnished, a red waistcoat and breeches of black, shag;" and I as "a tall strong lad of about eighteen, wearing an old blue coat, very ragged, an old Highland bonnet, a long homespun waistcoat, blue breeches; his legs bare, low-country shoes, wanting the toes; speaks like a Lowlander, and has no beard." Alan was well enough pleased to see his finery so fully remembered and set down; only when he came to the word tarnish, he looked upon his lace like one a little mortified. As for myself, I thought I cut a miserable figure in the bill; and yet was well enough pleased too, for since I had changed these rags, the description had ceased to be a danger and become a source of safety. "Alan," said I, "you should change your clothes." "Na, troth!" said Alan, "I have nae others. A fine sight I would be, if I went back to France in a bonnet!" This put a second reflection in my mind: that if I were to separate from Alan and his tell-tale clothes I should be safe against arrest, and might go openly about my business. Nor was this all; for suppose I was arrested when I was alone, there was little against me; but suppose I was taken in company with the reputed murderer, my case would begin to be grave. For generosity's sake I dare not speak my mind upon this head; but I thought of it none the less. I thought of it all the more, too, when the bouman brought out a green purse with four guineas in gold, and the best part of another in small change. True, it was more than I had. But then Alan, with less than five guineas, had to get as far as France; I, with my less than two, not beyond Queensferry; so that taking things in their proportion, Alan's society was not only a peril to my life, but a burden on my purse. But there was no thought of the sort in the honest head of my companion. He believed he was serving, helping, and protecting me. And what could I do but hold my peace, and chafe, and take my chance of it? "It's little enough," said Alan, putting the purse in his pocket, "but it'll do my business. And now, John Breck, if ye will hand me over my button, this gentleman and me will be for taking the road." But the bouman, after feeling about in a hairy purse that hung in front of him in the Highland manner (though he wore otherwise the Lowland habit, with sea-trousers), began to roll his eyes strangely, and at last said, "Her nainsel will loss it," meaning he thought he had lost it. "What!" cried Alan, "you will lose my button, that was my father's before me? Now I will tell you what is in my mind, John Breck: it is in my mind this is the worst day's work that ever ye did since ye was born." And as Alan spoke, he set his hands on his knees and looked at the bouman with a smiling mouth, and that dancing light in his eyes that meant mischief to his enemies. Perhaps the bouman was honest enough; perhaps he had meant to cheat and then, finding himself alone with two of us in a desert place, cast back to honesty as being safer; at least, and all at once, he seemed to find that button and handed it to Alan. "Well, and it is a good thing for the honour of the Maccolls," said Alan, and then to me, "Here is my button back again, and I thank you for parting with it, which is of a piece with all your friendships to me." Then he took the warmest parting of the bouman. "For," says he, "ye have done very well by me, and set your neck at a venture, and I will always give you the name of a good man." Lastly, the bouman took himself off by one way; and Alan and I (getting our chattels together) struck into another to resume our flight.

They walked in the dark uphill until they came to a cleft of a great mountain, named Corrynakiegh, where a cave lay in which they could hide. They remained in this spot for nearly five pleasant days. They could sneak to a spot near the river and make a fire to warm themselves and cook the fish they caught in the river. Alan attempted to teach David how to use a sword. He was never pleased with David's progress and David thought at times that he might run the sword through him. But, David was pleased with his ability to stand in against Alan. Soon, Alan mentioned that it would be awhile before the red coats found them. It was time to contact James and have him send money. David wondered how he would accomplish this contact but Alan was resourceful and made a cross out of wood in the tradition of the fiery cross, a signal for the gathering of his clan. He attached the silver button he had given David along with sprigs of birch and fir. Then, Alan explained that he would leave the cross outside the window of John Breck Maccol, a friend of his. John would recognize the button. Also, he would be able to discern that the two sprigs identified in which part of the heather Alan was hiding. David was skeptical but the plan worked and, shortly, the bouman approached the heather. Alan explained to him that he was needed as a messenger. The bouman required that Alan write his plea so Alan found a quill and, using gunpowder, wrote a message. Three days later the bouman reappeared with a message from Mrs. Stewart, detailing the events which had transpired. James and some servants were imprisoned as facilitators, wanted signs for Alan and David covered the country, and red coats were uncovering buried arms. She included a small sum of money, a blessing for their safety, and a copy of the wanted poster. Alan was pleased with the description of his French wear. David was also pleased because he had since changed his clothes and was thus safer. He suggested that Alan change his clothes but Alan refused. David began to think that he may be safer away alone because he would not be recognized. Still, he could not be disloyal. Alan asked the bouman for his button back but John Breck said he had lost it. Alan did not believe him and the button was returned to David.

One morning, about ten days after Mrs. Churchill's decease, Emma was called downstairs to Mr. Weston, who "could not stay five minutes, and wanted particularly to speak with her."--He met her at the parlour-door, and hardly asking her how she did, in the natural key of his voice, sunk it immediately, to say, unheard by her father, "Can you come to Randalls at any time this morning?--Do, if it be possible. Mrs. Weston wants to see you. She must see you." "Is she unwell?" "No, no, not at all--only a little agitated. She would have ordered the carriage, and come to you, but she must see you _alone_, and that you know--(nodding towards her father)--Humph!--Can you come?" "Certainly. This moment, if you please. It is impossible to refuse what you ask in such a way. But what can be the matter?--Is she really not ill?" "Depend upon me--but ask no more questions. You will know it all in time. The most unaccountable business! But hush, hush!" To guess what all this meant, was impossible even for Emma. Something really important seemed announced by his looks; but, as her friend was well, she endeavoured not to be uneasy, and settling it with her father, that she would take her walk now, she and Mr. Weston were soon out of the house together and on their way at a quick pace for Randalls. "Now,"--said Emma, when they were fairly beyond the sweep gates,--"now Mr. Weston, do let me know what has happened." "No, no,"--he gravely replied.--"Don't ask me. I promised my wife to leave it all to her. She will break it to you better than I can. Do not be impatient, Emma; it will all come out too soon." "Break it to me," cried Emma, standing still with terror.--"Good God!--Mr. Weston, tell me at once.--Something has happened in Brunswick Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it is." "No, indeed you are mistaken."-- "Mr. Weston do not trifle with me.--Consider how many of my dearest friends are now in Brunswick Square. Which of them is it?--I charge you by all that is sacred, not to attempt concealment." "Upon my word, Emma."-- "Your word!--why not your honour!--why not say upon your honour, that it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!--What can be to be _broke_ to me, that does not relate to one of that family?" "Upon my honour," said he very seriously, "it does not. It is not in the smallest degree connected with any human being of the name of Knightley." Emma's courage returned, and she walked on. "I was wrong," he continued, "in talking of its being _broke_ to you. I should not have used the expression. In fact, it does not concern you--it concerns only myself,--that is, we hope.--Humph!--In short, my dear Emma, there is no occasion to be so uneasy about it. I don't say that it is not a disagreeable business--but things might be much worse.--If we walk fast, we shall soon be at Randalls." Emma found that she must wait; and now it required little effort. She asked no more questions therefore, merely employed her own fancy, and that soon pointed out to her the probability of its being some money concern--something just come to light, of a disagreeable nature in the circumstances of the family,--something which the late event at Richmond had brought forward. Her fancy was very active. Half a dozen natural children, perhaps--and poor Frank cut off!--This, though very undesirable, would be no matter of agony to her. It inspired little more than an animating curiosity. "Who is that gentleman on horseback?" said she, as they proceeded--speaking more to assist Mr. Weston in keeping his secret, than with any other view. "I do not know.--One of the Otways.--Not Frank;--it is not Frank, I assure you. You will not see him. He is half way to Windsor by this time." "Has your son been with you, then?" "Oh! yes--did not you know?--Well, well, never mind." For a moment he was silent; and then added, in a tone much more guarded and demure, "Yes, Frank came over this morning, just to ask us how we did." They hurried on, and were speedily at Randalls.--"Well, my dear," said he, as they entered the room--"I have brought her, and now I hope you will soon be better. I shall leave you together. There is no use in delay. I shall not be far off, if you want me."--And Emma distinctly heard him add, in a lower tone, before he quitted the room,--"I have been as good as my word. She has not the least idea." Mrs. Weston was looking so ill, and had an air of so much perturbation, that Emma's uneasiness increased; and the moment they were alone, she eagerly said, "What is it my dear friend? Something of a very unpleasant nature, I find, has occurred;--do let me know directly what it is. I have been walking all this way in complete suspense. We both abhor suspense. Do not let mine continue longer. It will do you good to speak of your distress, whatever it may be." "Have you indeed no idea?" said Mrs. Weston in a trembling voice. "Cannot you, my dear Emma--cannot you form a guess as to what you are to hear?" "So far as that it relates to Mr. Frank Churchill, I do guess." "You are right. It does relate to him, and I will tell you directly;" (resuming her work, and seeming resolved against looking up.) "He has been here this very morning, on a most extraordinary errand. It is impossible to express our surprize. He came to speak to his father on a subject,--to announce an attachment--" She stopped to breathe. Emma thought first of herself, and then of Harriet. "More than an attachment, indeed," resumed Mrs. Weston; "an engagement--a positive engagement.--What will you say, Emma--what will any body say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are engaged;--nay, that they have been long engaged!" Emma even jumped with surprize;--and, horror-struck, exclaimed, "Jane Fairfax!--Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it?" "You may well be amazed," returned Mrs. Weston, still averting her eyes, and talking on with eagerness, that Emma might have time to recover-- "You may well be amazed. But it is even so. There has been a solemn engagement between them ever since October--formed at Weymouth, and kept a secret from every body. Not a creature knowing it but themselves--neither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.--It is so wonderful, that though perfectly convinced of the fact, it is yet almost incredible to myself. I can hardly believe it.--I thought I knew him." Emma scarcely heard what was said.--Her mind was divided between two ideas--her own former conversations with him about Miss Fairfax; and poor Harriet;--and for some time she could only exclaim, and require confirmation, repeated confirmation. "Well," said she at last, trying to recover herself; "this is a circumstance which I must think of at least half a day, before I can at all comprehend it. What!--engaged to her all the winter--before either of them came to Highbury?" "Engaged since October,--secretly engaged.--It has hurt me, Emma, very much. It has hurt his father equally. _Some_ _part_ of his conduct we cannot excuse." Emma pondered a moment, and then replied, "I will not pretend _not_ to understand you; and to give you all the relief in my power, be assured that no such effect has followed his attentions to me, as you are apprehensive of." Mrs. Weston looked up, afraid to believe; but Emma's countenance was as steady as her words. "That you may have less difficulty in believing this boast, of my present perfect indifference," she continued, "I will farther tell you, that there was a period in the early part of our acquaintance, when I did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to him--nay, was attached--and how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder. Fortunately, however, it did cease. I have really for some time past, for at least these three months, cared nothing about him. You may believe me, Mrs. Weston. This is the simple truth." Mrs. Weston kissed her with tears of joy; and when she could find utterance, assured her, that this protestation had done her more good than any thing else in the world could do. "Mr. Weston will be almost as much relieved as myself," said she. "On this point we have been wretched. It was our darling wish that you might be attached to each other--and we were persuaded that it was so.-- Imagine what we have been feeling on your account." "I have escaped; and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful wonder to you and myself. But this does not acquit _him_, Mrs. Weston; and I must say, that I think him greatly to blame. What right had he to come among us with affection and faith engaged, and with manners so _very_ disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please, as he certainly did--to distinguish any one young woman with persevering attention, as he certainly did--while he really belonged to another?--How could he tell what mischief he might be doing?--How could he tell that he might not be making me in love with him?--very wrong, very wrong indeed." "From something that he said, my dear Emma, I rather imagine--" "And how could _she_ bear such behaviour! Composure with a witness! to look on, while repeated attentions were offering to another woman, before her face, and not resent it.--That is a degree of placidity, which I can neither comprehend nor respect." "There were misunderstandings between them, Emma; he said so expressly. He had not time to enter into much explanation. He was here only a quarter of an hour, and in a state of agitation which did not allow the full use even of the time he could stay--but that there had been misunderstandings he decidedly said. The present crisis, indeed, seemed to be brought on by them; and those misunderstandings might very possibly arise from the impropriety of his conduct." "Impropriety! Oh! Mrs. Weston--it is too calm a censure. Much, much beyond impropriety!--It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!--None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life." "Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part; for though he has been wrong in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having many, very many, good qualities; and--" "Good God!" cried Emma, not attending to her.--"Mrs. Smallridge, too! Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself--to suffer her even to think of such a measure!" "He knew nothing about it, Emma. On this article I can fully acquit him. It was a private resolution of hers, not communicated to him--or at least not communicated in a way to carry conviction.--Till yesterday, I know he said he was in the dark as to her plans. They burst on him, I do not know how, but by some letter or message--and it was the discovery of what she was doing, of this very project of hers, which determined him to come forward at once, own it all to his uncle, throw himself on his kindness, and, in short, put an end to the miserable state of concealment that had been carrying on so long." Emma began to listen better. "I am to hear from him soon," continued Mrs. Weston. "He told me at parting, that he should soon write; and he spoke in a manner which seemed to promise me many particulars that could not be given now. Let us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations. It may make many things intelligible and excusable which now are not to be understood. Don't let us be severe, don't let us be in a hurry to condemn him. Let us have patience. I must love him; and now that I am satisfied on one point, the one material point, I am sincerely anxious for its all turning out well, and ready to hope that it may. They must both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secresy and concealment." "_His_ sufferings," replied Emma dryly, "do not appear to have done him much harm. Well, and how did Mr. Churchill take it?" "Most favourably for his nephew--gave his consent with scarcely a difficulty. Conceive what the events of a week have done in that family! While poor Mrs. Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a hope, a chance, a possibility;--but scarcely are her remains at rest in the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite to what she would have required. What a blessing it is, when undue influence does not survive the grave!--He gave his consent with very little persuasion." "Ah!" thought Emma, "he would have done as much for Harriet." "This was settled last night, and Frank was off with the light this morning. He stopped at Highbury, at the Bates's, I fancy, some time--and then came on hither; but was in such a hurry to get back to his uncle, to whom he is just now more necessary than ever, that, as I tell you, he could stay with us but a quarter of an hour.--He was very much agitated--very much, indeed--to a degree that made him appear quite a different creature from any thing I had ever seen him before.--In addition to all the rest, there had been the shock of finding her so very unwell, which he had had no previous suspicion of--and there was every appearance of his having been feeling a great deal." "And do you really believe the affair to have been carrying on with such perfect secresy?--The Campbells, the Dixons, did none of them know of the engagement?" Emma could not speak the name of Dixon without a little blush. "None; not one. He positively said that it had been known to no being in the world but their two selves." "Well," said Emma, "I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the idea, and I wish them very happy. But I shall always think it a very abominable sort of proceeding. What has it been but a system of hypocrisy and deceit,--espionage, and treachery?--To come among us with professions of openness and simplicity; and such a league in secret to judge us all!--Here have we been, the whole winter and spring, completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgment on sentiments and words that were never meant for both to hear.--They must take the consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not perfectly agreeable!" "I am quite easy on that head," replied Mrs. Weston. "I am very sure that I never said any thing of either to the other, which both might not have heard." "You are in luck.--Your only blunder was confined to my ear, when you imagined a certain friend of ours in love with the lady." "True. But as I have always had a thoroughly good opinion of Miss Fairfax, I never could, under any blunder, have spoken ill of her; and as to speaking ill of him, there I must have been safe." At this moment Mr. Weston appeared at a little distance from the window, evidently on the watch. His wife gave him a look which invited him in; and, while he was coming round, added, "Now, dearest Emma, let me intreat you to say and look every thing that may set his heart at ease, and incline him to be satisfied with the match. Let us make the best of it--and, indeed, almost every thing may be fairly said in her favour. It is not a connexion to gratify; but if Mr. Churchill does not feel that, why should we? and it may be a very fortunate circumstance for him, for Frank, I mean, that he should have attached himself to a girl of such steadiness of character and good judgment as I have always given her credit for--and still am disposed to give her credit for, in spite of this one great deviation from the strict rule of right. And how much may be said in her situation for even that error!" "Much, indeed!" cried Emma feelingly. "If a woman can ever be excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane Fairfax's.--Of such, one may almost say, that 'the world is not their's, nor the world's law.'" She met Mr. Weston on his entrance, with a smiling countenance, exclaiming, "A very pretty trick you have been playing me, upon my word! This was a device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of guessing. But you really frightened me. I thought you had lost half your property, at least. And here, instead of its being a matter of condolence, it turns out to be one of congratulation.--I congratulate you, Mr. Weston, with all my heart, on the prospect of having one of the most lovely and accomplished young women in England for your daughter." A glance or two between him and his wife, convinced him that all was as right as this speech proclaimed; and its happy effect on his spirits was immediate. His air and voice recovered their usual briskness: he shook her heartily and gratefully by the hand, and entered on the subject in a manner to prove, that he now only wanted time and persuasion to think the engagement no very bad thing. His companions suggested only what could palliate imprudence, or smooth objections; and by the time they had talked it all over together, and he had talked it all over again with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank could possibly have done.

About ten days after Mrs. Churchill's death, Mr. Weston comes to Hartfield to ask Emma to return home with him, as Mrs. Weston wants to see her. He seems quite serious, and Emma is concerned that something horrible has happened. When she gets there Mrs. Weston tells her that Frank had just been there and had told them that he and Jane are engaged, and have been since October. Emma is shocked and tries to remember everything that she said to Frank about Jane. They are both disillusioned about how Frank could have been engaged to Jane since before either of them had come to Hartfield and that they would hide it so long. Mrs. Weston fears that Emma may have been mislead, and Emma assures her that she is not in love with him. She continues on to say that this should not excuse him though, since he obviously was trying to make it look like she was the object of his affections, and she could have been badly hurt. Emma also does not understand how Jane could watch his attentions to her and say nothing, and Mrs. Weston says that Frank said that there were misunderstandings between them. The couple could not marry with Mrs. Churchill alive, as she would not approve the match. As soon as she died and Frank heard about Jane's plans to take a position, he talked Mr. Churchill into approving the match and came quickly to his father to have him approve it. Emma is quite upset that they had been duped the whole time. Mr. and Mrs. Weston are quite relived that Emma will not have any pain over the marriage as they were quite concerned and had wished for a match to be made between them

ACT V. Scene I. The King's camp near Shrewsbury. Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, Sir Walter Blunt, Falstaff. King. How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon busky hill! The day looks pale At his distemp'rature. Prince. The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes And by his hollow whistling in the leaves Foretells a tempest and a blust'ring day. King. Theft with the losers let it sympathize, For nothing can seem foul to those that win. The trumpet sounds. Enter Worcester [and Vernon]. How, now, my Lord of Worcester? 'Tis not well That you and I should meet upon such terms As now we meet. You have deceiv'd our trust And made us doff our easy robes of peace To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel. This is not well, my lord; this is not well. What say you to it? Will you again unknit This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light, And be no more an exhal'd meteor, A prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached mischief to the unborn times? Wor. Hear me, my liege. For mine own part, I could be well content To entertain the lag-end of my life With quiet hours; for I do protest I have not sought the day of this dislike. King. You have not sought it! How comes it then, Fal. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. Prince. Peace, chewet, peace! Wor. It pleas'd your Majesty to turn your looks Of favour from myself and all our house; And yet I must remember you, my lord, We were the first and dearest of your friends. For you my staff of office did I break In Richard's time, and posted day and night To meet you on the way and kiss your hand When yet you were in place and in account Nothing so strong and fortunate as I. It was myself, my brother, and his son That brought you home and boldly did outdare The dangers of the time. You swore to us, And you did swear that oath at Doncaster, That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state, Nor claim no further than your new-fall'n right, The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster. To this we swore our aid. But in short space It it rain'd down fortune show'ring on your head, And such a flood of greatness fell on you- What with our help, what with the absent King, What with the injuries of a wanton time, The seeming sufferances that you had borne, And the contrarious winds that held the King So long in his unlucky Irish wars That all in England did repute him dead- And from this swarm of fair advantages You took occasion to be quickly woo'd To gripe the general sway into your hand; Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster; And, being fed by us, you us'd us so As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird, Useth the sparrow- did oppress our nest; Grew, by our feeding to so great a bulk That even our love thirst not come near your sight For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing We were enforc'd for safety sake to fly Out of your sight and raise this present head; Whereby we stand opposed by such means As you yourself have forg'd against yourself By unkind usage, dangerous countenance, And violation of all faith and troth Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise. King. These things, indeed, you have articulate, Proclaim'd at market crosses, read in churches, To face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour that may please the eye Of fickle changelings and poor discontents, Which gape and rub the elbow at the news Of hurlyburly innovation. And never yet did insurrection want Such water colours to impaint his cause, Nor moody beggars, starving for a time Of pell-mell havoc and confusion. Prince. In both our armies there is many a soul Shall pay full dearly for this encounter, If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes, This present enterprise set off his head, I do not think a braver gentleman, More active-valiant or more valiant-young, More daring or more bold, is now alive To grace this latter age with noble deeds. For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry; And so I hear he doth account me too. Yet this before my father's Majesty- I am content that he shall take the odds Of his great name and estimation, And will to save the blood on either side, Try fortune with him in a single fight. King. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee, Albeit considerations infinite Do make against it. No, good Worcester, no! We love our people well; even those we love That are misled upon your cousin's part; And, will they take the offer of our grace, Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man Shall be my friend again, and I'll be his. So tell your cousin, and bring me word What he will do. But if he will not yield, Rebuke and dread correction wait on us, And they shall do their office. So be gone. We will not now be troubled with reply. We offer fair; take it advisedly. Exit Worcester [with Vernon] Prince. It will not be accepted, on my life. The Douglas and the Hotspur both together Are confident against the world in arms. King. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge; For, on their answer, will we set on them, And God befriend us as our cause is just! Exeunt. Manent Prince, Falstaff. Fal. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so! 'Tis a point of friendship. Prince. Nothing but a Colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell. Fal. I would 'twere bedtime, Hal, and all well. Prince. Why, thou owest God a death. Exit. Fal. 'Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that word honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth be bear it? No. 'Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon- and so ends my catechism. Exit.

The Earl of Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon arrive as emissaries at the king's camp near Shrewsbury. Present are the king himself, the Prince of Wales, John of Lancaster, the Earl of Westmoreland, Sir Walter Blunt, and Falstaff. As Hotspur did earlier in his reply to the king's emissary , Worcester voices at some length the grievances of the Percies, chief of which is Henry's alleged perfidy when, returning from exile, he assured them that he sought no more than the restoration of confiscated Lancastrian estates. The king does not deign to answer this charge; instead he dismisses it as no more than a pretext for rebellion against the Crown. He refuses to permit the Prince of Wales to settle the dispute in single combat with Hotspur. Instead, he offers the rebels free pardon if they will lay down their arms. After Worcester and Vernon leave, the prince states that both Hotspur and Douglas, supremely confident and proven warriors, will reject the offer. The king agrees and orders all officers to their posts. Falstaff shows little desire to risk his life in any kind of conflict. He asks Hal to keep an eye on him and to help him if necessary. Alone, he soliloquizes on the subject of honor and finds no profit in being a dead hero.

SCENE 2. Venice. A street [Enter LAUNCELOT GOBBO.] LAUNCELOT. Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying to me 'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot' or 'good Gobbo' or 'good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.' My conscience says 'No; take heed, honest Launcelot, take heed, honest Gobbo' or, as aforesaid, 'honest Launcelot Gobbo, do not run; scorn running with thy heels.' Well, the most courageous fiend bids me pack. 'Via!' says the fiend; 'away!' says the fiend. 'For the heavens, rouse up a brave mind,' says the fiend 'and run.' Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my heart, says very wisely to me 'My honest friend Launcelot, being an honest man's son'--or rather 'an honest woman's son';--for indeed my father did something smack, something grow to, he had a kind of taste;--well, my conscience says 'Launcelot, budge not.' 'Budge,' says the fiend. 'Budge not,' says my conscience. 'Conscience,' say I, (you counsel well.' 'Fiend,' say I, 'you counsel well.' To be ruled by my conscience, I should stay with the Jew my master, who, God bless the mark! is a kind of devil; and, to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend, who, saving your reverence! is the devil himself. Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnal; and, in my conscience, my conscience is but a kind of hard conscience, to offer to counsel me to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly counsel: I will run, fiend; my heels are at your commandment; I will run. [Enter OLD GOBBO, with a basket] GOBBO. Master young man, you, I pray you; which is the way to Master Jew's? LAUNCELOT. [Aside] O heavens! This is my true-begotten father, who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not: I will try confusions with him. GOBBO. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to Master Jew's? LAUNCELOT. Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but, at the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's house. GOBBO. Be God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit. Can you tell me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with him or no? LAUNCELOT. Talk you of young Master Launcelot? [Aside] Mark me now; now will I raise the waters. Talk you of young Master Launcelot? GOBBO. No master, sir, but a poor man's son; his father, though I say't, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked, well to live. LAUNCELOT. Well, let his father be what 'a will, we talk of young Master Launcelot. GOBBO. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir. LAUNCELOT. But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk you of young Master Launcelot? GOBBO. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership. LAUNCELOT. Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot, father; for the young gentleman,--according to Fates and Destinies and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of learning,--is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven. GOBBO. Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop. LAUNCELOT. Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a prop? Do you know me, father? GOBBO. Alack the day! I know you not, young gentleman; but I pray you tell me, is my boy--God rest his soul!--alive or dead? LAUNCELOT. Do you not know me, father? GOBBO. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not. LAUNCELOT. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your blessing; truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son may, but in the end truth will out. GOBBO. Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure you are not Launcelot, my boy. LAUNCELOT. Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but give me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son that is, your child that shall be. GOBBO. I cannot think you are my son. LAUNCELOT. I know not what I shall think of that; but I am Launcelot, the Jew's man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my mother. GOBBO. Her name is Margery, indeed: I'll be sworn, if thou be Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipped might he be, what a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my thill-horse has on his tail. LAUNCELOT. It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows backward; I am sure he had more hair on his tail than I have on my face when I last saw him. GOBBO. Lord! how art thou changed! How dost thou and thy master agree? I have brought him a present. How 'gree you now? LAUNCELOT. Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up my rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground. My master's a very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a halter. I am famished in his service; you may tell every finger I have with my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come; give me your present to one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liveries. If I serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O rare fortune! Here comes the man: to him, father; for I am a Jew, if I serve the Jew any longer. [Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, with and other Followers.] BASSANIO. You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to come anon to my lodging. [Exit a SERVANT] LAUNCELOT. To him, father. GOBBO. God bless your worship! BASSANIO. Gramercy; wouldst thou aught with me? GOBBO. Here's my son, sir, a poor boy-- LAUNCELOT. Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man, that would, sir,--as my father shall specify-- GOBBO. He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve-- LAUNCELOT. Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and have a desire, as my father shall specify-- GOBBO. His master and he, saving your worship's reverence, are scarce cater-cousins-- LAUNCELOT. To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done me wrong, doth cause me,--as my father, being I hope an old man, shall frutify unto you-- GOBBO. I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your worship; and my suit is-- LAUNCELOT. In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I say it, though old man, yet poor man, my father. BASSANIO. One speak for both. What would you? LAUNCELOT. Serve you, sir. GOBBO. That is the very defect of the matter, sir. BASSANIO. I know thee well; thou hast obtain'd thy suit. Shylock thy master spoke with me this day, And hath preferr'd thee, if it be preferment To leave a rich Jew's service to become The follower of so poor a gentleman. LAUNCELOT. The old proverb is very well parted between my master Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough. BASSANIO. Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son. Take leave of thy old master, and inquire My lodging out. [To a SERVANT] Give him a livery More guarded than his fellows'; see it done. LAUNCELOT. Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne'er a tongue in my head! [Looking on his palm] Well; if any man in Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a book, I shall have good fortune. Go to; here's a simple line of life: here's a small trifle of wives; alas, fifteen wives is nothing; a'leven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one man. And then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life with the edge of a feather-bed; here are simple 'scapes. Well, if Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. Father, come; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling of an eye. [Exeunt LAUNCELOT and OLD GOBBO.] BASSANIO. I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this: These things being bought and orderly bestow'd, Return in haste, for I do feast to-night My best esteem'd acquaintance; hie thee, go. LEONARDO. My best endeavours shall be done herein. [Enter GRATIANO.] GRATIANO. Where's your master? LEONARDO. Yonder, sir, he walks. [Exit.] GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio!-- BASSANIO. Gratiano! GRATIANO. I have suit to you. BASSANIO. You have obtain'd it. GRATIANO. You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont. BASSANIO. Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano; Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice; Parts that become thee happily enough, And in such eyes as ours appear not faults; But where thou art not known, why there they show Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain To allay with some cold drops of modesty Thy skipping spirit, lest through thy wild behaviour I be misconstrued in the place I go to, And lose my hopes. GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio, hear me: If I do not put on a sober habit, Talk with respect, and swear but now and then, Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely, Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyes Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say 'amen'; Use all the observance of civility, Like one well studied in a sad ostent To please his grandam, never trust me more. BASSANIO. Well, we shall see your bearing. GRATIANO. Nay, but I bar to-night; you shall not gauge me By what we do to-night. BASSANIO. No, that were pity; I would entreat you rather to put on Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends That purpose merriment. But fare you well; I have some business. GRATIANO. And I must to Lorenzo and the rest; But we will visit you at supper-time. [Exeunt.]

Launcelot Gobbo, a servant of Shylock's, struggles to decide whether or not he should run away from his master. Part of him, which he calls "he fiend. at mine elbow," wants to leave, while his conscience reminds him of his honest nature and urges him to stay. Although Launcelot has no specific complaints, he seems troubled by the fact that his master is Jewish, or, as Launcelot puts it, "a kind of devil". Just when Launcelot determines to run away, his father, Old Gobbo, enters. The old man is blind, and he asks how to get to Shylock's house, where he hopes to find young Launcelot. Because his father does not recognize him, Launcelot decides to play a prank on him--he gives the old man confusing directions and reports that Launcelot is dead. When Launcelot reveals the deception, Old Gobbo doubts that the man before him is his son, but Launcelot soon convinces his father of his identity. Launcelot confesses to his father that he is leaving Shylock's employment in the hopes of serving Bassanio. Just then, Bassanio enters and the two plead with him to accept Launcelot as his servant. Bassanio takes several moments to understand their bumbling proposition, but he accepts the offer. Bassanio then meets Gratiano, who asks to accompany him to Belmont, and agrees on the condition that Gratiano tame his characteristically wild behavior. Gratiano promises to be on his best behavior, and the two men plan a night of merriment to celebrate their departure

ACT IV. SCENE I. Rome. TITUS' garden Enter YOUNG LUCIUS and LAVINIA running after him, and the boy flies from her with his books under his arm. Enter TITUS and MARCUS BOY. Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia Follows me everywhere, I know not why. Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes! Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean. MARCUS. Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt. TITUS. She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm. BOY. Ay, when my father was in Rome she did. MARCUS. What means my niece Lavinia by these signs? TITUS. Fear her not, Lucius; somewhat doth she mean. See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee. Somewhither would she have thee go with her. Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care Read to her sons than she hath read to thee Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator. MARCUS. Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus? BOY. My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess, Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her; For I have heard my grandsire say full oft Extremity of griefs would make men mad; And I have read that Hecuba of Troy Ran mad for sorrow. That made me to fear; Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt Loves me as dear as e'er my mother did, And would not, but in fury, fright my youth; Which made me down to throw my books, and fly- Causeless, perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt; And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go, I will most willingly attend your ladyship. MARCUS. Lucius, I will. [LAVINIA turns over with her stumps the books which Lucius has let fall] TITUS. How now, Lavinia! Marcus, what means this? Some book there is that she desires to see. Which is it, girl, of these?- Open them, boy.- But thou art deeper read and better skill'd; Come and take choice of all my library, And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens Reveal the damn'd contriver of this deed. Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus? MARCUS. I think she means that there were more than one Confederate in the fact; ay, more there was, Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge. TITUS. Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so? BOY. Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses; My mother gave it me. MARCUS. For love of her that's gone, Perhaps she cull'd it from among the rest. TITUS. Soft! So busily she turns the leaves! Help her. What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read? This is the tragic tale of Philomel And treats of Tereus' treason and his rape; And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy. MARCUS. See, brother, see! Note how she quotes the leaves. TITUS. Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris'd, sweet girl, Ravish'd and wrong'd as Philomela was, Forc'd in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods? See, see! Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt- O, had we never, never hunted there!- Pattern'd by that the poet here describes, By nature made for murders and for rapes. MARCUS. O, why should nature build so foul a den, Unless the gods delight in tragedies? TITUS. Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends, What Roman lord it was durst do the deed. Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst, That left the camp to sin in Lucrece' bed? MARCUS. Sit down, sweet niece; brother, sit down by me. Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury, Inspire me, that I may this treason find! My lord, look here! Look here, Lavinia! [He writes his name with his staff, and guides it with feet and mouth] This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst, This after me. I have writ my name Without the help of any hand at all. Curs'd be that heart that forc'd us to this shift! Write thou, good niece, and here display at last What God will have discovered for revenge. Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain, That we may know the traitors and the truth! [She takes the staff in her mouth and guides it with stumps, and writes] O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ? TITUS. 'Stuprum- Chiron- Demetrius.' MARCUS. What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora Performers of this heinous bloody deed? TITUS. Magni Dominator poli, Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides? MARCUS. O, calm thee, gentle lord! although I know There is enough written upon this earth To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts, And arm the minds of infants to exclaims. My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel; And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope; And swear with me- as, with the woeful fere And father of that chaste dishonoured dame, Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape- That we will prosecute, by good advice, Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths, And see their blood or die with this reproach. TITUS. 'Tis sure enough, an you knew how; But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware: The dam will wake; and if she wind ye once, She's with the lion deeply still in league, And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back, And when he sleeps will she do what she list. You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone; And come, I will go get a leaf of brass, And with a gad of steel will write these words, And lay it by. The angry northern wind Will blow these sands like Sibyl's leaves abroad, And where's our lesson, then? Boy, what say you? BOY. I say, my lord, that if I were a man Their mother's bedchamber should not be safe For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome. MARCUS. Ay, that's my boy! Thy father hath full oft For his ungrateful country done the like. BOY. And, uncle, so will I, an if I live. TITUS. Come, go with me into mine armoury. Lucius, I'll fit thee; and withal my boy Shall carry from me to the Empress' sons Presents that I intend to send them both. Come, come; thou'lt do my message, wilt thou not? BOY. Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire. TITUS. No, boy, not so; I'll teach thee another course. Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house. Lucius and I'll go brave it at the court; Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we'll be waited on. Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan And not relent, or not compassion him? Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy, That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart Than foemen's marks upon his batt'red shield, But yet so just that he will not revenge. Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus! Exit SCENE II. Rome. The palace Enter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door; and at the other door, YOUNG LUCIUS and another with a bundle of weapons, and verses writ upon them CHIRON. Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius; He hath some message to deliver us. AARON. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather. BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may, I greet your honours from Andronicus- [Aside] And pray the Roman gods confound you both! DEMETRIUS. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What's the news? BOY. [Aside] That you are both decipher'd, that's the news, For villains mark'd with rape.- May it please you, My grandsire, well advis'd, hath sent by me The goodliest weapons of his armoury To gratify your honourable youth, The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say; And so I do, and with his gifts present Your lordships, that, whenever you have need, You may be armed and appointed well. And so I leave you both- [Aside] like bloody villains. Exeunt YOUNG LUCIUS and attendant DEMETRIUS. What's here? A scroll, and written round about. Let's see: [Reads] 'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus, Non eget Mauri iaculis, nec arcu.' CHIRON. O, 'tis a verse in Horace, I know it well; I read it in the grammar long ago. AARON. Ay, just- a verse in Horace. Right, you have it. [Aside] Now, what a thing it is to be an ass! Here's no sound jest! The old man hath found their guilt, And sends them weapons wrapp'd about with lines That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick. But were our witty Empress well afoot, She would applaud Andronicus' conceit. But let her rest in her unrest awhile- And now, young lords, was't not a happy star Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so, Captives, to be advanced to this height? It did me good before the palace gate To brave the Tribune in his brother's hearing. DEMETRIUS. But me more good to see so great a lord Basely insinuate and send us gifts. AARON. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius? Did you not use his daughter very friendly? DEMETRIUS. I would we had a thousand Roman dames At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust. CHIRON. A charitable wish and full of love. AARON. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen. CHIRON. And that would she for twenty thousand more. DEMETRIUS. Come, let us go and pray to all the gods For our beloved mother in her pains. AARON. [Aside] Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over. [Trumpets sound] DEMETRIUS. Why do the Emperor's trumpets flourish thus? CHIRON. Belike, for joy the Emperor hath a son. DEMETRIUS. Soft! who comes here? Enter NURSE, with a blackamoor CHILD NURSE. Good morrow, lords. O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor? AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all, Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now? NURSE. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone! Now help, or woe betide thee evermore! AARON. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep! What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms? NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye: Our Empress' shame and stately Rome's disgrace! She is delivered, lord; she is delivered. AARON. To whom? NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed. AARON. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her? NURSE. A devil. AARON. Why, then she is the devil's dam; A joyful issue. NURSE. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue! Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad Amongst the fair-fac'd breeders of our clime; The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal, And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point. AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue? Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure. DEMETRIUS. Villain, what hast thou done? AARON. That which thou canst not undo. CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother. AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother. DEMETRIUS. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her. Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice! Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend! CHIRON. It shall not live. AARON. It shall not die. NURSE. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so. AARON. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I Do execution on my flesh and blood. DEMETRIUS. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point. Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it. AARON. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up. [Takes the CHILD from the NURSE, and draws] Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother! Now, by the burning tapers of the sky That shone so brightly when this boy was got, He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point That touches this my first-born son and heir. I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus, With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood, Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war, Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands. What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys! Ye white-lim'd walls! ye alehouse painted signs! Coal-black is better than another hue In that it scorns to bear another hue; For all the water in the ocean Can never turn the swan's black legs to white, Although she lave them hourly in the flood. Tell the Empress from me I am of age To keep mine own- excuse it how she can. DEMETRIUS. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus? AARON. My mistress is my mistress: this my self, The vigour and the picture of my youth. This before all the world do I prefer; This maugre all the world will I keep safe, Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome. DEMETRIUS. By this our mother is for ever sham'd. CHIRON. Rome will despise her for this foul escape. NURSE. The Emperor in his rage will doom her death. CHIRON. I blush to think upon this ignomy. AARON. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears: Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing The close enacts and counsels of thy heart! Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer. Look how the black slave smiles upon the father, As who should say 'Old lad, I am thine own.' He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed Of that self-blood that first gave life to you; And from your womb where you imprisoned were He is enfranchised and come to light. Nay, he is your brother by the surer side, Although my seal be stamped in his face. NURSE. Aaron, what shall I say unto the Empress? DEMETRIUS. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done, And we will all subscribe to thy advice. Save thou the child, so we may all be safe. AARON. Then sit we down and let us all consult. My son and I will have the wind of you: Keep there; now talk at pleasure of your safety. [They sit] DEMETRIUS. How many women saw this child of his? AARON. Why, so, brave lords! When we join in league I am a lamb; but if you brave the Moor, The chafed boar, the mountain lioness, The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms. But say, again, how many saw the child? NURSE. Cornelia the midwife and myself; And no one else but the delivered Empress. AARON. The Empress, the midwife, and yourself. Two may keep counsel when the third's away: Go to the Empress, tell her this I said. [He kills her] Weeke weeke! So cries a pig prepared to the spit. DEMETRIUS. What mean'st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this? AARON. O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy. Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours- A long-tongu'd babbling gossip? No, lords, no. And now be it known to you my full intent: Not far, one Muliteus lives, my countryman- His wife but yesternight was brought to bed; His child is like to her, fair as you are. Go pack with him, and give the mother gold, And tell them both the circumstance of all, And how by this their child shall be advanc'd, And be received for the Emperor's heir And substituted in the place of mine, To calm this tempest whirling in the court; And let the Emperor dandle him for his own. Hark ye, lords. You see I have given her physic, [Pointing to the NURSE] And you must needs bestow her funeral; The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms. This done, see that you take no longer days, But send the midwife presently to me. The midwife and the nurse well made away, Then let the ladies tattle what they please. CHIRON. Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air With secrets. DEMETRIUS. For this care of Tamora, Herself and hers are highly bound to thee. Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, bearing off the dead NURSE AARON. Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies, There to dispose this treasure in mine arms, And secretly to greet the Empress' friends. Come on, you thick-lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence; For it is you that puts us to our shifts. I'll make you feed on berries and on roots, And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat, And cabin in a cave, and bring you up To be a warrior and command a camp. Exit with the CHILD SCENE III. Rome. A public place Enter TITUS, bearing arrows with letters on the ends of them; with him MARCUS, YOUNG LUCIUS, and other gentlemen, PUBLIUS, SEMPRONIUS, and CAIUS, with bows TITUS. Come, Marcus, come; kinsmen, this is the way. Sir boy, let me see your archery; Look ye draw home enough, and 'tis there straight. Terras Astrea reliquit, Be you rememb'red, Marcus; she's gone, she's fled. Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall Go sound the ocean and cast your nets; Happily you may catch her in the sea; Yet there's as little justice as at land. No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it; 'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade, And pierce the inmost centre of the earth; Then, when you come to Pluto's region, I pray you deliver him this petition. Tell him it is for justice and for aid, And that it comes from old Andronicus, Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome. Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable What time I threw the people's suffrages On him that thus doth tyrannize o'er me. Go get you gone; and pray be careful all, And leave you not a man-of-war unsearch'd. This wicked Emperor may have shipp'd her hence; And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for justice. MARCUS. O Publius, is not this a heavy case, To see thy noble uncle thus distract? PUBLIUS. Therefore, my lords, it highly us concerns By day and night t' attend him carefully, And feed his humour kindly as we may Till time beget some careful remedy. MARCUS. Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy. Join with the Goths, and with revengeful war Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude, And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine. TITUS. Publius, how now? How now, my masters? What, have you met with her? PUBLIUS. No, my good lord; but Pluto sends you word, If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall. Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd, He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else, So that perforce you must needs stay a time. TITUS. He doth me wrong to feed me with delays. I'll dive into the burning lake below And pull her out of Acheron by the heels. Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we, No big-bon'd men fram'd of the Cyclops' size; But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back, Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear; And, sith there's no justice in earth nor hell, We will solicit heaven, and move the gods To send down justice for to wreak our wrongs. Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus. [He gives them the arrows] 'Ad Jovem' that's for you; here 'Ad Apollinem.' 'Ad Martem' that's for myself. Here, boy, 'To Pallas'; here 'To Mercury.' 'To Saturn,' Caius- not to Saturnine: You were as good to shoot against the wind. To it, boy. Marcus, loose when I bid. Of my word, I have written to effect; There's not a god left unsolicited. MARCUS. Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court; We will afflict the Emperor in his pride. TITUS. Now, masters, draw. [They shoot] O, well said, Lucius! Good boy, in Virgo's lap! Give it Pallas. MARCUS. My lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon; Your letter is with Jupiter by this. TITUS. Ha! ha! Publius, Publius, hast thou done? See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus' horns. MARCUS. This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot, The Bull, being gall'd, gave Aries such a knock That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court; And who should find them but the Empress' villain? She laugh'd, and told the Moor he should not choose But give them to his master for a present. TITUS. Why, there it goes! God give his lordship joy! Enter the CLOWN, with a basket and two pigeons in it News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come. Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters? Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter? CLOWN. Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath taken them down again, for the man must not be hang'd till the next week. TITUS. But what says Jupiter, I ask thee? CLOWN. Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in all my life. TITUS. Why, villain, art not thou the carrier? CLOWN. Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else. TITUS. Why, didst thou not come from heaven? CLOWN. From heaven! Alas, sir, I never came there. God forbid I should be so bold to press to heaven in my young days. Why, I am going with my pigeons to the Tribunal Plebs, to take up a matter of brawl betwixt my uncle and one of the Emperal's men. MARCUS. Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for your oration; and let him deliver the pigeons to the Emperor from you. TITUS. Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the Emperor with a grace? CLOWN. Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life. TITUS. Sirrah, come hither. Make no more ado, But give your pigeons to the Emperor; By me thou shalt have justice at his hands. Hold, hold! Meanwhile here's money for thy charges. Give me pen and ink. Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver up a supplication? CLOWN. Ay, sir. TITUS. Then here is a supplication for you. And when you come to him, at the first approach you must kneel; then kiss his foot; then deliver up your pigeons; and then look for your reward. I'll be at hand, sir; see you do it bravely. CLOWN. I warrant you, sir; let me alone. TITUS. Sirrah, hast thou a knife? Come let me see it. Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration; For thou hast made it like a humble suppliant. And when thou hast given it to the Emperor, Knock at my door, and tell me what he says. CLOWN. God be with you, sir; I will. TITUS. Come, Marcus, let us go. Publius, follow me. Exeunt 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

Act Four opens with Lavinia chasing Lucius' son. The child is horrified by Lavinia's appearance, and must be calmed by Titus and Marcus. As they try to find Lavinia's reason for chasing the boy, she gestures to young Lucius' book, Ovid's Metamorphosis, and manages to turn the leaves to the story of the rape of Philomel. Titus thus gathers that she was raped. Marcus grabs a tree branch, and by placing one end of the branch between his teeth and guiding it on the sand with his arms shows how she might write the names of her assailants. She does so, informing the men that it was Chiron and Demetrius who raped her. Marcus and Titus both swear revenge, and Titus hatches a plot to send presents to the rapists before seeking revenge outright. Per Titus' orders, young Lucius delivers Chiron and Demetrius the best weapons from Titus' armory with verses of Horace wrapped around them. Aaron enters to see the delivery, and immediately realizes that Titus has found out the facts of the crime. Meanwhile, we discover that Tamora is in labor. The nurse enters with the child, revealing that it is a black baby, and thus obviously Aaron's. The nurse then brings the child to Aaron and orders him to kill it. Demetrius and Chiron are appalled that Aaron and their mother have conceived a black child, and they both try to kill it themselves. Aaron, however, rescues the baby, swearing that he will protect his newborn son with his life, all while making fun of those with white skin. When Chiron and Demetrius realize that Aaron is not going to kill his son, they decide to keep the birth a secret. Aaron kills the nurse so that she won't tell anyone about the child's existence, and instructs Chiron and Demetrius to buy the newborn child of a white countryman he knows in order to fool the emperor into believing his son to be white. He also tells them to send the midwife to him so that he can kill her too, thus eliminating everyone who knows about the birth, save for Tamora and her sons. Aaron leaves to join the Goths outside Rome's walls, planning to find a home for his child. In the meantime, Titus' plot for revenge unfolds. Although his family and friends believe him to be mad, he convinces them to shoot arrows with letters wrapped around them into the Roman court. The letters advertise the injustices being perpetrated by the Roman government, and declare that since they can't find justice in Rome, they will seek out the justice of the gods. While shooting the arrows Titus comes across a pigeon-keeping Clown, whom he hires to deliver a personal message to Saturninus. In the court, meanwhile, Saturninus is furious that Titus has been calling him unjust. Tamora calms him, silently plotting to deal with Titus herself. The Clown enters and delivers his message: yet another accusation of injustice. After reading the message, Saturninus orders the Clown hanged. Just then Aemilius arrives with news that Lucius has raised an army of Goths to march against Rome and depose Saturninus. The emperor turns pale upon hearing this, and swears that all is lost because the people of Rome love Lucius more than they love him. Tamora tries to snap her husband out of his self-pity with a rousing speech, and declares that she will have to use "all her art" to solve the Titus problem in an expedient manner.

To begin with, he did not know how he could pay Monsieur Homais for all the physic supplied by him, and though, as a medical man, he was not obliged to pay for it, he nevertheless blushed a little at such an obligation. Then the expenses of the household, now that the servant was mistress, became terrible. Bills rained in upon the house; the tradesmen grumbled; Monsieur Lheureux especially harassed him. In fact, at the height of Emma's illness, the latter, taking advantage of the circumstances to make his bill larger, had hurriedly brought the cloak, the travelling-bag, two trunks instead of one, and a number of other things. It was very well for Charles to say he did not want them. The tradesman answered arrogantly that these articles had been ordered, and that he would not take them back; besides, it would vex madame in her convalescence; the doctor had better think it over; in short, he was resolved to sue him rather than give up his rights and take back his goods. Charles subsequently ordered them to be sent back to the shop. Felicite forgot; he had other things to attend to; then thought no more about them. Monsieur Lheureux returned to the charge, and, by turns threatening and whining, so managed that Bovary ended by signing a bill at six months. But hardly had he signed this bill than a bold idea occurred to him: it was to borrow a thousand francs from Lheureux. So, with an embarrassed air, he asked if it were possible to get them, adding that it would be for a year, at any interest he wished. Lheureux ran off to his shop, brought back the money, and dictated another bill, by which Bovary undertook to pay to his order on the 1st of September next the sum of one thousand and seventy francs, which, with the hundred and eighty already agreed to, made just twelve hundred and fifty, thus lending at six per cent in addition to one-fourth for commission: and the things bringing him in a good third at the least, this ought in twelve months to give him a profit of a hundred and thirty francs. He hoped that the business would not stop there; that the bills would not be paid; that they would be renewed; and that his poor little money, having thriven at the doctor's as at a hospital, would come back to him one day considerably more plump, and fat enough to burst his bag. Everything, moreover, succeeded with him. He was adjudicator for a supply of cider to the hospital at Neufchatel; Monsieur Guillaumin promised him some shares in the turf-pits of Gaumesnil, and he dreamt of establishing a new diligence service between Arcueil and Rouen, which no doubt would not be long in ruining the ramshackle van of the "Lion d'Or," and that, travelling faster, at a cheaper rate, and carrying more luggage, would thus put into his hands the whole commerce of Yonville. Charles several times asked himself by what means he should next year be able to pay back so much money. He reflected, imagined expedients, such as applying to his father or selling something. But his father would be deaf, and he--he had nothing to sell. Then he foresaw such worries that he quickly dismissed so disagreeable a subject of meditation from his mind. He reproached himself with forgetting Emma, as if, all his thoughts belonging to this woman, it was robbing her of something not to be constantly thinking of her. The winter was severe, Madame Bovary's convalescence slow. When it was fine they wheeled her arm-chair to the window that overlooked the square, for she now had an antipathy to the garden, and the blinds on that side were always down. She wished the horse to be sold; what she formerly liked now displeased her. All her ideas seemed to be limited to the care of herself. She stayed in bed taking little meals, rang for the servant to inquire about her gruel or to chat with her. The snow on the market-roof threw a white, still light into the room; then the rain began to fall; and Emma waited daily with a mind full of eagerness for the inevitable return of some trifling events which nevertheless had no relation to her. The most important was the arrival of the "Hirondelle" in the evening. Then the landlady shouted out, and other voices answered, while Hippolyte's lantern, as he fetched the boxes from the boot, was like a star in the darkness. At mid-day Charles came in; then he went out again; next she took some beef-tea, and towards five o'clock, as the day drew in, the children coming back from school, dragging their wooden shoes along the pavement, knocked the clapper of the shutters with their rulers one after the other. It was at this hour that Monsieur Bournisien came to see her. He inquired after her health, gave her news, exhorted her to religion, in a coaxing little prattle that was not without its charm. The mere thought of his cassock comforted her. One day, when at the height of her illness, she had thought herself dying, and had asked for the communion; and, while they were making the preparations in her room for the sacrament, while they were turning the night table covered with syrups into an altar, and while Felicite was strewing dahlia flowers on the floor, Emma felt some power passing over her that freed her from her pains, from all perception, from all feeling. Her body, relieved, no longer thought; another life was beginning; it seemed to her that her being, mounting toward God, would be annihilated in that love like a burning incense that melts into vapour. The bed-clothes were sprinkled with holy water, the priest drew from the holy pyx the white wafer; and it was fainting with a celestial joy that she put out her lips to accept the body of the Saviour presented to her. The curtains of the alcove floated gently round her like clouds, and the rays of the two tapers burning on the night-table seemed to shine like dazzling halos. Then she let her head fall back, fancying she heard in space the music of seraphic harps, and perceived in an azure sky, on a golden throne in the midst of saints holding green palms, God the Father, resplendent with majesty, who with a sign sent to earth angels with wings of fire to carry her away in their arms. This splendid vision dwelt in her memory as the most beautiful thing that it was possible to dream, so that now she strove to recall her sensation. That still lasted, however, but in a less exclusive fashion and with a deeper sweetness. Her soul, tortured by pride, at length found rest in Christian humility, and, tasting the joy of weakness, she saw within herself the destruction of her will, that must have left a wide entrance for the inroads of heavenly grace. There existed, then, in the place of happiness, still greater joys--another love beyond all loves, without pause and without end, one that would grow eternally! She saw amid the illusions of her hope a state of purity floating above the earth mingling with heaven, to which she aspired. She wanted to become a saint. She bought chaplets and wore amulets; she wished to have in her room, by the side of her bed, a reliquary set in emeralds that she might kiss it every evening. The cure marvelled at this humour, although Emma's religion, he thought, might, from its fervour, end by touching on heresy, extravagance. But not being much versed in these matters, as soon as they went beyond a certain limit he wrote to Monsieur Boulard, bookseller to Monsignor, to send him "something good for a lady who was very clever." The bookseller, with as much indifference as if he had been sending off hardware to niggers, packed up, pellmell, everything that was then the fashion in the pious book trade. There were little manuals in questions and answers, pamphlets of aggressive tone after the manner of Monsieur de Maistre, and certain novels in rose-coloured bindings and with a honied style, manufactured by troubadour seminarists or penitent blue-stockings. There were the "Think of it; the Man of the World at Mary's Feet, by Monsieur de ***, decorated with many Orders"; "The Errors of Voltaire, for the Use of the Young," etc. Madame Bovary's mind was not yet sufficiently clear to apply herself seriously to anything; moreover, she began this reading in too much hurry. She grew provoked at the doctrines of religion; the arrogance of the polemic writings displeased her by their inveteracy in attacking people she did not know; and the secular stories, relieved with religion, seemed to her written in such ignorance of the world, that they insensibly estranged her from the truths for whose proof she was looking. Nevertheless, she persevered; and when the volume slipped from her hands, she fancied herself seized with the finest Catholic melancholy that an ethereal soul could conceive. As for the memory of Rodolphe, she had thrust it back to the bottom of her heart, and it remained there more solemn and more motionless than a king's mummy in a catacomb. An exhalation escaped from this embalmed love, that, penetrating through everything, perfumed with tenderness the immaculate atmosphere in which she longed to live. When she knelt on her Gothic prie-Dieu, she addressed to the Lord the same suave words that she had murmured formerly to her lover in the outpourings of adultery. It was to make faith come; but no delights descended from the heavens, and she arose with tired limbs and with a vague feeling of a gigantic dupery. This searching after faith, she thought, was only one merit the more, and in the pride of her devoutness Emma compared herself to those grand ladies of long ago whose glory she had dreamed of over a portrait of La Valliere, and who, trailing with so much majesty the lace-trimmed trains of their long gowns, retired into solitudes to shed at the feet of Christ all the tears of hearts that life had wounded. Then she gave herself up to excessive charity. She sewed clothes for the poor, she sent wood to women in childbed; and Charles one day, on coming home, found three good-for-nothings in the kitchen seated at the table eating soup. She had her little girl, whom during her illness her husband had sent back to the nurse, brought home. She wanted to teach her to read; even when Berthe cried, she was not vexed. She had made up her mind to resignation, to universal indulgence. Her language about everything was full of ideal expressions. She said to her child, "Is your stomach-ache better, my angel?" Madame Bovary senior found nothing to censure except perhaps this mania of knitting jackets for orphans instead of mending her own house-linen; but, harassed with domestic quarrels, the good woman took pleasure in this quiet house, and she even stayed there till after Easter, to escape the sarcasms of old Bovary, who never failed on Good Friday to order chitterlings. Besides the companionship of her mother-in-law, who strengthened her a little by the rectitude of her judgment and her grave ways, Emma almost every day had other visitors. These were Madame Langlois, Madame Caron, Madame Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache, and regularly from two to five o'clock the excellent Madame Homais, who, for her part, had never believed any of the tittle-tattle about her neighbour. The little Homais also came to see her; Justin accompanied them. He went up with them to her bedroom, and remained standing near the door, motionless and mute. Often even Madame Bovary; taking no heed of him, began her toilette. She began by taking out her comb, shaking her head with a quick movement, and when he for the first time saw all this mass of hair that fell to her knees unrolling in black ringlets, it was to him, poor child! like a sudden entrance into something new and strange, whose splendour terrified him. Emma, no doubt, did not notice his silent attentions or his timidity. She had no suspicion that the love vanished from her life was there, palpitating by her side, beneath that coarse holland shirt, in that youthful heart open to the emanations of her beauty. Besides, she now enveloped all things with such indifference, she had words so affectionate with looks so haughty, such contradictory ways, that one could no longer distinguish egotism from charity, or corruption from virtue. One evening, for example, she was angry with the servant, who had asked to go out, and stammered as she tried to find some pretext. Then suddenly-- "So you love him?" she said. And without waiting for any answer from Felicite, who was blushing, she added, "There! run along; enjoy yourself!" In the beginning of spring she had the garden turned up from end to end, despite Bovary's remonstrances. However, he was glad to see her at last manifest a wish of any kind. As she grew stronger she displayed more wilfulness. First, she found occasion to expel Mere Rollet, the nurse, who during her convalescence had contracted the habit of coming too often to the kitchen with her two nurslings and her boarder, better off for teeth than a cannibal. Then she got rid of the Homais family, successively dismissed all the other visitors, and even frequented church less assiduously, to the great approval of the druggist, who said to her in a friendly way-- "You were going in a bit for the cassock!" As formerly, Monsieur Bournisien dropped in every day when he came out after catechism class. He preferred staying out of doors to taking the air "in the grove," as he called the arbour. This was the time when Charles came home. They were hot; some sweet cider was brought out, and they drank together to madame's complete restoration. Binet was there; that is to say, a little lower down against the terrace wall, fishing for crayfish. Bovary invited him to have a drink, and he thoroughly understood the uncorking of the stone bottles. "You must," he said, throwing a satisfied glance all round him, even to the very extremity of the landscape, "hold the bottle perpendicularly on the table, and after the strings are cut, press up the cork with little thrusts, gently, gently, as indeed they do seltzer-water at restaurants." But during his demonstration the cider often spurted right into their faces, and then the ecclesiastic, with a thick laugh, never missed this joke-- "Its goodness strikes the eye!" He was, in fact, a good fellow and one day he was not even scandalised at the chemist, who advised Charles to give madame some distraction by taking her to the theatre at Rouen to hear the illustrious tenor, Lagardy. Homais, surprised at this silence, wanted to know his opinion, and the priest declared that he considered music less dangerous for morals than literature. But the chemist took up the defence of letters. The theatre, he contended, served for railing at prejudices, and, beneath a mask of pleasure, taught virtue. "'Castigat ridendo mores,'* Monsieur Bournisien! Thus consider the greater part of Voltaire's tragedies; they are cleverly strewn with philosophical reflections, that made them a vast school of morals and diplomacy for the people." *It corrects customs through laughter. "I," said Binet, "once saw a piece called the 'Gamin de Paris,' in which there was the character of an old general that is really hit off to a T. He sets down a young swell who had seduced a working girl, who at the ending--" "Certainly," continued Homais, "there is bad literature as there is bad pharmacy, but to condemn in a lump the most important of the fine arts seems to me a stupidity, a Gothic idea, worthy of the abominable times that imprisoned Galileo." "I know very well," objected the cure, "that there are good works, good authors. However, if it were only those persons of different sexes united in a bewitching apartment, decorated rouge, those lights, those effeminate voices, all this must, in the long-run, engender a certain mental libertinage, give rise to immodest thoughts and impure temptations. Such, at any rate, is the opinion of all the Fathers. Finally," he added, suddenly assuming a mystic tone of voice while he rolled a pinch of snuff between his fingers, "if the Church has condemned the theatre, she must be right; we must submit to her decrees." "Why," asked the druggist, "should she excommunicate actors? For formerly they openly took part in religious ceremonies. Yes, in the middle of the chancel they acted; they performed a kind of farce called 'Mysteries,' which often offended against the laws of decency." The ecclesiastic contented himself with uttering a groan, and the chemist went on-- "It's like it is in the Bible; there there are, you know, more than one piquant detail, matters really libidinous!" And on a gesture of irritation from Monsieur Bournisien-- "Ah! you'll admit that it is not a book to place in the hands of a young girl, and I should be sorry if Athalie--" "But it is the Protestants, and not we," cried the other impatiently, "who recommend the Bible." "No matter," said Homais. "I am surprised that in our days, in this century of enlightenment, anyone should still persist in proscribing an intellectual relaxation that is inoffensive, moralising, and sometimes even hygienic; is it not, doctor?" "No doubt," replied the doctor carelessly, either because, sharing the same ideas, he wished to offend no one, or else because he had not any ideas. The conversation seemed at an end when the chemist thought fit to shoot a Parthian arrow. "I've known priests who put on ordinary clothes to go and see dancers kicking about." "Come, come!" said the cure. "Ah! I've known some!" And separating the words of his sentence, Homais repeated, "I--have--known--some!" "Well, they were wrong," said Bournisien, resigned to anything. "By Jove! they go in for more than that," exclaimed the druggist. "Sir!" replied the ecclesiastic, with such angry eyes that the druggist was intimidated by them. "I only mean to say," he replied in less brutal a tone, "that toleration is the surest way to draw people to religion." "That is true! that is true!" agreed the good fellow, sitting down again on his chair. But he stayed only a few moments. Then, as soon as he had gone, Monsieur Homais said to the doctor-- "That's what I call a cock-fight. I beat him, did you see, in a way!--Now take my advice. Take madame to the theatre, if it were only for once in your life, to enrage one of these ravens, hang it! If anyone could take my place, I would accompany you myself. Be quick about it. Lagardy is only going to give one performance; he's engaged to go to England at a high salary. From what I hear, he's a regular dog; he's rolling in money; he's taking three mistresses and a cook along with him. All these great artists burn the candle at both ends; they require a dissolute life, that suits the imagination to some extent. But they die at the hospital, because they haven't the sense when young to lay by. Well, a pleasant dinner! Goodbye till to-morrow." The idea of the theatre quickly germinated in Bovary's head, for he at once communicated it to his wife, who at first refused, alleging the fatigue, the worry, the expense; but, for a wonder, Charles did not give in, so sure was he that this recreation would be good for her. He saw nothing to prevent it: his mother had sent them three hundred francs which he had no longer expected; the current debts were not very large, and the falling in of Lheureux's bills was still so far off that there was no need to think about them. Besides, imagining that she was refusing from delicacy, he insisted the more; so that by dint of worrying her she at last made up her mind, and the next day at eight o'clock they set out in the "Hirondelle." The druggist, whom nothing whatever kept at Yonville, but who thought himself bound not to budge from it, sighed as he saw them go. "Well, a pleasant journey!" he said to them; "happy mortals that you are!" Then addressing himself to Emma, who was wearing a blue silk gown with four flounces-- "You are as lovely as a Venus. You'll cut a figure at Rouen." The diligence stopped at the "Croix-Rouge" in the Place Beauvoisine. It was the inn that is in every provincial faubourg, with large stables and small bedrooms, where one sees in the middle of the court chickens pilfering the oats under the muddy gigs of the commercial travellers--a good old house, with worm-eaten balconies that creak in the wind on winter nights, always full of people, noise, and feeding, whose black tables are sticky with coffee and brandy, the thick windows made yellow by the flies, the damp napkins stained with cheap wine, and that always smells of the village, like ploughboys dressed in Sundayclothes, has a cafe on the street, and towards the countryside a kitchen-garden. Charles at once set out. He muddled up the stage-boxes with the gallery, the pit with the boxes; asked for explanations, did not understand them; was sent from the box-office to the acting-manager; came back to the inn, returned to the theatre, and thus several times traversed the whole length of the town from the theatre to the boulevard. Madame Bovary bought a bonnet, gloves, and a bouquet. The doctor was much afraid of missing the beginning, and, without having had time to swallow a plate of soup, they presented themselves at the doors of the theatre, which were still closed. The crowd was waiting against the wall, symmetrically enclosed between the balustrades. At the corner of the neighbouring streets huge bills repeated in quaint letters "Lucie de Lammermoor-Lagardy-Opera-etc." The weather was fine, the people were hot, perspiration trickled amid the curls, and handkerchiefs taken from pockets were mopping red foreheads; and now and then a warm wind that blew from the river gently stirred the border of the tick awnings hanging from the doors of the public-houses. A little lower down, however, one was refreshed by a current of icy air that smelt of tallow, leather, and oil. This was an exhalation from the Rue des Charrettes, full of large black warehouses where they made casks. For fear of seeming ridiculous, Emma before going in wished to have a little stroll in the harbour, and Bovary prudently kept his tickets in his hand, in the pocket of his trousers, which he pressed against his stomach. Her heart began to beat as soon as she reached the vestibule. She involuntarily smiled with vanity on seeing the crowd rushing to the right by the other corridor while she went up the staircase to the reserved seats. She was as pleased as a child to push with her finger the large tapestried door. She breathed in with all her might the dusty smell of the lobbies, and when she was seated in her box she bent forward with the air of a duchess. The theatre was beginning to fill; opera-glasses were taken from their cases, and the subscribers, catching sight of one another, were bowing. They came to seek relaxation in the fine arts after the anxieties of business; but "business" was not forgotten; they still talked cottons, spirits of wine, or indigo. The heads of old men were to be seen, inexpressive and peaceful, with their hair and complexions looking like silver medals tarnished by steam of lead. The young beaux were strutting about in the pit, showing in the opening of their waistcoats their pink or applegreen cravats, and Madame Bovary from above admired them leaning on their canes with golden knobs in the open palm of their yellow gloves. Now the lights of the orchestra were lit, the lustre, let down from the ceiling, throwing by the glimmering of its facets a sudden gaiety over the theatre; then the musicians came in one after the other; and first there was the protracted hubbub of the basses grumbling, violins squeaking, cornets trumpeting, flutes and flageolets fifing. But three knocks were heard on the stage, a rolling of drums began, the brass instruments played some chords, and the curtain rising, discovered a country-scene. It was the cross-roads of a wood, with a fountain shaded by an oak to the left. Peasants and lords with plaids on their shoulders were singing a hunting-song together; then a captain suddenly came on, who evoked the spirit of evil by lifting both his arms to heaven. Another appeared; they went away, and the hunters started afresh. She felt herself transported to the reading of her youth, into the midst of Walter Scott. She seemed to hear through the mist the sound of the Scotch bagpipes re-echoing over the heather. Then her remembrance of the novel helping her to understand the libretto, she followed the story phrase by phrase, while vague thoughts that came back to her dispersed at once again with the bursts of music. She gave herself up to the lullaby of the melodies, and felt all her being vibrate as if the violin bows were drawn over her nerves. She had not eyes enough to look at the costumes, the scenery, the actors, the painted trees that shook when anyone walked, and the velvet caps, cloaks, swords--all those imaginary things that floated amid the harmony as in the atmosphere of another world. But a young woman stepped forward, throwing a purse to a squire in green. She was left alone, and the flute was heard like the murmur of a fountain or the warbling of birds. Lucie attacked her cavatina in G major bravely. She plained of love; she longed for wings. Emma, too, fleeing from life, would have liked to fly away in an embrace. Suddenly Edgar-Lagardy appeared. He had that splendid pallor that gives something of the majesty of marble to the ardent races of the South. His vigorous form was tightly clad in a brown-coloured doublet; a small chiselled poniard hung against his left thigh, and he cast round laughing looks showing his white teeth. They said that a Polish princess having heard him sing one night on the beach at Biarritz, where he mended boats, had fallen in love with him. She had ruined herself for him. He had deserted her for other women, and this sentimental celebrity did not fail to enhance his artistic reputation. The diplomatic mummer took care always to slip into his advertisements some poetic phrase on the fascination of his person and the susceptibility of his soul. A fine organ, imperturbable coolness, more temperament than intelligence, more power of emphasis than of real singing, made up the charm of this admirable charlatan nature, in which there was something of the hairdresser and the toreador. From the first scene he evoked enthusiasm. He pressed Lucy in his arms, he left her, he came back, he seemed desperate; he had outbursts of rage, then elegiac gurglings of infinite sweetness, and the notes escaped from his bare neck full of sobs and kisses. Emma leant forward to see him, clutching the velvet of the box with her nails. She was filling her heart with these melodious lamentations that were drawn out to the accompaniment of the double-basses, like the cries of the drowning in the tumult of a tempest. She recognised all the intoxication and the anguish that had almost killed her. The voice of a prima donna seemed to her to be but echoes of her conscience, and this illusion that charmed her as some very thing of her own life. But no one on earth had loved her with such love. He had not wept like Edgar that last moonlit night when they said, "To-morrow! to-morrow!" The theatre rang with cheers; they recommenced the entire movement; the lovers spoke of the flowers on their tomb, of vows, exile, fate, hopes; and when they uttered the final adieu, Emma gave a sharp cry that mingled with the vibrations of the last chords. "But why," asked Bovary, "does that gentleman persecute her?" "No, no!" she answered; "he is her lover!" "Yet he vows vengeance on her family, while the other one who came on before said, 'I love Lucie and she loves me!' Besides, he went off with her father arm in arm. For he certainly is her father, isn't he--the ugly little man with a cock's feather in his hat?" Despite Emma's explanations, as soon as the recitative duet began in which Gilbert lays bare his abominable machinations to his master Ashton, Charles, seeing the false troth-ring that is to deceive Lucie, thought it was a love-gift sent by Edgar. He confessed, moreover, that he did not understand the story because of the music, which interfered very much with the words. "What does it matter?" said Emma. "Do be quiet!" "Yes, but you know," he went on, leaning against her shoulder, "I like to understand things." "Be quiet! be quiet!" she cried impatiently. Lucie advanced, half supported by her women, a wreath of orange blossoms in her hair, and paler than the white satin of her gown. Emma dreamed of her marriage day; she saw herself at home again amid the corn in the little path as they walked to the church. Oh, why had not she, like this woman, resisted, implored? She, on the contrary, had been joyous, without seeing the abyss into which she was throwing herself. Ah! if in the freshness of her beauty, before the soiling of marriage and the disillusions of adultery, she could have anchored her life upon some great, strong heart, then virtue, tenderness, voluptuousness, and duty blending, she would never have fallen from so high a happiness. But that happiness, no doubt, was a lie invented for the despair of all desire. She now knew the smallness of the passions that art exaggerated. So, striving to divert her thoughts, Emma determined now to see in this reproduction of her sorrows only a plastic fantasy, well enough to please the eye, and she even smiled internally with disdainful pity when at the back of the stage under the velvet hangings a man appeared in a black cloak. His large Spanish hat fell at a gesture he made, and immediately the instruments and the singers began the sextet. Edgar, flashing with fury, dominated all the others with his clearer voice; Ashton hurled homicidal provocations at him in deep notes; Lucie uttered her shrill plaint, Arthur at one side, his modulated tones in the middle register, and the bass of the minister pealed forth like an organ, while the voices of the women repeating his words took them up in chorus delightfully. They were all in a row gesticulating, and anger, vengeance, jealousy, terror, and stupefaction breathed forth at once from their half-opened mouths. The outraged lover brandished his naked sword; his guipure ruffle rose with jerks to the movements of his chest, and he walked from right to left with long strides, clanking against the boards the silver-gilt spurs of his soft boots, widening out at the ankles. He, she thought must have an inexhaustible love to lavish it upon the crowd with such effusion. All her small fault-findings faded before the poetry of the part that absorbed her; and, drawn towards this man by the illusion of the character, she tried to imagine to herself his life--that life resonant, extraordinary, splendid, and that might have been hers if fate had willed it. They would have known one another, loved one another. With him, through all the kingdoms of Europe she would have travelled from capital to capital, sharing his fatigues and his pride, picking up the flowers thrown to him, herself embroidering his costumes. Then each evening, at the back of a box, behind the golden trellis-work she would have drunk in eagerly the expansions of this soul that would have sung for her alone; from the stage, even as he acted, he would have looked at her. But the mad idea seized her that he was looking at her; it was certain. She longed to run to his arms, to take refuge in his strength, as in the incarnation of love itself, and to say to him, to cry out, "Take me away! carry me with you! let us go! Thine, thine! all my ardour and all my dreams!" The curtain fell. The smell of the gas mingled with that of the breaths, the waving of the fans, made the air more suffocating. Emma wanted to go out; the crowd filled the corridors, and she fell back in her arm-chair with palpitations that choked her. Charles, fearing that she would faint, ran to the refreshment-room to get a glass of barley-water. He had great difficulty in getting back to his seat, for his elbows were jerked at every step because of the glass he held in his hands, and he even spilt three-fourths on the shoulders of a Rouen lady in short sleeves, who feeling the cold liquid running down to her loins, uttered cries like a peacock, as if she were being assassinated. Her husband, who was a millowner, railed at the clumsy fellow, and while she was with her handkerchief wiping up the stains from her handsome cherry-coloured taffeta gown, he angrily muttered about indemnity, costs, reimbursement. At last Charles reached his wife, saying to her, quite out of breath-- "Ma foi! I thought I should have had to stay there. There is such a crowd--SUCH a crowd!" He added-- "Just guess whom I met up there! Monsieur Leon!" "Leon?" "Himself! He's coming along to pay his respects." And as he finished these words the ex-clerk of Yonville entered the box. He held out his hand with the ease of a gentleman; and Madame Bovary extended hers, without doubt obeying the attraction of a stronger will. She had not felt it since that spring evening when the rain fell upon the green leaves, and they had said good-bye standing at the window. But soon recalling herself to the necessities of the situation, with an effort she shook off the torpor of her memories, and began stammering a few hurried words. "Ah, good-day! What! you here?" "Silence!" cried a voice from the pit, for the third act was beginning. "So you are at Rouen?" "Yes." "And since when?" "Turn them out! turn them out!" People were looking at them. They were silent. But from that moment she listened no more; and the chorus of the guests, the scene between Ashton and his servant, the grand duet in D major, all were for her as far off as if the instruments had grown less sonorous and the characters more remote. She remembered the games at cards at the druggist's, and the walk to the nurse's, the reading in the arbour, the tete-a-tete by the fireside--all that poor love, so calm and so protracted, so discreet, so tender, and that she had nevertheless forgotten. And why had he come back? What combination of circumstances had brought him back into her life? He was standing behind her, leaning with his shoulder against the wall of the box; now and again she felt herself shuddering beneath the hot breath from his nostrils falling upon her hair. "Does this amuse you?" said he, bending over her so closely that the end of his moustache brushed her cheek. She replied carelessly-- "Oh, dear me, no, not much." Then he proposed that they should leave the theatre and go and take an ice somewhere. "Oh, not yet; let us stay," said Bovary. "Her hair's undone; this is going to be tragic." But the mad scene did not at all interest Emma, and the acting of the singer seemed to her exaggerated. "She screams too loud," said she, turning to Charles, who was listening. "Yes--a little," he replied, undecided between the frankness of his pleasure and his respect for his wife's opinion. Then with a sigh Leon said-- "The heat is--" "Unbearable! Yes!" "Do you feel unwell?" asked Bovary. "Yes, I am stifling; let us go." Monsieur Leon put her long lace shawl carefully about her shoulders, and all three went off to sit down in the harbour, in the open air, outside the windows of a cafe. First they spoke of her illness, although Emma interrupted Charles from time to time, for fear, she said, of boring Monsieur Leon; and the latter told them that he had come to spend two years at Rouen in a large office, in order to get practice in his profession, which was different in Normandy and Paris. Then he inquired after Berthe, the Homais, Mere Lefrancois, and as they had, in the husband's presence, nothing more to say to one another, the conversation soon came to an end. People coming out of the theatre passed along the pavement, humming or shouting at the top of their voices, "O bel ange, ma Lucie!*" Then Leon, playing the dilettante, began to talk music. He had seen Tambourini, Rubini, Persiani, Grisi, and, compared with them, Lagardy, despite his grand outbursts, was nowhere. *Oh beautiful angel, my Lucie. "Yet," interrupted Charles, who was slowly sipping his rum-sherbet, "they say that he is quite admirable in the last act. I regret leaving before the end, because it was beginning to amuse me." "Why," said the clerk, "he will soon give another performance." But Charles replied that they were going back next day. "Unless," he added, turning to his wife, "you would like to stay alone, kitten?" And changing his tactics at this unexpected opportunity that presented itself to his hopes, the young man sang the praises of Lagardy in the last number. It was really superb, sublime. Then Charles insisted-- "You would get back on Sunday. Come, make up your mind. You are wrong if you feel that this is doing you the least good." The tables round them, however, were emptying; a waiter came and stood discreetly near them. Charles, who understood, took out his purse; the clerk held back his arm, and did not forget to leave two more pieces of silver that he made chink on the marble. "I am really sorry," said Bovary, "about the money which you are--" The other made a careless gesture full of cordiality, and taking his hat said-- "It is settled, isn't it? To-morrow at six o'clock?" Charles explained once more that he could not absent himself longer, but that nothing prevented Emma-- "But," she stammered, with a strange smile, "I am not sure--" "Well, you must think it over. We'll see. Night brings counsel." Then to Leon, who was walking along with them, "Now that you are in our part of the world, I hope you'll come and ask us for some dinner now and then." The clerk declared he would not fail to do so, being obliged, moreover, to go to Yonville on some business for his office. And they parted before the Saint-Herbland Passage just as the clock in the cathedral struck half-past eleven. Part III

In addition to his concern about Emma, Charles was also bothered by financial worries. The illness had been very expensive, and other bills were piling up. Moreover, Lheureux suddenly presented him with a statement of Emma's debts. Not knowing what else to do, Bovary borrowed money from Lheureux and signed several notes at a high rate of interest. All through the winter months Emma's convalescence continued. During a crisis in her illness, Emma's religious sentiments had reawakened. Now she was very devout and spent much of her time reading religious books or conversing with the priest. By spring Emma was relatively strong again and returned to her household duties. Her religious feelings remained firm, and everyone was surprised by her new generosity, spirituality, and stern principles. One day at Homais' suggestion, Bovary decided to take Emma to the theater at Rouen. He hoped that such an outing would be good for her health. Emma was not eager to go, but Bovary was so persistent that she agreed. On the day of the trip they excitedly left for the city. Emma was embarrassed and upset by Charles' behavior and appearance all that afternoon. She wanted very much to seem a sophisticated, cosmopolitan lady, and she felt that he was just a country bumpkin. She was tense and self-conscious wherever they went. Despite this, however, Emma enjoyed the opera, Lucie de Lammermoor, very much. She found that the story reminded her of events in her own life. During the intermission they were both surprised to encounter Leon, who now lived and worked in Rouen. The three went to a cafe together, where Bovary and Leon talked at length about Yonville, their mutual friends, and old times. Leon also told them a little about his present position and his experiences at the university. Emma was impressed by Leon's suave, citified manners and dress. When they discussed the opera they had just left, Leon at first ridiculed it until he learned that perhaps Emma could stay over to see the second part again. He then praised the opera so highly that Charles suggested that Emma stay while he return to his practice. In any case, before they separated, the Bovarys and Leon arranged to meet again the next day.

I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed along, and got downstairs all right. There warn't a sound anywheres. I peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men that was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door was open into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a candle in both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open; but I see there warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by; but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there. Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I run in the parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I see to hide the bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and then I run back across the room and in behind the door. The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very soft, and kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief, and I see she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back was to me. I slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I thought I'd make sure them watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the crack, and everything was all right. They hadn't stirred. I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right; because when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it; but that ain't the thing that's going to happen; the thing that's going to happen is, the money'll be found when they come to screw on the lid. Then the king 'll get it again, and it 'll be a long day before he gives anybody another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I _wanted_ to slide down and get it out of there, but I dasn't try it. Every minute it was getting earlier now, and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin to stir, and I might get catched--catched with six thousand dollars in my hands that nobody hadn't hired me to take care of. I don't wish to be mixed up in no such business as that, I says to myself. When I got down-stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the watchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the family and the widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything had been happening, but I couldn't tell. Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, and they set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs, and then set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the neighbors till the hall and the parlor and the dining-room was full. I see the coffin lid was the way it was before, but I dasn't go to look in under it, with folks around. Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls took seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half an hour the people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a tear, and it was all very still and solemn, only the girls and the beats holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbing a little. There warn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on the floor and blowing noses--because people always blows them more at a funeral than they do at other places except church. When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last touches, and getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable, and making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke; he moved people around, he squeezed in late ones, he opened up passageways, and done it with nods, and signs with his hands. Then he took his place over against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever see; and there warn't no more smile to him than there is to a ham. They had borrowed a melodeum--a sick one; and when everything was ready a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the only one that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the most outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard; it was only one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right along; the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and wait--you couldn't hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, and nobody didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see that long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say, "Don't you worry--just depend on me." Then he stooped down and begun to glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people's heads. So he glided along, and the powwow and racket getting more and more outrageous all the time; and at last, when he had gone around two sides of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided and glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher, over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "_He had a rat!_" Then he drooped down and glided along the wall again to his place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people, because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that don't cost nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a man to be looked up to and liked. There warn't no more popular man in town than what that undertaker was. Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome; and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage, and at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on the coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat then, and watched him pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid the lid along as soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I didn't know whether the money was in there or not. So, says I, s'pose somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?--now how do _I_ know whether to write to Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and didn't find nothing, what would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and jailed; I'd better lay low and keep dark, and not write at all; the thing's awful mixed now; trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole business! They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces again--I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing come of it; the faces didn't tell me nothing. The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up, and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the idea that his congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he must hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home. He was very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he could stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn't be done. And he said of course him and William would take the girls home with them; and that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, too--tickled them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; and told him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready. Them poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and change the general tune. Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and all the property for auction straight off--sale two days after the funeral; but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to. So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls' joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger-traders come along, and the king sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying; and I reckon I couldn't 'a' stood it all, but would 'a' had to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the niggers would be back home in a week or two. The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell you the duke was powerful uneasy. Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look that there was trouble. The king says: "Was you in my room night before last?" "No, your majesty"--which was the way I always called him when nobody but our gang warn't around. "Was you in there yisterday er last night?" "No, your majesty." "Honor bright, now--no lies." "Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't been a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it to you." The duke says: "Have you seen anybody else go in there?" "No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe." "Stop and think." I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says: "Well, I see the niggers go in there several times." Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever expected it, and then like they _had_. Then the duke says: "What, _all_ of them?" "No--leastways, not all at once--that is, I don't think I ever see them all come _out_ at once but just one time." "Hello! When was that?" "It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn't early, because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see them." "Well, go on, _go_ on! What did they do? How'd they act?" "They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act anyway much, as fur as I see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in there to do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was up; and found you _warn't_ up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the way of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you up." "Great guns, _this_ is a go!" says the king; and both of them looked pretty sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking and scratching their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little raspy chuckle, and says: "It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let on to be _sorry_ they was going out of this region! And I believed they _was_ sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell _me_ any more that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent. Why, the way they played that thing it would fool _anybody._ In my opinion, there's a fortune in 'em. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a better lay-out than that--and here we've gone and sold 'em for a song. Yes, and ain't privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where _is_ that song--that draft?" "In the bank for to be collected. Where _would_ it be?" "Well, that's all right then, thank goodness." Says I, kind of timid-like: "Is something gone wrong?" The king whirls on me and rips out: "None o' your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y'r own affairs--if you got any. Long as you're in this town don't you forgit _that_--you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to jest swaller it and say noth'n': mum's the word for _us_." As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and says: "Quick sales _and_ small profits! It's a good business--yes." The king snarls around on him and says: "I was trying to do for the best in sellin' 'em out so quick. If the profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to carry, is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?" "Well, _they'd_ be in this house yet and we _wouldn't_ if I could 'a' got my advice listened to." The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped around and lit into _me_ again. He give me down the banks for not coming and _telling_ him I see the niggers come out of his room acting that way--said any fool would 'a' _knowed_ something was up. And then waltzed in and cussed _himself_ awhile, and said it all come of him not laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he'd be blamed if he'd ever do it again. So they went off a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it all off onto the niggers, and yet hadn't done the niggers no harm by it.

Huck hides the sack of money in Peter Wilks's coffin as Mary Jane, crying, enters the front room where her dead father's body lies. Huck, who doesn't get another opportunity to remove the money safely, worries about what will happen to it. The next day, a dog barking in the cellar disrupts the funeral. The undertaker slips out and returns after a "whack" is heard from downstairs. In a voice that everyone present can hear, he whispers that the dog has caught a rat. In the next moment, though, Huck watches with horror as the undertaker seals the coffin without looking inside. Huck realizes he will never know whether the duke and the dauphin have gotten the money back. He wonders if he should write to Mary Jane after he has left town to tell her to have the coffin dug up. Saying he will take the Wilks girls to England, the dauphin sells off the estate and the slaves, sending a slave mother to New Orleans and her two sons to Memphis. The scene at the grief-stricken family's separation is heart-rending, and the Wilks women are upset. Huck comforts himself with the knowledge that the slave family will be reunited in a week or so when the duke and the dauphin are exposed. When the con men question Huck about the missing money, he manages to make them think the Wilks family slaves were responsible for the disappearance

There was a train for Turin and Paris that evening; and after the Countess had left her Isabel had a rapid and decisive conference with her maid, who was discreet, devoted and active. After this she thought (except of her journey) only of one thing. She must go and see Pansy; from her she couldn't turn away. She had not seen her yet, as Osmond had given her to understand that it was too soon to begin. She drove at five o'clock to a high floor in a narrow street in the quarter of the Piazza Navona, and was admitted by the portress of the convent, a genial and obsequious person. Isabel had been at this institution before; she had come with Pansy to see the sisters. She knew they were good women, and she saw that the large rooms were clean and cheerful and that the well-used garden had sun for winter and shade for spring. But she disliked the place, which affronted and almost frightened her; not for the world would she have spent a night there. It produced to-day more than before the impression of a well-appointed prison; for it was not possible to pretend Pansy was free to leave it. This innocent creature had been presented to her in a new and violent light, but the secondary effect of the revelation was to make her reach out a hand. The portress left her to wait in the parlour of the convent while she went to make it known that there was a visitor for the dear young lady. The parlour was a vast, cold apartment, with new-looking furniture; a large clean stove of white porcelain, unlighted, a collection of wax flowers under glass, and a series of engravings from religious pictures on the walls. On the other occasion Isabel had thought it less like Rome than like Philadelphia, but to-day she made no reflexions; the apartment only seemed to her very empty and very soundless. The portress returned at the end of some five minutes, ushering in another person. Isabel got up, expecting to see one of the ladies of the sisterhood, but to her extreme surprise found herself confronted with Madame Merle. The effect was strange, for Madame Merle was already so present to her vision that her appearance in the flesh was like suddenly, and rather awfully, seeing a painted picture move. Isabel had been thinking all day of her falsity, her audacity, her ability, her probable suffering; and these dark things seemed to flash with a sudden light as she entered the room. Her being there at all had the character of ugly evidence, of handwritings, of profaned relics, of grim things produced in court. It made Isabel feel faint; if it had been necessary to speak on the spot she would have been quite unable. But no such necessity was distinct to her; it seemed to her indeed that she had absolutely nothing to say to Madame Merle. In one's relations with this lady, however, there were never any absolute necessities; she had a manner which carried off not only her own deficiencies but those of other people. But she was different from usual; she came in slowly, behind the portress, and Isabel instantly perceived that she was not likely to depend upon her habitual resources. For her too the occasion was exceptional, and she had undertaken to treat it by the light of the moment. This gave her a peculiar gravity; she pretended not even to smile, and though Isabel saw that she was more than ever playing a part it seemed to her that on the whole the wonderful woman had never been so natural. She looked at her young friend from head to foot, but not harshly nor defiantly; with a cold gentleness rather, and an absence of any air of allusion to their last meeting. It was as if she had wished to mark a distinction. She had been irritated then, she was reconciled now. "You can leave us alone," she said to the portress; "in five minutes this lady will ring for you." And then she turned to Isabel, who, after noting what has just been mentioned, had ceased to notice and had let her eyes wander as far as the limits of the room would allow. She wished never to look at Madame Merle again. "You're surprised to find me here, and I'm afraid you're not pleased," this lady went on. "You don't see why I should have come; it's as if I had anticipated you. I confess I've been rather indiscreet--I ought to have asked your permission." There was none of the oblique movement of irony in this; it was said simply and mildly; but Isabel, far afloat on a sea of wonder and pain, could not have told herself with what intention it was uttered. "But I've not been sitting long," Madame Merle continued; "that is I've not been long with Pansy. I came to see her because it occurred to me this afternoon that she must be rather lonely and perhaps even a little miserable. It may be good for a small girl; I know so little about small girls; I can't tell. At any rate it's a little dismal. Therefore I came--on the chance. I knew of course that you'd come, and her father as well; still, I had not been told other visitors were forbidden. The good woman--what's her name? Madame Catherine--made no objection whatever. I stayed twenty minutes with Pansy; she has a charming little room, not in the least conventual, with a piano and flowers. She has arranged it delightfully; she has so much taste. Of course it's all none of my business, but I feel happier since I've seen her. She may even have a maid if she likes; but of course she has no occasion to dress. She wears a little black frock; she looks so charming. I went afterwards to see Mother Catherine, who has a very good room too; I assure you I don't find the poor sisters at all monastic. Mother Catherine has a most coquettish little toilet-table, with something that looked uncommonly like a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. She speaks delightfully of Pansy; says it's a great happiness for them to have her. She's a little saint of heaven and a model to the oldest of them. Just as I was leaving Madame Catherine the portress came to say to her that there was a lady for the signorina. Of course I knew it must be you, and I asked her to let me go and receive you in her place. She demurred greatly--I must tell you that--and said it was her duty to notify the Mother Superior; it was of such high importance that you should be treated with respect. I requested her to let the Mother Superior alone and asked her how she supposed I would treat you!" So Madame Merle went on, with much of the brilliancy of a woman who had long been a mistress of the art of conversation. But there were phases and gradations in her speech, not one of which was lost upon Isabel's ear, though her eyes were absent from her companion's face. She had not proceeded far before Isabel noted a sudden break in her voice, a lapse in her continuity, which was in itself a complete drama. This subtle modulation marked a momentous discovery--the perception of an entirely new attitude on the part of her listener. Madame Merle had guessed in the space of an instant that everything was at end between them, and in the space of another instant she had guessed the reason why. The person who stood there was not the same one she had seen hitherto, but was a very different person--a person who knew her secret. This discovery was tremendous, and from the moment she made it the most accomplished of women faltered and lost her courage. But only for that moment. Then the conscious stream of her perfect manner gathered itself again and flowed on as smoothly as might be to the end. But it was only because she had the end in view that she was able to proceed. She had been touched with a point that made her quiver, and she needed all the alertness of her will to repress her agitation. Her only safety was in her not betraying herself. She resisted this, but the startled quality of her voice refused to improve--she couldn't help it--while she heard herself say she hardly knew what. The tide of her confidence ebbed, and she was able only just to glide into port, faintly grazing the bottom. Isabel saw it all as distinctly as if it had been reflected in a large clear glass. It might have been a great moment for her, for it might have been a moment of triumph. That Madame Merle had lost her pluck and saw before her the phantom of exposure--this in itself was a revenge, this in itself was almost the promise of a brighter day. And for a moment during which she stood apparently looking out of the window, with her back half-turned, Isabel enjoyed that knowledge. On the other side of the window lay the garden of the convent; but this is not what she saw; she saw nothing of the budding plants and the glowing afternoon. She saw, in the crude light of that revelation which had already become a part of experience and to which the very frailty of the vessel in which it had been offered her only gave an intrinsic price, the dry staring fact that she had been an applied handled hung-up tool, as senseless and convenient as mere shaped wood and iron. All the bitterness of this knowledge surged into her soul again; it was as if she felt on her lips the taste of dishonour. There was a moment during which, if she had turned and spoken, she would have said something that would hiss like a lash. But she closed her eyes, and then the hideous vision dropped. What remained was the cleverest woman in the world standing there within a few feet of her and knowing as little what to think as the meanest. Isabel's only revenge was to be silent still--to leave Madame Merle in this unprecedented situation. She left her there for a period that must have seemed long to this lady, who at last seated herself with a movement which was in itself a confession of helplessness. Then Isabel turned slow eyes, looking down at her. Madame Merle was very pale; her own eyes covered Isabel's face. She might see what she would, but her danger was over. Isabel would never accuse her, never reproach her; perhaps because she never would give her the opportunity to defend herself. "I'm come to bid Pansy good-bye," our young woman said at last. "I go to England to-night." "Go to England to-night!" Madame Merle repeated sitting there and looking up at her. "I'm going to Gardencourt. Ralph Touchett's dying." "Ah, you'll feel that." Madame Merle recovered herself; she had a chance to express sympathy. "Do you go alone?" "Yes; without my husband." Madame Merle gave a low vague murmur; a sort of recognition of the general sadness of things. "Mr. Touchett never liked me, but I'm sorry he's dying. Shall you see his mother?" "Yes; she has returned from America." "She used to be very kind to me; but she has changed. Others too have changed," said Madame Merle with a quiet noble pathos. She paused a moment, then added: "And you'll see dear old Gardencourt again!" "I shall not enjoy it much," Isabel answered. "Naturally--in your grief. But it's on the whole, of all the houses I know, and I know many, the one I should have liked best to live in. I don't venture to send a message to the people," Madame Merle added; "but I should like to give my love to the place." Isabel turned away. "I had better go to Pansy. I've not much time." While she looked about her for the proper egress, the door opened and admitted one of the ladies of the house, who advanced with a discreet smile, gently rubbing, under her long loose sleeves, a pair of plump white hands. Isabel recognised Madame Catherine, whose acquaintance she had already made, and begged that she would immediately let her see Miss Osmond. Madame Catherine looked doubly discreet, but smiled very blandly and said: "It will be good for her to see you. I'll take you to her myself." Then she directed her pleased guarded vision to Madame Merle. "Will you let me remain a little?" this lady asked. "It's so good to be here." "You may remain always if you like!" And the good sister gave a knowing laugh. She led Isabel out of the room, through several corridors, and up a long staircase. All these departments were solid and bare, light and clean; so, thought Isabel, are the great penal establishments. Madame Catherine gently pushed open the door of Pansy's room and ushered in the visitor; then stood smiling with folded hands while the two others met and embraced. "She's glad to see you," she repeated; "it will do her good." And she placed the best chair carefully for Isabel. But she made no movement to seat herself; she seemed ready to retire. "How does this dear child look?" she asked of Isabel, lingering a moment. "She looks pale," Isabel answered. "That's the pleasure of seeing you. She's very happy. Elle eclaire la maison," said the good sister. Pansy wore, as Madame Merle had said, a little black dress; it was perhaps this that made her look pale. "They're very good to me--they think of everything!" she exclaimed with all her customary eagerness to accommodate. "We think of you always--you're a precious charge," Madame Catherine remarked in the tone of a woman with whom benevolence was a habit and whose conception of duty was the acceptance of every care. It fell with a leaden weight on Isabel's ears; it seemed to represent the surrender of a personality, the authority of the Church. When Madame Catherine had left them together Pansy kneeled down and hid her head in her stepmother's lap. So she remained some moments, while Isabel gently stroked her hair. Then she got up, averting her face and looking about the room. "Don't you think I've arranged it well? I've everything I have at home." "It's very pretty; you're very comfortable." Isabel scarcely knew what she could say to her. On the one hand she couldn't let her think she had come to pity her, and on the other it would be a dull mockery to pretend to rejoice with her. So she simply added after a moment: "I've come to bid you good-bye. I'm going to England." Pansy's white little face turned red. "To England! Not to come back?" "I don't know when I shall come back." "Ah, I'm sorry," Pansy breathed with faintness. She spoke as if she had no right to criticise; but her tone expressed a depth of disappointment. "My cousin, Mr. Touchett, is very ill; he'll probably die. I wish to see him," Isabel said. "Ah yes; you told me he would die. Of course you must go. And will papa go?" "No; I shall go alone." For a moment the girl said nothing. Isabel had often wondered what she thought of the apparent relations of her father with his wife; but never by a glance, by an intimation, had she let it be seen that she deemed them deficient in an air of intimacy. She made her reflexions, Isabel was sure; and she must have had a conviction that there were husbands and wives who were more intimate than that. But Pansy was not indiscreet even in thought; she would as little have ventured to judge her gentle stepmother as to criticise her magnificent father. Her heart may have stood almost as still as it would have done had she seen two of the saints in the great picture in the convent chapel turn their painted heads and shake them at each other. But as in this latter case she would (for very solemnity's sake) never have mentioned the awful phenomenon, so she put away all knowledge of the secrets of larger lives than her own. "You'll be very far away," she presently went on. "Yes; I shall be far away. But it will scarcely matter," Isabel explained; "since so long as you're here I can't be called near you." "Yes, but you can come and see me; though you've not come very often." "I've not come because your father forbade it. To-day I bring nothing with me. I can't amuse you." "I'm not to be amused. That's not what papa wishes." "Then it hardly matters whether I'm in Rome or in England." "You're not happy, Mrs. Osmond," said Pansy. "Not very. But it doesn't matter." "That's what I say to myself. What does it matter? But I should like to come out." "I wish indeed you might." "Don't leave me here," Pansy went on gently. Isabel said nothing for a minute; her heart beat fast. "Will you come away with me now?" she asked. Pansy looked at her pleadingly. "Did papa tell you to bring me?" "No; it's my own proposal." "I think I had better wait then. Did papa send me no message?" "I don't think he knew I was coming." "He thinks I've not had enough," said Pansy. "But I have. The ladies are very kind to me and the little girls come to see me. There are some very little ones--such charming children. Then my room--you can see for yourself. All that's very delightful. But I've had enough. Papa wished me to think a little--and I've thought a great deal." "What have you thought?" "Well, that I must never displease papa." "You knew that before." "Yes; but I know it better. I'll do anything--I'll do anything," said Pansy. Then, as she heard her own words, a deep, pure blush came into her face. Isabel read the meaning of it; she saw the poor girl had been vanquished. It was well that Mr. Edward Rosier had kept his enamels! Isabel looked into her eyes and saw there mainly a prayer to be treated easily. She laid her hand on Pansy's as if to let her know that her look conveyed no diminution of esteem; for the collapse of the girl's momentary resistance (mute and modest thought it had been) seemed only her tribute to the truth of things. She didn't presume to judge others, but she had judged herself; she had seen the reality. She had no vocation for struggling with combinations; in the solemnity of sequestration there was something that overwhelmed her. She bowed her pretty head to authority and only asked of authority to be merciful. Yes; it was very well that Edward Rosier had reserved a few articles! Isabel got up; her time was rapidly shortening. "Good-bye then. I leave Rome to-night." Pansy took hold of her dress; there was a sudden change in the child's face. "You look strange, you frighten me." "Oh, I'm very harmless," said Isabel. "Perhaps you won't come back?" "Perhaps not. I can't tell." "Ah, Mrs. Osmond, you won't leave me!" Isabel now saw she had guessed everything. "My dear child, what can I do for you?" she asked. "I don't know--but I'm happier when I think of you." "You can always think of me." "Not when you're so far. I'm a little afraid," said Pansy. "What are you afraid of?" "Of papa--a little. And of Madame Merle. She has just been to see me." "You must not say that," Isabel observed. "Oh, I'll do everything they want. Only if you're here I shall do it more easily." Isabel considered. "I won't desert you," she said at last. "Good-bye, my child." Then they held each other a moment in a silent embrace, like two sisters; and afterwards Pansy walked along the corridor with her visitor to the top of the staircase. "Madame Merle has been here," she remarked as they went; and as Isabel answered nothing she added abruptly: "I don't like Madame Merle!" Isabel hesitated, then stopped. "You must never say that--that you don't like Madame Merle." Pansy looked at her in wonder; but wonder with Pansy had never been a reason for non-compliance. "I never will again," she said with exquisite gentleness. At the top of the staircase they had to separate, as it appeared to be part of the mild but very definite discipline under which Pansy lived that she should not go down. Isabel descended, and when she reached the bottom the girl was standing above. "You'll come back?" she called out in a voice that Isabel remembered afterwards. "Yes--I'll come back." Madame Catherine met Mrs. Osmond below and conducted her to the door of the parlour, outside of which the two stood talking a minute. "I won't go in," said the good sister. "Madame Merle's waiting for you." At this announcement Isabel stiffened; she was on the point of asking if there were no other egress from the convent. But a moment's reflexion assured her that she would do well not to betray to the worthy nun her desire to avoid Pansy's other friend. Her companion grasped her arm very gently and, fixing her a moment with wise, benevolent eyes, said in French and almost familiarly: "Eh bien, chere Madame, qu'en pensez-vous?" "About my step-daughter? Oh, it would take long to tell you." "We think it's enough," Madame Catherine distinctly observed. And she pushed open the door of the parlour. Madame Merle was sitting just as Isabel had left her, like a woman so absorbed in thought that she had not moved a little finger. As Madame Catherine closed the door she got up, and Isabel saw that she had been thinking to some purpose. She had recovered her balance; she was in full possession of her resources. "I found I wished to wait for you," she said urbanely. "But it's not to talk about Pansy." Isabel wondered what it could be to talk about, and in spite of Madame Merle's declaration she answered after a moment: "Madame Catherine says it's enough." "Yes; it also seems to me enough. I wanted to ask you another word about poor Mr. Touchett," Madame Merle added. "Have you reason to believe that he's really at his last?" "I've no information but a telegram. Unfortunately it only confirms a probability." "I'm going to ask you a strange question," said Madame Merle. "Are you very fond of your cousin?" And she gave a smile as strange as her utterance. "Yes, I'm very fond of him. But I don't understand you." She just hung fire. "It's rather hard to explain. Something has occurred to me which may not have occurred to you, and I give you the benefit of my idea. Your cousin did you once a great service. Have you never guessed it?" "He has done me many services." "Yes; but one was much above the rest. He made you a rich woman." "HE made me--?" Madame Merle appearing to see herself successful, she went on more triumphantly: "He imparted to you that extra lustre which was required to make you a brilliant match. At bottom it's him you've to thank." She stopped; there was something in Isabel's eyes. "I don't understand you. It was my uncle's money." "Yes; it was your uncle's money, but it was your cousin's idea. He brought his father over to it. Ah, my dear, the sum was large!" Isabel stood staring; she seemed to-day to live in a world illumined by lurid flashes. "I don't know why you say such things. I don't know what you know." "I know nothing but what I've guessed. But I've guessed that." Isabel went to the door and, when she had opened it, stood a moment with her hand on the latch. Then she said--it was her only revenge: "I believed it was you I had to thank!" Madame Merle dropped her eyes; she stood there in a kind of proud penance. "You're very unhappy, I know. But I'm more so." "Yes; I can believe that. I think I should like never to see you again." Madame Merle raised her eyes. "I shall go to America," she quietly remarked while Isabel passed out.

Before departing for London, Isabel decides to visit Pansy. As she is waiting for Pansy, she is surprised to happen upon Madame Merle. Seeing this woman who was so present to her imagination all day in the flesh is like seeing "a painted picture move". Isabel feels that this is like evidence in court against Merle, of Merle's own interest in Pansy's affairs. Merle offers up the excuse that she should have told Isabel she meant to visit Pansy, and that she only thought Pansy might be lonely. Merle talks at length about Pansy and the convent. Isabel then noted a sudden break in her voice -- a modulation that marked Merle's perception of Isabel's changed attitude towards her. She realizes that Isabel knows her secret. She falters for a moment, but then she regains herself. She realizes that she is only safe if she does not betray herself. Isabel sees this all as if it is reflected in a "clear glass". Isabel enjoys the knowledge that Madame Merle had felt herself being exposed. Isabel is looking out the window though, and she sees - not the garden outside, but rather, the "dry staring fact that she had been an applied handled hung-up tool". Her only revenge though is not to react, to sit there silently. Merle realizes that Isabel will never reproach her, never given her the opportunity to defend herself. Isabel goes to see Pansy, and she feels that the girl has been "vanquished" by her father's will. Pansy is worried that Isabel will leave her forever when she says that she will go to England. Pansy says it will be easier for her to do as Osmond and Merle like if Isabel is around. She declares that she does not like Merle, and Isabel cautions her to never say that again. Merle appeals to Isabel before she leaves the convent again. Merle tells Isabel that her cousin Ralph once did he a great service, and asks Isabel if she knows what it is. She goes on to tell Isabel that Ralph is the one who made her a rich woman -- it was Ralph's idea to give her the money, and Isabel ought to thank him for making a brilliant match. Isabel ironically replies that she thinks it is Merle that she has to thank. Merle lowers her eyes, recognizes Isabel is unhappy, and declares that she will go to America

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. After the earthquake had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no means more effectual to prevent utter ruin than to give the people a beautiful _auto-da-fe_[6]; for it had been decided by the University of Coimbra, that the burning of a few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible secret to hinder the earth from quaking. In consequence hereof, they had seized on a Biscayner, convicted of having married his godmother, and on two Portuguese, for rejecting the bacon which larded a chicken they were eating[7]; after dinner, they came and secured Dr. Pangloss, and his disciple Candide, the one for speaking his mind, the other for having listened with an air of approbation. They were conducted to separate apartments, extremely cold, as they were never incommoded by the sun. Eight days after they were dressed in _san-benitos_[8] and their heads ornamented with paper mitres. The mitre and _san-benito_ belonging to Candide were painted with reversed flames and with devils that had neither tails nor claws; but Pangloss's devils had claws and tails and the flames were upright. They marched in procession thus habited and heard a very pathetic sermon, followed by fine church music. Candide was whipped in cadence while they were singing; the Biscayner, and the two men who had refused to eat bacon, were burnt; and Pangloss was hanged, though that was not the custom. The same day the earth sustained a most violent concussion. Candide, terrified, amazed, desperate, all bloody, all palpitating, said to himself: "If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? Well, if I had been only whipped I could put up with it, for I experienced that among the Bulgarians; but oh, my dear Pangloss! thou greatest of philosophers, that I should have seen you hanged, without knowing for what! Oh, my dear Anabaptist, thou best of men, that thou should'st have been drowned in the very harbour! Oh, Miss Cunegonde, thou pearl of girls! that thou should'st have had thy belly ripped open!" Thus he was musing, scarce able to stand, preached at, whipped, absolved, and blessed, when an old woman accosted him saying: "My son, take courage and follow me." Candide did not take courage, but followed the old woman to a decayed house, where she gave him a pot of pomatum to anoint his sores, showed him a very neat little bed, with a suit of clothes hanging up, and left him something to eat and drink. "Eat, drink, sleep," said she, "and may our lady of Atocha,[9] the great St. Anthony of Padua, and the great St. James of Compostella, receive you under their protection. I shall be back to-morrow." Candide, amazed at all he had suffered and still more with the charity of the old woman, wished to kiss her hand. "It is not my hand you must kiss," said the old woman; "I shall be back to-morrow. Anoint yourself with the pomatum, eat and sleep." Candide, notwithstanding so many disasters, ate and slept. The next morning the old woman brought him his breakfast, looked at his back, and rubbed it herself with another ointment: in like manner she brought him his dinner; and at night she returned with his supper. The day following she went through the very same ceremonies. "Who are you?" said Candide; "who has inspired you with so much goodness? What return can I make you?" The good woman made no answer; she returned in the evening, but brought no supper. "Come with me," she said, "and say nothing." She took him by the arm, and walked with him about a quarter of a mile into the country; they arrived at a lonely house, surrounded with gardens and canals. The old woman knocked at a little door, it opened, she led Candide up a private staircase into a small apartment richly furnished. She left him on a brocaded sofa, shut the door and went away. Candide thought himself in a dream; indeed, that he had been dreaming unluckily all his life, and that the present moment was the only agreeable part of it all. The old woman returned very soon, supporting with difficulty a trembling woman of a majestic figure, brilliant with jewels, and covered with a veil. "Take off that veil," said the old woman to Candide. The young man approaches, he raises the veil with a timid hand. Oh! what a moment! what surprise! he believes he beholds Miss Cunegonde? he really sees her! it is herself! His strength fails him, he cannot utter a word, but drops at her feet. Cunegonde falls upon the sofa. The old woman supplies a smelling bottle; they come to themselves and recover their speech. As they began with broken accents, with questions and answers interchangeably interrupted with sighs, with tears, and cries. The old woman desired they would make less noise and then she left them to themselves. "What, is it you?" said Candide, "you live? I find you again in Portugal? then you have not been ravished? then they did not rip open your belly as Doctor Pangloss informed me?" "Yes, they did," said the beautiful Cunegonde; "but those two accidents are not always mortal." "But were your father and mother killed?" "It is but too true," answered Cunegonde, in tears. "And your brother?" "My brother also was killed." "And why are you in Portugal? and how did you know of my being here? and by what strange adventure did you contrive to bring me to this house?" "I will tell you all that," replied the lady, "but first of all let me know your history, since the innocent kiss you gave me and the kicks which you received." Candide respectfully obeyed her, and though he was still in a surprise, though his voice was feeble and trembling, though his back still pained him, yet he gave her a most ingenuous account of everything that had befallen him since the moment of their separation. Cunegonde lifted up her eyes to heaven; shed tears upon hearing of the death of the good Anabaptist and of Pangloss; after which she spoke as follows to Candide, who did not lose a word and devoured her with his eyes. "I was in bed and fast asleep when it pleased God to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh; they slew my father and brother, and cut my mother in pieces. A tall Bulgarian, six feet high, perceiving that I had fainted away at this sight, began to ravish me; this made me recover; I regained my senses, I cried, I struggled, I bit, I scratched, I wanted to tear out the tall Bulgarian's eyes--not knowing that what happened at my father's house was the usual practice of war. The brute gave me a cut in the left side with his hanger, and the mark is still upon me." "Ah! I hope I shall see it," said honest Candide. "You shall," said Cunegonde, "but let us continue." "Do so," replied Candide. Thus she resumed the thread of her story: "A Bulgarian captain came in, saw me all bleeding, and the soldier not in the least disconcerted. The captain flew into a passion at the disrespectful behaviour of the brute, and slew him on my body. He ordered my wounds to be dressed, and took me to his quarters as a prisoner of war. I washed the few shirts that he had, I did his cooking; he thought me very pretty--he avowed it; on the other hand, I must own he had a good shape, and a soft and white skin; but he had little or no mind or philosophy, and you might see plainly that he had never been instructed by Doctor Pangloss. In three months time, having lost all his money, and being grown tired of my company, he sold me to a Jew, named Don Issachar, who traded to Holland and Portugal, and had a strong passion for women. This Jew was much attached to my person, but could not triumph over it; I resisted him better than the Bulgarian soldier. A modest woman may be ravished once, but her virtue is strengthened by it. In order to render me more tractable, he brought me to this country house. Hitherto I had imagined that nothing could equal the beauty of Thunder-ten-Tronckh Castle; but I found I was mistaken. "The Grand Inquisitor, seeing me one day at Mass, stared long at me, and sent to tell me that he wished to speak on private matters. I was conducted to his palace, where I acquainted him with the history of my family, and he represented to me how much it was beneath my rank to belong to an Israelite. A proposal was then made to Don Issachar that he should resign me to my lord. Don Issachar, being the court banker, and a man of credit, would hear nothing of it. The Inquisitor threatened him with an _auto-da-fe_. At last my Jew, intimidated, concluded a bargain, by which the house and myself should belong to both in common; the Jew should have for himself Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and the Inquisitor should have the rest of the week. It is now six months since this agreement was made. Quarrels have not been wanting, for they could not decide whether the night from Saturday to Sunday belonged to the old law or to the new. For my part, I have so far held out against both, and I verily believe that this is the reason why I am still beloved. "At length, to avert the scourge of earthquakes, and to intimidate Don Issachar, my Lord Inquisitor was pleased to celebrate an _auto-da-fe_. He did me the honour to invite me to the ceremony. I had a very good seat, and the ladies were served with refreshments between Mass and the execution. I was in truth seized with horror at the burning of those two Jews, and of the honest Biscayner who had married his godmother; but what was my surprise, my fright, my trouble, when I saw in a _san-benito_ and mitre a figure which resembled that of Pangloss! I rubbed my eyes, I looked at him attentively, I saw him hung; I fainted. Scarcely had I recovered my senses than I saw you stripped, stark naked, and this was the height of my horror, consternation, grief, and despair. I tell you, truthfully, that your skin is yet whiter and of a more perfect colour than that of my Bulgarian captain. This spectacle redoubled all the feelings which overwhelmed and devoured me. I screamed out, and would have said, 'Stop, barbarians!' but my voice failed me, and my cries would have been useless after you had been severely whipped. How is it possible, said I, that the beloved Candide and the wise Pangloss should both be at Lisbon, the one to receive a hundred lashes, and the other to be hanged by the Grand Inquisitor, of whom I am the well-beloved? Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in the world is for the best. "Agitated, lost, sometimes beside myself, and sometimes ready to die of weakness, my mind was filled with the massacre of my father, mother, and brother, with the insolence of the ugly Bulgarian soldier, with the stab that he gave me, with my servitude under the Bulgarian captain, with my hideous Don Issachar, with my abominable Inquisitor, with the execution of Doctor Pangloss, with the grand Miserere to which they whipped you, and especially with the kiss I gave you behind the screen the day that I had last seen you. I praised God for bringing you back to me after so many trials, and I charged my old woman to take care of you, and to conduct you hither as soon as possible. She has executed her commission perfectly well; I have tasted the inexpressible pleasure of seeing you again, of hearing you, of speaking with you. But you must be hungry, for myself, I am famished; let us have supper." They both sat down to table, and, when supper was over, they placed themselves once more on the sofa; where they were when Signor Don Issachar arrived. It was the Jewish Sabbath, and Issachar had come to enjoy his rights, and to explain his tender love. This Issachar was the most choleric Hebrew that had ever been seen in Israel since the Captivity in Babylon. "What!" said he, "thou bitch of a Galilean, was not the Inquisitor enough for thee? Must this rascal also share with me?" In saying this he drew a long poniard which he always carried about him; and not imagining that his adversary had any arms he threw himself upon Candide: but our honest Westphalian had received a handsome sword from the old woman along with the suit of clothes. He drew his rapier, despite his gentleness, and laid the Israelite stone dead upon the cushions at Cunegonde's feet. "Holy Virgin!" cried she, "what will become of us? A man killed in my apartment! If the officers of justice come, we are lost!" "Had not Pangloss been hanged," said Candide, "he would give us good counsel in this emergency, for he was a profound philosopher. Failing him let us consult the old woman." She was very prudent and commenced to give her opinion when suddenly another little door opened. It was an hour after midnight, it was the beginning of Sunday. This day belonged to my lord the Inquisitor. He entered, and saw the whipped Candide, sword in hand, a dead man upon the floor, Cunegonde aghast, and the old woman giving counsel. At this moment, the following is what passed in the soul of Candide, and how he reasoned: If this holy man call in assistance, he will surely have me burnt; and Cunegonde will perhaps be served in the same manner; he was the cause of my being cruelly whipped; he is my rival; and, as I have now begun to kill, I will kill away, for there is no time to hesitate. This reasoning was clear and instantaneous; so that without giving time to the Inquisitor to recover from his surprise, he pierced him through and through, and cast him beside the Jew. "Yet again!" said Cunegonde, "now there is no mercy for us, we are excommunicated, our last hour has come. How could you do it? you, naturally so gentle, to slay a Jew and a prelate in two minutes!" "My beautiful young lady," responded Candide, "when one is a lover, jealous and whipped by the Inquisition, one stops at nothing." The old woman then put in her word, saying: "There are three Andalusian horses in the stable with bridles and saddles, let the brave Candide get them ready; madame has money, jewels; let us therefore mount quickly on horseback, though I can sit only on one buttock; let us set out for Cadiz, it is the finest weather in the world, and there is great pleasure in travelling in the cool of the night." Immediately Candide saddled the three horses, and Cunegonde, the old woman and he, travelled thirty miles at a stretch. While they were journeying, the Holy Brotherhood entered the house; my lord the Inquisitor was interred in a handsome church, and Issachar's body was thrown upon a dunghill. Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman, had now reached the little town of Avacena in the midst of the mountains of the Sierra Morena, and were speaking as follows in a public inn. "Who was it that robbed me of my money and jewels?" said Cunegonde, all bathed in tears. "How shall we live? What shall we do? Where find Inquisitors or Jews who will give me more?" "Alas!" said the old woman, "I have a shrewd suspicion of a reverend Grey Friar, who stayed last night in the same inn with us at Badajos. God preserve me from judging rashly, but he came into our room twice, and he set out upon his journey long before us." "Alas!" said Candide, "dear Pangloss has often demonstrated to me that the goods of this world are common to all men, and that each has an equal right to them. But according to these principles the Grey Friar ought to have left us enough to carry us through our journey. Have you nothing at all left, my dear Cunegonde?" "Not a farthing," said she. "What then must we do?" said Candide. "Sell one of the horses," replied the old woman. "I will ride behind Miss Cunegonde, though I can hold myself only on one buttock, and we shall reach Cadiz." In the same inn there was a Benedictine prior who bought the horse for a cheap price. Candide, Cunegonde, and the old woman, having passed through Lucena, Chillas, and Lebrixa, arrived at length at Cadiz. A fleet was there getting ready, and troops assembling to bring to reason the reverend Jesuit Fathers of Paraguay, accused of having made one of the native tribes in the neighborhood of San Sacrament revolt against the Kings of Spain and Portugal. Candide having been in the Bulgarian service, performed the military exercise before the general of this little army with so graceful an address, with so intrepid an air, and with such agility and expedition, that he was given the command of a company of foot. Now, he was a captain! He set sail with Miss Cunegonde, the old woman, two valets, and the two Andalusian horses, which had belonged to the grand Inquisitor of Portugal. During their voyage they reasoned a good deal on the philosophy of poor Pangloss. "We are going into another world," said Candide; "and surely it must be there that all is for the best. For I must confess there is reason to complain a little of what passeth in our world in regard to both natural and moral philosophy." "I love you with all my heart," said Cunegonde; "but my soul is still full of fright at that which I have seen and experienced." "All will be well," replied Candide; "the sea of this new world is already better than our European sea; it is calmer, the winds more regular. It is certainly the New World which is the best of all possible worlds." "God grant it," said Cunegonde; "but I have been so horribly unhappy there that my heart is almost closed to hope." "You complain," said the old woman; "alas! you have not known such misfortunes as mine." Cunegonde almost broke out laughing, finding the good woman very amusing, for pretending to have been as unfortunate as she. "Alas!" said Cunegonde, "my good mother, unless you have been ravished by two Bulgarians, have received two deep wounds in your belly, have had two castles demolished, have had two mothers cut to pieces before your eyes, and two of your lovers whipped at an _auto-da-fe_, I do not conceive how you could be more unfortunate than I. Add that I was born a baroness of seventy-two quarterings--and have been a cook!" "Miss," replied the old woman, "you do not know my birth; and were I to show you my backside, you would not talk in that manner, but would suspend your judgment." This speech having raised extreme curiosity in the minds of Cunegonde and Candide, the old woman spoke to them as follows. "I had not always bleared eyes and red eyelids; neither did my nose always touch my chin; nor was I always a servant. I am the daughter of Pope Urban X,[10] and of the Princess of Palestrina. Until the age of fourteen I was brought up in a palace, to which all the castles of your German barons would scarcely have served for stables; and one of my robes was worth more than all the magnificence of Westphalia. As I grew up I improved in beauty, wit, and every graceful accomplishment, in the midst of pleasures, hopes, and respectful homage. Already I inspired love. My throat was formed, and such a throat! white, firm, and shaped like that of the Venus of Medici; and what eyes! what eyelids! what black eyebrows! such flames darted from my dark pupils that they eclipsed the scintillation of the stars--as I was told by the poets in our part of the world. My waiting women, when dressing and undressing me, used to fall into an ecstasy, whether they viewed me before or behind; how glad would the gentlemen have been to perform that office for them! "I was affianced to the most excellent Prince of Massa Carara. Such a prince! as handsome as myself, sweet-tempered, agreeable, brilliantly witty, and sparkling with love. I loved him as one loves for the first time--with idolatry, with transport. The nuptials were prepared. There was surprising pomp and magnificence; there were _fetes_, carousals, continual _opera bouffe_; and all Italy composed sonnets in my praise, though not one of them was passable. I was just upon the point of reaching the summit of bliss, when an old marchioness who had been mistress to the Prince, my husband, invited him to drink chocolate with her. He died in less than two hours of most terrible convulsions. But this is only a bagatelle. My mother, in despair, and scarcely less afflicted than myself, determined to absent herself for some time from so fatal a place. She had a very fine estate in the neighbourhood of Gaeta. We embarked on board a galley of the country which was gilded like the great altar of St. Peter's at Rome. A Sallee corsair swooped down and boarded us. Our men defended themselves like the Pope's soldiers; they flung themselves upon their knees, and threw down their arms, begging of the corsair an absolution _in articulo mortis_. "Instantly they were stripped as bare as monkeys; my mother, our maids of honour, and myself were all served in the same manner. It is amazing with what expedition those gentry undress people. But what surprised me most was, that they thrust their fingers into the part of our bodies which the generality of women suffer no other instrument but--pipes to enter. It appeared to me a very strange kind of ceremony; but thus one judges of things when one has not seen the world. I afterwards learnt that it was to try whether we had concealed any diamonds. This is the practice established from time immemorial, among civilised nations that scour the seas. I was informed that the very religious Knights of Malta never fail to make this search when they take any Turkish prisoners of either sex. It is a law of nations from which they never deviate. "I need not tell _you_ how great a hardship it was for a young princess and her mother to be made slaves and carried to Morocco. You may easily imagine all we had to suffer on board the pirate vessel. My mother was still very handsome; our maids of honour, and even our waiting women, had more charms than are to be found in all Africa. As for myself, I was ravishing, was exquisite, grace itself, and I was a virgin! I did not remain so long; this flower, which had been reserved for the handsome Prince of Massa Carara, was plucked by the corsair captain. He was an abominable negro, and yet believed that he did me a great deal of honour. Certainly the Princess of Palestrina and myself must have been very strong to go through all that we experienced until our arrival at Morocco. But let us pass on; these are such common things as not to be worth mentioning. "Morocco swam in blood when we arrived. Fifty sons of the Emperor Muley-Ismael[11] had each their adherents; this produced fifty civil wars, of blacks against blacks, and blacks against tawnies, and tawnies against tawnies, and mulattoes against mulattoes. In short it was a continual carnage throughout the empire. "No sooner were we landed, than the blacks of a contrary faction to that of my captain attempted to rob him of his booty. Next to jewels and gold we were the most valuable things he had. I was witness to such a battle as you have never seen in your European climates. The northern nations have not that heat in their blood, nor that raging lust for women, so common in Africa. It seems that you Europeans have only milk in your veins; but it is vitriol, it is fire which runs in those of the inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the neighbouring countries. They fought with the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of the country, to see who should have us. A Moor seized my mother by the right arm, while my captain's lieutenant held her by the left; a Moorish soldier had hold of her by one leg, and one of our corsairs held her by the other. Thus almost all our women were drawn in quarters by four men. My captain concealed me behind him; and with his drawn scimitar cut and slashed every one that opposed his fury. At length I saw all our Italian women, and my mother herself, torn, mangled, massacred, by the monsters who disputed over them. The slaves, my companions, those who had taken them, soldiers, sailors, blacks, whites, mulattoes, and at last my captain, all were killed, and I remained dying on a heap of dead. Such scenes as this were transacted through an extent of three hundred leagues--and yet they never missed the five prayers a day ordained by Mahomet. "With difficulty I disengaged myself from such a heap of slaughtered bodies, and crawled to a large orange tree on the bank of a neighbouring rivulet, where I fell, oppressed with fright, fatigue, horror, despair, and hunger. Immediately after, my senses, overpowered, gave themselves up to sleep, which was yet more swooning than repose. I was in this state of weakness and insensibility, between life and death, when I felt myself pressed by something that moved upon my body. I opened my eyes, and saw a white man, of good countenance, who sighed, and who said between his teeth: '_O che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!_'"[12] "Astonished and delighted to hear my native language, and no less surprised at what this man said, I made answer that there were much greater misfortunes than that of which he complained. I told him in a few words of the horrors which I had endured, and fainted a second time. He carried me to a neighbouring house, put me to bed, gave me food, waited upon me, consoled me, flattered me; he told me that he had never seen any one so beautiful as I, and that he never so much regretted the loss of what it was impossible to recover. "'I was born at Naples,' said he, 'there they geld two or three thousand children every year; some die of the operation, others acquire a voice more beautiful than that of women, and others are raised to offices of state.[13] This operation was performed on me with great success and I was chapel musician to madam, the Princess of Palestrina.' "'To my mother!' cried I. "'Your mother!' cried he, weeping. 'What! can you be that young princess whom I brought up until the age of six years, and who promised so early to be as beautiful as you?' "'It is I, indeed; but my mother lies four hundred yards hence, torn in quarters, under a heap of dead bodies.' "I told him all my adventures, and he made me acquainted with his; telling me that he had been sent to the Emperor of Morocco by a Christian power, to conclude a treaty with that prince, in consequence of which he was to be furnished with military stores and ships to help to demolish the commerce of other Christian Governments. "'My mission is done,' said this honest eunuch; 'I go to embark for Ceuta, and will take you to Italy. _Ma che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!_' "I thanked him with tears of commiseration; and instead of taking me to Italy he conducted me to Algiers, where he sold me to the Dey. Scarcely was I sold, than the plague which had made the tour of Africa, Asia, and Europe, broke out with great malignancy in Algiers. You have seen earthquakes; but pray, miss, have you ever had the plague?" "Never," answered Cunegonde. "If you had," said the old woman, "you would acknowledge that it is far more terrible than an earthquake. It is common in Africa, and I caught it. Imagine to yourself the distressed situation of the daughter of a Pope, only fifteen years old, who, in less than three months, had felt the miseries of poverty and slavery, had been ravished almost every day, had beheld her mother drawn in quarters, had experienced famine and war, and was dying of the plague in Algiers. I did not die, however, but my eunuch, and the Dey, and almost the whole seraglio of Algiers perished. "As soon as the first fury of this terrible pestilence was over, a sale was made of the Dey's slaves; I was purchased by a merchant, and carried to Tunis; this man sold me to another merchant, who sold me again to another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople. At length I became the property of an Aga of the Janissaries, who was soon ordered away to the defence of Azof, then besieged by the Russians. "The Aga, who was a very gallant man, took his whole seraglio with him, and lodged us in a small fort on the Palus Meotides, guarded by two black eunuchs and twenty soldiers. The Turks killed prodigious numbers of the Russians, but the latter had their revenge. Azof was destroyed by fire, the inhabitants put to the sword, neither sex nor age was spared; until there remained only our little fort, and the enemy wanted to starve us out. The twenty Janissaries had sworn they would never surrender. The extremities of famine to which they were reduced, obliged them to eat our two eunuchs, for fear of violating their oath. And at the end of a few days they resolved also to devour the women. "We had a very pious and humane Iman, who preached an excellent sermon, exhorting them not to kill us all at once. "'Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,' said he, 'and you'll fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an action, and send you relief.' "He had great eloquence; he persuaded them; we underwent this terrible operation. The Iman applied the same balsam to us, as he does to children after circumcision; and we all nearly died. "Scarcely had the Janissaries finished the repast with which we had furnished them, than the Russians came in flat-bottomed boats; not a Janissary escaped. The Russians paid no attention to the condition we were in. There are French surgeons in all parts of the world; one of them who was very clever took us under his care--he cured us; and as long as I live I shall remember that as soon as my wounds were healed he made proposals to me. He bid us all be of good cheer, telling us that the like had happened in many sieges, and that it was according to the laws of war. "As soon as my companions could walk, they were obliged to set out for Moscow. I fell to the share of a Boyard who made me his gardener, and gave me twenty lashes a day. But this nobleman having in two years' time been broke upon the wheel along with thirty more Boyards for some broils at court, I profited by that event; I fled. I traversed all Russia; I was a long time an inn-holder's servant at Riga, the same at Rostock, at Vismar, at Leipzig, at Cassel, at Utrecht, at Leyden, at the Hague, at Rotterdam. I waxed old in misery and disgrace, having only one-half of my posteriors, and always remembering I was a Pope's daughter. A hundred times I was upon the point of killing myself; but still I loved life. This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics; for is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to cling to one's existence? in brief, to caress the serpent which devours us, till he has eaten our very heart? "In the different countries which it has been my lot to traverse, and the numerous inns where I have been servant, I have taken notice of a vast number of people who held their own existence in abhorrence, and yet I never knew of more than eight who voluntarily put an end to their misery; three negroes, four Englishmen, and a German professor named Robek.[14] I ended by being servant to the Jew, Don Issachar, who placed me near your presence, my fair lady. I am determined to share your fate, and have been much more affected with your misfortunes than with my own. I would never even have spoken to you of my misfortunes, had you not piqued me a little, and if it were not customary to tell stories on board a ship in order to pass away the time. In short, Miss Cunegonde, I have had experience, I know the world; therefore I advise you to divert yourself, and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story; and if there be one of them all, that has not cursed his life many a time, that has not frequently looked upon himself as the unhappiest of mortals, I give you leave to throw me headforemost into the sea."

Jacques is thrown overboard while trying to help a sailor tossed by the tempest. In the ensuing shipwreck, Candide is injured by falling stonework. Pangloss invokes universal reason: "Things could not possibly be otherwise." At an Auto-da-fe, a public ceremony of repentance and humiliation, Candide is flogged and Pangloss hanged by authorities who round up several townspeople for communal rites intended as "an infallible specific against earthquakes." Candide plunges into despair, wondering what the cause of all this hardship is. An Old Woman takes Candide in and nurses his wounds. She later escorts him to the countryside and presents him to Miss Cunegonde, who has survived the rape and pillaging of the castle, contrary to what Pangloss claimed. They tell each other of their trials and tribulations. Miss Cunegonde tells her story: after a brutal rape at the Castle of Westphalia, a Bulgar captain sells her to Jewish merchant Don Issachar. The Grand Inquisitor takes notice of Miss Cunegonde at mass and insists on a shared living arrangement with Don Issachar. He invites her to an Auto-da-fe where, in horror, she witnesses the torture of Candide and apparent execution of Pangloss. Don Issachar discovers Candide and Miss Cunegonde lying together on the sofa and draws a dagger. Candide drives a long sword into the Israelite, killing him instantly. Miss Cunegonde panics, and at that instant, the Grand Inquisitor walks in. Without hesitation, Candide drives the sword through his other rival. The Old Woman suggests that they escape by horseback to Cadiz, thirty miles away. Candide, Miss Cunegonde and the Old Woman stop at a tavern in Aracena along the route to Cadiz. Miss Cunegonde's jewels and diamonds are stolen at the tavern. The Old Woman suspects the Franciscan priest. Once again penniless, they sell one of their horses to a Benedictine friar and continue on their journey to Cadiz. Candide impresses the general of an army with his military skills and procures two additional horses. They ruminate on Pangloss's philosophy. Miss Cunegonde and the Old Woman compete with each other for the title of most aggrieved and unfortunate. The Old Woman reveals the extent of her own hardships. Daughter of a pope and a princess, the Old Woman grew up in a luxurious castle contracted in marriage to the Prince of Massa Carrara. Before the marriage, he dies from liquid chocolate served by a former mistress. She and her mother end up as slaves in Morocco, where a Moorish captain takes her virginity. In a gory battle between competing native tribes, everyone is slain except her, left standing in a heap of corpses. The young princess falls unconscious, only to be awoken by an Italian man, who offers to transport her to Italy. Instead, he sells her to the Dey of an Algerian province. The plague sweeps the African nation, killing everyone except her. After the first wave of pestilence dies down, she is sold to a string of other merchants from Tripoli to Constantinople. She finally lands in the custody of a janissary, who is attacked by the Russians and whose fort is blockaded and starved to the point of famine. A man proposes to cut one buttock off each woman to feed the rest. They all undergo this painful procedure. Later liberated, she is healed by a French surgeon. She ends by disavowing any self-pitying stance, and challenges Miss Cunegonde and Candide to find someone who does not consider himself "the most wretched of mortals."

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

Although Elinor knew before that Edward and Lucy would probably be married, she is still pained at the news, since she had hope that they might be separated by some mischance. She wishes to hear more news, but none comes; they expect Colonel Brandon any day, so Elinor can ask him if the couple are indeed settled at Delaford. Elinor is convinced that the Colonel has arrived at the cottage, but is surprised to find that it is Edward instead. They all try to hide their anxiety, and their conversation is awkward at best; but, when Mrs. Dashwood inquires about his wife, he informs them that it is his brother who has been married to Lucy, and not him. Elinor immediately runs from the room, crying out of joy; Edward then senses Elinor's regard for him, and is very happy too.

Actus Secundus. Enter the King with diuers yong Lords, taking leaue for the Florentine warre: Count, Rosse, and Parrolles. Florish Cornets. King. Farewell yong Lords, these warlike principles Doe not throw from you, and you my Lords farewell: Share the aduice betwixt you, if both gaine, all The guift doth stretch it selfe as 'tis receiu'd, And is enough for both Lord.G. 'Tis our hope sir, After well entred souldiers, to returne And finde your grace in health King. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart Will not confesse he owes the mallady That doth my life besiege: farwell yong Lords, Whether I liue or die, be you the sonnes Of worthy French men: let higher Italy (Those bated that inherit but the fall Of the last Monarchy) see that you come Not to wooe honour, but to wed it, when The brauest questant shrinkes: finde what you seeke, That fame may cry you loud: I say farewell L.G. Health at your bidding serue your Maiesty King. Those girles of Italy, take heed of them, They say our French, lacke language to deny If they demand: beware of being Captiues Before you serue Bo. Our hearts receiue your warnings King. Farewell, come hether to me 1.Lo.G. Oh my sweet Lord y you wil stay behind vs Parr. 'Tis not his fault the spark 2.Lo.E. Oh 'tis braue warres Parr. Most admirable, I haue seene those warres Rossill. I am commanded here, and kept a coyle with, Too young, and the next yeere, and 'tis too early Parr. And thy minde stand too't boy, Steale away brauely Rossill. I shal stay here the for-horse to a smocke, Creeking my shooes on the plaine Masonry, Till honour be bought vp, and no sword worne But one to dance with: by heauen, Ile steale away 1.Lo.G. There's honour in the theft Parr. Commit it Count 2.Lo.E. I am your accessary, and so farewell Ros. I grow to you, & our parting is a tortur'd body 1.Lo.G. Farewell Captaine 2.Lo.E. Sweet Mounsier Parolles Parr. Noble Heroes; my sword and yours are kinne, good sparkes and lustrous, a word good mettals. You shall finde in the Regiment of the Spinij, one Captaine Spurio his sicatrice, with an Embleme of warre heere on his sinister cheeke; it was this very sword entrench'd it: say to him I liue, and obserue his reports for me Lo.G. We shall noble Captaine Parr. Mars doate on you for his nouices, what will ye doe? Ross. Stay the King Parr. Vse a more spacious ceremonie to the Noble Lords, you haue restrain'd your selfe within the List of too cold an adieu: be more expressiue to them; for they weare themselues in the cap of the time, there do muster true gate; eat, speake, and moue vnder the influence of the most receiu'd starre, and though the deuill leade the measure, such are to be followed: after them, and take a more dilated farewell Ross. And I will doe so Parr. Worthy fellowes, and like to prooue most sinewie sword-men. Exeunt. Enter Lafew. L.Laf. Pardon my Lord for mee and for my tidings King. Ile see thee to stand vp L.Laf. Then heres a man stands that has brought his pardon, I would you had kneel'd my Lord to aske me mercy, And that at my bidding you could so stand vp King. I would I had, so I had broke thy pate And askt thee mercy for't Laf. Goodfaith a-crosse, but my good Lord 'tis thus, Will you be cur'd of your infirmitie? King. No Laf. O will you eat no grapes my royall foxe? Yes but you will, my noble grapes, and if My royall foxe could reach them: I haue seen a medicine That's able to breath life into a stone, Quicken a rocke, and make you dance Canari With sprightly fire and motion, whose simple touch Is powerfull to arayse King Pippen, nay To giue great Charlemaine a pen in's hand And write to her a loue-line King. What her is this? Laf. Why doctor she: my Lord, there's one arriu'd, If you will see her: now by my faith and honour, If seriously I may conuay my thoughts In this my light deliuerance, I haue spoke With one, that in her sexe, her yeeres, profession, Wisedome and constancy, hath amaz'd mee more Then I dare blame my weakenesse: will you see her? For that is her demand, and know her businesse? That done, laugh well at me King. Now good Lafew, Bring in the admiration, that we with thee May spend our wonder too, or take off thine By wondring how thou tookst it Laf. Nay, Ile fit you, And not be all day neither King. Thus he his speciall nothing euer prologues Laf. Nay, come your waies. Enter Hellen. King. This haste hath wings indeed Laf. Nay, come your waies, This is his Maiestie, say your minde to him, A Traitor you doe looke like, but such traitors His Maiesty seldome feares, I am Cresseds Vncle, That dare leaue two together, far you well. Enter. King. Now faire one, do's your busines follow vs? Hel. I my good Lord, Gerard de Narbon was my father, In what he did professe, well found King. I knew him Hel. The rather will I spare my praises towards him, Knowing him is enough: on's bed of death, Many receits he gaue me, chieflie one, Which as the dearest issue of his practice And of his olde experience, th' onlie darling, He bad me store vp, as a triple eye, Safer then mine owne two: more deare I haue so, And hearing your high Maiestie is toucht With that malignant cause, wherein the honour Of my deare fathers gift, stands cheefe in power, I come to tender it, and my appliance, With all bound humblenesse King. We thanke you maiden, But may not be so credulous of cure, When our most learned Doctors leaue vs, and The congregated Colledge haue concluded, That labouring Art can neuer ransome nature From her inaydible estate: I say we must not So staine our iudgement, or corrupt our hope, To prostitute our past-cure malladie To empericks, or to disseuer so Our great selfe and our credit, to esteeme A sencelesse helpe, when helpe past sence we deeme Hell. My dutie then shall pay me for my paines: I will no more enforce mine office on you, Humbly intreating from your royall thoughts, A modest one to beare me backe againe King. I cannot giue thee lesse to be cal'd gratefull: Thou thoughtst to helpe me, and such thankes I giue, As one neere death to those that wish him liue: But what at full I know, thou knowst no part, I knowing all my perill, thou no Art Hell. What I can doe, can doe no hurt to try, Since you set vp your rest 'gainst remedie: He that of greatest workes is finisher, Oft does them by the weakest minister: So holy Writ, in babes hath iudgement showne, When Iudges haue bin babes; great flouds haue flowne From simple sources: and great Seas haue dried When Miracles haue by the great'st beene denied. Oft expectation failes, and most oft there Where most it promises: and oft it hits, Where hope is coldest, and despaire most shifts King. I must not heare thee, fare thee wel kind maide, Thy paines not vs'd, must by thy selfe be paid, Proffers not tooke, reape thanks for their reward Hel. Inspired Merit so by breath is bard, It is not so with him that all things knowes As 'tis with vs, that square our guesse by showes: But most it is presumption in vs, when The help of heauen we count the act of men. Deare sir, to my endeauors giue consent, Of heauen, not me, make an experiment. I am not an Imposture, that proclaime My selfe against the leuill of mine aime, But know I thinke, and thinke I know most sure, My Art is not past power, nor you past cure King. Art thou so confident? Within what space Hop'st thou my cure? Hel. The greatest grace lending grace, Ere twice the horses of the sunne shall bring Their fiery torcher his diurnall ring, Ere twice in murke and occidentall dampe Moist Hesperus hath quench'd her sleepy Lampe: Or foure and twenty times the Pylots glasse Hath told the theeuish minutes, how they passe: What is infirme, from your sound parts shall flie, Health shall liue free, and sickenesse freely dye King. Vpon thy certainty and confidence, What dar'st thou venter? Hell. Taxe of impudence, A strumpets boldnesse, a divulged shame Traduc'd by odious ballads: my maidens name Seard otherwise, ne worse of worst extended With vildest torture, let my life be ended Kin. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak His powerfull sound, within an organ weake: And what impossibility would slay In common sence, sence saues another way: Thy life is deere, for all that life can rate Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate: Youth, beauty, wisedome, courage, all That happines and prime, can happy call: Thou this to hazard, needs must intimate Skill infinite, or monstrous desperate, Sweet practiser, thy Physicke I will try, That ministers thine owne death if I die Hel. If I breake time, or flinch in property Of what I spoke, vnpittied let me die, And well deseru'd: not helping, death's my fee, But if I helpe, what doe you promise me Kin. Make thy demand Hel. But will you make it euen? Kin. I by my Scepter, and my hopes of helpe Hel. Then shalt thou giue me with thy kingly hand What husband in thy power I will command: Exempted be from me the arrogance To choose from forth the royall bloud of France, My low and humble name to propagate With any branch or image of thy state: But such a one thy vassall, whom I know Is free for me to aske, thee to bestow Kin. Heere is my hand, the premises obseru'd, Thy will by my performance shall be seru'd: So make the choice of thy owne time, for I Thy resolv'd Patient, on thee still relye: More should I question thee, and more I must, Though more to know, could not be more to trust: From whence thou cam'st, how tended on, but rest Vnquestion'd welcome, and vndoubted blest. Giue me some helpe heere hoa, if thou proceed, As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed. Florish. Exit. Enter Countesse and Clowne. Lady. Come on sir, I shall now put you to the height of your breeding Clown. I will shew my selfe highly fed, and lowly taught, I know my businesse is but to the Court Lady. To the Court, why what place make you speciall, when you put off that with such contempt, but to the Court? Clo. Truly Madam, if God haue lent a man any manners, hee may easilie put it off at Court: hee that cannot make a legge, put off's cap, kisse his hand, and say nothing, has neither legge, hands, lippe, nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the Court, but for me, I haue an answere will serue all men Lady. Marry that's a bountifull answere that fits all questions Clo. It is like a Barbers chaire that fits all buttockes, the pin buttocke, the quatch-buttocke, the brawn buttocke, or any buttocke Lady. Will your answere serue fit to all questions? Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an Atturney, as your French Crowne for your taffety punke, as Tibs rush for Toms fore-finger, as a pancake for Shroue-tuesday, a Morris for May-day, as the naile to his hole, the Cuckold to his horne, as a scolding queane to a wrangling knaue, as the Nuns lip to the Friers mouth, nay as the pudding to his skin Lady. Haue you, I say, an answere of such fitnesse for all questions? Clo. From below your Duke, to beneath your Constable, it will fit any question Lady. It must be an answere of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands Clo. But a triflle neither in good faith, if the learned should speake truth of it: heere it is, and all that belongs to't. Aske mee if I am a Courtier, it shall doe you no harme to learne Lady. To be young againe if we could: I will bee a foole in question, hoping to bee the wiser by your answer La. I pray you sir, are you a Courtier? Clo. O Lord sir theres a simple putting off: more, more, a hundred of them La. Sir I am a poore freind of yours, that loues you Clo. O Lord sir, thicke, thicke, spare not me La. I thinke sir, you can eate none of this homely meate Clo. O Lord sir; nay put me too't, I warrant you La. You were lately whipt sir as I thinke Clo. O Lord sir, spare not me La. Doe you crie O Lord sir at your whipping, and spare not me? Indeed your O Lord sir, is very sequent to your whipping: you would answere very well to a whipping if you were but bound too't Clo. I nere had worse lucke in my life in my O Lord sir: I see things may serue long, but not serue euer La. I play the noble huswife with the time, to entertaine it so merrily with a foole Clo. O Lord sir, why there't serues well agen La. And end sir to your businesse: giue Hellen this, And vrge her to a present answer backe, Commend me to my kinsmen, and my sonne, This is not much Clo. Not much commendation to them La. Not much imployement for you, you vnderstand me Clo. Most fruitfully, I am there, before my legges La. Hast you agen. Exeunt. Enter Count, Lafew, and Parolles. Ol.Laf. They say miracles are past, and we haue our Philosophicall persons, to make moderne and familiar things supernaturall and causelesse. Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrours, ensconcing our selues into seeming knowledge, when we should submit our selues to an vnknowne feare Par. Why 'tis the rarest argument of wonder, that hath shot out in our latter times Ros. And so 'tis Ol.Laf. To be relinquisht of the Artists Par. So I say both of Galen and Paracelsus Ol.Laf. Of all the learned and authenticke fellowes Par. Right so I say Ol.Laf. That gaue him out incureable Par. Why there 'tis, so say I too Ol.Laf. Not to be help'd Par. Right, as 'twere a man assur'd of a- Ol.Laf. Vncertaine life, and sure death Par. Iust, you say well: so would I haue said Ol.Laf. I may truly say, it is a noueltie to the world Par. It is indeede if you will haue it in shewing, you shall reade it in what do ye call there Ol.Laf. A shewing of a heauenly effect in an earthly Actor Par. That's it, I would haue said, the verie same Ol.Laf. Why your Dolphin is not lustier: fore mee I speake in respect- Par. Nay 'tis strange, 'tis very straunge, that is the breefe and the tedious of it, and he's of a most facinerious spirit, that will not acknowledge it to be the- Ol.Laf. Very hand of heauen Par. I, so I say Ol.Laf. In a most weake- Par. And debile minister great power, great trancendence, which should indeede giue vs a further vse to be made, then alone the recou'ry of the king, as to bee Old Laf. Generally thankfull. Enter King, Hellen, and attendants. Par. I would haue said it, you say well: heere comes the King Ol.Laf. Lustique, as the Dutchman saies: Ile like a maide the Better whil'st I haue a tooth in my head: why he's able to leade her a Carranto Par. Mor du vinager, is not this Helen? Ol.Laf. Fore God I thinke so King. Goe call before mee all the Lords in Court, Sit my preseruer by thy patients side, And with this healthfull hand whose banisht sence Thou hast repeal'd, a second time receyue The confirmation of my promis'd guift, Which but attends thy naming. Enter 3 or 4 Lords. Faire Maide send forth thine eye, this youthfull parcell Of Noble Batchellors, stand at my bestowing, Ore whom both Soueraigne power, and fathers voice I haue to vse; thy franke election make, Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake Hel. To each of you, one faire and vertuous Mistris; Fall when loue please, marry to each but one Old Laf. I'de giue bay curtall, and his furniture My mouth no more were broken then these boyes, And writ as little beard King. Peruse them well: Not one of those, but had a Noble father. She addresses her to a Lord. Hel. Gentlemen, heauen hath through me, restor'd the king to health All. We vnderstand it, and thanke heauen for you Hel. I am a simple Maide, and therein wealthiest That I protest, I simply am a Maide: Please it your Maiestie, I haue done already: The blushes in my cheekes thus whisper mee, We blush that thou shouldst choose, but be refused; Let the white death sit on thy cheeke for euer, Wee'l nere come there againe King. Make choise and see, Who shuns thy loue, shuns all his loue in mee Hel. Now Dian from thy Altar do I fly, And to imperiall loue, that God most high Do my sighes streame: Sir, wil you heare my suite? 1.Lo. And grant it Hel. Thankes sir, all the rest is mute Ol.Laf. I had rather be in this choise, then throw Ames-ace for my life Hel. The honor sir that flames in your faire eyes, Before I speake too threatningly replies: Loue make your fortunes twentie times aboue Her that so wishes, and her humble loue 2.Lo. No better if you please Hel. My wish receiue, Which great loue grant, and so I take my leaue Ol.Laf. Do all they denie her? And they were sons of mine, I'de haue them whip'd, or I would send them to'th Turke to make Eunuches of Hel. Be not afraid that I your hand should take, Ile neuer do you wrong for your owne sake: Blessing vpon your vowes, and in your bed Finde fairer fortune, if you euer wed Old Laf. These boyes are boyes of Ice, they'le none haue heere: sure they are bastards to the English, the French nere got em La. You are too young, too happie, and too good To make your selfe a sonne out of my blood 4.Lord. Faire one, I thinke not so Ol.Lord There's one grape yet, I am sure thy father drunke wine. But if thou be'st not an asse, I am a youth of fourteene: I haue knowne thee already Hel. I dare not say I take you, but I giue Me and my seruice, euer whilst I liue Into your guiding power: This is the man King. Why then young Bertram take her shee's thy wife Ber. My wife my Leige? I shal beseech your highnes In such a busines, giue me leaue to vse The helpe of mine owne eies King. Know'st thou not Bertram what shee ha's done for mee? Ber. Yes my good Lord, but neuer hope to know why I should marrie her King. Thou know'st shee ha's rais'd me from my sickly bed Ber. But followes it my Lord, to bring me downe Must answer for your raising? I knowe her well: Shee had her breeding at my fathers charge: A poore Physitians daughter my wife? Disdaine Rather corrupt me euer King. Tis onely title thou disdainst in her, the which I can build vp: strange is it that our bloods Of colour, waight, and heat, pour'd all together, Would quite confound distinction: yet stands off In differences so mightie. If she bee All that is vertuous (saue what thou dislik'st) A poore Phisitians daughter, thou dislik'st Of vertue for the name: but doe not so: From lowest place, whence vertuous things proceed, The place is dignified by th' doers deede. Where great additions swell's, and vertue none, It is a dropsied honour. Good alone, Is good without a name? Vilenesse is so: The propertie by what is is, should go, Not by the title. Shee is young, wise, faire, In these, to Nature shee's immediate heire: And these breed honour: that is honours scorne, Which challenges it selfe as honours borne, And is not like the sire: Honours thriue, When rather from our acts we them deriue Then our fore-goers: the meere words, a slaue Debosh'd on euerie tombe, on euerie graue: A lying Trophee, and as oft is dumbe, Where dust, and damn'd obliuion is the Tombe. Of honour'd bones indeed, what should be saide? If thou canst like this creature, as a maide, I can create the rest: Vertue, and shee Is her owne dower: Honour and wealth, from mee Ber. I cannot loue her, nor will striue to doo't King. Thou wrong'st thy selfe, if thou shold'st striue to choose Hel. That you are well restor'd my Lord, I'me glad: Let the rest go King. My Honor's at the stake, which to defeate I must produce my power. Heere, take her hand, Proud scornfull boy, vnworthie this good gift, That dost in vile misprision shackle vp My loue, and her desert: that canst not dreame, We poizing vs in her defectiue scale, Shall weigh thee to the beame: That wilt not know, It is in Vs to plant thine Honour, where We please to haue it grow. Checke thy contempt: Obey Our will, which trauailes in thy good: Beleeue not thy disdaine, but presentlie Do thine owne fortunes that obedient right Which both thy dutie owes, and Our power claimes, Or I will throw thee from my care for euer Into the staggers, and the carelesse lapse Of youth and ignorance: both my reuenge and hate Loosing vpon thee, in the name of iustice, Without all termes of pittie. Speake, thine answer Ber. Pardon my gracious Lord: for I submit My fancie to your eies, when I consider What great creation, and what dole of honour Flies where you bid it: I finde that she which late Was in my Nobler thoughts, most base: is now The praised of the King, who so ennobled, Is as 'twere borne so King. Take her by the hand, And tell her she is thine: to whom I promise A counterpoize: If not to thy estate, A ballance more repleat Ber. I take her hand Kin. Good fortune, and the fauour of the King Smile vpon this Contract: whose Ceremonie Shall seeme expedient on the now borne briefe, And be perform'd to night: the solemne Feast Shall more attend vpon the coming space, Expecting absent friends. As thou lou'st her, Thy loue's to me Religious: else, do's erre. Exeunt. Parolles and Lafew stay behind, commenting of this wedding. Laf. Do you heare Monsieur? A word with you Par. Your pleasure sir Laf. Your Lord and Master did well to make his recantation Par. Recantation? My Lord? my Master? Laf. I: Is it not a Language I speake? Par. A most harsh one, and not to bee vnderstoode without bloudie succeeding. My Master? Laf. Are you Companion to the Count Rosillion? Par. To any Count, to all Counts: to what is man Laf. To what is Counts man: Counts maister is of another stile Par. You are too old sir: Let it satisfie you, you are too old Laf. I must tell thee sirrah, I write Man: to which title age cannot bring thee Par. What I dare too well do, I dare not do Laf. I did thinke thee for two ordinaries: to bee a prettie wise fellow, thou didst make tollerable vent of thy trauell, it might passe: yet the scarffes and the bannerets about thee, did manifoldlie disswade me from beleeuing thee a vessell of too great a burthen. I haue now found thee, when I loose thee againe, I care not: yet art thou good for nothing but taking vp, and that th'ourt scarce worth Par. Hadst thou not the priuiledge of Antiquity vpon thee Laf. Do not plundge thy selfe to farre in anger, least thou hasten thy triall: which if, Lord haue mercie on thee for a hen, so my good window of Lettice fare thee well, thy casement I neede not open, for I look through thee. Giue me thy hand Par. My Lord, you giue me most egregious indignity Laf. I with all my heart, and thou art worthy of it Par. I haue not my Lord deseru'd it Laf. Yes good faith, eu'ry dramme of it, and I will not bate thee a scruple Par. Well, I shall be wiser Laf. Eu'n as soone as thou can'st, for thou hast to pull at a smacke a'th contrarie. If euer thou bee'st bound in thy skarfe and beaten, thou shall finde what it is to be proud of thy bondage, I haue a desire to holde my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say in the default, he is a man I know Par. My Lord you do me most insupportable vexation Laf. I would it were hell paines for thy sake, and my poore doing eternall: for doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion age will giue me leaue. Enter. Par. Well, thou hast a sonne shall take this disgrace off me; scuruy, old, filthy, scuruy Lord: Well, I must be patient, there is no fettering of authority. Ile beate him (by my life) if I can meete him with any conuenience, and he were double and double a Lord. Ile haue no more pittie of his age then I would haue of- Ile beate him, and if I could but meet him agen. Enter Lafew. Laf. Sirra, your Lord and masters married, there's newes for you: you haue a new Mistris Par. I most vnfainedly beseech your Lordshippe to make some reseruation of your wrongs. He is my good Lord, whom I serue aboue is my master Laf. Who? God Par. I sir Laf. The deuill it is, that's thy master. Why dooest thou garter vp thy armes a this fashion? Dost make hose of thy sleeues? Do other seruants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine Honor, if I were but two houres yonger, I'de beate thee: mee-think'st thou art a generall offence, and euery man shold beate thee: I thinke thou wast created for men to breath themselues vpon thee Par. This is hard and vndeserued measure my Lord Laf. Go too sir, you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernell out of a Pomgranat, you are a vagabond, and no true traueller: you are more sawcie with Lordes and honourable personages, then the Commission of your birth and vertue giues you Heraldry. You are not worth another word, else I'de call you knaue. I leaue you. Exit Enter Count Rossillion. Par. Good, very good, it is so then: good, very good, let it be conceal'd awhile Ros. Vndone, and forfeited to cares for euer Par. What's the matter sweet-heart? Rossill. Although before the solemne Priest I haue sworne, I will not bed her Par. What? what sweet heart? Ros. O my Parrolles, they haue married me: Ile to the Tuscan warres, and neuer bed her Par. France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits, The tread of a mans foot: too'th warres Ros. There's letters from my mother: What th' import is, I know not yet Par. I that would be knowne: too'th warrs my boy, too'th warres: He weares his honor in a boxe vnseene, That hugges his kickie wickie heare at home, Spending his manlie marrow in her armes Which should sustaine the bound and high curuet Of Marses fierie steed: to other Regions, France is a stable, wee that dwell in't Iades, Therefore too'th warre Ros. It shall be so, Ile send her to my house, Acquaint my mother with my hate to her, And wherefore I am fled: Write to the King That which I durst not speake. His present gift Shall furnish me to those Italian fields Where noble fellowes strike: Warres is no strife To the darke house, and the detected wife Par. Will this Caprichio hold in thee, art sure? Ros. Go with me to my chamber, and aduice me. Ile send her straight away: To morrow, Ile to the warres, she to her single sorrow Par. Why these bals bound, ther's noise in it. Tis hard A yong man maried, is a man that's mard: Therefore away, and leaue her brauely: go, The King ha's done you wrong: but hush 'tis so. Exit Enter Helena and Clowne. Hel. My mother greets me kindly, is she well? Clo. She is not well, but yet she has her health, she's very merrie, but yet she is not well: but thankes be giuen she's very well, and wants nothing i'th world: but yet she is not well Hel. If she be verie wel, what do's she ayle, that she's not verie well? Clo. Truly she's very well indeed, but for two things Hel. What two things? Clo. One, that she's not in heauen, whether God send her quickly: the other, that she's in earth, from whence God send her quickly. Enter Parolles. Par. Blesse you my fortunate Ladie Hel. I hope sir I haue your good will to haue mine owne good fortune Par. You had my prayers to leade them on, and to keepe them on, haue them still. O my knaue, how do's my old Ladie? Clo. So that you had her wrinkles, and I her money, I would she did as you say Par. Why I say nothing Clo. Marry you are the wiser man: for many a mans tongue shakes out his masters vndoing: to say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to haue nothing, is to be a great part of your title, which is within a verie little of nothing Par. Away, th'art a knaue Clo. You should haue said sir before a knaue, th'art a knaue, that's before me th'art a knaue: this had beene truth sir Par. Go too, thou art a wittie foole, I haue found thee Clo. Did you finde me in your selfe sir, or were you taught to finde me? Clo. The search sir was profitable, and much Foole may you find in you, euen to the worlds pleasure, and the encrease of laughter Par. A good knaue ifaith, and well fed. Madam, my Lord will go awaie to night, A verie serrious businesse call's on him: The great prerogatiue and rite of loue, Which as your due time claimes, he do's acknowledge, But puts it off to a compell'd restraint: Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets Which they distill now in the curbed time, To make the comming houre oreflow with ioy, And pleasure drowne the brim Hel. What's his will else? Par. That you will take your instant leaue a'th king, And make this hast as your owne good proceeding, Strengthned with what Apologie you thinke May make it probable neede Hel. What more commands hee? Par. That hauing this obtain'd, you presentlie Attend his further pleasure Hel. In euery thing I waite vpon his will Par. I shall report it so. Exit Par. Hell. I pray you come sirrah. Exit Enter Lafew and Bertram. Laf. But I hope your Lordshippe thinkes not him a souldier Ber. Yes my Lord and of verie valiant approofe Laf. You haue it from his owne deliuerance Ber. And by other warranted testimonie Laf. Then my Diall goes not true, I tooke this Larke for a bunting Ber. I do assure you my Lord he is very great in knowledge, and accordinglie valiant Laf. I haue then sinn'd against his experience, and transgrest against his valour, and my state that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my heart to repent: Heere he comes, I pray you make vs freinds, I will pursue the amitie. Enter Parolles. Par. These things shall be done sir Laf. Pray you sir whose his Tailor? Par. Sir? Laf. O I know him well, I sir, hee sirs a good workeman, a verie good Tailor Ber. Is shee gone to the king? Par. Shee is Ber. Will shee away to night? Par. As you'le haue her Ber. I haue writ my letters, casketted my treasure, Giuen order for our horses, and to night, When I should take possession of the Bride, And ere I doe begin Laf. A good Trauailer is something at the latter end of a dinner, but on that lies three thirds, and vses a known truth to passe a thousand nothings with, should bee once hard, and thrice beaten. God saue you Captaine Ber. Is there any vnkindnes betweene my Lord and you Monsieur? Par. I know not how I haue deserued to run into my Lords displeasure Laf. You haue made shift to run into't, bootes and spurres and all: like him that leapt into the Custard, and out of it you'le runne againe, rather then suffer question for your residence Ber. It may bee you haue mistaken him my Lord Laf. And shall doe so euer, though I tooke him at's prayers. Fare you well my Lord, and beleeue this of me, there can be no kernell in this light Nut: the soule of this man is his cloathes: Trust him not in matter of heauie consequence: I haue kept of them tame, & know their natures. Farewell Monsieur, I haue spoken better of you, then you haue or will to deserue at my hand, but we must do good against euill Par. An idle Lord, I sweare Ber. I thinke so Par. Why do you not know him? Ber. Yes, I do know him well, and common speech Giues him a worthy passe. Heere comes my clog. Enter Helena. Hel. I haue sir as I was commanded from you Spoke with the King, and haue procur'd his leaue For present parting, onely he desires Some priuate speech with you Ber. I shall obey his will. You must not meruaile Helen at my course, Which holds not colour with the time, nor does The ministration, and required office On my particular. Prepar'd I was not For such a businesse, therefore am I found So much vnsetled: This driues me to intreate you, That presently you take your way for home, And rather muse then aske why I intreate you, For my respects are better then they seeme, And my appointments haue in them a neede Greater then shewes it selfe at the first view, To you that know them not. This to my mother, 'Twill be two daies ere I shall see you, so I leaue you to your wisedome Hel. Sir, I can nothing say, But that I am your most obedient seruant Ber. Come, come, no more of that Hel. And euer shall With true obseruance seeke to eeke out that Wherein toward me my homely starres haue faild To equall my great fortune Ber. Let that goe: my hast is verie great. Farwell: Hie home Hel. Pray sir your pardon Ber. Well, what would you say? Hel. I am not worthie of the wealth I owe, Nor dare I say 'tis mine: and yet it is, But like a timorous theefe, most faine would steale What law does vouch mine owne Ber. What would you haue? Hel. Something, and scarse so much: nothing indeed, I would not tell you what I would my Lord: Faith yes, Strangers and foes do sunder, and not kisse Ber. I pray you stay not, but in hast to horse Hel. I shall not breake your bidding, good my Lord: Where are my other men? Monsieur, farwell. Exit Ber. Go thou toward home, where I wil neuer come, Whilst I can shake my sword, or heare the drumme: Away, and for our flight Par. Brauely, Coragio.

The second act opens at the king of France's swanky palace, where a bunch of young noblemen are getting ready to run off to Italy to fight in that foreign war we mentioned earlier. The king of France is so old and sickly that he has to be carried into the room on a chair. He wishes everyone good luck getting their battle on and cheers for them to make France proud. Bertram is moping because the King thinks he's too young to go to war. Instead, he has to stay in France and go to a bunch of lame dances at court while all the other young guys get to slit the throats of enemy soldiers. Paroles and some of the Lords thinks he should run away to Italy and fight anyway. Then Paroles starts to brag about himself. He tells a big, made-up story about how he once whipped out his sword and sliced up some guy's cheek. He tells the French soldiers to be on the lookout for a guy with a giant scar on his face. When the lords leave, Paroles tries to give Bertram some advice about how to fit in with the other guys at court. They run off so that Bertram can practice being cool and fitting in. Lafeu enters and kneels down in front of the king . The king asks him to get off his knees and stand up, which leads to a snappy discussion about how Lafeu wishes the king was well enough to stand up himself. Lafeu says he knows a really great female doctor. She's so skillful that she could "araise King Pepin" . The king should give her a chance to cure his dreaded illness. Lafeu trots out Helen. He says he's going to leave Helen alone with the king and adds that he feels a little like "Cressid's uncle" . Gross. What does he think is going to happen here, exactly? Helen declares that she's the daughter of the famous doctor, Gerard de Narbonne, who, on his deathbed, left her a bunch of precious medicines and instructions on how to use them. She's here to cure the King of his illness. The king doesn't buy it. He says he's not about to let some maiden play doctor. The best physicians in the world haven't been able to cure him, so why should he think Helen can? After some back and forth bickering, Helen finally manages to change the king's mind. She argues that the king has nothing to lose; if she can't cure him, then hey, he's going to die anyway, right? She then promises that she can cure the king in 48 hours. The King notes that Helen seems pretty confident. What's she willing to stake on this? Helen says herreputation. After all, if she tries to cure the king's fistula and doesn't succeed, she'll be accused of being a strumpet . Sounds like a leap, but it makes sense. She knows what people will say when they find out she was alone with the king and had such intimate contact with his body. Lafeu is already cracking dirty jokes, and he knows why she's there. Fair enough, says the King. Then Helen gets the king to promise that she can marry anyone in his kingdom if she cures him. She makes a big deal about being the lowly daughter of a dead doctor and promises not to choose a member of the royal family.

It invariably happened in the same way. Mrs. Julius Beaufort, on the night of her annual ball, never failed to appear at the Opera; indeed, she always gave her ball on an Opera night in order to emphasise her complete superiority to household cares, and her possession of a staff of servants competent to organise every detail of the entertainment in her absence. The Beauforts' house was one of the few in New York that possessed a ball-room (it antedated even Mrs. Manson Mingott's and the Headly Chiverses'); and at a time when it was beginning to be thought "provincial" to put a "crash" over the drawing-room floor and move the furniture upstairs, the possession of a ball-room that was used for no other purpose, and left for three-hundred-and-sixty-four days of the year to shuttered darkness, with its gilt chairs stacked in a corner and its chandelier in a bag; this undoubted superiority was felt to compensate for whatever was regrettable in the Beaufort past. Mrs. Archer, who was fond of coining her social philosophy into axioms, had once said: "We all have our pet common people--" and though the phrase was a daring one, its truth was secretly admitted in many an exclusive bosom. But the Beauforts were not exactly common; some people said they were even worse. Mrs. Beaufort belonged indeed to one of America's most honoured families; she had been the lovely Regina Dallas (of the South Carolina branch), a penniless beauty introduced to New York society by her cousin, the imprudent Medora Manson, who was always doing the wrong thing from the right motive. When one was related to the Mansons and the Rushworths one had a "droit de cite" (as Mr. Sillerton Jackson, who had frequented the Tuileries, called it) in New York society; but did one not forfeit it in marrying Julius Beaufort? The question was: who was Beaufort? He passed for an Englishman, was agreeable, handsome, ill-tempered, hospitable and witty. He had come to America with letters of recommendation from old Mrs. Manson Mingott's English son-in-law, the banker, and had speedily made himself an important position in the world of affairs; but his habits were dissipated, his tongue was bitter, his antecedents were mysterious; and when Medora Manson announced her cousin's engagement to him it was felt to be one more act of folly in poor Medora's long record of imprudences. But folly is as often justified of her children as wisdom, and two years after young Mrs. Beaufort's marriage it was admitted that she had the most distinguished house in New York. No one knew exactly how the miracle was accomplished. She was indolent, passive, the caustic even called her dull; but dressed like an idol, hung with pearls, growing younger and blonder and more beautiful each year, she throned in Mr. Beaufort's heavy brown-stone palace, and drew all the world there without lifting her jewelled little finger. The knowing people said it was Beaufort himself who trained the servants, taught the chef new dishes, told the gardeners what hot-house flowers to grow for the dinner-table and the drawing-rooms, selected the guests, brewed the after-dinner punch and dictated the little notes his wife wrote to her friends. If he did, these domestic activities were privately performed, and he presented to the world the appearance of a careless and hospitable millionaire strolling into his own drawing-room with the detachment of an invited guest, and saying: "My wife's gloxinias are a marvel, aren't they? I believe she gets them out from Kew." Mr. Beaufort's secret, people were agreed, was the way he carried things off. It was all very well to whisper that he had been "helped" to leave England by the international banking-house in which he had been employed; he carried off that rumour as easily as the rest--though New York's business conscience was no less sensitive than its moral standard--he carried everything before him, and all New York into his drawing-rooms, and for over twenty years now people had said they were "going to the Beauforts'" with the same tone of security as if they had said they were going to Mrs. Manson Mingott's, and with the added satisfaction of knowing they would get hot canvas-back ducks and vintage wines, instead of tepid Veuve Clicquot without a year and warmed-up croquettes from Philadelphia. Mrs. Beaufort, then, had as usual appeared in her box just before the Jewel Song; and when, again as usual, she rose at the end of the third act, drew her opera cloak about her lovely shoulders, and disappeared, New York knew that meant that half an hour later the ball would begin. The Beaufort house was one that New Yorkers were proud to show to foreigners, especially on the night of the annual ball. The Beauforts had been among the first people in New York to own their own red velvet carpet and have it rolled down the steps by their own footmen, under their own awning, instead of hiring it with the supper and the ball-room chairs. They had also inaugurated the custom of letting the ladies take their cloaks off in the hall, instead of shuffling up to the hostess's bedroom and recurling their hair with the aid of the gas-burner; Beaufort was understood to have said that he supposed all his wife's friends had maids who saw to it that they were properly coiffees when they left home. Then the house had been boldly planned with a ball-room, so that, instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it (as at the Chiverses') one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed drawing-rooms (the sea-green, the crimson and the bouton d'or), seeing from afar the many-candled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry, and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and tree-ferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold bamboo. Newland Archer, as became a young man of his position, strolled in somewhat late. He had left his overcoat with the silk-stockinged footmen (the stockings were one of Beaufort's few fatuities), had dawdled a while in the library hung with Spanish leather and furnished with Buhl and malachite, where a few men were chatting and putting on their dancing-gloves, and had finally joined the line of guests whom Mrs. Beaufort was receiving on the threshold of the crimson drawing-room. Archer was distinctly nervous. He had not gone back to his club after the Opera (as the young bloods usually did), but, the night being fine, had walked for some distance up Fifth Avenue before turning back in the direction of the Beauforts' house. He was definitely afraid that the Mingotts might be going too far; that, in fact, they might have Granny Mingott's orders to bring the Countess Olenska to the ball. From the tone of the club box he had perceived how grave a mistake that would be; and, though he was more than ever determined to "see the thing through," he felt less chivalrously eager to champion his betrothed's cousin than before their brief talk at the Opera. Wandering on to the bouton d'or drawing-room (where Beaufort had had the audacity to hang "Love Victorious," the much-discussed nude of Bouguereau) Archer found Mrs. Welland and her daughter standing near the ball-room door. Couples were already gliding over the floor beyond: the light of the wax candles fell on revolving tulle skirts, on girlish heads wreathed with modest blossoms, on the dashing aigrettes and ornaments of the young married women's coiffures, and on the glitter of highly glazed shirt-fronts and fresh glace gloves. Miss Welland, evidently about to join the dancers, hung on the threshold, her lilies-of-the-valley in her hand (she carried no other bouquet), her face a little pale, her eyes burning with a candid excitement. A group of young men and girls were gathered about her, and there was much hand-clasping, laughing and pleasantry on which Mrs. Welland, standing slightly apart, shed the beam of a qualified approval. It was evident that Miss Welland was in the act of announcing her engagement, while her mother affected the air of parental reluctance considered suitable to the occasion. Archer paused a moment. It was at his express wish that the announcement had been made, and yet it was not thus that he would have wished to have his happiness known. To proclaim it in the heat and noise of a crowded ball-room was to rob it of the fine bloom of privacy which should belong to things nearest the heart. His joy was so deep that this blurring of the surface left its essence untouched; but he would have liked to keep the surface pure too. It was something of a satisfaction to find that May Welland shared this feeling. Her eyes fled to his beseechingly, and their look said: "Remember, we're doing this because it's right." No appeal could have found a more immediate response in Archer's breast; but he wished that the necessity of their action had been represented by some ideal reason, and not simply by poor Ellen Olenska. The group about Miss Welland made way for him with significant smiles, and after taking his share of the felicitations he drew his betrothed into the middle of the ball-room floor and put his arm about her waist. "Now we shan't have to talk," he said, smiling into her candid eyes, as they floated away on the soft waves of the Blue Danube. She made no answer. Her lips trembled into a smile, but the eyes remained distant and serious, as if bent on some ineffable vision. "Dear," Archer whispered, pressing her to him: it was borne in on him that the first hours of being engaged, even if spent in a ball-room, had in them something grave and sacramental. What a new life it was going to be, with this whiteness, radiance, goodness at one's side! The dance over, the two, as became an affianced couple, wandered into the conservatory; and sitting behind a tall screen of tree-ferns and camellias Newland pressed her gloved hand to his lips. "You see I did as you asked me to," she said. "Yes: I couldn't wait," he answered smiling. After a moment he added: "Only I wish it hadn't had to be at a ball." "Yes, I know." She met his glance comprehendingly. "But after all--even here we're alone together, aren't we?" "Oh, dearest--always!" Archer cried. Evidently she was always going to understand; she was always going to say the right thing. The discovery made the cup of his bliss overflow, and he went on gaily: "The worst of it is that I want to kiss you and I can't." As he spoke he took a swift glance about the conservatory, assured himself of their momentary privacy, and catching her to him laid a fugitive pressure on her lips. To counteract the audacity of this proceeding he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less secluded part of the conservatory, and sitting down beside her broke a lily-of-the-valley from her bouquet. She sat silent, and the world lay like a sunlit valley at their feet. "Did you tell my cousin Ellen?" she asked presently, as if she spoke through a dream. He roused himself, and remembered that he had not done so. Some invincible repugnance to speak of such things to the strange foreign woman had checked the words on his lips. "No--I hadn't the chance after all," he said, fibbing hastily. "Ah." She looked disappointed, but gently resolved on gaining her point. "You must, then, for I didn't either; and I shouldn't like her to think--" "Of course not. But aren't you, after all, the person to do it?" She pondered on this. "If I'd done it at the right time, yes: but now that there's been a delay I think you must explain that I'd asked you to tell her at the Opera, before our speaking about it to everybody here. Otherwise she might think I had forgotten her. You see, she's one of the family, and she's been away so long that she's rather--sensitive." Archer looked at her glowingly. "Dear and great angel! Of course I'll tell her." He glanced a trifle apprehensively toward the crowded ball-room. "But I haven't seen her yet. Has she come?" "No; at the last minute she decided not to." "At the last minute?" he echoed, betraying his surprise that she should ever have considered the alternative possible. "Yes. She's awfully fond of dancing," the young girl answered simply. "But suddenly she made up her mind that her dress wasn't smart enough for a ball, though we thought it so lovely; and so my aunt had to take her home." "Oh, well--" said Archer with happy indifference. Nothing about his betrothed pleased him more than her resolute determination to carry to its utmost limit that ritual of ignoring the "unpleasant" in which they had both been brought up. "She knows as well as I do," he reflected, "the real reason of her cousin's staying away; but I shall never let her see by the least sign that I am conscious of there being a shadow of a shade on poor Ellen Olenska's reputation."

After the Opera, everyone goes to the Beauforts1 home for the annual ball. He keeps a huge room in his house dedicated solely to the annual ball. It sits vacant 364 days in the year. There, May announces to friends that she is engaged. Newland and May dance and, as is appropriate, sit alone in the conservatory where they sneak a kiss while no one is looking. Newland asks if Ellen has come to the ball; he hopes that she has not come because of her ill reputation. May replies that Ellen did not feel her dress was pretty enough to attend the ball, so she went home. Newland is glad that May understands propriety so well that she know when not to discuss the "real" reason why Ellen decided not to come: her bad reputation.

Enter Gardiner Bishop of Winchester, a Page with a Torch before him, met by Sir Thomas Louell. Gard. It's one a clocke Boy, is't not Boy. It hath strooke Gard. These should be houres for necessities, Not for delights: Times to repayre our Nature With comforting repose, and not for vs To waste these times. Good houre of night Sir Thomas: Whether so late? Lou. Came you from the King, my Lord? Gar. I did Sir Thomas, and left him at Primero With the Duke of Suffolke Lou. I must to him too Before he go to bed. Ile take my leaue Gard. Not yet Sir Thomas Louell: what's the matter? It seemes you are in hast: and if there be No great offence belongs too't, giue your Friend Some touch of your late businesse: Affaires that walke (As they say Spirits do) at midnight, haue In them a wilder Nature, then the businesse That seekes dispatch by day Lou. My Lord, I loue you; And durst commend a secret to your eare Much waightier then this worke. The Queens in Labor They say in great Extremity, and fear'd Shee'l with the Labour, end Gard. The fruite she goes with I pray for heartily, that it may finde Good time, and liue: but for the Stocke Sir Thomas, I wish it grubb'd vp now Lou. Me thinkes I could Cry the Amen, and yet my Conscience sayes Shee's a good Creature, and sweet-Ladie do's Deserue our better wishes Gard. But Sir, Sir, Heare me Sir Thomas, y'are a Gentleman Of mine owne way. I know you Wise, Religious, And let me tell you, it will ne're be well, 'Twill not Sir Thomas Louell, tak't of me, Till Cranmer, Cromwel, her two hands, and shee Sleepe in their Graues Louell. Now Sir, you speake of two The most remark'd i'th' Kingdome: as for Cromwell, Beside that of the Iewell-House, is made Master O'th' Rolles, and the Kings Secretary. Further Sir, Stands in the gap and Trade of moe Preferments, With which the Lime will loade him. Th' Archbyshop Is the Kings hand, and tongue, and who dare speak One syllable against him? Gard. Yes, yes, Sir Thomas, There are that Dare, and I my selfe haue ventur'd To speake my minde of him: and indeed this day, Sir (I may tell it you) I thinke I haue Incenst the Lords o'th' Councell, that he is (For so I know he is, they know he is) A most Arch-Heretique, a Pestilence That does infect the Land: with which, they moued Haue broken with the King, who hath so farre Giuen eare to our Complaint, of his great Grace, And Princely Care, fore-seeing those fell Mischiefes, Our Reasons layd before him, hath commanded To morrow Morning to the Councell Boord He be conuented. He's a ranke weed Sir Thomas, And we must root him out. From your Affaires I hinder you too long: Good night, Sir Thomas. Exit Gardiner and Page. Lou. Many good nights, my Lord, I rest your seruant. Enter King and Suffolke. King. Charles, I will play no more to night, My mindes not on't, you are too hard for me Suff. Sir, I did neuer win of you before King. But little Charles, Nor shall not when my Fancies on my play. Now Louel, from the Queene what is the Newes Lou. I could not personally deliuer to her What you commanded me, but by her woman, I sent your Message, who return'd her thankes In the great'st humblenesse, and desir'd your Highnesse Most heartily to pray for her King. What say'st thou? Ha? To pray for her? What is she crying out? Lou. So said her woman, and that her suffrance made Almost each pang, a death King. Alas good Lady Suf. God safely quit her of her Burthen, and With gentle Trauaile, to the gladding of Your Highnesse with an Heire King. 'Tis midnight Charles, Prythee to bed, and in thy Prayres remember Th' estate of my poore Queene. Leaue me alone, For I must thinke of that, which company Would not be friendly too Suf. I wish your Highnesse A quiet night, and my good Mistris will Remember in my Prayers King. Charles good night. Exit Suffolke. Well Sir, what followes? Enter Sir Anthony Denny. Den. Sir, I haue brought my Lord the Arch-byshop, As you commanded me King. Ha? Canterbury? Den. I my good Lord King. 'Tis true: where is he Denny? Den. He attends your Highnesse pleasure King. Bring him to Vs Lou. This is about that, which the Byshop spake, I am happily come hither. Enter Cranmer and Denny. King. Auoyd the Gallery. Louel seemes to stay. Ha? I haue said. Be gone. What? Exeunt. Louell and Denny. Cran. I am fearefull: Wherefore frownes he thus? 'Tis his Aspect of Terror. All's not well King. How now my Lord? You do desire to know wherefore I sent for you Cran. It is my dutie T' attend your Highnesse pleasure King. Pray you arise My good and gracious Lord of Canterburie: Come, you and I must walke a turne together: I haue Newes to tell you. Come, come, giue me your hand. Ah my good Lord, I greeue at what I speake, And am right sorrie to repeat what followes. I haue, and most vnwillingly of late Heard many greeuous, I do say my Lord Greeuous complaints of you; which being consider'd, Haue mou'd Vs, and our Councell, that you shall This Morning come before vs, where I know You cannot with such freedome purge your selfe, But that till further Triall, in those Charges Which will require your Answer, you must take Your patience to you, and be well contented To make your house our Towre: you, a Brother of vs It fits we thus proceed, or else no witnesse Would come against you Cran. I humbly thanke your Highnesse, And am right glad to catch this good occasion Most throughly to be winnowed, where my Chaffe And Corne shall flye asunder. For I know There's none stands vnder more calumnious tongues, Then I my selfe, poore man King. Stand vp, good Canterbury, Thy Truth, and thy Integrity is rooted In vs thy Friend. Giue me thy hand, stand vp, Prythee let's walke. Now by my Holydame, What manner of man are you? My Lord, I look'd You would haue giuen me your Petition, that I should haue tane some paines, to bring together Your selfe, and your Accusers, and to haue heard you Without indurance further Cran. Most dread Liege, The good I stand on, is my Truth and Honestie: If they shall faile, I with mine Enemies Will triumph o're my person, which I waigh not, Being of those Vertues vacant. I feare nothing What can be said against me King. Know you not How your state stands i'th' world, with the whole world? Your Enemies are many, and not small; their practises Must beare the same proportion, and not euer The Iustice and the Truth o'th' question carries The dew o'th' Verdict with it; at what ease Might corrupt mindes procure, Knaues as corrupt To sweare against you: Such things haue bene done. You are Potently oppos'd, and with a Malice Of as great Size. Weene you of better lucke, I meane in periur'd Witnesse, then your Master, Whose Minister you are, whiles heere he liu'd Vpon this naughty Earth? Go too, go too, You take a Precepit for no leape of danger, And woe your owne destruction Cran. God, and your Maiesty Protect mine innocence, or I fall into The trap is laid for me King. Be of good cheere, They shall no more preuaile, then we giue way too: Keepe comfort to you, and this Morning see You do appeare before them. If they shall chance In charging you with matters, to commit you: The best perswasions to the contrary Faile not to vse, and with what vehemencie Th' occasion shall instruct you. If intreaties Will render you no remedy, this Ring Deliuer them, and your Appeale to vs There make before them. Looke, the goodman weeps: He's honest on mine Honor. Gods blest Mother, I sweare he is true-hearted, and a soule None better in my Kingdome. Get you gone, And do as I haue bid you. Exit Cranmer. He ha's strangled his Language in his teares. Enter Olde Lady. Gent. within. Come backe: what meane you? Lady. Ile not come backe, the tydings that I bring Will make my boldnesse, manners. Now good Angels Fly o're thy Royall head, and shade thy person Vnder their blessed wings King. Now by thy lookes I gesse thy Message. Is the Queene deliuer'd? Say I, and of a boy Lady. I, I my Liege, And of a louely Boy: the God of heauen Both now, and euer blesse her: 'Tis a Gyrle Promises Boyes heereafter. Sir, your Queen Desires your Visitation, and to be Acquainted with this stranger; 'tis as like you, As Cherry, is to Cherry King. Louell Lou. Sir King. Giue her an hundred Markes. Ile to the Queene. Exit King. Lady. An hundred Markes? By this light, Ile ha more. An ordinary Groome is for such payment. I will haue more, or scold it out of him. Said I for this, the Gyrle was like to him? Ile Haue more, or else vnsay't: and now, while 'tis hot, Ile put it to the issue. Exit Ladie.

This scene occurs in the palace, in the early hour of the morning. As Lovell is on his way to the King, he encounters Gardiner and informs him that the Queen is in labor and it is feared that she may lose her life. Gardiner expresses his deep resentment against the Queen, Cromwell and Cranmer. When Lovell cautions her against doing he reveals that many council members seek Cranmers destruction. The King is deeply disturbed when he is informed that the queen is in immense pain. Sir Anthony Denny informs him that archbishop has come to see him as per orders, and the King asks to be left alone with Cranmer. He reveals to the latter that many complaints had been received against him and hence he will be confined to the tower while the council tries his case. Cranmer realizes the enormity of the situation and asks for the Kings help. The King gives Cranmer his personal ring. Presenting this will allow Cranmer to appeal directly to the King. Cranmer is tearful in expressing his gratitude as he takes leave of the King. An old lady brings news of the birth of a girl and the queens welfare to the King. He departs to see them. Before leaving he commands Lovell to give the old lady some money as reward for bringing him this good news.

_24 July. Whitby._--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town--the side away from us--are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and talk. The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens. It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he is coming this way.... He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely:-- "I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an' lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be bothered tellin' lies to them--even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk." I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:-- "I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn't like to be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of 'em; an', miss, I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock." He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of them--I do not know how many--and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did not go. They will be home by this. * * * * * _1 August._--I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admit anything, and downfaces everybody. If he can't out-argue them he bullies them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down:-- "It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that's what it be, an' nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' barguests an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women a-belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an' all grims an' signs an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome beuk-bodies an' railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do somethin' that they don't other incline to. It makes me ireful to think o' them. Why, it's them that, not content with printin' lies on paper an' preachin' them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin' them on the tombstones. Look here all around you in what airt ye will; all them steans, holdin' up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, is acant--simply tumblin' down with the weight o' the lies wrote on them, 'Here lies the body' or 'Sacred to the memory' wrote on all of them, an' yet in nigh half of them there bean't no bodies at all; an' the memories of them bean't cared a pinch of snuff about, much less sacred. Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or another! My gog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they come tumblin' up in their death-sarks, all jouped together an' tryin' to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of them trimmlin' and ditherin', with their hands that dozzened an' slippy from lyin' in the sea that they can't even keep their grup o' them." I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was "showing off," so I put in a word to keep him going:-- "Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong?" "Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin' where they make out the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl be like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here; you come here a stranger, an' you see this kirk-garth." I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He went on: "And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be happed here, snod an' snog?" I assented again. "Then that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these lay-beds that be toom as old Dun's 'bacca-box on Friday night." He nudged one of his companions, and they all laughed. "And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest abaft the bier-bank: read it!" I went over and read:-- "Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, aet. 30." When I came back Mr. Swales went on:-- "Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! an' you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above"--he pointed northwards--"or where the currents may have drifted them. There be the steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small-print of the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey--I knew his father, lost in the _Lively_ off Greenland in '20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in '50. Do ye think that all these men will have to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums aboot it! I tell ye that when they got here they'd be jommlin' an' jostlin' one another that way that it 'ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an' tryin' to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis." This was evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in with gusto. "But," I said, "surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary?" "Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!" "To please their relatives, I suppose." "To please their relatives, you suppose!" This he said with intense scorn. "How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?" He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. "Read the lies on that thruff-stean," he said. The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read:-- "Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. 'He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.' Really, Mr. Swales, I don't see anything very funny in that!" She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely. "Ye don't see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that's because ye don't gawm the sorrowin' mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was acrewk'd--a regular lamiter he was--an' he hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn't get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin' the crows with. 'Twarn't for crows then, for it brought the clegs and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard him say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was so pious that she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle where she was. Now isn't that stean at any rate"--he hammered it with his stick as he spoke--"a pack of lies? and won't it make Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes pantin' up the grees with the tombstean balanced on his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence!" I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she said, rising up:-- "Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide." "That won't harm ye, my pretty; an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt ye. Why, I've sat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't done me no harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn' lie there either! It'll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field. There's the clock, an' I must gang. My service to ye, ladies!" And off he hobbled. Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I haven't heard from Jonathan for a whole month. * * * * * _The same day._ I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly; they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next the abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of a donkey's hoofs up the paved road below. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and further along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _5 June._--The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed; selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: "May I have three days? I shall clear them away." Of course, I said that would do. I must watch him. * * * * * _18 June._--He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room. * * * * * _1 July._--His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little note-book in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he were "focussing" some account, as the auditors put it. * * * * * _8 July._--There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I might notice if there were any change. Things remain as they were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food. * * * * * _19 July._--We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour--a very, very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice and bearing:-- "A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feed--and feed--and feed!" I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered:-- "Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?" I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more. * * * * * _10 p. m._--I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it. I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early. * * * * * _20 July._--Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his fly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if there were anything odd about him during the day. * * * * * _11 a. m._--The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. "My belief is, doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!" * * * * * _11 p. m._--I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zooephagous (life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect--the knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind--did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic--I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brain-knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally? How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives? To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work! If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there--a good, unselfish cause to make me work--that would be indeed happiness. _Mina Murray's Journal._ _26 July._--I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan; I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy's father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood--he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming--is coming up here very shortly--as soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he arrives. * * * * * _27 July._--No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him, though why I should I do not know; but I do wish that he would write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually being wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that anaemic look which she had. I pray it will all last. * * * * * _3 August._--Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for the key. _6 August._--Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey--except the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock; grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a "brool" over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem "men like trees walking." The fishing-boats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk.... I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:-- "I want to say something to you, miss." I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:-- "I'm afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I've been sayin' about the dead, and such like, for weeks past; but I didn't mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I'm gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don't altogether like to think of it, and we don't want to feel scart of it; an' that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a bit; only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect; and I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' his scythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all at once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an' greet, my deary!"--for he saw that I was crying--"if he should come this very night I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin'; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's comin' to me, my deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin' and wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringin' with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!" he cried suddenly. "There's something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's in the air; I feel it comin'. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes!" He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me very much. I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship. "I can't make her out," he said; "she's a Russian, by the look of her; but she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before this time to-morrow."

Taken from the July 24th and August 1st entries of Mina Murray's journal; the June 5th, June 18th, July 1st, July 8th, July 19th, July 20th; the July 26th, July 27th, and August 3rd, August 6th entries of Mina Murray's journal. As Mina said she would, she keeps a diary during her visit to Lucy. The two women are in the quaint seaside town of Whitby, on the northeast coast of England. She describes the beauty of the area and it's quaint provincial history. There is a ruined abbey nearby that is supposedly haunted by a "white lady. The town church has a large graveyard, but the grounds are pleasant and the view is beautiful. Many townspeople go on strolls there during the day. Lucy and Mina become friends with a gruff, no-nonsense local named Mr. Swales. He is a grandfatherly figure, speaking in dialect and full of provincial wisdom. He knows a good deal of the local history, and Mina and Lucy spend long hours talking to him about the area. However, Mina sorely misses Jonathan. He is not yet home, nor has he written in a long time. Dr. Seward reports on the strange behavior of Renfield. Renfield is fascinated by animals that devour each other. He catches flies and feeds them to spiders, and he also eats the insects himself. He catches some sparrows and begins feeding the spiders to them, and he eventually asks Dr. Seward if he can have a kitten. Dr. Seward refuses. The next day, the sparrows are gone. Dr. Seward asks where they went, and Renfield responds cryptically that they all "flew away," but there are feathers around the room and blood on Renfield's pillow. Later, he vomits up feathers. Seward invents a new classification for Renfield, calling him a "zoophagous" maniac. Renfield seeks to "absorb as many lives as he can. Dr. Seward's journal reveals a wish to experiment further on Renfield, although the idea seems to trouble him ethically. And he expresses a wistful envy for Renfield, because the madman has a purpose. Dr. Seward is still depressed about his rejection by Lucy, and is trying to throw himself into work. In Whitby, Mina is growing more worried about Jonathan and Lucy. Jonathan has not written, and Lucy has returned to her old childhood habit of sleepwalking. Lucy encounters Mr. Swales while she is out on a walk, and the old man tells her that he senses his own death is nigh. At that moment, they see a great ship out at sea, moving as if no one were at the helm.

OF THE USE OF FEET The suburb of Cottonville bordered a creek, a starveling, wet-weather stream which offered the sole suggestion of sewerage. The village was cut in two by this natural division. It clung to the shelving sides of the shallow ravine; it was scattered like bits of refuse on the numerous railroad embankments, where building was unhandy and streets almost impossible, to be convenient to the mills. Six big factories in all, some on one side of the state line and some on the other, daily breathed in their live current of operatives and exhaled them again to fill the litter of flimsy shanties. The road which wound down from the heights ran through the middle of the village and formed its main street. Across the ravine from it, reached by a wooden bridge, stood a pretentious frame edifice, a boarding-house built by the Gloriana mill for the use of its office force and mechanics. Men were lounging on the wide porches of this structure in Sabbath-afternoon leisure, smoking and singing. The young Southern male of any class is usually melodious. Across the hollow came the sounds of a guitar and a harmonica. "Listen a minute, Shade. Ain't that pretty? I know that tune," said Johnnie, and she began to hum softly under her breath, her girlish heart responding to the call. "Hush," admonished Buckheath harshly. "You don't want to be runnin' after them fellers. It's some of the loom-fixers." In silence he led the way past the great mill buildings of red brick, square and unlovely but many-windowed and glowing, alight, throbbing with the hum of pent industry. Johnnie gazed steadily up at those windows; the glow within was other than that which gilded turret and pinnacle and fairy isle in the Western sky, yet perchance this light might be a lamp to the feet of one who wished to climb that way. Her adventurous spirit rose to the challenge, and she said softly, more to herself than to the man: "I'm a-goin' to be a boss hand in there. I'm goin' to get the highest wages of any girl in the mill, time I learn my trade, because I'm goin' to try harder 'n anybody." Shade looked around at her, curiously. Her beauty, her air of superiority, still repelled him--such fancy articles were not apt to be of much use--but this sounded like a woman who might be valuable to her master. Johnnie returned his gaze with the frank good will of a child, and suddenly he forgot everything but the adorable lift of her pink lip over the shining white teeth. The young fellow now halted at the step of a big frame house. The outside was of an extent to seem fairly pretentious; yet so mean was the construction, so sparing of window and finish, that the building showed itself instantly for what it was--the cheap boarding-house of a mill town. A group of tired-looking girls sitting on the step in blessed Sunday idleness and cheap Sunday finery stared as he and Johnnie ascended and crossed the porch. One of these, a tall lank woman of perhaps thirty years, got up and followed a few hesitating paces, apparently more as a matter of curiosity than with any hospitable intent. A man with a round red face and a bald pate whose curly fringe of grizzled, reddish hair made him look like a clown in a pantomime, motioned them with a surly thumb toward the back of the house, where clattering preparations for supper were audible and odoriferous. The old fellow sat in a splint-bottomed chair of extra size and with arms. This he had kicked back against the wall of the house, so that his short legs did not reach the floor, the big carpet-slippered feet finding rest on the rung of the chair. His attitude was one of relaxation. The face, broad, flat, small of eye and wide of mouth, did indeed suggest the clown countenance; yet there was in it, and in the whole personality, something of the Eastern idol, the journeyman attempt of crude humanity to represent power. And the potential cruelty of the type slept in his placid countenance as surely as ever in the dreaming face of Shiva, the destroyer. "Mrs. Bence--Aunt Mavity," called Shade, advancing into the narrow hall. In answer a tired-faced woman came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her checked apron. "Good Lord, if it ain't Johnnie! I was 'feared she Wouldn't git here to-night," she ejaculated when she saw the girl. "Take her out on the porch, Shade; I ain't got a minute now. Pap's poorly again, and I'm obliged to put the late supper on the table for them thar gals--the night shift's done eat and gone. I'll show her whar she's to sleep at, after while. I don't just rightly know whar Pap aimed to have her stay," she concluded hastily, as something boiled over on the stove. Johnnie set her bundle down in the corner of the kitchen. "I'll help," she said simply, as she drew the excited coffee-pot to a corner of the range and dosed it judiciously with cold water. "Well, now, that's mighty good of you," panted worried Mavity Bence. "How queer things comes 'round," she ruminated as they dished up the biscuits and fried pork. "I helped you into the very world, Johnnie. I lived neighbour to your maw, and they wasn't nobody else to be with her when you was born, and I went over. I never suspicioned that you would be helpin' me git supper down here in the settlement inside o' twenty year." Johnnie ran and fetched and carried, as though she had never done anything else in her life, intent on the one task. She was alive in every fibre of her young body; she saw, she heard, as these words cannot always be truthfully applied to people. "Did Shade tell you anything about Louvania?" inquired the woman at length. "No," replied Johnnie softly, "but I seen it in the paper." Louvania Bence, the only remaining child of the widow, had, two weeks before, left her work at the mill, taken the trolley in to Watauga, walked out upon the county bridge across the Tennessee and jumped off. Johnnie had read the published account, passed from hand to hand in the mountains where Pap Himes and Mavity Bence had troops of kin and where Louvania was born. The statement ran that there was no love affair, and that the girl's distaste for her work at the cotton mill must have been the reason for the suicide. "That there talk in the newspaper wasn't right," Louvania's mother choked. "They wasn't a word of truth in it. You know in reason that if Louvany hated to work in the mill as bad as all that she'd have named it to me--her own mother--and she never did. She never spoke a word like it, only to say now and ag'in, as we all do, that it was hard, and that she'd--well, she did 'low she'd ruther be dead, as gals will; but she couldn't have meant it. Do you think she could have meant it, Johnnie?" The faded eyes, clouded now by tears, stared up into Johnnie's clear young orbs. "Of course she couldn't have meant it," Johnnie comforted her. "Why, I'm sure it's fine to work in the mill. If she didn't feel so, she'd have told you the thing. She must have been out of her mind. People always are when they--do that." "That's what I keep a-thinkin'," the poor mother said, clinging pathetically to that which gave her consolation and cheer. "I say to myself that it must have been some brain disease took her all of a sudden and made her crazy that-a-way; because God knows she had nothing to fret her nor drive her to such." By this time the meal was on the table, and the girls trooped in from the porch. The old man with the bald pate was seating himself at the head of the board, and Johnnie asked the privilege of helping wait on table. "No, you ain't a-goin' to," Mrs. Bence said hospitably, pushing her into a seat. "If you start in to work in the morning, like I reckon you will, you ain't got no other time to get acquainted with the gals but right now. You set down. We don't take much waitin' on. We all pass things, and reach for what we want." In the smoky illumination of the two ill-cleaned lamps which stood one at each end of the table, Johnnie's fair face shone out like a star. The tall woman who had shown a faint interest in them on the porch was seated just opposite. Her bulging light-blue eyes scarcely left the newcomer's countenance as she absent-mindedly filled her mouth. She was a scant, stringy-looking creature, despite her height; the narrow back was hooped like that of an old woman and the shoulders indrawn, so that the chest was cramped, and sent forth a wheezy, flatted voice that sorted ill with her inches; her round eyes had no speculation in them; her short chin was obstinate without power; the thin, half-gray hair that wanted to curl feebly about her lined forehead was stripped away and twisted in a knot no bigger than a walnut, at the back of a bent head. For some time the old man at the end of the table stowed himself methodically with victuals; his air was that of a man packing a box; then he brought his implements to half-rest, as it were, and gave a divided attention to the new boarder. "What did I hear them call yo' name?" he inquired gruffly. Johnnie repeated her title and gave him one of those smiles that went with most of her speeches. It seemed to suggest things to the old sinner. "Huh," he grunted; "I riccollect ye now. Yo' pap was a Consadine, but you're old Virgil Passmore's grandchild. One of the borryin' Passmores," he added, staring coolly at Johnnie. "Virge was a fine, upstandin' old man. You've got the favour of him--if you wasn't a gal." He evidently shared Schopenhauer's distaste for "the low-statured, wide-hipped, narrow-shouldered sex." The girls about the table were all listening eagerly. Johnnie had the sensation of a freshman who has walked out on the campus too well dressed. "Virge was a great beau in his day," continued Pap, reminiscently. "He liked to wear good clothes, too. I mind how he borried Abner Wimberly's weddin' coat and wore it something like ten year--showed it off fine--it fitted him enough sight better than it ever fitted little old Ab. Then he comes back to Wimberly at the end of so long a time with the buttons. He says, says he, 'Looks like that thar cloth yo' coat was made of wasn't much 'count, Ab,' says he. 'I think Jeeters cheated ye on it. But the buttons was good. The buttons wore well. And them I'm bringin' back, 'caze you may have use for 'em, and I have none, now the coat's gone. Also, what I borry I return, as everybody knows.' That was your granddaddy." There was a tremendous giggling about the board as the old man made an end. Johnnie herself smiled, though her face was scarlet. She had no words to tell her tormentor that the borrowing trait in her tribe which had earned them the name of the borrowing Passmores proceeded not from avarice, which ate into Pap Himes's very marrow, but from its reverse trait of generosity. She knew vaguely that they would have shared with a neighbour their last bite or dollar, and had thus never any doubt of being shared with nor any shame in the asking. "Yes," pursued Himes, surveying Johnnie chucklingly, "I mind when you was born. Has your Uncle Pros found his silver mine yet?" "My mother has often told me how good you and Mrs. Bence was to us when I was little," answered Johnnie mildly. "No, sir, Uncle Pros hasn't found his silver mine yet--but he's still a-hunting for it." The reply appeared to delight Himes. He laughed immoderately, even as Buckheath had done. "I'll bet he is," he agreed. "Pros Passmore's goin' to hunt that there silver mine till he finds another hole in the ground about six feet long and six feet deep--that's what he's a-goin' to do." The hasty supper was well under way now. Mrs. Bence brought the last of the hot bread, and shuffled into a seat. The old man at the head of the board returned to his feeding, but with somewhat moderated voracity. At length, pretty fully gorged, he raised his head from over his plate and looked about him for diversion. Again his attention was directed to the new girl. "Air ye wedded?" he challenged suddenly. She shook her head and laughed. "Got your paigs sot for to git any one?" he followed up his investigations. Johnnie laughed more than ever, and blushed again. "How old air ye?" demanded her inquisitor. "Eighteen? 'Most nineteen? Good Lord! You're a old maid right now. Well, don't you let twenty go by without gittin' your hooks on a man. My experience is that when a gal gits to be twenty an' ain't wedded--or got her paigs sot for to wed--she's left. Left," he concluded impressively. That quick smile of Johnnie's responded. "I reckon I'll do my best," she agreed reasonably; "but some folks can do that and miss it." Himes nodded till he set the little red curls all bobbing around the bare spot. "Uh-huh," he approved, "I reckon that's so. Women is plenty, and men hard to git. Here's Mandy Meacham, been puttin' in her best licks for thirty year or more, an' won't never make it." Johnnie did not need to be told which one was Mandy. The sallow cheek of the tall woman across from her reddened; the short chin wabbled a bit more than the mastication of the biscuit in hand demanded; a moisture appeared in the inexpressive blue eyes; but she managed a shaky laugh to assist the chorus which always followed Pap Himes's little jokes. The old man held a sort of state among these poor girls, and took tribute of admiration, as he had taken tribute of life and happiness from daughter and granddaughter. Gideon Himes was not actively a bad man; he was as without personal malice as malaria. When it makes miserable those about it, or robs a girl of her pink cheeks, her bright eyes, her joy of life, wearing the elasticity out of her step and making an old woman of her before her time, we do not fly into a rage at it--we avoid it. The Pap Himeses of this world are to be avoided if possible. Mandy stared at her plate in mortified silence. Johnnie wished she could think of something pleasant to say to the poor thing, when her attention was diverted by the old man once more addressing herself. "You look stout and hearty; if you learn to weave as fast as you ort, and git so you can tend five or six looms, I'll bet you git a husband," he remarked in a burst of generosity. "I'll bet you do; and what's more, I'll speak a good word for ye. A gal that's a peart weaver's mighty apt to find a man. You learn your looms if you want to git wedded--and I know in reason you do--it's about all gals of your age thinks of." When supper was over Johnnie was a little surprised to see the tall woman approach Pap Himes like a small child begging a favour of a harsh taskmaster. "Can't that there new girl bunk with me?" she inquired earnestly. "I had the intention to give her Louvany's bed," Pap returned promptly. "As long as nobody's with you, I reckon I don't care; but if one comes in, you take 'em, and she goes with Mavity, mind. I cain't waste room, poor as I am." Piloted by the tall girl, Johnnie climbed the narrow stair to a long bare room where a row of double beds accommodated eight girls. The couch she was to occupy had been slept in during the day by a mill hand who was on night turn, and it had not been remade. Deftly Johnnie straightened and spread it, while her partner grumbled. "What's the use o' doin' that?" Mandy inquired, stretching herself and yawning portentously. "We'll jist muss it all up in about two minutes. When you've worked in a mill as long as I have you'll git over the notion of makin' your bed, for hit's _but_ a notion." Johnnie laughed across her shoulder. "I'd just as soon do it," she reassured her companion. "I do love smooth bedclothes; looks like I dream better on 'em and under 'em." Mandy sat down on the edge of the bed, interfering considerably with the final touches Johnnie was putting to it. "You're a right good gal," she opined patronizingly, "but foolish. The new ones always is foolish. I can put you up to a-many a thing that'll help you along, though, and I'm willin' to do it." Again Johnnie smiled at her, that smile of enveloping sweetness and tenderness. It made something down in the left side of poor Mandy's slovenly dress-bodice vibrate and tingle. "I'll thank you mightily," said Johnnie Consadine, "mightily." And knew not how true a word she spoke. "You see," counselled Mandy from the bed into which she had rolled with most of her clothes on, "you want to get in with Miss Lydia Sessions and the Uplift ladies, and them thar swell folks." Johnnie nodded, busily at work making a more elaborated night toilet than the others, who were going to bed all about them, paying little attention to their conversation. "Miss Lyddy she ain't as young as she once was, and the boys has quit hangin' 'round her as much as they used to; so now she has took up with good works," the girl on the bed explained with a directness which Miss Sessions would not perhaps have appreciated. "Her and some other of the nobby folks has started what they call a Uplift club amongst the mill girls. Thar's a big room whar you dance--if you can--and whar they give little suppers for us with not much to eat; and thar's a place where they sorter preach to ye--lecture she calls it. I don't know what-all Miss Lyddy hain't got for her club. But you jist go, and listen, and say how much obliged you are, an she'll do a lot for you, besides payin' your wages to get you out of the mill any day she wants you for the Upliftin' business." Mandy had a gasp, which occurred between sentences and at the end of certain words, with grotesque effect. Johnnie was to find that this gasp was always very much to the fore when Mandy was being uplifted. It then served variously as the gasp of humility, gratitude, admiration; the gasp of chaste emotion, the gasp of reprobation toward others who did not come forward to be uplifted. "Did you say there was books at that club?" inquired Johnnie out of the darkness--she had now extinguished the light. "Can a body learn things from the lectures?" "Uh-huh," agreed Mandy sleepily; "but you don't have to read 'em--the books. They lend 'em to you, and you take 'em home, and after so long a time you take 'em back sayin' how much good they done you. That's the way. If Mr. Stoddard's 'round, he'll ask you questions about 'em; but Miss Lyddy won't--she hates to find out that any of her plans ain't workin'." For a long time there was silence. Mandy was just dropping off into her first heavy sleep, when a whispering voice asked, "Is Mr. Stoddard--has he got right brown eyes and right brown hair, and does he ride in one of these--one of these--" "Good land!" grumbled the addressed, "I thought it was mornin' and I had to git up! You ort to been asleep long ago. Yes, Mr. Stoddard's got sorter brown eyes and hair, and he rides in a otty-mobile. How did you know?" But Mandy was too tired to stay awake to marvel over that. Her rhythmic snores soon proved that she slept, while Johnnie lay thinking of the various proffers she had that evening received of a lamp to her feet, a light on her path. And she would climb--yes, she would climb. Not by the road Pap Himes pointed out; not by the devious path Mandy Meacham suggested; but by the rugged road of good, honest toil, to heights where was the power and the glory, she would certainly strive. She conned over the new things which this day had brought. Again she saw the auto swing around the curve and halt; she got the outline of the man's bent head against the evening sky. They were singing again over at the mechanics' boarding-house; the sound came across to her window; the vibrant wires, the chorus of deep male voices, even the words she knew they were using but could not distinguish, linked themselves in some fashion with memory of a man's eyes, his smile, his air of tender deference as he cherished her broken flower. Something caught in her throat and choked. Her mind veered to the figures on the porch of that Palace of Pleasure; the girl with the ball tossing it to the young fellow below on the lawn. In memory she descended the hill, coming down into the shadows with each step, looking back to the heights and the light. Well, she had said that if one had feet one might climb, and to-night the old man had tried to train her to his pace for attaining heart's desire. In the midst of a jumble of autos and shining mill windows, she watched the room grow ghostly with the light of a late-risen moon. Suddenly afar off she heard the "honk! honk! honk!" which had preceded the advent of the car on the ridge road. Getting up, she stole, to the one window which the long room afforded. It gave upon the main street of the village. "Honk! honk! honk!" She gazed toward the steep from which the sounds seemed to come. There, flashing in and out of the greenery, appeared half a dozen pairs of fiery eyes. A party of motorists were going in to Watauga, starting from the Country Club on the Ridge crest. Johnnie watched them, fascinated. As the foremost car swept down the road and directly beneath her window, its driver, whom she recognized with a little shiver, by the characteristic carriage of his head, swerved the machine out and stopped it at the curb below. The others passed, calling gay inquiries to him. "We're all right," she heard a well-remembered voice reply. "You go ahead--we'll be there before you." The slim, gray-clad figure in the seat beside him laughed softly and fluttered a white handkerchief as the last car went on. "Now!" exulted the voice. "I'll put on my goggles and cap and we'll show them what running is. 'It's they'll take the high road and we'll take the low, And we'll be in Watauga befo-o-ore them!'" Even as he spoke he adjusted his costume, and Johnnie saw the car shoot forward like a living creature eager on the trail. She sighed as she looked after them. Feet--of what use were feet to follow such a flight as that?

Mr. Tench sits at his worktable, writing a letter to his wife Sylvia, with whom he has not had any contact for many years. He finds it hard to begin, his thoughts drift, and he thinks about the stranger who visited his house. Someone knocks at the door and he abandons the letter for the time being. Padre Jose walking in a graveyard, meets a group of people who are burying a little girl. They ask him if he would say a prayer for her, but Padre Jose, aware of the danger he is in, refuses. Living under the constant surveillance of the local authorities, he knows that he cannot trust people to keep secrets, and performing such a ceremony among so many people would be dangerous indeed. The people begin to cry and plea for him to help them but, feeling disgraced and useless, Padre Jose continues to refuse their request. A woman again reads her children the story of Juan, the young martyr. The boy, in a fit of anger, declares that he doesn't believe any of it. His mother angrily sends him out of the room. He tells his father what has transpired, and his father, rather than becoming angry at his son's unruliness, simply sighs. Not a man of much faith, the boy's father tells him that he laments the passing of the Church, since it provided a sense of community. While teaching Coral Fellows a history lesson, Mrs. Fellows complains of fatigue and puts her book down. Coral takes the opportunity to ask her mother whether she believe in God. Her mother asks Coral to tell her with whom she has been talking to about such things. Coral then goes out to check on a banana shipment and, realizing her father has not taken care of business and is nowhere to be found, gets to work. Then, she begins to feel ill. The lieutenant finds the jefe playing billiards and asks him if he has spoken with the governor. The jefe says that the governor has authorized the lieutenant to use any means necessary to apprehend the outlawed priest, on the condition that he catch him before the rainy season begins. The lieutenant tells the jefe that he will implement his idea to take hostages from the villages, and that he will start at the priest's hometown and parish, Concepcion. The lieutenant takes his leave of the jefe and heads towards the police station alone. Along the way, a boy throws a rock at him and, when asked what he is doing, the child answers that he was playing a game, pretending that the rock was a bomb and the lieutenant was a gringo . Pleased with this response, the lieutenant unthreateningly shows the young boy his gun, and walks away wishing that he could eliminate everything from the child's life that keeps him in ignorance. He is further charged with a sense of purpose to find and execute the priest.

Cyrano, Ragueneau, poets, Carbon de Castel-Jaloux, the cadets, a crowd, then De Guiche. RAGUENEAU: Can we come in? CYRANO (without stirring): Yes. . . (Ragueneau signs to his friends, and they come in. At the same time, by door at back, enters Carbon de Castel-Jaloux, in Captain's uniform. He makes gestures of surprise on seeing Cyrano.) CARBON: Here he is! CYRANO (raising his head): Captain!. . . CARBON (delightedly): Our hero! We heard all! Thirty or more Of my cadets are there!. . . CYRANO (shrinking back): But. . . CARBON (trying to draw him away): Come with me! They will not rest until they see you! CYRANO: No! CARBON: They're drinking opposite, at The Bear's Head. CYRANO: I. . . CARBON (going to the door and calling across the street in a voice of thunder): He won't come! The hero's in the sulks! A VOICE (outside): Ah! Sandious! (Tumult outside. Noise of boots and swords is heard approaching.) CARBON (rubbing his hands): They are running 'cross the street! CADETS (entering): Mille dious! Capdedious! Pocapdedious! RAGUENEAU (drawing back startled): Gentlemen, are you all from Gascony? THE CADETS: All! A CADET (to Cyrano): Bravo! CYRANO: Baron! ANOTHER (shaking his hands): Vivat! CYRANO: Baron! THIRD CADET: Come! I must embrace you! CYRANO: Baron! SEVERAL GASCONS: We'll embrace Him, all in turn! CYRANO (not knowing whom to reply to): Baron!. . .Baron!. . .I beg. . . RAGUENEAU: Are you all Barons, Sirs? THE CADETS: Ay, every one! RAGUENEAU: Is it true?. . . FIRST CADET: Ay--why, you could build a tower With nothing but our coronets, my friend! LE BRET (entering, and running up to Cyrano): They're looking for you! Here's a crazy mob Led by the men who followed you last night. . . CYRANO (alarmed): What! Have you told them where to find me? LE BRET (rubbing his hands): Yes! A BURGHER (entering, followed by a group of men): Sir, all the Marais is a-coming here! (Outside the street has filled with people. Chaises a porteurs and carriages have drawn up.) LE BRET (in a low voice, smiling, to Cyrano): And Roxane? CYRANO (quickly): Hush! THE CROWD (calling outside): Cyrano!. . . (A crowd rush into the shop, pushing one another. Acclamations.) RAGUENEAU (standing on a table): Lo! my shop Invaded! They break all! Magnificent! PEOPLE (crowding round Cyrano): My friend!. . .my friend. . . Cyrano: Meseems that yesterday I had not all these friends! LE BRET (delighted): Success! A YOUNG MARQUIS (hurrying up with his hands held out): My friend, Didst thou but know. . . CYRANO: Thou!. . .Marry!. . .thou!. . .Pray when Did we herd swine together, you and I! ANOTHER: I would present you, Sir, to some fair dames Who in my carriage yonder. . . CYRANO (coldly): Ah! and who Will first present you, Sir, to me? LE BRET (astonished): What's wrong? CYRANO: Hush! A MAN OF LETTERS (with writing-board): A few details?. . . CYRANO: No. LE BRET (nudging his elbow): 'Tis Theophrast, Renaudet,. . .of the 'Court Gazette'! CYRANO: Who cares? LE BRET: This paper--but it is of great importance!. . . They say it will be an immense success! A POET (advancing): Sir. . . CYRANO: What, another! THE POET: . . .Pray permit I make A pentacrostic on your name. . . SOME ONE (also advancing): Pray, Sir. . . CYRANO: Enough! Enough! (A movement in the crowd. De Guiche appears, escorted by officers. Cuigy, Brissaille, the officers who went with Cyrano the night before. Cuigy comes rapidly up to Cyrano.) CUIGY (to Cyrano): Here is Monsieur de Guiche? (A murmur--every one makes way): He comes from the Marshal of Gassion! DE GUICHE (bowing to Cyrano): . . .Who would express his admiration, Sir, For your new exploit noised so loud abroad. THE CROWD: Bravo! CYRANO (bowing): The Marshal is a judge of valor. DE GUICHE: He could not have believed the thing, unless These gentlemen had sworn they witnessed it. CUIGY: With our own eyes! LE BRET (aside to Cyrano, who has an absent air): But. . .you. . . CYRANO: Hush! LE BRET: But. . .You suffer? CYRANO (starting): Before this rabble?--I?. . . (He draws himself up, twirls his mustache, and throws back his shoulders): Wait!. . .You shall see! DE GUICHE (to whom Cuigy has spoken in a low voice): In feats of arms, already your career Abounded.--You serve with those crazy pates Of Gascons? CYRANO: Ay, with the Cadets. A CADET (in a terrible voice): With us! DE GUICHE (looking at the cadets, ranged behind Cyrano): Ah!. . .All these gentlemen of haughty mien, Are they the famous?. . . CARBON: Cyrano! CYRANO: Ay, Captain! CARBON: Since all my company's assembled here, Pray favor me,--present them to my lord! CYRANO (making two steps toward De Guiche): My Lord de Guiche, permit that I present-- (pointing to the cadets): The bold Cadets of Gascony, Of Carbon of Castel-Jaloux! Brawling and swaggering boastfully, The bold Cadets of Gascony! Spouting of Armory, Heraldry, Their veins a-brimming with blood so blue, The bold Cadets of Gascony, Of Carbon of Castel-Jaloux: Eagle-eye, and spindle-shanks, Fierce mustache, and wolfish tooth! Slash-the-rabble and scatter-their-ranks; Eagle-eye and spindle-shanks, With a flaming feather that gayly pranks, Hiding the holes in their hats, forsooth! Eagle-eye and spindle-shanks, Fierce mustache, and wolfish tooth! 'Pink-your-Doublet' and 'Slit-your-Trunk' Are their gentlest sobriquets; With Fame and Glory their soul is drunk! 'Pink-your-Doublet' and 'Slit-your-Trunk,' In brawl and skirmish they show their spunk, Give rendezvous in broil and fray; 'Pink-your-Doublet' and 'Slit-your-Trunk' Are their gentlest sobriquets! What, ho! Cadets of Gascony! All jealous lovers are sport for you! O Woman! dear divinity! What, ho! Cadets of Gascony! Whom scowling husbands quake to see. Blow, 'taratara,' and cry 'Cuckoo.' What, ho! Cadets of Gascony! Husbands and lovers are game for you! DE GUICHE (seated with haughty carelessness in an armchair brought quickly by Ragueneau): A poet! 'Tis the fashion of the hour! --Will you be mine? CYRANO: No, Sir,--no man's! DE GUICHE: Last night Your fancy pleased my uncle Richelieu. I'll gladly say a word to him for you. LE BRET (overjoyed): Great Heavens! DE GUICHE: I imagine you have rhymed Five acts, or so? LE BRET (in Cyrano's ear): Your play!--your 'Agrippine!' You'll see it staged at last! DE GUICHE: Take them to him. CYRANO (beginning to be tempted and attracted): In sooth,--I would. . . DE GUICHE: He is a critic skilled: He may correct a line or two, at most. CYRANO (whose face stiffens at once): Impossible! My blood congeals to think That other hand should change a comma's dot. DE GUICHE: But when a verse approves itself to him He pays it dear, good friend. CYRANO: He pays less dear Than I myself; when a verse pleases me I pay myself, and sing it to myself! DE GUICHE: You are proud. CYRANO: Really? You have noticed that? A CADET (entering, with a string of old battered plumed beaver hats, full of holes, slung on his sword): See, Cyrano,--this morning, on the quay What strange bright-feathered game we caught! The hats O' the fugitives. . . CARBON: 'Spolia opima!' ALL (laughing): Ah! ah! ah! CUIGY: He who laid that ambush, 'faith! Must curse and swear! BRISSAILLE: Who was it? DE GUICHE: I myself. (The laughter stops): I charged them--work too dirty for my sword, To punish and chastise a rhymster sot. (Constrained silence.) The CADET (in a low voice, to Cyrano, showing him the beavers): What do with them? They're full of grease!--a stew? CYRANO (taking the sword and, with a salute, dropping the hats at De Guiche's feet): Sir, pray be good enough to render them Back to your friends. DE GUICHE (rising, sharply): My chair there--quick!--I go! (To Cyrano passionately): As to you, sirrah!. . . VOICE (in the street): Porters for my lord De Guiche! DE GUICHE (who has controlled himself--smiling): Have you read 'Don Quixote'? CYRANO: I have! And doff my hat at th' mad knight-errant's name. DE GUICHE: I counsel you to study. . . A PORTER (appearing at back): My lord's chair! DE GUICHE: . . .The windmill chapter! CYRANO (bowing): Chapter the Thirteenth. DE GUICHE: For when one tilts 'gainst windmills--it may chance. . . CYRANO: Tilt I 'gainst those who change with every breeze? DE GUICHE: . . .That windmill sails may sweep you with their arm Down--in the mire!. . . CYRANO: Or upward--to the stars! (De Guiche goes out, and mounts into his chair. The other lords go away whispering together. Le Bret goes to the door with them. The crowd disperses.)

Ragueneau and the poets return. Since they have learned that Cyrano was the brave swordsman at the Porte de Nesle, one of the poets wants to write a verse about Cyrano's feat; Cyrano, however, is not interested. Immediately after them enter a group of men from Cyrano's regiment, led by Captain Carbon de Castel Jaloux. They have come to congratulate Cyrano for his heroic fight against one hundred men. Le Bret then announces that a large Parisian crowd has also come out to applaud his deed, and a reporter wants to interview him. Cyrano, however, receives them all coolly. When Le Bret asks his friend about the meeting with Roxane, Cyrano responds by telling him to be quiet. De Guiche arrives and offers Cyrano patronage through Cardinal Richelieu, his rich and powerful uncle. Cyrano is tempted to ask them to support his play, Agrippine, but De Guiche explains that Richelieu always alters a script before he has it produced. Since Cyrano wants no one to touch his play, he refuses the offer of patronage. De Guiche accuses Cyrano of being too proud. Some of the Cadets enter with the feathered hats of the men Cyrano fought at the Porte de Nesle. The sight of the hats causes Cuigy to laugh, as he comments on the probable frustration of the person who hired the attackers. De Guiche then claims responsibility for the attack. He said he wanted to be rid of Ligniere, whom he judges to be a "drunken rhymester." Cyrano then asks De Guiche if he would like to take the hats back to his defeated friends. Feeling insulted, De Guiche warns Cyrano that he is acting like Don Quixote, trying to fight windmills. Cyrano wittily turns the argument on De Guiche, asking him if his men are windmills "who veer with every change of wind". De Guiche warns that the windmills will hurl Cyrano down. Cyrano insists, however, that they will only serve to sweep him up. When De Guiche leaves in a huff, Le Bret is upset that Cyrano has passed up an opportunity to have a famous patron, while making a powerful and influential man his enemy. Cyrano then rants against the system of patronage, saying he refuses to bow to anyone; he wants to be free and independent, not beholden to an important person. He adds that he enjoys making enemies because he can do it without bowing. Le Bret comments that Cyrano's bitterness has probably been caused by his meeting with Roxane. Cyrano sharply silences him, not wanting to discuss his cousin.

SCENE 4. A room in PAGE'S house. [Enter FENTON, ANNE PAGE, and MISTRESS QUICKLY. MISTRESS QUICKLY stands apart.] FENTON. I see I cannot get thy father's love; Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan. ANNE. Alas! how then? FENTON. Why, thou must be thyself. He doth object, I am too great of birth; And that my state being gall'd with my expense, I seek to heal it only by his wealth. Besides these, other bars he lays before me, My riots past, my wild societies; And tells me 'tis a thing impossible I should love thee but as a property. ANNE. May be he tells you true. FENTON. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come! Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne: Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags; And 'tis the very riches of thyself That now I aim at. ANNE. Gentle Master Fenton, Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir. If opportunity and humblest suit Cannot attain it, why then,--hark you hither. [They converse apart.] [Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY.] SHALLOW. Break their talk, Mistress Quickly: my kinsman shall speak for himself. SLENDER. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't. 'Slid, 'tis but venturing. SHALLOW. Be not dismayed. SLENDER. No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that, but that I am afeard. QUICKLY. Hark ye; Master Slender would speak a word with you. ANNE. I come to him. [Aside.] This is my father's choice. O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year! QUICKLY. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a word with you. SHALLOW. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a father! SLENDER. I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle. SHALLOW. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you. SLENDER. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire. SHALLOW. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman. SLENDER. Ay, that I will come cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire. SHALLOW. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure. ANNE. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself. SHALLOW. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz; I'll leave you. ANNE. Now, Master Slender. SLENDER. Now, good Mistress Anne.-- ANNE. What is your will? SLENDER. My will! 'od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise. ANNE. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me? SLENDER. Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions; if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask your father; here he comes. [Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE.] PAGE. Now, Master Slender: love him, daughter Anne. Why, how now! what does Master Fenton here? You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house: I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of. FENTON. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient. MRS. PAGE. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child. PAGE. She is no match for you. FENTON. Sir, will you hear me? PAGE. No, good Master Fenton. Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender, in. Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton. [Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER.] QUICKLY. Speak to Mistress Page. FENTON. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners, I must advance the colours of my love And not retire: let me have your good will. ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool. MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband. QUICKLY. That's my master, Master doctor. ANNE. Alas! I had rather be set quick i' the earth. And bowl'd to death with turnips. MRS. PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton, I will not be your friend, nor enemy; My daughter will I question how she loves you, And as I find her, so am I affected. Till then, farewell, sir: she must needs go in; Her father will be angry. FENTON. Farewell, gentle mistress. Farewell, Nan. [Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE.} QUICKLY. This is my doing now: 'Nay,' said I, 'will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton.' This is my doing. FENTON. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains. QUICKLY. Now Heaven send thee good fortune! [Exit FENTON.] A kind heart he hath; a woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her; I will do what I can for them all three, for so I have promised, and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses: what a beast am I to slack it! [Exit.] SCENE 5. A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.] FALSTAFF. Bardolph, I say,-- BARDOLPH. Here, sir. FALSTAFF. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't. [Exit BARDOLPH.] Have I lived to be carried in a basket, and to be thrown in the Thames like a barrow of butcher's offal? Well, if I be served such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year's gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen i' the litter; and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell I should down. I had been drowned but that the shore was shelvy and shallow; a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when had been swelled! I should have been a mountain of mummy. [Re-enter BARDOLPH, with the sack.] BARDOLPH. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you. FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in. BARDOLPH. Come in, woman. [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY.] QUICKLY. By your leave. I cry you mercy. Give your worship good morrow. FALSTAFF. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely. BARDOLPH. With eggs, sir? FALSTAFF. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my brewage. [Exit BARDOLPH.] How now! QUICKLY. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford. FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford. QUICKLY. Alas the day! good heart, that was not her fault: she does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection. FALSTAFF. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise. QUICKLY. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine; I must carry her word quickly. She'll make you amends, I warrant you. FALSTAFF. Well, I will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her think what a man is; let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit. QUICKLY. I will tell her. FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, sayest thou? QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir. FALSTAFF. Well, be gone; I will not miss her. QUICKLY. Peace be with you, sir. [Exit.] FALSTAFF. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me word to stay within. I like his money well. O! here he comes. [Enter FORD disguised.] FORD. Bless you, sir! FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford's wife? FORD. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business. FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me. FORD. And how sped you, sir? FALSTAFF. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook. FORD. How so, sir? did she change her determination? FALSTAFF. No. Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's love. FORD. What! while you were there? FALSTAFF. While I was there. FORD. And did he search for you, and could not find you? FALSTAFF. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach; and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket. FORD. A buck-basket! FALSTAFF. By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril. FORD. And how long lay you there? FALSTAFF. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his hinds, were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet-lane; they took me on their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the door; who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear lest the lunatic knave would have searched it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that; a man of my kidney, think of that, that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to 'scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that, hissing hot, think of that, Master Brook! FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit, then, is desperate; you'll undertake her no more. FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Brook. FORD. 'Tis past eight already, sir. FALSTAFF. Is it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed, and the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her: adieu. You shall have her, Master Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford. [Exit.] FORD. Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford. There's a hole made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be married; this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the lecher; he is at my house. He cannot scape me; 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a half-penny purse, nor into a pepper box; but, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame; if I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me; I'll be horn-mad. [Exit.]

Fenton and Anne Page meet outside her house. He tells her that her father doesn't favor him as a candidate for marriage, because, though Fenton is high-born, he has no money, and Anne's father suspects that he only wants Anne's substantial dowry. He admits that Page's wealth first drew him to Anne, but in wooing her, he has found her to be worth more than money. She urges him to try to win her father's favor. They draw to the side when Slender enters with Shallow and Mistress Quickly. Quickly calls to Anne, saying that Slender wants to talk to her. Anne notes to Fenton that Slender is her father's choice, but that she doesn't like him at all. Quickly pulls Fenton away, and Anne approaches Slender and Shallow. Slender tries to tell an unrelated joke, so Shallow tells Anne that Slender loves her. Shallow speaks for Slender, while Slender says foolish things, so Anne asks Shallow to let Slender speak for himself. He mumbles idiotically, and she asks what he wants of her. He says it's Page and Shallow who have made the arrangements, but if things don't work out, he won't mind. Page and Mistress Page enter. Page demands to know why Fenton is hanging about. He tells Fenton that he will never have his daughter and goes into the house with Shallow and Slender. Quickly urges Fenton to speak to Mistress Page. He tells her he loves Anne, and Anne asks her not to make her marry Slender. She says she won't, but she favors Caius. Anne is unsatisfied, but Mistress Page says that she will talk to her daughter about her feelings for Fenton. They enter the house. Fenton thanks Quickly for her aid and gives her money. Alone, Quickly considers her duplicity. She's promised to help all three men who claim to be in love with Anne, but she'll help Fenton especially, because he's such a likeable young man. But now the busy woman must rush off to speak to Falstaff at the command of Mistress Page and Mistress Ford! Falstaff enters the Garter Inn. He orders Bardolph to make him some warm wine and moans about his bad luck. He's soaking wet, having just dragged himself out of the Thames after being dropped in with Mistress Ford's laundry. Mistress Quickly enters with reports from Mistress Ford. Falstaff says that he's fed up with her, but Quickly explains that her servants misunderstood about what to do with the laundry. Quickly reports that Mistress Ford wants Falstaff to visit again, between eight and nine that evening. Falstaff quickly agrees to go, and Quickly goes to deliver the message. Ford enters in disguise as Brooke. He asks how Falstaff did with Mistress Ford. Falstaff says that he had just begun to woo Mistress Ford when her husband arrived. He exaggeratedly narrates his flight in a laundry basket and tells of the fear and horror he experienced while hiding in the basket and when he was thrown in the river. Brooke asks if Falstaff will give up on Mistress Ford now, but Falstaff announces his next date. Fearing he's already late, Falstaff rushes out. Ford is astonished to think that Falstaff was in his house when he arrived that morning, and he's enraged that he is on his way back. He will go to his house and find him this time, he declares, and vent his rage.

"Du Erde warst auch diese Nacht bestandig, Und athmest neu erquickt zu meinen Fussen, Beginnest schon mit Lust mich zu umgeben, Zum regst und ruhrst ein kraftiges Reschliessen Zum hochsten Dasein immerfort zu streben. --Faust: 2r Theil. When Dorothea was again at Lydgate's door speaking to Martha, he was in the room close by with the door ajar, preparing to go out. He heard her voice, and immediately came to her. "Do you think that Mrs. Lydgate can receive me this morning?" she said, having reflected that it would be better to leave out all allusion to her previous visit. "I have no doubt she will," said Lydgate, suppressing his thought about Dorothea's looks, which were as much changed as Rosamond's, "if you will be kind enough to come in and let me tell her that you are here. She has not been very well since you were here yesterday, but she is better this morning, and I think it is very likely that she will be cheered by seeing you again." It was plain that Lydgate, as Dorothea had expected, knew nothing about the circumstances of her yesterday's visit; nay, he appeared to imagine that she had carried it out according to her intention. She had prepared a little note asking Rosamond to see her, which she would have given to the servant if he had not been in the way, but now she was in much anxiety as to the result of his announcement. After leading her into the drawing-room, he paused to take a letter from his pocket and put it into her hands, saying, "I wrote this last night, and was going to carry it to Lowick in my ride. When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech--one does not at least _hear_ how inadequate the words are." Dorothea's face brightened. "It is I who have most to thank for, since you have let me take that place. You _have_ consented?" she said, suddenly doubting. "Yes, the check is going to Bulstrode to-day." He said no more, but went up-stairs to Rosamond, who had but lately finished dressing herself, and sat languidly wondering what she should do next, her habitual industry in small things, even in the days of her sadness, prompting her to begin some kind of occupation, which she dragged through slowly or paused in from lack of interest. She looked ill, but had recovered her usual quietude of manner, and Lydgate had feared to disturb her by any questions. He had told her of Dorothea's letter containing the check, and afterwards he had said, "Ladislaw is come, Rosy; he sat with me last night; I dare say he will be here again to-day. I thought he looked rather battered and depressed." And Rosamond had made no reply. Now, when he came up, he said to her very gently, "Rosy, dear, Mrs. Casaubon is come to see you again; you would like to see her, would you not?" That she colored and gave rather a startled movement did not surprise him after the agitation produced by the interview yesterday--a beneficent agitation, he thought, since it seemed to have made her turn to him again. Rosamond dared not say no. She dared not with a tone of her voice touch the facts of yesterday. Why had Mrs. Casaubon come again? The answer was a blank which Rosamond could only fill up with dread, for Will Ladislaw's lacerating words had made every thought of Dorothea a fresh smart to her. Nevertheless, in her new humiliating uncertainty she dared do nothing but comply. She did not say yes, but she rose and let Lydgate put a light shawl over her shoulders, while he said, "I am going out immediately." Then something crossed her mind which prompted her to say, "Pray tell Martha not to bring any one else into the drawing-room." And Lydgate assented, thinking that he fully understood this wish. He led her down to the drawing-room door, and then turned away, observing to himself that he was rather a blundering husband to be dependent for his wife's trust in him on the influence of another woman. Rosamond, wrapping her soft shawl around her as she walked towards Dorothea, was inwardly wrapping her soul in cold reserve. Had Mrs. Casaubon come to say anything to her about Will? If so, it was a liberty that Rosamond resented; and she prepared herself to meet every word with polite impassibility. Will had bruised her pride too sorely for her to feel any compunction towards him and Dorothea: her own injury seemed much the greater. Dorothea was not only the "preferred" woman, but had also a formidable advantage in being Lydgate's benefactor; and to poor Rosamond's pained confused vision it seemed that this Mrs. Casaubon--this woman who predominated in all things concerning her--must have come now with the sense of having the advantage, and with animosity prompting her to use it. Indeed, not Rosamond only, but any one else, knowing the outer facts of the case, and not the simple inspiration on which Dorothea acted, might well have wondered why she came. Looking like the lovely ghost of herself, her graceful slimness wrapped in her soft white shawl, the rounded infantine mouth and cheek inevitably suggesting mildness and innocence, Rosamond paused at three yards' distance from her visitor and bowed. But Dorothea, who had taken off her gloves, from an impulse which she could never resist when she wanted a sense of freedom, came forward, and with her face full of a sad yet sweet openness, put out her hand. Rosamond could not avoid meeting her glance, could not avoid putting her small hand into Dorothea's, which clasped it with gentle motherliness; and immediately a doubt of her own prepossessions began to stir within her. Rosamond's eye was quick for faces; she saw that Mrs. Casaubon's face looked pale and changed since yesterday, yet gentle, and like the firm softness of her hand. But Dorothea had counted a little too much on her own strength: the clearness and intensity of her mental action this morning were the continuance of a nervous exaltation which made her frame as dangerously responsive as a bit of finest Venetian crystal; and in looking at Rosamond, she suddenly found her heart swelling, and was unable to speak--all her effort was required to keep back tears. She succeeded in that, and the emotion only passed over her face like the spirit of a sob; but it added to Rosamond's impression that Mrs. Casaubon's state of mind must be something quite different from what she had imagined. So they sat down without a word of preface on the two chairs that happened to be nearest, and happened also to be close together; though Rosamond's notion when she first bowed was that she should stay a long way off from Mrs. Casaubon. But she ceased thinking how anything would turn out--merely wondering what would come. And Dorothea began to speak quite simply, gathering firmness as she went on. "I had an errand yesterday which I did not finish; that is why I am here again so soon. You will not think me too troublesome when I tell you that I came to talk to you about the injustice that has been shown towards Mr. Lydgate. It will cheer you--will it not?--to know a great deal about him, that he may not like to speak about himself just because it is in his own vindication and to his own honor. You will like to know that your husband has warm friends, who have not left off believing in his high character? You will let me speak of this without thinking that I take a liberty?" The cordial, pleading tones which seemed to flow with generous heedlessness above all the facts which had filled Rosamond's mind as grounds of obstruction and hatred between her and this woman, came as soothingly as a warm stream over her shrinking fears. Of course Mrs. Casaubon had the facts in her mind, but she was not going to speak of anything connected with them. That relief was too great for Rosamond to feel much else at the moment. She answered prettily, in the new ease of her soul-- "I know you have been very good. I shall like to hear anything you will say to me about Tertius." "The day before yesterday," said Dorothea, "when I had asked him to come to Lowick to give me his opinion on the affairs of the Hospital, he told me everything about his conduct and feelings in this sad event which has made ignorant people cast suspicions on him. The reason he told me was because I was very bold and asked him. I believed that he had never acted dishonorably, and I begged him to tell me the history. He confessed to me that he had never told it before, not even to you, because he had a great dislike to say, 'I was not wrong,' as if that were proof, when there are guilty people who will say so. The truth is, he knew nothing of this man Raffles, or that there were any bad secrets about him; and he thought that Mr. Bulstrode offered him the money because he repented, out of kindness, of having refused it before. All his anxiety about his patient was to treat him rightly, and he was a little uncomfortable that the case did not end as he had expected; but he thought then and still thinks that there may have been no wrong in it on any one's part. And I have told Mr. Farebrother, and Mr. Brooke, and Sir James Chettam: they all believe in your husband. That will cheer you, will it not? That will give you courage?" Dorothea's face had become animated, and as it beamed on Rosamond very close to her, she felt something like bashful timidity before a superior, in the presence of this self-forgetful ardor. She said, with blushing embarrassment, "Thank you: you are very kind." "And he felt that he had been so wrong not to pour out everything about this to you. But you will forgive him. It was because he feels so much more about your happiness than anything else--he feels his life bound into one with yours, and it hurts him more than anything, that his misfortunes must hurt you. He could speak to me because I am an indifferent person. And then I asked him if I might come to see you; because I felt so much for his trouble and yours. That is why I came yesterday, and why I am come to-day. Trouble is so hard to bear, is it not?-- How can we live and think that any one has trouble--piercing trouble--and we could help them, and never try?" Dorothea, completely swayed by the feeling that she was uttering, forgot everything but that she was speaking from out the heart of her own trial to Rosamond's. The emotion had wrought itself more and more into her utterance, till the tones might have gone to one's very marrow, like a low cry from some suffering creature in the darkness. And she had unconsciously laid her hand again on the little hand that she had pressed before. Rosamond, with an overmastering pang, as if a wound within her had been probed, burst into hysterical crying as she had done the day before when she clung to her husband. Poor Dorothea was feeling a great wave of her own sorrow returning over her--her thought being drawn to the possible share that Will Ladislaw might have in Rosamond's mental tumult. She was beginning to fear that she should not be able to suppress herself enough to the end of this meeting, and while her hand was still resting on Rosamond's lap, though the hand underneath it was withdrawn, she was struggling against her own rising sobs. She tried to master herself with the thought that this might be a turning-point in three lives--not in her own; no, there the irrevocable had happened, but--in those three lives which were touching hers with the solemn neighborhood of danger and distress. The fragile creature who was crying close to her--there might still be time to rescue her from the misery of false incompatible bonds; and this moment was unlike any other: she and Rosamond could never be together again with the same thrilling consciousness of yesterday within them both. She felt the relation between them to be peculiar enough to give her a peculiar influence, though she had no conception that the way in which her own feelings were involved was fully known to Mrs. Lydgate. It was a newer crisis in Rosamond's experience than even Dorothea could imagine: she was under the first great shock that had shattered her dream-world in which she had been easily confident of herself and critical of others; and this strange unexpected manifestation of feeling in a woman whom she had approached with a shrinking aversion and dread, as one who must necessarily have a jealous hatred towards her, made her soul totter all the more with a sense that she had been walking in an unknown world which had just broken in upon her. When Rosamond's convulsed throat was subsiding into calm, and she withdrew the handkerchief with which she had been hiding her face, her eyes met Dorothea's as helplessly as if they had been blue flowers. What was the use of thinking about behavior after this crying? And Dorothea looked almost as childish, with the neglected trace of a silent tear. Pride was broken down between these two. "We were talking about your husband," Dorothea said, with some timidity. "I thought his looks were sadly changed with suffering the other day. I had not seen him for many weeks before. He said he had been feeling very lonely in his trial; but I think he would have borne it all better if he had been able to be quite open with you." "Tertius is so angry and impatient if I say anything," said Rosamond, imagining that he had been complaining of her to Dorothea. "He ought not to wonder that I object to speak to him on painful subjects." "It was himself he blamed for not speaking," said Dorothea. "What he said of you was, that he could not be happy in doing anything which made you unhappy--that his marriage was of course a bond which must affect his choice about everything; and for that reason he refused my proposal that he should keep his position at the Hospital, because that would bind him to stay in Middlemarch, and he would not undertake to do anything which would be painful to you. He could say that to me, because he knows that I had much trial in my marriage, from my husband's illness, which hindered his plans and saddened him; and he knows that I have felt how hard it is to walk always in fear of hurting another who is tied to us." Dorothea waited a little; she had discerned a faint pleasure stealing over Rosamond's face. But there was no answer, and she went on, with a gathering tremor, "Marriage is so unlike everything else. There is something even awful in the nearness it brings. Even if we loved some one else better than--than those we were married to, it would be no use"--poor Dorothea, in her palpitating anxiety, could only seize her language brokenly--"I mean, marriage drinks up all our power of giving or getting any blessedness in that sort of love. I know it may be very dear--but it murders our marriage--and then the marriage stays with us like a murder--and everything else is gone. And then our husband--if he loved and trusted us, and we have not helped him, but made a curse in his life--" Her voice had sunk very low: there was a dread upon her of presuming too far, and of speaking as if she herself were perfection addressing error. She was too much preoccupied with her own anxiety, to be aware that Rosamond was trembling too; and filled with the need to express pitying fellowship rather than rebuke, she put her hands on Rosamond's, and said with more agitated rapidity,--"I know, I know that the feeling may be very dear--it has taken hold of us unawares--it is so hard, it may seem like death to part with it--and we are weak--I am weak--" The waves of her own sorrow, from out of which she was struggling to save another, rushed over Dorothea with conquering force. She stopped in speechless agitation, not crying, but feeling as if she were being inwardly grappled. Her face had become of a deathlier paleness, her lips trembled, and she pressed her hands helplessly on the hands that lay under them. Rosamond, taken hold of by an emotion stronger than her own--hurried along in a new movement which gave all things some new, awful, undefined aspect--could find no words, but involuntarily she put her lips to Dorothea's forehead which was very near her, and then for a minute the two women clasped each other as if they had been in a shipwreck. "You are thinking what is not true," said Rosamond, in an eager half-whisper, while she was still feeling Dorothea's arms round her--urged by a mysterious necessity to free herself from something that oppressed her as if it were blood guiltiness. They moved apart, looking at each other. "When you came in yesterday--it was not as you thought," said Rosamond in the same tone. There was a movement of surprised attention in Dorothea. She expected a vindication of Rosamond herself. "He was telling me how he loved another woman, that I might know he could never love me," said Rosamond, getting more and more hurried as she went on. "And now I think he hates me because--because you mistook him yesterday. He says it is through me that you will think ill of him--think that he is a false person. But it shall not be through me. He has never had any love for me--I know he has not--he has always thought slightly of me. He said yesterday that no other woman existed for him beside you. The blame of what happened is entirely mine. He said he could never explain to you--because of me. He said you could never think well of him again. But now I have told you, and he cannot reproach me any more." Rosamond had delivered her soul under impulses which she had not known before. She had begun her confession under the subduing influence of Dorothea's emotion; and as she went on she had gathered the sense that she was repelling Will's reproaches, which were still like a knife-wound within her. The revulsion of feeling in Dorothea was too strong to be called joy. It was a tumult in which the terrible strain of the night and morning made a resistant pain:--she could only perceive that this would be joy when she had recovered her power of feeling it. Her immediate consciousness was one of immense sympathy without check; she cared for Rosamond without struggle now, and responded earnestly to her last words-- "No, he cannot reproach you any more." With her usual tendency to over-estimate the good in others, she felt a great outgoing of her heart towards Rosamond, for the generous effort which had redeemed her from suffering, not counting that the effort was a reflex of her own energy. After they had been silent a little, she said-- "You are not sorry that I came this morning?" "No, you have been very good to me," said Rosamond. "I did not think that you would be so good. I was very unhappy. I am not happy now. Everything is so sad." "But better days will come. Your husband will be rightly valued. And he depends on you for comfort. He loves you best. The worst loss would be to lose that--and you have not lost it," said Dorothea. She tried to thrust away the too overpowering thought of her own relief, lest she should fail to win some sign that Rosamond's affection was yearning back towards her husband. "Tertius did not find fault with me, then?" said Rosamond, understanding now that Lydgate might have said anything to Mrs. Casaubon, and that she certainly was different from other women. Perhaps there was a faint taste of jealousy in the question. A smile began to play over Dorothea's face as she said-- "No, indeed! How could you imagine it?" But here the door opened, and Lydgate entered. "I am come back in my quality of doctor," he said. "After I went away, I was haunted by two pale faces: Mrs. Casaubon looked as much in need of care as you, Rosy. And I thought that I had not done my duty in leaving you together; so when I had been to Coleman's I came home again. I noticed that you were walking, Mrs. Casaubon, and the sky has changed--I think we may have rain. May I send some one to order your carriage to come for you?" "Oh, no! I am strong: I need the walk," said Dorothea, rising with animation in her face. "Mrs. Lydgate and I have chatted a great deal, and it is time for me to go. I have always been accused of being immoderate and saying too much." She put out her hand to Rosamond, and they said an earnest, quiet good-by without kiss or other show of effusion: there had been between them too much serious emotion for them to use the signs of it superficially. As Lydgate took her to the door she said nothing of Rosamond, but told him of Mr. Farebrother and the other friends who had listened with belief to his story. When he came back to Rosamond, she had already thrown herself on the sofa, in resigned fatigue. "Well, Rosy," he said, standing over her, and touching her hair, "what do you think of Mrs. Casaubon now you have seen so much of her?" "I think she must be better than any one," said Rosamond, "and she is very beautiful. If you go to talk to her so often, you will be more discontented with me than ever!" Lydgate laughed at the "so often." "But has she made you any less discontented with me?" "I think she has," said Rosamond, looking up in his face. "How heavy your eyes are, Tertius--and do push your hair back." He lifted up his large white hand to obey her, and felt thankful for this little mark of interest in him. Poor Rosamond's vagrant fancy had come back terribly scourged--meek enough to nestle under the old despised shelter. And the shelter was still there: Lydgate had accepted his narrowed lot with sad resignation. He had chosen this fragile creature, and had taken the burthen of her life upon his arms. He must walk as he could, carrying that burthen pitifully.

Dorothea finds Lydgate at home, and Lydgate thanks her for giving him the money with which to pay his debt to Bulstrode. Dorothea is only too happy to have been of service; she asks him in Rosamond is in, and finds Lydgate completely unaware of what went on the previous day. Rosamond is wary at the visit, but receives her anyway, and finds her quite different from the day before, though perhaps troubled. Dorothea reassures her that her husband is a good person, and is still welcomed in Middlemarch by people of character and influence, like herself, Sir James, Mr. Brooke, and Mr. Farebrother. Dorothea then proceeds to speak about marriage, trying to address Rosamond and Lydgate's marriage in the process. Dorothea hits on some of her own sadness though, and her anguish at the whole debacle with Will becomes apparent. Dorothea convinces Rosamond that Lydgate loves her very much, and that she needs to give the marriage a chance, because she still has his love; this cheers Rosamond up a bit, though her mind is still dazed from the previous day. Rosamond feels that she should clarify the situation with Will, so Rosamond tells her that Will was only there to explain that he loved someone other than Rosamond, and always would. Rosamond tells her this to try and exonerate herself somewhat, although Dorothea takes this statement as an expression of sympathy and goodness on Rosamond's part. Then, Lydgate enters, and the two part; neither can hold anything against the other anymore, and both their minds have been eased.

He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him. Without one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favour. Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness--not that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in his power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me. He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument--nothing more. All this was torture to me--refined, lingering torture. It kept up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how--if I were his wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. _He_ experienced no suffering from estrangement--no yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely I was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure he did not by force, but on principle. The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate; I spoke to the point at once. "St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be friends." "I hope we are friends," was the unmoved reply; while he still watched the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I approached. "No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that." "Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all good." "I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers." "Of course," he said. "Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from regarding you as a stranger." This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin's talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it. "Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?" He now turned quite from the moon and faced me. "When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to India?" "You said I could not unless I married you." "And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?" Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure? "No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution." The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down. "Once more, why this refusal?" he asked. "Formerly," I answered, "because you did not love me; now, I reply, because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me. You are killing me now." His lips and cheeks turned white--quite white. "_I should kill you_--_I am killing you_? Your words are such as ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even until seventy-and-seven times." I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surface another and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in. "Now you will indeed hate me," I said. "It is useless to attempt to conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you." A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung. "You utterly misinterpret my words," I said, at once seizing his hand: "I have no intention to grieve or pain you--indeed, I have not." Most bitterly he smiled--most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine. "And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I presume?" said he, after a considerable pause. "Yes, I will, as your assistant," I answered. A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He spoke at last. "I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret--for your sake." I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at once. "Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife." Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly-- "A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me, then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to join." Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied-- "There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate." "Ah! you are afraid of yourself," he said, curling his lip. "I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide. Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it." "What do you mean?" "It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by some means that doubt is removed." "I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?" It was true. I confessed it by silence. "Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?" "I must find out what is become of him." "It remains for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen. But God sees not as man sees: _His_ will be done--" He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He was soon out of sight. On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face. "Jane," she said, "you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have on hands. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly know what. St. John is a strange being--" She paused--I did not speak: soon she resumed-- "That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he never showed to any one else--to what end? I wish he loved you--does he, Jane?" I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; "No, Die, not one whit." "Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him." "He does--he has asked me to be his wife." Diana clapped her hands. "That is just what we hoped and thought! And you will marry him, Jane, won't you? And then he will stay in England." "Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils." "What! He wishes you to go to India?" "Yes." "Madness!" she exclaimed. "You would not live three months there, I am certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you, Jane?" "I have refused to marry him--" "And have consequently displeased him?" she suggested. "Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany him as his sister." "It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you undertook--one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak. St. John--you know him--would urge you to impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?" "Not as a husband." "Yet he is a handsome fellow." "And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit." "Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, to be grilled alive in Calcutta." And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother. "I must indeed," I said; "for when just now I repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first hoped to find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such." "What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?" "You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He has told me I am formed for labour--not for love: which is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?" "Insupportable--unnatural--out of the question!" "And then," I continued, "though I have only sisterly affection for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would." "And yet St. John is a good man," said Diana. "He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will leave you, Diana." And I hastened upstairs as I saw him entering the garden. But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme: the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of late, been his ordinary manner--one scrupulously polite. No doubt he had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more. For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen while from his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full--never did his manner become so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone--that manner a more thrilling meaning--as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table): as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new earth--told how God would come to dwell with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away. The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in uttering them, his eye had turned on me. "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But," was slowly, distinctly read, "the fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me. A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb's book of life, and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered--all his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it too. The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early hour in the morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room--in compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him: I tendered my hand, and wished him a pleasant journey. "Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage with me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim--to do all things to the glory of God. My Master was long-suffering: so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath: repent--resolve, while there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work while it is day--warned that 'the night cometh when no man shall work.' Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life. God give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken from you!" He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep--or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not; whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots--provided only they be sincere--have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St. John--veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him--to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So I think at this hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time: I was unconscious of folly at the instant. I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch. My refusals were forgotten--my fears overcome--my wrestlings paralysed. The Impossible--_i.e._, my marriage with St. John--was fast becoming the Possible. All was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion called--Angels beckoned--God commanded--life rolled together like a scroll--death's gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. The dim room was full of visions. "Could you decide now?" asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John's wrath: I grew pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer: it was only elevated. "I could decide if I were but certain," I answered: "were I but convinced that it is God's will I should marry you, I could vow to marry you here and now--come afterwards what would!" "My prayers are heard!" ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm, _almost_ as if he loved me (I say _almost_--I knew the difference--for I had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had now put love out of the question, and thought only of duty). I contended with my inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply, fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. "Show me, show me the path!" I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader shall judge. All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself, were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the room was full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones. "What have you heard? What do you see?" asked St. John. I saw nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry-- "Jane! Jane! Jane!"--nothing more. "O God! what is it?" I gasped. I might have said, "Where is it?" for it did not seem in the room--nor in the house--nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air--nor from under the earth--nor from overhead. I had heard it--where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being--a known, loved, well-remembered voice--that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently. "I am coming!" I cried. "Wait for me! Oh, I will come!" I flew to the door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into the garden: it was void. "Where are you?" I exclaimed. The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back--"Where are you?" I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland loneliness and midnight hush. "Down superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate. "This is not thy deception, nor thy witchcraft: it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did--no miracle--but her best." I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It was _my_ time to assume ascendency. _My_ powers were in play and in force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber; locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my way--a different way to St. John's, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the thanksgiving--took a resolve--and lay down, unscared, enlightened--eager but for the daylight.

St. John postpones his departure for Cambridge by a week. While he remains at Moor House, he makes Jane feel guilty for some wrong she has committed against him. He refuses even to be friendly with her. Seeing that Jane still nurtures a loving concern for Mr. Rochester, he feels he was mistaken in believing her to be one of those chosen by God to serve Him. Diana sympathizes with Jane on hearing her reasons for refusing St. John's proposal. That evening St. John reads from the Bible and leads the women in prayers. He employs a kind of religious "hypnotism" on Jane to break down her resistance. Jane almost yields to him but is checked by what she thinks is Mr. Rochester's voice. She dismisses St. John and retires to her room to pray. It does not take her much time to reach a definite decision.

For a while sheer anger mastered me; it was as if he had during her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I said to him:-- "Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?" He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. "Would I were!" he said. "Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell you so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful death? Ah no!" "Forgive me," said I. He went on:-- "My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady. But even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the 'no' of it; it is more hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy. To-night I go to prove it. Dare you come with me?" This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth; Byron excepted from the category, jealousy. "And prove the very truth he most abhorred." He saw my hesitation, and spoke:-- "The logic is simple, no madman's logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty bog. If it be not true, then proof will be relief; at worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread; yet very dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come, I tell you what I propose: first, that we go off now and see that child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where the papers say the child is, is friend of mine, and I think of yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then----" "And then?" He took a key from his pocket and held it up. "And then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffin-man to give to Arthur." My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was passing.... We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some food, and altogether was going on well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no mistaking the similarity to those which had been on Lucy's throat. They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher; that was all. We asked Vincent to what he attributed them, and he replied that it must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat; but, for his own part, he was inclined to think that it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the northern heights of London. "Out of so many harmless ones," he said, "there may be some wild specimen from the South of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to escape; or even from the Zooelogical Gardens a young one may have got loose, or one be bred there from a vampire. These things do occur, you know. Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on the Heath and in every alley in the place until this 'bloofer lady' scare came along, since when it has been quite a gala-time with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up to-day, asked the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the 'bloofer lady.'" "I hope," said Van Helsing, "that when you are sending the child home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it. These fancies to stray are most dangerous; and if the child were to remain out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you will not let it away for some days?" "Certainly not, not for a week at least; longer if the wound is not healed." Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said:-- "There is no hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way." We dined at "Jack Straw's Castle" along with a little crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o'clock we started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly; but, as for me, I was in quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficulty--for it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to us--we found the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring, one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight. Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life--animal life--was not the only thing which could pass away. Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy's coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took out a turnscrew. "What are you going to do?" I asked. "To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced." Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living; I actually took hold of his hand to stop him. He only said: "You shall see," and again fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny fret-saw. Striking the turnscrew through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince, he made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the week-old corpse. We doctors, who have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to such things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never stopped for a moment; he sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to look. I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. It was certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground, and so emboldened to proceed in his task. "Are you satisfied now, friend John?" he asked. I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as I answered him:-- "I am satisfied that Lucy's body is not in that coffin; but that only proves one thing." "And what is that, friend John?" "That it is not there." "That is good logic," he said, "so far as it goes. But how do you--how can you--account for it not being there?" "Perhaps a body-snatcher," I suggested. "Some of the undertaker's people may have stolen it." I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet it was the only real cause which I could suggest. The Professor sighed. "Ah well!" he said, "we must have more proof. Come with me." He put on the coffin-lid again, gathered up all his things and placed them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key, saying: "Will you keep it? You had better be assured." I laughed--it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to say--as I motioned him to keep it. "A key is nothing," I said; "there may be duplicates; and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of that kind." He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the other. I took up my place behind a yew-tree, and I saw his dark figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my sight. It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I heard a distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two. I was chilled and unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust so altogether I had a dreary, miserable time. Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white streak, moving between two dark yew-trees at the side of the churchyard farthest from the tomb; at the same time a dark mass moved from the Professor's side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little way off, beyond a line of scattered juniper-trees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure, and coming over, found the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he saw me he held it out to me, and said:-- "Are you satisfied now?" "No," I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive. "Do you not see the child?" "Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?" I asked. "We shall see," said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child. When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat. It was without a scratch or scar of any kind. "Was I right?" I asked triumphantly. "We were just in time," said the Professor thankfully. We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted about it. If we were to take it to a police-station we should have to give some account of our movements during the night; at least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find it; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman's heavy tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a cab near the "Spaniards," and drove to town. I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours' sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall go with him on another expedition. * * * * * _27 September._--It was two o'clock before we found a suitable opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shock of surprise and dismay shot through me. There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. "Is this a juggle?" I said to him. "Are you convinced now?" said the Professor in response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. "See," he went on, "see, they are even sharper than before. With this and this"--and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it--"the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John?" Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I _could_ not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:-- "She may have been placed here since last night." "Indeed? That is so, and by whom?" "I do not know. Some one has done it." "And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not look so." I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:-- "Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded; here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking--oh, you start; you do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it all later--and in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when the Un-Dead sleep at home"--as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was "home"--"their face show what they are, but this so sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep." This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing's theories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in my face, for he said almost joyously:-- "Ah, you believe now?" I answered: "Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to accept. How will you do this bloody work?" "I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body." It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective? I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a snap, and said:-- "I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things that are thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to act now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the wounds on Lucy's throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child's at the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full to-day with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more beautiful in a whole week, after she die--if you know of this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say good-bye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our ideas; and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet he never can be sure; and that is the worst of all. And he will sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and again, he will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all, an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You return home for to-night to your asylum, and see that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard in my own way. To-morrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set." So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly. _Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel directed to John Seward, M. D._ (Not delivered.) "_27 September._ "Friend John,-- "I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the Un-Dead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave to-night, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like not--garlic and a crucifix--and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as Un-Dead, and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out; they may not prevail on her wanting to get in; for then the Un-Dead is desperate, and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after the sunrise, and if there be aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy or from her, I have no fear; but that other to whom is there that she is Un-Dead, he have now the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy's life, and we lost; and in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have always the strength in his hand of twenty men; even we four who gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and I know not what. So if it be that he come thither on this night he shall find me; but none other shall--until it be too late. But it may be that he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should; his hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the Un-Dead woman sleep, and the one old man watch. "Therefore I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and then find this great Un-Dead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake through it, so that the world may rest from him. "If it be so, farewell. "VAN HELSING." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _28 September._--It is wonderful what a good night's sleep will do for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing's monstrous ideas; but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be _some_ rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that the Professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his head he would carry out his intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Van Helsing was mad; but anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some light on the mystery. * * * * * _29 September, morning._.... Last night, at a little before ten o'clock, Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing's room; he told us all that he wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would all come with him too, "for," he said, "there is a grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter?" This query was directly addressed to Lord Godalming. "I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over; but the more we talked, the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that I'm about up a tree as to any meaning about anything." "Me too," said Quincey Morris laconically. "Oh," said the Professor, "then you are nearer the beginning, both of you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can even get so far as to begin." It was evident that he recognised my return to my old doubting frame of mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said with intense gravity:-- "I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is, I know, much to ask; and when you know what it is I propose to do you will know, and only then, how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a time--I must not disguise from myself the possibility that such may be--you shall not blame yourselves for anything." "That's frank anyhow," broke in Quincey. "I'll answer for the Professor. I don't quite see his drift, but I swear he's honest; and that's good enough for me." "I thank you, sir," said Van Helsing proudly. "I have done myself the honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear to me." He held out a hand, which Quincey took. Then Arthur spoke out:-- "Dr. Van Helsing, I don't quite like to 'buy a pig in a poke,' as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once; though for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at." "I accept your limitation," said Van Helsing, "and all I ask of you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your reservations." "Agreed!" said Arthur; "that is only fair. And now that the _pourparlers_ are over, may I ask what it is we are to do?" "I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard at Kingstead." Arthur's face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way:-- "Where poor Lucy is buried?" The Professor bowed. Arthur went on: "And when there?" "To enter the tomb!" Arthur stood up. "Professor, are you in earnest; or it is some monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are in earnest." He sat down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There was silence until he asked again:-- "And when in the tomb?" "To open the coffin." "This is too much!" he said, angrily rising again. "I am willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable; but in this--this desecration of the grave--of one who----" He fairly choked with indignation. The Professor looked pityingly at him. "If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend," he said, "God knows I would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!" Arthur looked up with set white face and said:-- "Take care, sir, take care!" "Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?" said Van Helsing. "And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go on?" "That's fair enough," broke in Morris. After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort:-- "Miss Lucy is dead; is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong to her. But if she be not dead----" Arthur jumped to his feet. "Good God!" he cried. "What do you mean? Has there been any mistake; has she been buried alive?" He groaned in anguish that not even hope could soften. "I did not say she was alive, my child; I did not think it. I go no further than to say that she might be Un-Dead." "Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what is it?" "There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?" "Heavens and earth, no!" cried Arthur in a storm of passion. "Not for the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should want to cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad that speak such things, or am I mad to listen to them? Don't dare to think more of such a desecration; I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage; and, by God, I shall do it!" Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and said, gravely and sternly:-- "My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead; and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you look and listen; and if when later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its fulfilment even than I am, then--then I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordship's wishes I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will." His voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of pity:-- "But, I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so much of labour and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what I can of good; at the first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady, whom, too, I came to love. For her--I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness--I gave what you gave; the blood of my veins; I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave to her my nights and days--before death, after death; and if my death can do her good even now, when she is the dead Un-Dead, she shall have it freely." He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by it. He took the old man's hand and said in a broken voice:-- "Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand; but at least I shall go with you and wait."

Dr. Seward is totally blown away that Van Helsing could say something like that about Lucy. Besides, she's dead. Van Helsing says he'll prove it: They'll go spend the night in the churchyard. After dinner, they go into the Westenra tomb. Van Helsing pulls out a screwdriver to open the coffin. Lucy's not in it! Dr. Seward still has a logical explanation: Someone has stolen the body. Van Helsing shrugs, and they go out to the churchyard to wait. Several hours later, Dr. Seward sees something white moving among the trees, and Van Helsing finds a child that had been dumped in the leaves. They leave the child with the police and go back to London. Van Helsing wants Dr. Seward to come out and check the coffin again. This seems pretty stupid to Dr. Seward, who has already seen that the coffin is empty. But when they get there, Lucy's body is inside! And her body is totally intact, even though she's been dead a week. Dr. Seward finally gets it: Lucy is a vampire. And he's okay with stabbing a stake through her heart and cutting off her head, if that's what it takes. But Van Helsing wants to let Arthur in on the secret, in case he finds out about it later. Van Helsing leaves a note for Dr. Seward saying that he's going to spend the night in the churchyard watching Lucy. He's leaving the note in case anything happens to him. He asks that Dr. Seward take over if he should die, and try to find and kill Dracula. After a good night's sleep, Dr. Seward doesn't believe it anymore--he thinks maybe Van Helsing is crazy. Van Helsing has summoned Arthur and Quincey. He wants them all to wait up that night in the churchyard, go into Lucy's tomb, and cut off her head. No problem, right? Of course, Arthur objects. But they agree at least to go with him to the churchyard.

Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp down on a workman's bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he will be at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like that a cold tremble came over him, every time his eyes wandered in the direction of the dismal object: from which he almost expected to see some frightful form slowly rear its head, to drive him mad with terror. Against the wall were ranged, in regular array, a long row of elm boards cut in the same shape: looking in the dim light, like high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches pockets. Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall behind the counter was ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by four black steeds, approaching in the distance. The shop was close and hot. The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. The recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust, looked like a grave. Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver. He was alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. The boy had no friends to care for, or to care for him. The regret of no recent separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and well-remembered face sank heavily into his heart. But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep. Oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of the shop-door: which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times. When he began to undo the chain, the legs desisted, and a voice began. 'Open the door, will yer?' cried the voice which belonged to the legs which had kicked at the door. 'I will, directly, sir,' replied Oliver: undoing the chain, and turning the key. 'I suppose yer the new boy, ain't yer?' said the voice through the key-hole. 'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver. 'How old are yer?' inquired the voice. 'Ten, sir,' replied Oliver. 'Then I'll whop yer when I get in,' said the voice; 'you just see if I don't, that's all, my work'us brat!' and having made this obliging promise, the voice began to whistle. Oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very expressive monosyllable just recorded bears reference, to entertain the smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be, would redeem his pledge, most honourably. He drew back the bolts with a trembling hand, and opened the door. For a second or two, Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street, and over the way: impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off, to warm himself; for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then consumed with great dexterity. 'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Oliver at length: seeing that no other visitor made his appearance; 'did you knock?' 'I kicked,' replied the charity-boy. 'Did you want a coffin, sir?' inquired Oliver, innocently. At this, the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce; and said that Oliver would want one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that way. 'Yer don't know who I am, I suppose, Work'us?' said the charity-boy, in continuation: descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with edifying gravity. 'No, sir,' rejoined Oliver. 'I'm Mister Noah Claypole,' said the charity-boy, 'and you're under me. Take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian!' With this, Mr. Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop with a dignified air, which did him great credit. It is difficult for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red nose and yellow smalls. Oliver, having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of glass in his effort to stagger away beneath the weight of the first one to a small court at the side of the house in which they were kept during the day, was graciously assisted by Noah: who having consoled him with the assurance that 'he'd catch it,' condescended to help him. Mr. Sowerberry came down soon after. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Sowerberry appeared. Oliver having 'caught it,' in fulfilment of Noah's prediction, followed that young gentleman down the stairs to breakfast. 'Come near the fire, Noah,' said Charlotte. 'I saved a nice little bit of bacon for you from master's breakfast. Oliver, shut that door at Mister Noah's back, and take them bits that I've put out on the cover of the bread-pan. There's your tea; take it away to that box, and drink it there, and make haste, for they'll want you to mind the shop. D'ye hear?' 'D'ye hear, Work'us?' said Noah Claypole. 'Lor, Noah!' said Charlotte, 'what a rum creature you are! Why don't you let the boy alone?' 'Let him alone!' said Noah. 'Why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor his mother will ever interfere with him. All his relations let him have his own way pretty well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!' 'Oh, you queer soul!' said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in which she was joined by Noah; after which they both looked scornfully at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering on the box in the coldest corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially reserved for him. Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of 'leathers,' 'charity,' and the like; and Noah had bourne them without reply. But, now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy. Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker's some three weeks or a month. Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry--the shop being shut up--were taking their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr. Sowerberry, after several deferential glances at his wife, said, 'My dear--' He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up, with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short. 'Well,' said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply. 'Nothing, my dear, nothing,' said Mr. Sowerberry. 'Ugh, you brute!' said Mrs. Sowerberry. 'Not at all, my dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry humbly. 'I thought you didn't want to hear, my dear. I was only going to say--' 'Oh, don't tell me what you were going to say,' interposed Mrs. Sowerberry. 'I am nobody; don't consult me, pray. _I_ don't want to intrude upon your secrets.' As Mrs. Sowerberry said this, she gave an hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences. 'But, my dear,' said Sowerberry, 'I want to ask your advice.' 'No, no, don't ask mine,' replied Mrs. Sowerberry, in an affecting manner: 'ask somebody else's.' Here, there was another hysterical laugh, which frightened Mr. Sowerberry very much. This is a very common and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very effective. It at once reduced Mr. Sowerberry to begging, as a special favour, to be allowed to say what Mrs. Sowerberry was most curious to hear. After a short duration, the permission was most graciously conceded. 'It's only about young Twist, my dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry. 'A very good-looking boy, that, my dear.' 'He need be, for he eats enough,' observed the lady. 'There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear,' resumed Mr. Sowerberry, 'which is very interesting. He would make a delightful mute, my love.' Mrs. Sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable wonderment. Mr. Sowerberry remarked it and, without allowing time for any observation on the good lady's part, proceeded. 'I don't mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but only for children's practice. It would be very new to have a mute in proportion, my dear. You may depend upon it, it would have a superb effect.' Mrs. Sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way, was much struck by the novelty of this idea; but, as it would have been compromising her dignity to have said so, under existing circumstances, she merely inquired, with much sharpness, why such an obvious suggestion had not presented itself to her husband's mind before? Mr. Sowerberry rightly construed this, as an acquiescence in his proposition; it was speedily determined, therefore, that Oliver should be at once initiated into the mysteries of the trade; and, with this view, that he should accompany his master on the very next occasion of his services being required. The occasion was not long in coming. Half an hour after breakfast next morning, Mr. Bumble entered the shop; and supporting his cane against the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book: from which he selected a small scrap of paper, which he handed over to Sowerberry. 'Aha!' said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance; 'an order for a coffin, eh?' 'For a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards,' replied Mr. Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book: which, like himself, was very corpulent. 'Bayton,' said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to Mr. Bumble. 'I never heard the name before.' Bumble shook his head, as he replied, 'Obstinate people, Mr. Sowerberry; very obstinate. Proud, too, I'm afraid, sir.' 'Proud, eh?' exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer. 'Come, that's too much.' 'Oh, it's sickening,' replied the beadle. 'Antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry!' 'So it is,' acquiesced the undertaker. 'We only heard of the family the night before last,' said the beadle; 'and we shouldn't have known anything about them, then, only a woman who lodges in the same house made an application to the porochial committee for them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad. He had gone out to dinner; but his 'prentice (which is a very clever lad) sent 'em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, offhand.' 'Ah, there's promptness,' said the undertaker. 'Promptness, indeed!' replied the beadle. 'But what's the consequence; what's the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband sends back word that the medicine won't suit his wife's complaint, and so she shan't take it--says she shan't take it, sir! Good, strong, wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish labourers and a coal-heaver, only a week before--sent 'em for nothing, with a blackin'-bottle in,--and he sends back word that she shan't take it, sir!' As the atrocity presented itself to Mr. Bumble's mind in full force, he struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed with indignation. 'Well,' said the undertaker, 'I ne--ver--did--' 'Never did, sir!' ejaculated the beadle. 'No, nor nobody never did; but now she's dead, we've got to bury her; and that's the direction; and the sooner it's done, the better.' Thus saying, Mr. Bumble put on his cocked hat wrong side first, in a fever of parochial excitement; and flounced out of the shop. 'Why, he was so angry, Oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you!' said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the street. 'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of sight, during the interview; and who was shaking from head to foot at the mere recollection of the sound of Mr. Bumble's voice. He needn't haven taken the trouble to shrink from Mr. Bumble's glance, however; for that functionary, on whom the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that now the undertaker had got Oliver upon trial the subject was better avoided, until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years, and all danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish should be thus effectually and legally overcome. 'Well,' said Mr. Sowerberry, taking up his hat, 'the sooner this job is done, the better. Noah, look after the shop. Oliver, put on your cap, and come with me.' Oliver obeyed, and followed his master on his professional mission. They walked on, for some time, through the most crowded and densely inhabited part of the town; and then, striking down a narrow street more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused to look for the house which was the object of their search. The houses on either side were high and large, but very old, and tenanted by people of the poorest class: as their neglected appearance would have sufficiently denoted, without the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half doubled, occasionally skulked along. A great many of the tenements had shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away; only the upper rooms being inhabited. Some houses which had become insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street, by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of the rough boards which supplied the place of door and window, were wrenched from their positions, to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of a human body. The kennel was stagnant and filthy. The very rats, which here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine. There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs. Stumbling against a door on the landing, he rapped at it with his knuckles. It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen. The undertaker at once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the apartment to which he had been directed. He stepped in; Oliver followed him. There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching, mechanically, over the empty stove. An old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged children in another corner; and in a small recess, opposite the door, there lay upon the ground, something covered with an old blanket. Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes toward the place, and crept involuntarily closer to his master; for though it was covered up, the boy felt that it was a corpse. The man's face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly; his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman's face was wrinkled; her two remaining teeth protruded over her under lip; and her eyes were bright and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man. They seemed so like the rats he had seen outside. 'Nobody shall go near her,' said the man, starting fiercely up, as the undertaker approached the recess. 'Keep back! Damn you, keep back, if you've a life to lose!' 'Nonsense, my good man,' said the undertaker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes. 'Nonsense!' 'I tell you,' said the man: clenching his hands, and stamping furiously on the floor,--'I tell you I won't have her put into the ground. She couldn't rest there. The worms would worry her--not eat her--she is so worn away.' The undertaker offered no reply to this raving; but producing a tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body. 'Ah!' said the man: bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at the feet of the dead woman; 'kneel down, kneel down--kneel round her, every one of you, and mark my words! I say she was starved to death. I never knew how bad she was, till the fever came upon her; and then her bones were starting through the skin. There was neither fire nor candle; she died in the dark--in the dark! She couldn't even see her children's faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged for her in the streets: and they sent me to prison. When I came back, she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it! They starved her!' He twined his hands in his hair; and, with a loud scream, rolled grovelling upon the floor: his eyes fixed, and the foam covering his lips. The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed, menaced them into silence. Having unloosened the cravat of the man who still remained extended on the ground, she tottered towards the undertaker. 'She was my daughter,' said the old woman, nodding her head in the direction of the corpse; and speaking with an idiotic leer, more ghastly than even the presence of death in such a place. 'Lord, Lord! Well, it _is_ strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there: so cold and stiff! Lord, Lord!--to think of it; it's as good as a play--as good as a play!' As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment, the undertaker turned to go away. 'Stop, stop!' said the old woman in a loud whisper. 'Will she be buried to-morrow, or next day, or to-night? I laid her out; and I must walk, you know. Send me a large cloak: a good warm one: for it is bitter cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never mind; send some bread--only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall we have some bread, dear?' she said eagerly: catching at the undertaker's coat, as he once more moved towards the door. 'Yes, yes,' said the undertaker,'of course. Anything you like!' He disengaged himself from the old woman's grasp; and, drawing Oliver after him, hurried away. The next day, (the family having been meanwhile relieved with a half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr. Bumble himself,) Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode; where Mr. Bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the workhouse, who were to act as bearers. An old black cloak had been thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man; and the bare coffin having been screwed down, was hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers, and carried into the street. 'Now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady!' whispered Sowerberry in the old woman's ear; 'we are rather late; and it won't do, to keep the clergyman waiting. Move on, my men,--as quick as you like!' Thus directed, the bearers trotted on under their light burden; and the two mourners kept as near them, as they could. Mr. Bumble and Sowerberry walked at a good smart pace in front; and Oliver, whose legs were not so long as his master's, ran by the side. There was not so great a necessity for hurrying as Mr. Sowerberry had anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the churchyard in which the nettles grew, and where the parish graves were made, the clergyman had not arrived; and the clerk, who was sitting by the vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it might be an hour or so, before he came. So, they put the bier on the brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the damp clay, with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys whom the spectacle had attracted into the churchyard played a noisy game at hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their amusements by jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin. Mr. Sowerberry and Bumble, being personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him, and read the paper. At length, after a lapse of something more than an hour, Mr. Bumble, and Sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running towards the grave. Immediately afterwards, the clergyman appeared: putting on his surplice as he came along. Mr. Bumble then thrashed a boy or two, to keep up appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of the burial service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his surplice to the clerk, and walked away again. 'Now, Bill!' said Sowerberry to the grave-digger. 'Fill up!' It was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full, that the uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface. The grave-digger shovelled in the earth; stamped it loosely down with his feet: shouldered his spade; and walked off, followed by the boys, who murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon. 'Come, my good fellow!' said Bumble, tapping the man on the back. 'They want to shut up the yard.' The man who had never once moved, since he had taken his station by the grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who had addressed him, walked forward for a few paces; and fell down in a swoon. The crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the loss of her cloak (which the undertaker had taken off), to pay him any attention; so they threw a can of cold water over him; and when he came to, saw him safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed on their different ways. 'Well, Oliver,' said Sowerberry, as they walked home, 'how do you like it?' 'Pretty well, thank you, sir' replied Oliver, with considerable hesitation. 'Not very much, sir.' 'Ah, you'll get used to it in time, Oliver,' said Sowerberry. 'Nothing when you _are_ used to it, my boy.' Oliver wondered, in his own mind, whether it had taken a very long time to get Mr. Sowerberry used to it. But he thought it better not to ask the question; and walked back to the shop: thinking over all he had seen and heard.

A pounding on the door the following morning woke Oliver from his sleep in the coffin room. The person outside was yelling and kicking the door to be let in. Oliver opened the door and was introduced to Noah Claypole who also worked for Mr. Sowerberry and who was a higher rank than Oliver was. He pointed this out to Oliver very quickly and was very mean to him. Noah and Oliver went down to get breakfast with Charlotte. Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry during their own breakfast decide that because Oliver was such a nice looking, though melancholy, boy, he should be a made a mute. Later in the morning, Mr. Bumble comes with news of a woman who has died and needs a coffin. Mr. Sowerberry takes Oliver to the home of the dead woman, and Oliver sees what the profession that Mr. Sowerberry and the state chose for him was. He attends his first funeral and burial and decides that he does not like it, but Mr. Sowerberry tells him that he will get used to it in time

Chapter XLIV. Result of the Ideas of the King, and the Ideas of D'Artagnan. The blow was direct. It was severe, mortal. D'Artagnan, furious at having been anticipated by an idea of the king's, did not despair, however, even yet; and reflecting upon the idea he had brought back from Belle-Isle, he elicited therefrom novel means of safety for his friends. "Gentlemen," said he, suddenly, "since the king has charged some other than myself with his secret orders, it must be because I no longer possess his confidence, and I should really be unworthy of it if I had the courage to hold a command subject to so many injurious suspicions. Therefore I will go immediately and carry my resignation to the king. I tender it before you all, enjoining you all to fall back with me upon the coast of France, in such a way as not to compromise the safety of the forces his majesty has confided to me. For this purpose, return all to your posts; within an hour, we shall have the ebb of the tide. To your posts, gentlemen! I suppose," added he, on seeing that all prepared to obey him, except the surveillant officer, "you have no orders to object, this time?" And D'Artagnan almost triumphed while speaking these words. This plan would prove the safety of his friends. The blockade once raised, they might embark immediately, and set sail for England or Spain, without fear of being molested. Whilst they were making their escape, D'Artagnan would return to the king; would justify his return by the indignation which the mistrust of Colbert had raised in him; he would be sent back with full powers, and he would take Belle-Isle; that is to say, the cage, after the birds had flown. But to this plan the officer opposed a further order of the king's. It was thus conceived: "From the moment M. d'Artagnan shall have manifested the desire of giving in his resignation, he shall no longer be reckoned leader of the expedition, and every officer placed under his orders shall be held to no longer obey him. Moreover, the said Monsieur d'Artagnan, having lost that quality of leader of the army sent against Belle-Isle, shall set out immediately for France, accompanied by the officer who will have remitted the message to him, and who will consider him a prisoner for whom he is answerable." Brave and careless as he was, D'Artagnan turned pale. Everything had been calculated with a depth of precognition which, for the first time in thirty years, recalled to him the solid foresight and inflexible logic of the great cardinal. He leaned his head on his hand, thoughtful, scarcely breathing. "If I were to put this order in my pocket," thought he, "who would know it, what would prevent my doing it? Before the king had had time to be informed, I should have saved those poor fellows yonder. Let us exercise some small audacity! My head is not one of those the executioner strikes off for disobedience. We will disobey!" But at the moment he was about to adopt this plan, he saw the officers around him reading similar orders, which the passive agent of the thoughts of that infernal Colbert had distributed to them. This contingency of his disobedience had been foreseen--as all the rest had been. "Monsieur," said the officer, coming up to him, "I await your good pleasure to depart." "I am ready, monsieur," replied D'Artagnan, grinding his teeth. The officer immediately ordered a canoe to receive M. d'Artagnan and himself. At sight of this he became almost distraught with rage. "How," stammered he, "will you carry on the directions of the different corps?" "When you are gone, monsieur," replied the commander of the fleet, "it is to me the command of the whole is committed." "Then, monsieur," rejoined Colbert's man, addressing the new leader, "it is for you that this last order remitted to me is intended. Let us see your powers." "Here they are," said the officer, exhibiting the royal signature. "Here are your instructions," replied the officer, placing the folded paper in his hands; and turning round towards D'Artagnan, "Come, monsieur," said he, in an agitated voice (such despair did he behold in that man of iron), "do me the favor to depart at once." "Immediately!" articulated D'Artagnan, feebly, subdued, crushed by implacable impossibility. And he painfully subsided into the little boat, which started, favored by wind and tide, for the coast of France. The king's guards embarked with him. The musketeer still preserved the hope of reaching Nantes quickly, and of pleading the cause of his friends eloquently enough to incline the king to mercy. The bark flew like a swallow. D'Artagnan distinctly saw the land of France profiled in black against the white clouds of night. "Ah! monsieur," said he, in a low voice, to the officer to whom, for an hour, he had ceased speaking, "what would I give to know the instructions for the new commander! They are all pacific, are they not? and--" He did not finish; the thunder of a distant cannon rolled athwart the waves, another, and two or three still louder. D'Artagnan shuddered. "They have commenced the siege of Belle-Isle," replied the officer. The canoe had just touched the soil of France.

D'Artagnan is furious that the King has anticipated him. He decides to go with the fallback plan. D'Artagnan announces his intention to resign, and says that the fleet must return to Nantes with him. With the blockade raised, his friends will have time to escape. When he asks if anyone objects to this plan, an officer stands up and hands D'Artagnan yet another order signed by the King. Should D'Artagnan attempt to resign, says the order, he is to be relieved of command and taken as a prisoner back to France. D'Artagnan is shocked at the King's foresight and wile. He has anticipated D'Artagnan's every move. D'Artagnan's last thought is to simply take the order and hide it in his pocket, but he soon realizes that all the men on the ship have been given a copy of the order. There is no more hope; D'Artagnan allows himself to be taken prisoner by one of his men. D'Artagnan hears canon shots when he reaches the coast of France.

The SAME. Cyrano. CYRANO (appearing from the tent, very calm, with a pen stuck behind his ear and a book in his hand): What is wrong? (Silence. To the first cadet): Why drag you your legs so sorrowfully? THE CADET: I have something in my heels which weighs them down. CYRANO: And what may that be? THE CADET: My stomach! CYRANO: So have I, 'faith! THE CADET: It must be in your way? CYRANO: Nay, I am all the taller. A THIRD: My stomach's hollow. CYRANO: 'Faith, 'twill make a fine drum to sound the assault. ANOTHER: I have a ringing in my ears. CYRANO: No, no, 'tis false; a hungry stomach has no ears. ANOTHER: Oh, to eat something--something oily! CYRANO (pulling off the cadet's helmet and holding it out to him): Behold your salad! ANOTHER: What, in God's name, can we devour? CYRANO (throwing him the book which he is carrying): The 'Iliad'. ANOTHER: The first minister in Paris has his four meals a day! CYRANO: 'Twere courteous an he sent you a few partridges! THE SAME: And why not? with wine, too! CYRANO: A little Burgundy. Richelieu, s'il vous plait! THE SAME: He could send it by one of his friars. CYRANO: Ay! by His Eminence Joseph himself. ANOTHER: I am as ravenous as an ogre! CYRANO: Eat your patience, then. THE FIRST CADET (shrugging his shoulders): Always your pointed word! CYRANO: Ay, pointed words! I would fain die thus, some soft summer eve, Making a pointed word for a good cause. --To make a soldier's end by soldier's sword, Wielded by some brave adversary--die On blood-stained turf, not on a fever-bed, A point upon my lips, a point within my heart. CRIES FROM ALL: I'm hungry! CYRANO (crossing his arms): All your thoughts of meat and drink! Bertrand the fifer!--you were shepherd once,-- Draw from its double leathern case your fife, Play to these greedy, guzzling soldiers. Play Old country airs with plaintive rhythm recurring, Where lurk sweet echoes of the dear home-voices, Each note of which calls like a little sister, Those airs slow, slow ascending, as the smoke-wreaths Rise from the hearthstones of our native hamlets, Their music strikes the ear like Gascon patois!. . . (The old man seats himself, and gets his flute ready): Your flute was now a warrior in durance; But on its stem your fingers are a-dancing A bird-like minuet! O flute! Remember That flutes were made of reeds first, not laburnum; Make us a music pastoral days recalling-- The soul-time of your youth, in country pastures!. . . (The old man begins to play the airs of Languedoc): Hark to the music, Gascons!. . .'Tis no longer The piercing fife of camp--but 'neath his fingers The flute of the woods! No more the call to combat, 'Tis now the love-song of the wandering goat-herds!. . . Hark!. . .'tis the valley, the wet landes, the forest, The sunburnt shepherd-boy with scarlet beret, The dusk of evening on the Dordogne river,-- 'Tis Gascony! Hark, Gascons, to the music! (The cadets sit with bowed heads; their eyes have a far-off look as if dreaming, and they surreptitiously wipe away their tears with their cuffs and the corner of their cloaks.) CARBON (to Cyrano in a whisper): But you make them weep! CYRANO: Ay, for homesickness. A nobler pain than hunger,--'tis of the soul, not of the body! I am well pleased to see their pain change its viscera. Heart-ache is better than stomach-ache. CARBON: But you weaken their courage by playing thus on their heart-strings! CYRANO (making a sign to a drummer to approach): Not I. The hero that sleeps in Gascon blood is ever ready to awake in them. 'Twould suffice. . . (He makes a signal; the drum beats.) ALL THE CADETS (stand up and rush to take arms): What? What is it? CYRANO (smiling): You see! One roll of the drum is enough! Good-by dreams, regrets, native land, love. . .All that the pipe called forth the drum has chased away! A CADET (looking toward the back of the stage): Ho! here comes Monsieur de Guiche. ALL THE CADETS (muttering): Ugh!. . .Ugh!. . . CYRANO (smiling): A flattering welcome! A CADET: We are sick to death of him! ANOTHER CADET: --With his lace collar over his armor, playing the fine gentleman! ANOTHER: As if one wore linen over steel! THE FIRST: It were good for a bandage had he boils on his neck. THE SECOND: Another plotting courtier! ANOTHER CADET: His uncle's own nephew! CARBON: For all that--a Gascon. THE FIRST: Ay, false Gascon!. . .trust him not. . . Gascons should ever be crack-brained. . . Naught more dangerous than a rational Gascon. LE BRET: How pale he is! ANOTHER: Oh! he is hungry, just like us poor devils; but under his cuirass, with its fine gilt nails, his stomach-ache glitters brave in the sun. CYRANO (hurriedly): Let us not seem to suffer either! Out with your cards, pipes, and dice. . . (All begin spreading out the games on the drums, the stools, the ground, and on their cloaks, and light long pipes): And I shall read Descartes. (He walks up and down, reading a little book which he has drawn from his pocket. Tableau. Enter De Guiche. All appear absorbed and happy. He is very pale. He goes up to Carbon.)

When they rise the next morning, the cadets complain of their hunger and threaten to mutiny. Captain Carbon appeals to Cyrano to come forth from his tent and handle the situation. Cyrano obliges. He tries to joke about the Cadet's hunger by punning on their complaints and offering them The Iliad, which he is reading, as food for thought. When he realizes that is wit is not helping to cheer up the cadets, he calls the regiment piper to play Gascon tunes. Carbon protests, saying the songs about home will make the cadets weep. Cyrano explains that it is more noble to weep from homesickness than from hunger. When a drum roll is heard, the cadets become excited. When Cyrano sees that De Guiche is approaching, he warns the cadets not to let this man, whom they mock as a mere courtier and not a soldier, see how miserable they are.

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard--and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on--lived to have six children more--to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number; but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. She had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features--so much for her person; and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boy's plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief--at least so it was conjectured from her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take. Such were her propensities--her abilities were quite as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her only to repeat the "Beggar's Petition"; and after all, her next sister, Sally, could say it better than she did. Not that Catherine was always stupid--by no means; she learnt the fable of "The Hare and Many Friends" as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinnet; so, at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character!--for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house. Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appearances were mending; she began to curl her hair and long for balls; her complexion improved, her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave way to an inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she grew smart; she had now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark on her personal improvement. "Catherine grows quite a good-looking girl--she is almost pretty today," were words which caught her ears now and then; and how welcome were the sounds! To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive. Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books--or at least books of information--for, provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all. But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives. From Pope, she learnt to censure those who "bear about the mockery of woe." From Gray, that "Many a flower is born to blush unseen, "And waste its fragrance on the desert air." From Thompson, that-- "It is a delightful task "To teach the young idea how to shoot." And from Shakespeare she gained a great store of information--amongst the rest, that-- "Trifles light as air, "Are, to the jealous, confirmation strong, "As proofs of Holy Writ." That "The poor beetle, which we tread upon, "In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great "As when a giant dies." And that a young woman in love always looks-- "like Patience on a monument "Smiling at Grief." So far her improvement was sufficient--and in many other points she came on exceedingly well; for though she could not write sonnets, she brought herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte, of her own composition, she could listen to other people's performance with very little fatigue. Her greatest deficiency was in the pencil--she had no notion of drawing--not enough even to attempt a sketch of her lover's profile, that she might be detected in the design. There she fell miserably short of the true heroic height. At present she did not know her own poverty, for she had no lover to portray. She had reached the age of seventeen, without having seen one amiable youth who could call forth her sensibility, without having inspired one real passion, and without having excited even any admiration but what was very moderate and very transient. This was strange indeed! But strange things may be generally accounted for if their cause be fairly searched out. There was not one lord in the neighbourhood; no--not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door--not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children. But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way. Mr. Allen, who owned the chief of the property about Fullerton, the village in Wiltshire where the Morlands lived, was ordered to Bath for the benefit of a gouty constitution--and his lady, a good-humoured woman, fond of Miss Morland, and probably aware that if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad, invited her to go with them. Mr. and Mrs. Morland were all compliance, and Catherine all happiness.

The first chapter introduces the reader to the protagonist of the novel, Catherine Morland. Seventeen years old, Catherine has grown up in a family of modest wealth in the rural town Fullerton in Hampshire, England. As a young girl, we are told, Catherine had many interests, including piano-playing and drawing, but she was never interested enough to be accomplished at anything. She was a cheerful child with a good temper. But she was also something of a tomboy: "she was. noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house. As she became a teenager, says the narrator, Catherine began to grow more beautiful, and eventually she turned from her athletic pursuits, such as cricket and horseback riding, to reading books. Catherine became a voracious reader. She has never had a love interest. At the end of the chapter, the Allens, a wealthy, childless couple who are friends of the Morlands, offer to take Catherine with them on a trip to the resort town of Bath. With her parents' permission, Catherine accepts

Elizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters, reflecting on what she had heard, and doubting whether she were authorised to mention it, when Sir William Lucas himself appeared, sent by his daughter to announce her engagement to the family. With many compliments to them, and much self-gratulation on the prospect of a connection between the houses, he unfolded the matter,--to an audience not merely wondering, but incredulous; for Mrs. Bennet, with more perseverance than politeness, protested he must be entirely mistaken, and Lydia, always unguarded and often uncivil, boisterously exclaimed, "Good Lord! Sir William, how can you tell such a story?--Do not you know that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?" Nothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne without anger such treatment; but Sir William's good breeding carried him through it all; and though he begged leave to be positive as to the truth of his information, he listened to all their impertinence with the most forbearing courtesy. Elizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant a situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by mentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself; and endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters, by the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she was readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the happiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character of Mr. Collins, and the convenient distance of Hunsford from London. Mrs. Bennet was in fact too much overpowered to say a great deal while Sir William remained; but no sooner had he left them than her feelings found a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving the whole of the matter; secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins had been taken in; thirdly, she trusted that they would never be happy together; and fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two inferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole; one, that Elizabeth was the real cause of all the mischief; and the other, that she herself had been barbarously used by them all; and on these two points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could console and nothing appease her.--Nor did that day wear out her resentment. A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without scolding her, a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William or Lady Lucas without being rude, and many months were gone before she could at all forgive their daughter. Mr. Bennet's emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort; for it gratified him, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had been used to think tolerably sensible, was as foolish as his wife, and more foolish than his daughter! Jane confessed herself a little surprised at the match; but she said less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness; nor could Elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable. Kitty and Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only a clergyman; and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news to spread at Meryton. Lady Lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort on Mrs. Bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married; and she called at Longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was, though Mrs. Bennet's sour looks and ill-natured remarks might have been enough to drive happiness away. Between Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent on the subject; and Elizabeth felt persuaded that no real confidence could ever subsist between them again. Her disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her sister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could never be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious, as Bingley had now been gone a week, and nothing was heard of his return. Jane had sent Caroline an early answer to her letter, and was counting the days till she might reasonably hope to hear again. The promised letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelvemonth's abode in the family might have prompted. After discharging his conscience on that head, he proceeded to inform them, with many rapturous expressions, of his happiness in having obtained the affection of their amiable neighbour, Miss Lucas, and then explained that it was merely with the view of enjoying her society that he had been so ready to close with their kind wish of seeing him again at Longbourn, whither he hoped to be able to return on Monday fortnight; for Lady Catherine, he added, so heartily approved his marriage, that she wished it to take place as soon as possible, which he trusted would be an unanswerable argument with his amiable Charlotte to name an early day for making him the happiest of men. Mr. Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of pleasure to Mrs. Bennet. On the contrary she was as much disposed to complain of it as her husband.--It was very strange that he should come to Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient and exceedingly troublesome.--She hated having visitors in the house while her health was so indifferent, and lovers were of all people the most disagreeable. Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet, and they gave way only to the greater distress of Mr. Bingley's continued absence. Neither Jane nor Elizabeth were comfortable on this subject. Day after day passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the report which shortly prevailed in Meryton of his coming no more to Netherfield the whole winter; a report which highly incensed Mrs. Bennet, and which she never failed to contradict as a most scandalous falsehood. Even Elizabeth began to fear--not that Bingley was indifferent--but that his sisters would be successful in keeping him away. Unwilling as she was to admit an idea so destructive of Jane's happiness, and so dishonourable to the stability of her lover, she could not prevent its frequently recurring. The united efforts of his two unfeeling sisters and of his overpowering friend, assisted by the attractions of Miss Darcy and the amusements of London, might be too much, she feared, for the strength of his attachment. As for Jane, _her_ anxiety under this suspence was, of course, more painful than Elizabeth's; but whatever she felt she was desirous of concealing, and between herself and Elizabeth, therefore, the subject was never alluded to. But as no such delicacy restrained her mother, an hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of Bingley, express her impatience for his arrival, or even require Jane to confess that if he did not come back, she should think herself very ill used. It needed all Jane's steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable tranquillity. Mr. Collins returned most punctually on the Monday fortnight, but his reception at Longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his first introduction. He was too happy, however, to need much attention; and luckily for the others, the business of love-making relieved them from a great deal of his company. The chief of every day was spent by him at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed. Mrs. Bennet was really in a most pitiable state. The very mention of any thing concerning the match threw her into an agony of ill humour, and wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of. The sight of Miss Lucas was odious to her. As her successor in that house, she regarded her with jealous abhorrence. Whenever Charlotte came to see them she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession; and whenever she spoke in a low voice to Mr. Collins, was convinced that they were talking of the Longbourn estate, and resolving to turn herself and her daughters out of the house, as soon as Mr. Bennet were dead. She complained bitterly of all this to her husband. "Indeed, Mr. Bennet," said she, "it is very hard to think that Charlotte Lucas should ever be mistress of this house, that I should be forced to make way for _her_, and live to see her take my place in it!" "My dear, do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for better things. Let us flatter ourselves that _I_ may be the survivor." This was not very consoling to Mrs. Bennet, and, therefore, instead of making any answer, she went on as before, "I cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate. If it was not for the entail I should not mind it." "What should not you mind?" "I should not mind any thing at all." "Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such insensibility." "I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for any thing about the entail. How any one could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own daughters I cannot understand; and all for the sake of Mr. Collins too!--Why should _he_ have it more than anybody else?" "I leave it to yourself to determine," said Mr. Bennet. END OF VOL. I. [Illustration: A VICARAGE HOUSE.] PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: A Novel. In Three Volumes. By the Author of "Sense and Sensibility." VOL. II. London: Printed for T. Egerton, Military Library, Whitehall.

Sir William Lucas arrives at the Bennets to announce the engagement of his daughter to Mr. Collins. Mrs. Bennet is dumbfounded and extremely disgruntled by the news. A week elapses before she can see Elizabeth without scolding her for refusing Mr. Collins proposal, and a month passes before she can speak to the Lucas family with civility. Disappointed in her good friend Charlotte, Elizabeth spends more time with Jane. She grows increasingly anxious about her sister since there is no news of Bingley. Jane is also dejected over not hearing from him, but she retains her composure. A week later, Mr. Collins arrives at Longbourn and receives a cold, indifferent welcome from the disappointed Mrs. Bennet. She complains to her husband that "it was very strange that he should come to Longbourn instead of Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient and exceedingly troublesome". Even though he is staying with the Bennets, Mr. Collins spends the larger part of his time at Lucas Lodge. Mrs. Bennet is in a terrible state, weighed down by the twin tragedy of Mr. Bingleys sudden disappearance and Mr. Collins engagement to Miss Lucas. The sight of Lucas is particularly abhorrent to her, for Mrs. Bennet can only think about her being the future mistress of Longbourn.

Mrs. Jennings was a widow with an ample jointure. She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world. In the promotion of this object she was zealously active, as far as her ability reached; and missed no opportunity of projecting weddings among all the young people of her acquaintance. She was remarkably quick in the discovery of attachments, and had enjoyed the advantage of raising the blushes and the vanity of many a young lady by insinuations of her power over such a young man; and this kind of discernment enabled her soon after her arrival at Barton decisively to pronounce that Colonel Brandon was very much in love with Marianne Dashwood. She rather suspected it to be so, on the very first evening of their being together, from his listening so attentively while she sang to them; and when the visit was returned by the Middletons' dining at the cottage, the fact was ascertained by his listening to her again. It must be so. She was perfectly convinced of it. It would be an excellent match, for HE was rich, and SHE was handsome. Mrs. Jennings had been anxious to see Colonel Brandon well married, ever since her connection with Sir John first brought him to her knowledge; and she was always anxious to get a good husband for every pretty girl. The immediate advantage to herself was by no means inconsiderable, for it supplied her with endless jokes against them both. At the park she laughed at the colonel, and in the cottage at Marianne. To the former her raillery was probably, as far as it regarded only himself, perfectly indifferent; but to the latter it was at first incomprehensible; and when its object was understood, she hardly knew whether most to laugh at its absurdity, or censure its impertinence, for she considered it as an unfeeling reflection on the colonel's advanced years, and on his forlorn condition as an old bachelor. Mrs. Dashwood, who could not think a man five years younger than herself, so exceedingly ancient as he appeared to the youthful fancy of her daughter, ventured to clear Mrs. Jennings from the probability of wishing to throw ridicule on his age. "But at least, Mama, you cannot deny the absurdity of the accusation, though you may not think it intentionally ill-natured. Colonel Brandon is certainly younger than Mrs. Jennings, but he is old enough to be MY father; and if he were ever animated enough to be in love, must have long outlived every sensation of the kind. It is too ridiculous! When is a man to be safe from such wit, if age and infirmity will not protect him?" "Infirmity!" said Elinor, "do you call Colonel Brandon infirm? I can easily suppose that his age may appear much greater to you than to my mother; but you can hardly deceive yourself as to his having the use of his limbs!" "Did not you hear him complain of the rheumatism? and is not that the commonest infirmity of declining life?" "My dearest child," said her mother, laughing, "at this rate you must be in continual terror of MY decay; and it must seem to you a miracle that my life has been extended to the advanced age of forty." "Mama, you are not doing me justice. I know very well that Colonel Brandon is not old enough to make his friends yet apprehensive of losing him in the course of nature. He may live twenty years longer. But thirty-five has nothing to do with matrimony." "Perhaps," said Elinor, "thirty-five and seventeen had better not have any thing to do with matrimony together. But if there should by any chance happen to be a woman who is single at seven and twenty, I should not think Colonel Brandon's being thirty-five any objection to his marrying HER." "A woman of seven and twenty," said Marianne, after pausing a moment, "can never hope to feel or inspire affection again, and if her home be uncomfortable, or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse, for the sake of the provision and security of a wife. In his marrying such a woman therefore there would be nothing unsuitable. It would be a compact of convenience, and the world would be satisfied. In my eyes it would be no marriage at all, but that would be nothing. To me it would seem only a commercial exchange, in which each wished to be benefited at the expense of the other." "It would be impossible, I know," replied Elinor, "to convince you that a woman of seven and twenty could feel for a man of thirty-five anything near enough to love, to make him a desirable companion to her. But I must object to your dooming Colonel Brandon and his wife to the constant confinement of a sick chamber, merely because he chanced to complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight rheumatic feel in one of his shoulders." "But he talked of flannel waistcoats," said Marianne; "and with me a flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps, rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble." "Had he been only in a violent fever, you would not have despised him half so much. Confess, Marianne, is not there something interesting to you in the flushed cheek, hollow eye, and quick pulse of a fever?" Soon after this, upon Elinor's leaving the room, "Mama," said Marianne, "I have an alarm on the subject of illness which I cannot conceal from you. I am sure Edward Ferrars is not well. We have now been here almost a fortnight, and yet he does not come. Nothing but real indisposition could occasion this extraordinary delay. What else can detain him at Norland?" "Had you any idea of his coming so soon?" said Mrs. Dashwood. "I had none. On the contrary, if I have felt any anxiety at all on the subject, it has been in recollecting that he sometimes showed a want of pleasure and readiness in accepting my invitation, when I talked of his coming to Barton. Does Elinor expect him already?" "I have never mentioned it to her, but of course she must." "I rather think you are mistaken, for when I was talking to her yesterday of getting a new grate for the spare bedchamber, she observed that there was no immediate hurry for it, as it was not likely that the room would be wanted for some time." "How strange this is! what can be the meaning of it! But the whole of their behaviour to each other has been unaccountable! How cold, how composed were their last adieus! How languid their conversation the last evening of their being together! In Edward's farewell there was no distinction between Elinor and me: it was the good wishes of an affectionate brother to both. Twice did I leave them purposely together in the course of the last morning, and each time did he most unaccountably follow me out of the room. And Elinor, in quitting Norland and Edward, cried not as I did. Even now her self-command is invariable. When is she dejected or melancholy? When does she try to avoid society, or appear restless and dissatisfied in it?"

Mrs. Jennings is a chatty old gossip with a heart of gold. Having found husbands for her two daughters, she now embarks upon the mission of marrying off all the other eligible young ladies of her acquaintance. Next up: Elinor and Marianne. Mrs. Jennings is certain that Colonel Brandon is head over heels in love with Marianne. She immediately decides that they should get married. She then delights in poking fun at both sides of this pair - much to everyone's embarrassment. Marianne finds Mrs. Jennings' jokes both funny and offensive, given Colonel Brandon's advanced age. Mrs. Dashwood finds it necessary to remind her ageist daughter that the guy isn't exactly at death's door. Marianne counters that he's old enough to be her father - shouldn't his "age and infirmity" protect him from mockery? Here, Elinor also steps in to defend the Colonel, who, it must be said, is far from "infirm," even if he has rheumatism. Marianne, rather heartlessly, admits that Colonel Brandon isn't about to die , but claims that a man of 35 shouldn't be thinking about marriage at his age. Elinor cautiously agrees that perhaps a man his age shouldn't marry a young girl, but that he should be allowed to marry an older lady of 27 or so. Marianne concedes that this would be OK - after all, a woman who's unmarried at 27 is practically dead to the world, so it would be a marriage of convenience, in which the couple could provide company for each other in their declining years. We have to wonder what Marianne would think of marriage in our modern world - after all, it's not unusual for men and women to get married after 30 nowadays! Elinor tries futilely to convince her sister that 30 isn't the end of life as we know it, then gives up and heads out. Once her sister's gone, Marianne brings up Edward Ferrars - he hasn't come to visit them at Barton Cottage yet. What could possibly be preventing him? Marianne can't understand her sister's apparent lack of emotion with regards to her erstwhile suitor. Doesn't Elinor feel anything at all?

"Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants, and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery. "When night came, I quitted my retreat, and wandered in the wood; and now, no longer restrained by the fear of discovery, I gave vent to my anguish in fearful howlings. I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils; destroying the objects that obstructed me, and ranging through the wood with a stag-like swiftness. Oh! what a miserable night I passed! the cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved their branches above me: now and then the sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness. All, save I, were at rest or in enjoyment: I, like the arch fiend, bore a hell within me; and, finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin. "But this was a luxury of sensation that could not endure; I became fatigued with excess of bodily exertion, and sank on the damp grass in the sick impotence of despair. There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me forth to this insupportable misery. "The sun rose; I heard the voices of men, and knew that it was impossible to return to my retreat during that day. Accordingly I hid myself in some thick underwood, determining to devote the ensuing hours to reflection on my situation. "The pleasant sunshine, and the pure air of day, restored me to some degree of tranquillity; and when I considered what had passed at the cottage, I could not help believing that I had been too hasty in my conclusions. I had certainly acted imprudently. It was apparent that my conversation had interested the father in my behalf, and I was a fool in having exposed my person to the horror of his children. I ought to have familiarized the old De Lacy to me, and by degrees have discovered myself to the rest of his family, when they should have been prepared for my approach. But I did not believe my errors to be irretrievable; and, after much consideration, I resolved to return to the cottage, seek the old man, and by my representations win him to my party. "These thoughts calmed me, and in the afternoon I sank into a profound sleep; but the fever of my blood did not allow me to be visited by peaceful dreams. The horrible scene of the preceding day was for ever acting before my eyes; the females were flying, and the enraged Felix tearing me from his father's feet. I awoke exhausted; and, finding that it was already night, I crept forth from my hiding-place, and went in search of food. "When my hunger was appeased, I directed my steps towards the well-known path that conducted to the cottage. All there was at peace. I crept into my hovel, and remained in silent expectation of the accustomed hour when the family arose. That hour past, the sun mounted high in the heavens, but the cottagers did not appear. I trembled violently, apprehending some dreadful misfortune. The inside of the cottage was dark, and I heard no motion; I cannot describe the agony of this suspence. "Presently two countrymen passed by; but, pausing near the cottage, they entered into conversation, using violent gesticulations; but I did not understand what they said, as they spoke the language of the country, which differed from that of my protectors. Soon after, however, Felix approached with another man: I was surprised, as I knew that he had not quitted the cottage that morning, and waited anxiously to discover, from his discourse, the meaning of these unusual appearances. "'Do you consider,' said his companion to him, 'that you will be obliged to pay three months' rent, and to lose the produce of your garden? I do not wish to take any unfair advantage, and I beg therefore that you will take some days to consider of your determination.' "'It is utterly useless,' replied Felix, 'we can never again inhabit your cottage. The life of my father is in the greatest danger, owing to the dreadful circumstance that I have related. My wife and my sister will never recover their horror. I entreat you not to reason with me any more. Take possession of your tenement, and let me fly from this place.' "Felix trembled violently as he said this. He and his companion entered the cottage, in which they remained for a few minutes, and then departed. I never saw any of the family of De Lacy more. "I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of utter and stupid despair. My protectors had departed, and had broken the only link that held me to the world. For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to controul them; but, allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I bent my mind towards injury and death. When I thought of my friends, of the mild voice of De Lacy, the gentle eyes of Agatha, and the exquisite beauty of the Arabian, these thoughts vanished, and a gush of tears somewhat soothed me. But again, when I reflected that they had spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger; and, unable to injure any thing human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects. As night advanced, I placed a variety of combustibles around the cottage; and, after having destroyed every vestige of cultivation in the garden, I waited with forced impatience until the moon had sunk to commence my operations. "As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the woods, and quickly dispersed the clouds that had loitered in the heavens: the blast tore along like a mighty avalanche, and produced a kind of insanity in my spirits, that burst all bounds of reason and reflection. I lighted the dry branch of a tree, and danced with fury around the devoted cottage, my eyes still fixed on the western horizon, the edge of which the moon nearly touched. A part of its orb was at length hid, and I waved my brand; it sunk, and, with a loud scream, I fired the straw, and heath, and bushes, which I had collected. The wind fanned the fire, and the cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames, which clung to it, and licked it with their forked and destroying tongues. "As soon as I was convinced that no assistance could save any part of the habitation, I quitted the scene, and sought for refuge in the woods. "And now, with the world before me, whither should I bend my steps? I resolved to fly far from the scene of my misfortunes; but to me, hated and despised, every country must be equally horrible. At length the thought of you crossed my mind. I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life? Among the lessons that Felix had bestowed upon Safie geography had not been omitted: I had learned from these the relative situations of the different countries of the earth. You had mentioned Geneva as the name of your native town; and towards this place I resolved to proceed. "But how was I to direct myself? I knew that I must travel in a south-westerly direction to reach my destination; but the sun was my only guide. I did not know the names of the towns that I was to pass through, nor could I ask information from a single human being; but I did not despair. From you only could I hope for succour, although towards you I felt no sentiment but that of hatred. Unfeeling, heartless creator! you had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind. But on you only had I any claim for pity and redress, and from you I determined to seek that justice which I vainly attempted to gain from any other being that wore the human form. "My travels were long, and the sufferings I endured intense. It was late in autumn when I quitted the district where I had so long resided. I travelled only at night, fearful of encountering the visage of a human being. Nature decayed around me, and the sun became heatless; rain and snow poured around me; mighty rivers were frozen; the surface of the earth was hard, and chill, and bare, and I found no shelter. Oh, earth! how often did I imprecate curses on the cause of my being! The mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me was turned to gall and bitterness. The nearer I approached to your habitation, the more deeply did I feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart. Snow fell, and the waters were hardened, but I rested not. A few incidents now and then directed me, and I possessed a map of the country; but I often wandered wide from my path. The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite: no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food; but a circumstance that happened when I arrived on the confines of Switzerland, when the sun had recovered its warmth, and the earth again began to look green, confirmed in an especial manner the bitterness and horror of my feelings. "I generally rested during the day, and travelled only when I was secured by night from the view of man. One morning, however, finding that my path lay through a deep wood, I ventured to continue my journey after the sun had risen; the day, which was one of the first of spring, cheered even me by the loveliness of its sunshine and the balminess of the air. I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them; and, forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy. Soft tears again bedewed my cheeks, and I even raised my humid eyes with thankfulness towards the blessed sun which bestowed such joy upon me. "I continued to wind among the paths of the wood, until I came to its boundary, which was skirted by a deep and rapid river, into which many of the trees bent their branches, now budding with the fresh spring. Here I paused, not exactly knowing what path to pursue, when I heard the sound of voices, that induced me to conceal myself under the shade of a cypress. I was scarcely hid, when a young girl came running towards the spot where I was concealed, laughing as if she ran from some one in sport. She continued her course along the precipitous sides of the river, when suddenly her foot slipt, and she fell into the rapid stream. I rushed from my hiding place, and, with extreme labour from the force of the current, saved her, and dragged her to shore. She was senseless; and I endeavoured, by every means in my power, to restore animation, when I was suddenly interrupted by the approach of a rustic, who was probably the person from whom she had playfully fled. On seeing me, he darted towards me, and, tearing the girl from my arms, hastened towards the deeper parts of the wood. I followed speedily, I hardly knew why; but when the man saw me draw near, he aimed a gun, which he carried, at my body, and fired. I sunk to the ground, and my injurer, with increased swiftness, escaped into the wood. "This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from destruction, and, as a recompence, I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound, which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and gentleness, which I had entertained but a few moments before, gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind. But the agony of my wound overcame me; my pulses paused, and I fainted. "For some weeks I led a miserable life in the woods, endeavouring to cure the wound which I had received. The ball had entered my shoulder, and I knew not whether it had remained there or passed through; at any rate I had no means of extracting it. My sufferings were augmented also by the oppressive sense of the injustice and ingratitude of their infliction. My daily vows rose for revenge--a deep and deadly revenge, such as would alone compensate for the outrages and anguish I had endured. "After some weeks my wound healed, and I continued my journey. The labours I endured were no longer to be alleviated by the bright sun or gentle breezes of spring; all joy was but a mockery, which insulted my desolate state, and made me feel more painfully that I was not made for the enjoyment of pleasure. "But my toils now drew near a close and, two months from this time, I reached the environs of Geneva. "It was evening when I arrived, and I retired to a hiding-place among the fields that surround it, to meditate in what manner I should apply to you. I was oppressed by fatigue and hunger, and far too unhappy to enjoy the gentle breezes of evening, or the prospect of the sun setting behind the stupendous mountains of Jura. "At this time a slight sleep relieved me from the pain of reflection, which was disturbed by the approach of a beautiful child, who came running into the recess I had chosen with all the sportiveness of infancy. Suddenly, as I gazed on him, an idea seized me, that this little creature was unprejudiced, and had lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity. If, therefore, I could seize him, and educate him as my companion and friend, I should not be so desolate in this peopled earth. "Urged by this impulse, I seized on the boy as he passed, and drew him towards me. As soon as he beheld my form, he placed his hands before his eyes, and uttered a shrill scream: I drew his hand forcibly from his face, and said, 'Child, what is the meaning of this? I do not intend to hurt you; listen to me.' "He struggled violently; 'Let me go,' he cried; 'monster! ugly wretch! you wish to eat me, and tear me to pieces--You are an ogre--Let me go, or I will tell my papa.' "'Boy, you will never see your father again; you must come with me.' "'Hideous monster! let me go; My papa is a Syndic--he is M. Frankenstein--he would punish you. You dare not keep me.' "'Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy--to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.' "The child still struggled, and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart: I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet. "I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph: clapping my hands, I exclaimed, 'I, too, can create desolation; my enemy is not impregnable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.' "As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his breast. I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips; but presently my rage returned: I remembered that I was for ever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow; and that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one expressive of disgust and affright. "Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage? I only wonder that at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind, and perish in the attempt to destroy them. "While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot where I had committed the murder, and was seeking a more secluded hiding-place, when I perceived a woman passing near me. She was young, not indeed so beautiful as her whose portrait I held, but of an agreeable aspect, and blooming in the loveliness of youth and health. Here, I thought, is one of those whose smiles are bestowed on all but me; she shall not escape: thanks to the lessons of Felix, and the sanguinary laws of man, I have learned how to work mischief. I approached her unperceived, and placed the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress. "For some days I haunted the spot where these scenes had taken place; sometimes wishing to see you, sometimes resolved to quit the world and its miseries for ever. At length I wandered towards these mountains, and have ranged through their immense recesses, consumed by a burning passion which you alone can gratify. We may not part until you have promised to comply with my requisition. I am alone, and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects. This being you must create."

The monster and Victor are caught up to each other in time by the end of this chapter. This chapter is pivotal in that it blends the two sides into one story. The monster sees his family leave their cottage, so he burns it down and goes to live off of the land. His travels carry him near Geneva, where he meets William Frankenstein, Victor's youngest brother. Realizing who the boy is, the monster murders the child and plants the locket in Justine's dress pocket. The monster's final request from Victor is to create him a mate.

SCENE III. England. Before the King's Palace. [Enter Malcolm and Macduff.] MALCOLM. Let us seek out some desolate shade and there Weep our sad bosoms empty. MACDUFF. Let us rather Hold fast the mortal sword, and, like good men, Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out Like syllable of dolour. MALCOLM. What I believe, I'll wail; What know, believe; and what I can redress, As I shall find the time to friend, I will. What you have spoke, it may be so perchance. This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, Was once thought honest: you have loved him well; He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but something You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb To appease an angry god. MACDUFF. I am not treacherous. MALCOLM. But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon; That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose; Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell: Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace must still look so. MACDUFF. I have lost my hopes. MALCOLM. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts. Why in that rawness left you wife and child,-- Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,-- Without leave-taking?--I pray you, Let not my jealousies be your dishonors, But mine own safeties:--you may be rightly just, Whatever I shall think. MACDUFF. Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dare not check thee! wear thou thy wrongs, The title is affeer'd.--Fare thee well, lord: I would not be the villain that thou think'st For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp And the rich East to boot. MALCOLM. Be not offended: I speak not as in absolute fear of you. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds. I think, withal, There would be hands uplifted in my right; And here, from gracious England, have I offer Of goodly thousands: but, for all this, When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head, Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country Shall have more vices than it had before; More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever, By him that shall succeed. MACDUFF. What should he be? MALCOLM. It is myself I mean: in whom I know All the particulars of vice so grafted That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd With my confineless harms. MACDUFF. Not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd In evils to top Macbeth. MALCOLM. I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name: but there's no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up The cistern of my lust; and my desire All continent impediments would o'erbear, That did oppose my will: better Macbeth Than such an one to reign. MACDUFF. Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny; it hath been The untimely emptying of the happy throne, And fall of many kings. But fear not yet To take upon you what is yours: you may Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty, And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink. We have willing dames enough; there cannot be That vulture in you, to devour so many As will to greatness dedicate themselves, Finding it so inclin'd. MALCOLM. With this there grows, In my most ill-compos'd affection, such A stanchless avarice, that, were I king, I should cut off the nobles for their lands; Desire his jewels, and this other's house: And my more-having would be as a sauce To make me hunger more; that I should forge Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal, Destroying them for wealth. MACDUFF. This avarice Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root Than summer-seeming lust; and it hath been The sword of our slain kings: yet do not fear; Scotland hath foysons to fill up your will, Of your mere own: all these are portable, With other graces weigh'd. MALCOLM. But I have none: the king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, I have no relish of them; but abound In the division of each several crime, Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth. MACDUFF. O Scotland, Scotland! MALCOLM. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: I am as I have spoken. MACDUFF. Fit to govern! No, not to live!--O nation miserable, With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, Since that the truest issue of thy throne By his own interdiction stands accurs'd And does blaspheme his breed?--Thy royal father Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee, Oftener upon her knees than on her feet, Died every day she lived. Fare-thee-well! These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself Have banish'd me from Scotland.--O my breast, Thy hope ends here! MALCOLM. Macduff, this noble passion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul Wiped the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth By many of these trains hath sought to win me Into his power; and modest wisdom plucks me From over-credulous haste: but God above Deal between thee and me! for even now I put myself to thy direction, and Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure The taints and blames I laid upon myself, For strangers to my nature. I am yet Unknown to woman; never was forsworn; Scarcely have coveted what was mine own; At no time broke my faith; would not betray The devil to his fellow; and delight No less in truth than life: my first false speaking Was this upon myself:--what I am truly, Is thine and my poor country's to command: Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach, Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men Already at a point, was setting forth: Now we'll together; and the chance of goodness Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent? MACDUFF. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once 'Tis hard to reconcile. [Enter a Doctor.] MALCOLM. Well; more anon.--Comes the king forth, I pray you? DOCTOR. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces The great assay of art; but, at his touch, Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, They presently amend. MALCOLM. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor.] MACDUFF. What's the disease he means? MALCOLM. 'Tis call'd the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king; Which often, since my here-remain in England, I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures; Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy; And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace. MACDUFF. See, who comes here? MALCOLM. My countryman; but yet I know him not. [Enter Ross.] MACDUFF. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. MALCOLM. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove The means that makes us strangers! ROSS. Sir, amen. MACDUFF. Stands Scotland where it did? ROSS. Alas, poor country,-- Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing, But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks, that rent the air, Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken. MACDUFF. O, relation Too nice, and yet too true! MALCOLM. What's the newest grief? ROSS. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker; Each minute teems a new one. MACDUFF. How does my wife? ROSS. Why, well. MACDUFF. And all my children? ROSS. Well too. MACDUFF. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? ROSS. No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em. MACDUFF. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes't? ROSS. When I came hither to transport the tidings, Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour Of many worthy fellows that were out; Which was to my belief witness'd the rather, For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot: Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff their dire distresses. MALCOLM. Be't their comfort We are coming thither: gracious England hath Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men; An older and a better soldier none That Christendom gives out. ROSS. Would I could answer This comfort with the like! But I have words That would be howl'd out in the desert air, Where hearing should not latch them. MACDUFF. What concern they? The general cause? or is it a fee-grief Due to some single breast? ROSS. No mind that's honest But in it shares some woe; though the main part Pertains to you alone. MACDUFF. If it be mine, Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it. ROSS. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever yet they heard. MACDUFF. Humh! I guess at it. ROSS. Your castle is surpris'd; your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer, To add the death of you. MALCOLM. Merciful heaven!-- What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. MACDUFF. My children too? ROSS. Wife, children, servants, all That could be found. MACDUFF. And I must be from thence! My wife kill'd too? ROSS. I have said. MALCOLM. Be comforted: Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief. MACDUFF. He has no children.--All my pretty ones? Did you say all?--O hell-kite!--All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop? MALCOLM. Dispute it like a man. MACDUFF. I shall do so; But I must also feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me.--Did heaven look on, And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee! naught that I am, Not for their own demerits, but for mine, Fell slaughter on their souls: heaven rest them now! MALCOLM. Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. MACDUFF. O, I could play the woman with mine eye, And braggart with my tongue!--But, gentle heavens, Cut short all intermission; front to front Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape, Heaven forgive him too! MALCOLM. This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the king; our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave: Macbeth Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; The night is long that never finds the day. [Exeunt.]

Macduff has found Malcolm in England and the two are conversing in front of the king's palace. The two lament the evils that Scotland has suffered under the "tyrant" Macbeth's reign. Macduff tries to convince Malcolm to overthrow Macbeth. Malcolm, however, is still wary of anyone from Scotland. Thus, he pretends to be inferior to Macbeth and refuses to take the throne. He falsely states that he is licentious, greedy and materialistic. Macduff consoles Malcolm and tells him that anyone would be better on the throne than Macbeth. Touched by his patriotism and true compassion, Malcolm realizes that Macduff is not a spy and apologizes for lying to him. He agrees to help Macduff and Siward fight Macbeth. After the two swear to help each other, Malcolm tells Macduff about the virtues of the English king. Supposedly, he is able to heal people suffering from scrofula by merely touching them. On a historical note, it is believed that Shakespeare's English king was based after King Edward. Edward was a saintly monarch who had the gift of healing his subjects from scrofula. Malcolm's praises of this king provides a direct contrast to the sinister Macbeth, who kills his subjects instead of healing them. Ross enters the scene at this time, bearing bad news from Scotland. He tells Macduff that his family has been murdered and that the Scottish people are praying for a deliverer. Enraged and wrought with grief, Macduff resolves to get his revenge by killing Macbeth. Ross, Macduff, Malcolm, Siward and ten thousand men immediately leave England to war with Macbeth

Far in a wild, unknown to public view, From youth to age a reverend hermit grew; The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell, His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well Remote from man, with God he pass'd his days, Prayer all his business--all his pleasure praise. --Parnell The reader cannot have forgotten that the event of the tournament was decided by the exertions of an unknown knight, whom, on account of the passive and indifferent conduct which he had manifested on the former part of the day, the spectators had entitled, "Le Noir Faineant". This knight had left the field abruptly when the victory was achieved; and when he was called upon to receive the reward of his valour, he was nowhere to be found. In the meantime, while summoned by heralds and by trumpets, the knight was holding his course northward, avoiding all frequented paths, and taking the shortest road through the woodlands. He paused for the night at a small hostelry lying out of the ordinary route, where, however, he obtained from a wandering minstrel news of the event of the tourney. On the next morning the knight departed early, with the intention of making a long journey; the condition of his horse, which he had carefully spared during the preceding morning, being such as enabled him to travel far without the necessity of much repose. Yet his purpose was baffled by the devious paths through which he rode, so that when evening closed upon him, he only found himself on the frontiers of the West Riding of Yorkshire. By this time both horse and man required refreshment, and it became necessary, moreover, to look out for some place in which they might spend the night, which was now fast approaching. The place where the traveller found himself seemed unpropitious for obtaining either shelter or refreshment, and he was likely to be reduced to the usual expedient of knights-errant, who, on such occasions, turned their horses to graze, and laid themselves down to meditate on their lady-mistress, with an oak-tree for a canopy. But the Black Knight either had no mistress to meditate upon, or, being as indifferent in love as he seemed to be in war, was not sufficiently occupied by passionate reflections upon her beauty and cruelty, to be able to parry the effects of fatigue and hunger, and suffer love to act as a substitute for the solid comforts of a bed and supper. He felt dissatisfied, therefore, when, looking around, he found himself deeply involved in woods, through which indeed there were many open glades, and some paths, but such as seemed only formed by the numerous herds of cattle which grazed in the forest, or by the animals of chase, and the hunters who made prey of them. The sun, by which the knight had chiefly directed his course, had now sunk behind the Derbyshire hills on his left, and every effort which he might make to pursue his journey was as likely to lead him out of his road as to advance him on his route. After having in vain endeavoured to select the most beaten path, in hopes it might lead to the cottage of some herdsman, or the silvan lodge of a forester, and having repeatedly found himself totally unable to determine on a choice, the knight resolved to trust to the sagacity of his horse; experience having, on former occasions, made him acquainted with the wonderful talent possessed by these animals for extricating themselves and their riders on such emergencies. The good steed, grievously fatigued with so long a day's journey under a rider cased in mail, had no sooner found, by the slackened reins, that he was abandoned to his own guidance, than he seemed to assume new strength and spirit; and whereas, formerly he had scarce replied to the spur, otherwise than by a groan, he now, as if proud of the confidence reposed in him, pricked up his ears, and assumed, of his own accord, a more lively motion. The path which the animal adopted rather turned off from the course pursued by the knight during the day; but as the horse seemed confident in his choice, the rider abandoned himself to his discretion. He was justified by the event; for the footpath soon after appeared a little wider and more worn, and the tinkle of a small bell gave the knight to understand that he was in the vicinity of some chapel or hermitage. Accordingly, he soon reached an open plat of turf, on the opposite side of which, a rock, rising abruptly from a gently sloping plain, offered its grey and weatherbeaten front to the traveller. Ivy mantled its sides in some places, and in others oaks and holly bushes, whose roots found nourishment in the cliffs of the crag, waved over the precipices below, like the plumage of the warrior over his steel helmet, giving grace to that whose chief expression was terror. At the bottom of the rock, and leaning, as it were, against it, was constructed a rude hut, built chiefly of the trunks of trees felled in the neighbouring forest, and secured against the weather by having its crevices stuffed with moss mingled with clay. The stem of a young fir-tree lopped of its branches, with a piece of wood tied across near the top, was planted upright by the door, as a rude emblem of the holy cross. At a little distance on the right hand, a fountain of the purest water trickled out of the rock, and was received in a hollow stone, which labour had formed into a rustic basin. Escaping from thence, the stream murmured down the descent by a channel which its course had long worn, and so wandered through the little plain to lose itself in the neighbouring wood. Beside this fountain were the ruins of a very small chapel, of which the roof had partly fallen in. The building, when entire, had never been above sixteen feet long by twelve feet in breadth, and the roof, low in proportion, rested upon four concentric arches which sprung from the four corners of the building, each supported upon a short and heavy pillar. The ribs of two of these arches remained, though the roof had fallen down betwixt them; over the others it remained entire. The entrance to this ancient place of devotion was under a very low round arch, ornamented by several courses of that zig-zag moulding, resembling shark's teeth, which appears so often in the more ancient Saxon architecture. A belfry rose above the porch on four small pillars, within which hung the green and weatherbeaten bell, the feeble sounds of which had been some time before heard by the Black Knight. The whole peaceful and quiet scene lay glimmering in twilight before the eyes of the traveller, giving him good assurance of lodging for the night; since it was a special duty of those hermits who dwelt in the woods, to exercise hospitality towards benighted or bewildered passengers. Accordingly, the knight took no time to consider minutely the particulars which we have detailed, but thanking Saint Julian (the patron of travellers) who had sent him good harbourage, he leaped from his horse and assailed the door of the hermitage with the butt of his lance, in order to arouse attention and gain admittance. It was some time before he obtained any answer, and the reply, when made, was unpropitious. "Pass on, whosoever thou art," was the answer given by a deep hoarse voice from within the hut, "and disturb not the servant of God and St Dunstan in his evening devotions." "Worthy father," answered the knight, "here is a poor wanderer bewildered in these woods, who gives thee the opportunity of exercising thy charity and hospitality." "Good brother," replied the inhabitant of the hermitage, "it has pleased Our Lady and St Dunstan to destine me for the object of those virtues, instead of the exercise thereof. I have no provisions here which even a dog would share with me, and a horse of any tenderness of nurture would despise my couch--pass therefore on thy way, and God speed thee." "But how," replied the knight, "is it possible for me to find my way through such a wood as this, when darkness is coming on? I pray you, reverend father as you are a Christian, to undo your door, and at least point out to me my road." "And I pray you, good Christian brother," replied the anchorite, "to disturb me no more. You have already interrupted one 'pater', two 'aves', and a 'credo', which I, miserable sinner that I am, should, according to my vow, have said before moonrise." "The road--the road!" vociferated the knight, "give me directions for the road, if I am to expect no more from thee." "The road," replied the hermit, "is easy to hit. The path from the wood leads to a morass, and from thence to a ford, which, as the rains have abated, may now be passable. When thou hast crossed the ford, thou wilt take care of thy footing up the left bank, as it is somewhat precipitous; and the path, which hangs over the river, has lately, as I learn, (for I seldom leave the duties of my chapel,) given way in sundry places. Thou wilt then keep straight forward---" "A broken path--a precipice--a ford, and a morass!" said the knight interrupting him,--"Sir Hermit, if you were the holiest that ever wore beard or told bead, you shall scarce prevail on me to hold this road to-night. I tell thee, that thou, who livest by the charity of the country--ill deserved, as I doubt it is--hast no right to refuse shelter to the wayfarer when in distress. Either open the door quickly, or, by the rood, I will beat it down and make entry for myself." "Friend wayfarer," replied the hermit, "be not importunate; if thou puttest me to use the carnal weapon in mine own defence, it will be e'en the worse for you." At this moment a distant noise of barking and growling, which the traveller had for some time heard, became extremely loud and furious, and made the knight suppose that the hermit, alarmed by his threat of making forcible entry, had called the dogs who made this clamour to aid him in his defence, out of some inner recess in which they had been kennelled. Incensed at this preparation on the hermit's part for making good his inhospitable purpose, the knight struck the door so furiously with his foot, that posts as well as staples shook with violence. The anchorite, not caring again to expose his door to a similar shock, now called out aloud, "Patience, patience--spare thy strength, good traveller, and I will presently undo the door, though, it may be, my doing so will be little to thy pleasure." The door accordingly was opened; and the hermit, a large, strong-built man, in his sackcloth gown and hood, girt with a rope of rushes, stood before the knight. He had in one hand a lighted torch, or link, and in the other a baton of crab-tree, so thick and heavy, that it might well be termed a club. Two large shaggy dogs, half greyhound half mastiff, stood ready to rush upon the traveller as soon as the door should be opened. But when the torch glanced upon the lofty crest and golden spurs of the knight, who stood without, the hermit, altering probably his original intentions, repressed the rage of his auxiliaries, and, changing his tone to a sort of churlish courtesy, invited the knight to enter his hut, making excuse for his unwillingness to open his lodge after sunset, by alleging the multitude of robbers and outlaws who were abroad, and who gave no honour to Our Lady or St Dunstan, nor to those holy men who spent life in their service. "The poverty of your cell, good father," said the knight, looking around him, and seeing nothing but a bed of leaves, a crucifix rudely carved in oak, a missal, with a rough-hewn table and two stools, and one or two clumsy articles of furniture--"the poverty of your cell should seem a sufficient defence against any risk of thieves, not to mention the aid of two trusty dogs, large and strong enough, I think, to pull down a stag, and of course, to match with most men." "The good keeper of the forest," said the hermit, "hath allowed me the use of these animals, to protect my solitude until the times shall mend." Having said this, he fixed his torch in a twisted branch of iron which served for a candlestick; and, placing the oaken trivet before the embers of the fire, which he refreshed with some dry wood, he placed a stool upon one side of the table, and beckoned to the knight to do the same upon the other. They sat down, and gazed with great gravity at each other, each thinking in his heart that he had seldom seen a stronger or more athletic figure than was placed opposite to him. "Reverend hermit," said the knight, after looking long and fixedly at his host, "were it not to interrupt your devout meditations, I would pray to know three things of your holiness; first, where I am to put my horse?--secondly, what I can have for supper?--thirdly, where I am to take up my couch for the night?" "I will reply to you," said the hermit, "with my finger, it being against my rule to speak by words where signs can answer the purpose." So saying, he pointed successively to two corners of the hut. "Your stable," said he, "is there--your bed there; and," reaching down a platter with two handfuls of parched pease upon it from the neighbouring shelf, and placing it upon the table, he added, "your supper is here." The knight shrugged his shoulders, and leaving the hut, brought in his horse, (which in the interim he had fastened to a tree,) unsaddled him with much attention, and spread upon the steed's weary back his own mantle. The hermit was apparently somewhat moved to compassion by the anxiety as well as address which the stranger displayed in tending his horse; for, muttering something about provender left for the keeper's palfrey, he dragged out of a recess a bundle of forage, which he spread before the knight's charger, and immediately afterwards shook down a quantity of dried fern in the corner which he had assigned for the rider's couch. The knight returned him thanks for his courtesy; and, this duty done, both resumed their seats by the table, whereon stood the trencher of pease placed between them. The hermit, after a long grace, which had once been Latin, but of which original language few traces remained, excepting here and there the long rolling termination of some word or phrase, set example to his guest, by modestly putting into a very large mouth, furnished with teeth which might have ranked with those of a boar both in sharpness and whiteness, some three or four dried pease, a miserable grist as it seemed for so large and able a mill. The knight, in order to follow so laudable an example, laid aside his helmet, his corslet, and the greater part of his armour, and showed to the hermit a head thick-curled with yellow hair, high features, blue eyes, remarkably bright and sparkling, a mouth well formed, having an upper lip clothed with mustachoes darker than his hair, and bearing altogether the look of a bold, daring, and enterprising man, with which his strong form well corresponded. The hermit, as if wishing to answer to the confidence of his guest, threw back his cowl, and showed a round bullet head belonging to a man in the prime of life. His close-shaven crown, surrounded by a circle of stiff curled black hair, had something the appearance of a parish pinfold begirt by its high hedge. The features expressed nothing of monastic austerity, or of ascetic privations; on the contrary, it was a bold bluff countenance, with broad black eyebrows, a well-turned forehead, and cheeks as round and vermilion as those of a trumpeter, from which descended a long and curly black beard. Such a visage, joined to the brawny form of the holy man, spoke rather of sirloins and haunches, than of pease and pulse. This incongruity did not escape the guest. After he had with great difficulty accomplished the mastication of a mouthful of the dried pease, he found it absolutely necessary to request his pious entertainer to furnish him with some liquor; who replied to his request by placing before him a large can of the purest water from the fountain. "It is from the well of St Dunstan," said he, "in which, betwixt sun and sun, he baptized five hundred heathen Danes and Britons--blessed be his name!" And applying his black beard to the pitcher, he took a draught much more moderate in quantity than his encomium seemed to warrant. "It seems to me, reverend father," said the knight, "that the small morsels which you eat, together with this holy, but somewhat thin beverage, have thriven with you marvellously. You appear a man more fit to win the ram at a wrestling match, or the ring at a bout at quarter-staff, or the bucklers at a sword-play, than to linger out your time in this desolate wilderness, saying masses, and living upon parched pease and cold water." "Sir Knight," answered the hermit, "your thoughts, like those of the ignorant laity, are according to the flesh. It has pleased Our Lady and my patron saint to bless the pittance to which I restrain myself, even as the pulse and water was blessed to the children Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, who drank the same rather than defile themselves with the wine and meats which were appointed them by the King of the Saracens." "Holy father," said the knight, "upon whose countenance it hath pleased Heaven to work such a miracle, permit a sinful layman to crave thy name?" "Thou mayst call me," answered the hermit, "the Clerk of Copmanhurst, for so I am termed in these parts--They add, it is true, the epithet holy, but I stand not upon that, as being unworthy of such addition.--And now, valiant knight, may I pray ye for the name of my honourable guest?" "Truly," said the knight, "Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, men call me in these parts the Black Knight,--many, sir, add to it the epithet of Sluggard, whereby I am no way ambitious to be distinguished." The hermit could scarcely forbear from smiling at his guest's reply. "I see," said he, "Sir Sluggish Knight, that thou art a man of prudence and of counsel; and moreover, I see that my poor monastic fare likes thee not, accustomed, perhaps, as thou hast been, to the license of courts and of camps, and the luxuries of cities; and now I bethink me, Sir Sluggard, that when the charitable keeper of this forest-walk left those dogs for my protection, and also those bundles of forage, he left me also some food, which, being unfit for my use, the very recollection of it had escaped me amid my more weighty meditations." "I dare be sworn he did so," said the knight; "I was convinced that there was better food in the cell, Holy Clerk, since you first doffed your cowl.--Your keeper is ever a jovial fellow; and none who beheld thy grinders contending with these pease, and thy throat flooded with this ungenial element, could see thee doomed to such horse-provender and horse-beverage," (pointing to the provisions upon the table,) "and refrain from mending thy cheer. Let us see the keeper's bounty, therefore, without delay." The hermit cast a wistful look upon the knight, in which there was a sort of comic expression of hesitation, as if uncertain how far he should act prudently in trusting his guest. There was, however, as much of bold frankness in the knight's countenance as was possible to be expressed by features. His smile, too, had something in it irresistibly comic, and gave an assurance of faith and loyalty, with which his host could not refrain from sympathizing. After exchanging a mute glance or two, the hermit went to the further side of the hut, and opened a hutch, which was concealed with great care and some ingenuity. Out of the recesses of a dark closet, into which this aperture gave admittance, he brought a large pasty, baked in a pewter platter of unusual dimensions. This mighty dish he placed before his guest, who, using his poniard to cut it open, lost no time in making himself acquainted with its contents. "How long is it since the good keeper has been here?" said the knight to his host, after having swallowed several hasty morsels of this reinforcement to the hermit's good cheer. "About two months," answered the father hastily. "By the true Lord," answered the knight, "every thing in your hermitage is miraculous, Holy Clerk! for I would have been sworn that the fat buck which furnished this venison had been running on foot within the week." The hermit was somewhat discountenanced by this observation; and, moreover, he made but a poor figure while gazing on the diminution of the pasty, on which his guest was making desperate inroads; a warfare in which his previous profession of abstinence left him no pretext for joining. "I have been in Palestine, Sir Clerk," said the knight, stopping short of a sudden, "and I bethink me it is a custom there that every host who entertains a guest shall assure him of the wholesomeness of his food, by partaking of it along with him. Far be it from me to suspect so holy a man of aught inhospitable; nevertheless I will be highly bound to you would you comply with this Eastern custom." "To ease your unnecessary scruples, Sir Knight, I will for once depart from my rule," replied the hermit. And as there were no forks in those days, his clutches were instantly in the bowels of the pasty. The ice of ceremony being once broken, it seemed matter of rivalry between the guest and the entertainer which should display the best appetite; and although the former had probably fasted longest, yet the hermit fairly surpassed him. "Holy Clerk," said the knight, when his hunger was appeased, "I would gage my good horse yonder against a zecchin, that that same honest keeper to whom we are obliged for the venison has left thee a stoup of wine, or a runlet of canary, or some such trifle, by way of ally to this noble pasty. This would be a circumstance, doubtless, totally unworthy to dwell in the memory of so rigid an anchorite; yet, I think, were you to search yonder crypt once more, you would find that I am right in my conjecture." The hermit only replied by a grin; and returning to the hutch, he produced a leathern bottle, which might contain about four quarts. He also brought forth two large drinking cups, made out of the horn of the urus, and hooped with silver. Having made this goodly provision for washing down the supper, he seemed to think no farther ceremonious scruple necessary on his part; but filling both cups, and saying, in the Saxon fashion, "'Waes hael', Sir Sluggish Knight!" he emptied his own at a draught. "'Drink hael', Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst!" answered the warrior, and did his host reason in a similar brimmer. "Holy Clerk," said the stranger, after the first cup was thus swallowed, "I cannot but marvel that a man possessed of such thews and sinews as thine, and who therewithal shows the talent of so goodly a trencher-man, should think of abiding by himself in this wilderness. In my judgment, you are fitter to keep a castle or a fort, eating of the fat and drinking of the strong, than to live here upon pulse and water, or even upon the charity of the keeper. At least, were I as thou, I should find myself both disport and plenty out of the king's deer. There is many a goodly herd in these forests, and a buck will never be missed that goes to the use of Saint Dunstan's chaplain." "Sir Sluggish Knight," replied the Clerk, "these are dangerous words, and I pray you to forbear them. I am true hermit to the king and law, and were I to spoil my liege's game, I should be sure of the prison, and, an my gown saved me not, were in some peril of hanging." "Nevertheless, were I as thou," said the knight, "I would take my walk by moonlight, when foresters and keepers were warm in bed, and ever and anon,--as I pattered my prayers,--I would let fly a shaft among the herds of dun deer that feed in the glades--Resolve me, Holy Clerk, hast thou never practised such a pastime?" "Friend Sluggard," answered the hermit, "thou hast seen all that can concern thee of my housekeeping, and something more than he deserves who takes up his quarters by violence. Credit me, it is better to enjoy the good which God sends thee, than to be impertinently curious how it comes. Fill thy cup, and welcome; and do not, I pray thee, by further impertinent enquiries, put me to show that thou couldst hardly have made good thy lodging had I been earnest to oppose thee." "By my faith," said the knight, "thou makest me more curious than ever! Thou art the most mysterious hermit I ever met; and I will know more of thee ere we part. As for thy threats, know, holy man, thou speakest to one whose trade it is to find out danger wherever it is to be met with." "Sir Sluggish Knight, I drink to thee," said the hermit; "respecting thy valour much, but deeming wondrous slightly of thy discretion. If thou wilt take equal arms with me, I will give thee, in all friendship and brotherly love, such sufficing penance and complete absolution, that thou shalt not for the next twelve months sin the sin of excess of curiosity." The knight pledged him, and desired him to name his weapons. "There is none," replied the hermit, "from the scissors of Delilah, and the tenpenny nail of Jael, to the scimitar of Goliath, at which I am not a match for thee--But, if I am to make the election, what sayst thou, good friend, to these trinkets?" Thus speaking, he opened another hutch, and took out from it a couple of broadswords and bucklers, such as were used by the yeomanry of the period. The knight, who watched his motions, observed that this second place of concealment was furnished with two or three good long-bows, a cross-bow, a bundle of bolts for the latter, and half-a-dozen sheaves of arrows for the former. A harp, and other matters of a very uncanonical appearance, were also visible when this dark recess was opened. "I promise thee, brother Clerk," said he, "I will ask thee no more offensive questions. The contents of that cupboard are an answer to all my enquiries; and I see a weapon there" (here he stooped and took out the harp) "on which I would more gladly prove my skill with thee, than at the sword and buckler." "I hope, Sir Knight," said the hermit, "thou hast given no good reason for thy surname of the Sluggard. I do promise thee I suspect thee grievously. Nevertheless, thou art my guest, and I will not put thy manhood to the proof without thine own free will. Sit thee down, then, and fill thy cup; let us drink, sing, and be merry. If thou knowest ever a good lay, thou shalt be welcome to a nook of pasty at Copmanhurst so long as I serve the chapel of St Dunstan, which, please God, shall be till I change my grey covering for one of green turf. But come, fill a flagon, for it will crave some time to tune the harp; and nought pitches the voice and sharpens the ear like a cup of wine. For my part, I love to feel the grape at my very finger-ends before they make the harp-strings tinkle." [22]

Scott opens this chapter with the first six lines of Thomas Parnell's poem "The Hermit." A hermit is a religious man who decides to leave the world behind and live alone, praying and meditating about God. The narrator reminds the reader about the Black Knight who had disappeared so suddenly at the end of the tournament. We rejoin the knight as he is trying to go north. He gets lost in the curving roads of Yorkshire and decides to let his horse choose the way. The horse finds a tiny path that leads to a small chapel. Inside is a hermit. The Black Knight asks for either shelter for the night or directions to the main road. The hermit is really, really reluctant to help. He just wants to be left alone with his prayers. But he finally allows the Black Knight to come inside and have dinner. The hermit, whose title is the Clerk of Copmanhurst, settles in to some porridge after saying a long grace. In this chapter, the hermit is called Friar, but for the rest of the book, he is "the Friar," so we're just going to call him that. When he pulls back his hood, the Black Knight sees that the hermit is youngish, healthy, and very strong looking. The Black Knight can't believe the Friar could stay so healthy looking on just a diet of porridge. The Friar admits that his sponsor leaves richer food, but he never eats it since he has taken a vow of self-denial. The Friar ducks back into his house and brings out a fine piece of deer meat baked into a pastry. It turns out that he hasn't really been denying himself, but he holds back from eating for a bit, since he doesn't want it to be too obvious. But the Black Knight insists, and finally the two men devour their rich meal. The Black Knight also guesses that the Friar has some wine hidden, which the two men split. They are getting quite drunk by now. The Black Knight hints that the Friar has been poaching - that is, killing animals that belong to someone else. For doubting the strength of his holy vows, the Friar challenges the Black Knight to a fight. It turns out that the Friar has some very fine weapons hidden away in his chapel. The Black Knight backs down at the sight of the Friar's swords and arrows. The two of them continue to drink happily together.

Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day. A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves. There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour, or on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation between the two colours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never mixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or day, for months. Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks, descendants from all the builders of Babel, come to trade at Marseilles, sought the shade alike--taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great flaming jewel of fire. The universal stare made the eyes ache. Towards the distant line of Italian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist, slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere else. Far away the staring roads, deep in dust, stared from the hill-side, stared from the hollow, stared from the interminable plain. Far away the dusty vines overhanging wayside cottages, and the monotonous wayside avenues of parched trees without shade, drooped beneath the stare of earth and sky. So did the horses with drowsy bells, in long files of carts, creeping slowly towards the interior; so did their recumbent drivers, when they were awake, which rarely happened; so did the exhausted labourers in the fields. Everything that lived or grew, was oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly over rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, like a rattle. The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in the atmosphere as if the air itself were panting. Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep out the stare. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot arrow. The churches were the freest from it. To come out of the twilight of pillars and arches--dreamily dotted with winking lamps, dreamily peopled with ugly old shadows piously dozing, spitting, and begging--was to plunge into a fiery river, and swim for life to the nearest strip of shade. So, with people lounging and lying wherever shade was, with but little hum of tongues or barking of dogs, with occasional jangling of discordant church bells and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day. In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its chambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men. Besides the two men, a notched and disfigured bench, immovable from the wall, with a draught-board rudely hacked upon it with a knife, a set of draughts, made of old buttons and soup bones, a set of dominoes, two mats, and two or three wine bottles. That was all the chamber held, exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, in addition to the seen vermin, the two men. It received such light as it got through a grating of iron bars fashioned like a pretty large window, by means of which it could be always inspected from the gloomy staircase on which the grating gave. There was a broad strong ledge of stone to this grating where the bottom of it was let into the masonry, three or four feet above the ground. Upon it, one of the two men lolled, half sitting and half lying, with his knees drawn up, and his feet and shoulders planted against the opposite sides of the aperture. The bars were wide enough apart to admit of his thrusting his arm through to the elbow; and so he held on negligently, for his greater ease. A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard, so the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air was faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside, and would have kept its polluted atmosphere intact in one of the spice islands of the Indian ocean. The man who lay on the ledge of the grating was even chilled. He jerked his great cloak more heavily upon him by an impatient movement of one shoulder, and growled, 'To the devil with this Brigand of a Sun that never shines in here!' He was waiting to be fed, looking sideways through the bars that he might see the further down the stairs, with much of the expression of a wild beast in similar expectation. But his eyes, too close together, were not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in his, and they were sharp rather than bright--pointed weapons with little surface to betray them. They had no depth or change; they glittered, and they opened and shut. So far, and waiving their use to himself, a clockmaker could have made a better pair. He had a hook nose, handsome after its kind, but too high between the eyes by probably just as much as his eyes were too near to one another. For the rest, he was large and tall in frame, had thin lips, where his thick moustache showed them at all, and a quantity of dry hair, of no definable colour, in its shaggy state, but shot with red. The hand with which he held the grating (seamed all over the back with ugly scratches newly healed), was unusually small and plump; would have been unusually white but for the prison grime. The other man was lying on the stone floor, covered with a coarse brown coat. 'Get up, pig!' growled the first. 'Don't sleep when I am hungry.' 'It's all one, master,' said the pig, in a submissive manner, and not without cheerfulness; 'I can wake when I will, I can sleep when I will. It's all the same.' As he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratched himself, tied his brown coat loosely round his neck by the sleeves (he had previously used it as a coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement yawning, with his back against the wall opposite to the grating. 'Say what the hour is,' grumbled the first man. 'The mid-day bells will ring--in forty minutes.' When he made the little pause, he had looked round the prison-room, as if for certain information. 'You are a clock. How is it that you always know?' 'How can I say? I always know what the hour is, and where I am. I was brought in here at night, and out of a boat, but I know where I am. See here! Marseilles harbour;' on his knees on the pavement, mapping it all out with a swarthy forefinger; 'Toulon (where the galleys are), Spain over there, Algiers over _there_. Creeping away to the left here, Nice. Round by the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine Ground. City there; terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here, Porto Fino. Stand out for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia, so away to--hey! there's no room for Naples;' he had got to the wall by this time; 'but it's all one; it's in there!' He remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow-prisoner with a lively look for a prison. A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though rather thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his grotesque brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown throat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown breast. Loose, seaman-like trousers, decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and a knife in it. 'Judge if I come back from Naples as I went! See here, my master! Civita Vecchia, Leghorn, Porto Fino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice (which is in there), Marseilles, you and me. The apartment of the jailer and his keys is where I put this thumb; and here at my wrist they keep the national razor in its case--the guillotine locked up.' The other man spat suddenly on the pavement, and gurgled in his throat. Some lock below gurgled in _its_ throat immediately afterwards, and then a door crashed. Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the prattle of a sweet little voice mingled with the noise they made; and the prison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four years old, and a basket. 'How goes the world this forenoon, gentlemen? My little one, you see, going round with me to have a peep at her father's birds. Fie, then! Look at the birds, my pretty, look at the birds.' He looked sharply at the birds himself, as he held the child up at the grate, especially at the little bird, whose activity he seemed to mistrust. 'I have brought your bread, Signor John Baptist,' said he (they all spoke in French, but the little man was an Italian); 'and if I might recommend you not to game--' 'You don't recommend the master!' said John Baptist, showing his teeth as he smiled. 'Oh! but the master wins,' returned the jailer, with a passing look of no particular liking at the other man, 'and you lose. It's quite another thing. You get husky bread and sour drink by it; and he gets sausage of Lyons, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, and good wine by it. Look at the birds, my pretty!' 'Poor birds!' said the child. The fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped shrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel's in the prison. John Baptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good attraction for him. The other bird remained as before, except for an impatient glance at the basket. 'Stay!' said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer ledge of the grate, 'she shall feed the birds. This big loaf is for Signor John Baptist. We must break it to get it through into the cage. So, there's a tame bird to kiss the little hand! This sausage in a vine leaf is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again--this veal in savoury jelly is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again--these three white little loaves are for Monsieur Rigaud. Again, this cheese--again, this wine--again, this tobacco--all for Monsieur Rigaud. Lucky bird!' The child put all these things between the bars into the soft, Smooth, well-shaped hand, with evident dread--more than once drawing back her own and looking at the man with her fair brow roughened into an expression half of fright and half of anger. Whereas she had put the lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John Baptist (who had scarcely as much nail on his eight fingers and two thumbs as would have made out one for Monsieur Rigaud), with ready confidence; and, when he kissed her hand, had herself passed it caressingly over his face. Monsieur Rigaud, indifferent to this distinction, propitiated the father by laughing and nodding at the daughter as often as she gave him anything; and, so soon as he had all his viands about him in convenient nooks of the ledge on which he rested, began to eat with an appetite. When Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change took place in his face, that was more remarkable than prepossessing. His moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache, in a very sinister and cruel manner. 'There!' said the jailer, turning his basket upside down to beat the crumbs out, 'I have expended all the money I received; here is the note of it, and _that's_ a thing accomplished. Monsieur Rigaud, as I expected yesterday, the President will look for the pleasure of your society at an hour after mid-day, to-day.' 'To try me, eh?' said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in mouth. 'You have said it. To try you.' 'There is no news for me?' asked John Baptist, who had begun, contentedly, to munch his bread. The jailer shrugged his shoulders. 'Lady of mine! Am I to lie here all my life, my father?' 'What do I know!' cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern quickness, and gesticulating with both his hands and all his fingers, as if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. 'My friend, how is it possible for me to tell how long you are to lie here? What do I know, John Baptist Cavalletto? Death of my life! There are prisoners here sometimes, who are not in such a devil of a hurry to be tried.' He seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark; but Monsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with quite so quick an appetite as before. 'Adieu, my birds!' said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty child in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss. 'Adieu, my birds!' the pretty child repeated. Her innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he walked away with her, singing her the song of the child's game: 'Who passes by this road so late? Compagnon de la Majolaine! Who passes by this road so late? Always gay!' that John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate, and in good time and tune, though a little hoarsely: 'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Compagnon de la Majolaine! Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower, Always gay!' Which accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the prison-keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear the song out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight. Then the child's head disappeared, and the prison-keeper's head disappeared, but the little voice prolonged the strain until the door clashed. Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way before the echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for imprisonment, and seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his foot that he had better resume his own darker place. The little man sat down again upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one who was thoroughly accustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks of coarse bread before himself, and falling to upon a fourth, began contentedly to work his way through them as if to clear them off were a sort of game. Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at the veal in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make his mouth water; Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of the president and tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as clean as he could, and to wipe them on his vine leaves. Then, as he paused in his drink to contemplate his fellow-prisoner, his moustache went up, and his nose came down. 'How do you find the bread?' 'A little dry, but I have my old sauce here,' returned John Baptist, holding up his knife. 'How sauce?' 'I can cut my bread so--like a melon. Or so--like an omelette. Or so--like a fried fish. Or so--like Lyons sausage,' said John Baptist, demonstrating the various cuts on the bread he held, and soberly chewing what he had in his mouth. 'Here!' cried Monsieur Rigaud. 'You may drink. You may finish this.' It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned it upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips. 'Put the bottle by with the rest,' said Rigaud. The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes by the aid of little squares of paper which had been brought in with it. 'Here! You may have one.' 'A thousand thanks, my master!' John Baptist said in his own language, and with the quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen. Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his stock into a breast-pocket, and stretched himself out at full length upon the bench. Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, holding one of his ankles in each hand, and smoking peacefully. There seemed to be some uncomfortable attraction of Monsieur Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of that part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan. They were so drawn in that direction, that the Italian more than once followed them to and back from the pavement in some surprise. 'What an infernal hole this is!' said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long pause. 'Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the light of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!' It came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in the staircase wall, through which the sky was never seen--nor anything else. 'Cavalletto,' said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly withdrawing his gaze from this funnel to which they had both involuntarily turned their eyes, 'you know me for a gentleman?' 'Surely, surely!' 'How long have we been here?' 'I, eleven weeks, to-morrow night at midnight. You, nine weeks and three days, at five this afternoon.' 'Have I ever done anything here? Ever touched the broom, or spread the mats, or rolled them up, or found the draughts, or collected the dominoes, or put my hand to any kind of work?' 'Never!' 'Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work?' John Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the right forefinger which is the most expressive negative in the Italian language. 'No! You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that I was a gentleman?' 'ALTRO!' returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his head a most vehement toss. The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis, a confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt, a compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present instance, with a significance beyond all power of written expression, our familiar English 'I believe you!' 'Haha! You are right! A gentleman I am! And a gentleman I'll live, and a gentleman I'll die! It's my intent to be a gentleman. It's my game. Death of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!' He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant air: 'Here I am! See me! Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the company of a mere smuggler;--shut up with a poor little contraband trader, whose papers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of besides, for placing his boat (as a means of getting beyond the frontier) at the disposition of other little people whose papers are wrong; and he instinctively recognises my position, even by this light and in this place. It's well done! By Heaven! I win, however the game goes.' Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down. 'What's the hour now?' he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon him, rather difficult of association with merriment. 'A little half-hour after mid-day.' 'Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon. Come! Shall I tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for I shall not return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to be made ready for shaving. You know where they keep the razor.' Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, and showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been expected. 'I am a'--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--'I am a cosmopolitan gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss--Canton de Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.' His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip within the folds of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his companion and addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he was rehearsing for the President, whose examination he was shortly to undergo, rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a person as John Baptist Cavalletto. 'Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I have lived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman everywhere. I have been treated and respected as a gentleman universally. If you try to prejudice me by making out that I have lived by my wits--how do your lawyers live--your politicians--your intriguers--your men of the Exchange?' He kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it were a witness to his gentility that had often done him good service before. 'Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I admit that I was poor; I had been ill. When your lawyers, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped money together, _they_ become poor. I put up at the Cross of Gold,--kept then by Monsieur Henri Barronneau--sixty-five at least, and in a failing state of health. I had lived in the house some four months when Monsieur Henri Barronneau had the misfortune to die;--at any rate, not a rare misfortune, that. It happens without any aid of mine, pretty often.' John Baptist having smoked his cigarette down to his fingers' ends, Monsieur Rigaud had the magnanimity to throw him another. He lighted the second at the ashes of the first, and smoked on, looking sideways at his companion, who, preoccupied with his own case, hardly looked at him. 'Monsieur Barronneau left a widow. She was two-and-twenty. She had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful. I continued to live at the Cross of Gold. I married Madame Barronneau. It is not for me to say whether there was any great disparity in such a match. Here I stand, with the contamination of a jail upon me; but it is possible that you may think me better suited to her than her former husband was.' He had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world. 'Be it as it may, Madame Barronneau approved of me. _That_ is not to prejudice me, I hope?' His eye happening to light upon John Baptist with this inquiry, that little man briskly shook his head in the negative, and repeated in an argumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, altro, altro--an infinite number of times. 'Now came the difficulties of our position. I am proud. I say nothing in defence of pride, but I am proud. It is also my character to govern. I can't submit; I must govern. Unfortunately, the property of Madame Rigaud was settled upon herself. Such was the insane act of her late husband. More unfortunately still, she had relations. When a wife's relations interpose against a husband who is a gentleman, who is proud, and who must govern, the consequences are inimical to peace. There was yet another source of difference between us. Madame Rigaud was unfortunately a little vulgar. I sought to improve her manners and ameliorate her general tone; she (supported in this likewise by her relations) resented my endeavours. Quarrels began to arise between us; and, propagated and exaggerated by the slanders of the relations of Madame Rigaud, to become notorious to the neighbours. It has been said that I treated Madame Rigaud with cruelty. I may have been seen to slap her face--nothing more. I have a light hand; and if I have been seen apparently to correct Madame Rigaud in that manner, I have done it almost playfully.' If the playfulness of Monsieur Rigaud were at all expressed by his smile at this point, the relations of Madame Rigaud might have said that they would have much preferred his correcting that unfortunate woman seriously. 'I am sensitive and brave. I do not advance it as a merit to be sensitive and brave, but it is my character. If the male relations of Madame Rigaud had put themselves forward openly, I should have known how to deal with them. They knew that, and their machinations were conducted in secret; consequently, Madame Rigaud and I were brought into frequent and unfortunate collision. Even when I wanted any little sum of money for my personal expenses, I could not obtain it without collision--and I, too, a man whose character it is to govern! One night, Madame Rigaud and myself were walking amicably--I may say like lovers--on a height overhanging the sea. An evil star occasioned Madame Rigaud to advert to her relations; I reasoned with her on that subject, and remonstrated on the want of duty and devotion manifested in her allowing herself to be influenced by their jealous animosity towards her husband. Madame Rigaud retorted; I retorted; Madame Rigaud grew warm; I grew warm, and provoked her. I admit it. Frankness is a part of my character. At length, Madame Rigaud, in an access of fury that I must ever deplore, threw herself upon me with screams of passion (no doubt those that were overheard at some distance), tore my clothes, tore my hair, lacerated my hands, trampled and trod the dust, and finally leaped over, dashing herself to death upon the rocks below. Such is the train of incidents which malice has perverted into my endeavouring to force from Madame Rigaud a relinquishment of her rights; and, on her persistence in a refusal to make the concession I required, struggling with her--assassinating her!' He stepped aside to the ledge where the vine leaves yet lay strewn about, collected two or three, and stood wiping his hands upon them, with his back to the light. 'Well,' he demanded after a silence, 'have you nothing to say to all that?' 'It's ugly,' returned the little man, who had risen, and was brightening his knife upon his shoe, as he leaned an arm against the wall. 'What do you mean?' John Baptist polished his knife in silence. 'Do you mean that I have not represented the case correctly?' 'Al-tro!' returned John Baptist. The word was an apology now, and stood for 'Oh, by no means!' 'What then?' 'Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced.' 'Well,' cried the other, uneasily flinging the end of his cloak over his shoulder with an oath, 'let them do their worst!' 'Truly I think they will,' murmured John Baptist to himself, as he bent his head to put his knife in his sash. Nothing more was said on either side, though they both began walking to and fro, and necessarily crossed at every turn. Monsieur Rigaud sometimes stopped, as if he were going to put his case in a new light, or make some irate remonstrance; but Signor Cavalletto continuing to go slowly to and fro at a grotesque kind of jog-trot pace with his eyes turned downward, nothing came of these inclinings. By-and-by the noise of the key in the lock arrested them both. The sound of voices succeeded, and the tread of feet. The door clashed, the voices and the feet came on, and the prison-keeper slowly ascended the stairs, followed by a guard of soldiers. 'Now, Monsieur Rigaud,' said he, pausing for a moment at the grate, with his keys in his hands, 'have the goodness to come out.' 'I am to depart in state, I see?' 'Why, unless you did,' returned the jailer, 'you might depart in so many pieces that it would be difficult to get you together again. There's a crowd, Monsieur Rigaud, and it doesn't love you.' He passed on out of sight, and unlocked and unbarred a low door in the corner of the chamber. 'Now,' said he, as he opened it and appeared within, 'come out.' There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun at all like the whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud's face as it was then. Neither is there any expression of the human countenance at all like that expression in every little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat. Both are conventionally compared with death; but the difference is the whole deep gulf between the struggle done, and the fight at its most desperate extremity. He lighted another of his paper cigars at his companion's; put it tightly between his teeth; covered his head with a soft slouched hat; threw the end of his cloak over his shoulder again; and walked out into the side gallery on which the door opened, without taking any further notice of Signor Cavalletto. As to that little man himself, his whole attention had become absorbed in getting near the door and looking out at it. Precisely as a beast might approach the opened gate of his den and eye the freedom beyond, he passed those few moments in watching and peering, until the door was closed upon him. There was an officer in command of the soldiers; a stout, serviceable, profoundly calm man, with his drawn sword in his hand, smoking a cigar. He very briefly directed the placing of Monsieur Rigaud in the midst of the party, put himself with consummate indifference at their head, gave the word 'march!' and so they all went jingling down the staircase. The door clashed--the key turned--and a ray of unusual light, and a breath of unusual air, seemed to have passed through the jail, vanishing in a tiny wreath of smoke from the cigar. Still, in his captivity, like a lower animal--like some impatient ape, or roused bear of the smaller species--the prisoner, now left solitary, had jumped upon the ledge, to lose no glimpse of this departure. As he yet stood clasping the grate with both hands, an uproar broke upon his hearing; yells, shrieks, oaths, threats, execrations, all comprehended in it, though (as in a storm) nothing but a raging swell of sound distinctly heard. Excited into a still greater resemblance to a caged wild animal by his anxiety to know more, the prisoner leaped nimbly down, ran round the chamber, leaped nimbly up again, clasped the grate and tried to shake it, leaped down and ran, leaped up and listened, and never rested until the noise, becoming more and more distant, had died away. How many better prisoners have worn their noble hearts out so; no man thinking of it; not even the beloved of their souls realising it; great kings and governors, who had made them captive, careering in the sunlight jauntily, and men cheering them on. Even the said great personages dying in bed, making exemplary ends and sounding speeches; and polite history, more servile than their instruments, embalming them! At last, John Baptist, now able to choose his own spot within the compass of those walls for the exercise of his faculty of going to sleep when he would, lay down upon the bench, with his face turned over on his crossed arms, and slumbered. In his submission, in his lightness, in his good humour, in his short-lived passion, in his easy contentment with hard bread and hard stones, in his ready sleep, in his fits and starts, altogether a true son of the land that gave him birth. The wide stare stared itself out for one while; the Sun went down in a red, green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and the fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly imitate the goodness of a better order of beings; the long dusty roads and the interminable plains were in repose--and so deep a hush was on the sea, that it scarcely whispered of the time when it shall give up its dead.

It's 30 years ago. That means that novel is set in the 1820s, rather than Dickens's present-day of the 1850s - mainly because that is when Dickens's own father was imprisoned in Marshalsea prison for debt and little boy Dickens was forced to work in a factory instead of going to school. It was traumatic for him, and he never really got over it. So it's a summer day in Marseilles. It's crazy hot and the sun is horrible. The only place it doesn't reach is a jail cell in a prison. The cell is gross and dirty and generally dungeon-y. Monsieur Rigaud is fancy-looking. He is nervous and keeps waiting for the jailer to bring food. He wakes up Cavalletto, who has been sleeping on the floor calmly. Cavalletto somehow always knows what time it is and has a great sense of direction. He draws a little map of Marseilles and another little map of the prison on the dirt floor. Finally the jailer comes. But not alone, since it's apparently Bring Your Daughter to Your Incredibly Inappropriate Work day, and his four-year-old daughter is with him. She helps him feed the prisoners. Rigaud gets all sorts of fancy gourmet treats. Cavalletto gets some old bread and water. The jailer says Rigaud's trial will be this afternoon. Cavalletto is all, what about me? But the jailer has no info on that. Jailer and daughter leave, and the prisoners eat. Cavalletto waits on Rigaud, rolling him a cigarette and dealing with his wine bottle. Rigaud then starts his nervous pacing again. He asks Cavalletto to yet again tell him that he is clearly a gentleman. Since Cavalletto has just been waiting on him hand and foot, he obviously thinks so. They met in the cell nine weeks ago, and from the first moment they'd naturally fallen into a master and servant relationship. Rigaud is psyched to be declared a gentleman and busts out his story. Turns out, he married the rich and beautiful young widow of an innkeeper. But her money was legally tied up with her family, so he couldn't get to it without going through her. This was irritating, so he beat her up several times, and then one day ... well, he says that one day they went for a walk on the cliffs, and she got really mad and jumped to her death. He's in jail, though, because maybe she didn't so much jump as he pushed her. Rigaud is immediately portrayed as evil and unpleasant as can be, so we're going with the he-killed-his-wife version on this one. Cavalletto's crime is some low-level smuggling. Finally the guards come to get Rigaud. There are a bunch of them to guard him on the way to the court - there's a crowd outside calling for his head. Cavalletto is obviously psyched that the sociopath is gone. He finally relaxes in the cell and goes to sleep.

Emma was not required, by any subsequent discovery, to retract her ill opinion of Mrs. Elton. Her observation had been pretty correct. Such as Mrs. Elton appeared to her on this second interview, such she appeared whenever they met again,--self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant, and ill-bred. She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment, but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood; and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs. Elton's consequence only could surpass. There was no reason to suppose Mr. Elton thought at all differently from his wife. He seemed not merely happy with her, but proud. He had the air of congratulating himself on having brought such a woman to Highbury, as not even Miss Woodhouse could equal; and the greater part of her new acquaintance, disposed to commend, or not in the habit of judging, following the lead of Miss Bates's good-will, or taking it for granted that the bride must be as clever and as agreeable as she professed herself, were very well satisfied; so that Mrs. Elton's praise passed from one mouth to another as it ought to do, unimpeded by Miss Woodhouse, who readily continued her first contribution and talked with a good grace of her being "very pleasant and very elegantly dressed." In one respect Mrs. Elton grew even worse than she had appeared at first. Her feelings altered towards Emma.--Offended, probably, by the little encouragement which her proposals of intimacy met with, she drew back in her turn and gradually became much more cold and distant; and though the effect was agreeable, the ill-will which produced it was necessarily increasing Emma's dislike. Her manners, too--and Mr. Elton's, were unpleasant towards Harriet. They were sneering and negligent. Emma hoped it must rapidly work Harriet's cure; but the sensations which could prompt such behaviour sunk them both very much.--It was not to be doubted that poor Harriet's attachment had been an offering to conjugal unreserve, and her own share in the story, under a colouring the least favourable to her and the most soothing to him, had in all likelihood been given also. She was, of course, the object of their joint dislike.--When they had nothing else to say, it must be always easy to begin abusing Miss Woodhouse; and the enmity which they dared not shew in open disrespect to her, found a broader vent in contemptuous treatment of Harriet. Mrs. Elton took a great fancy to Jane Fairfax; and from the first. Not merely when a state of warfare with one young lady might be supposed to recommend the other, but from the very first; and she was not satisfied with expressing a natural and reasonable admiration--but without solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and befriend her.--Before Emma had forfeited her confidence, and about the third time of their meeting, she heard all Mrs. Elton's knight-errantry on the subject.-- "Jane Fairfax is absolutely charming, Miss Woodhouse.--I quite rave about Jane Fairfax.--A sweet, interesting creature. So mild and ladylike--and with such talents!--I assure you I think she has very extraordinary talents. I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely well. I know enough of music to speak decidedly on that point. Oh! she is absolutely charming! You will laugh at my warmth--but, upon my word, I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax.--And her situation is so calculated to affect one!--Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour to do something for her. We must bring her forward. Such talent as hers must not be suffered to remain unknown.--I dare say you have heard those charming lines of the poet, 'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 'And waste its fragrance on the desert air.' We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax." "I cannot think there is any danger of it," was Emma's calm answer--"and when you are better acquainted with Miss Fairfax's situation and understand what her home has been, with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell, I have no idea that you will suppose her talents can be unknown." "Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such obscurity, so thrown away.--Whatever advantages she may have enjoyed with the Campbells are so palpably at an end! And I think she feels it. I am sure she does. She is very timid and silent. One can see that she feels the want of encouragement. I like her the better for it. I must confess it is a recommendation to me. I am a great advocate for timidity--and I am sure one does not often meet with it.--But in those who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing. Oh! I assure you, Jane Fairfax is a very delightful character, and interests me more than I can express." "You appear to feel a great deal--but I am not aware how you or any of Miss Fairfax's acquaintance here, any of those who have known her longer than yourself, can shew her any other attention than"-- "My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to act. You and I need not be afraid. If _we_ set the example, many will follow it as far as they can; though all have not our situations. _We_ have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and _we_ live in a style which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the least inconvenient.--I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked _more_ than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of thing. It is not likely that I _should_, considering what I have been used to. My greatest danger, perhaps, in housekeeping, may be quite the other way, in doing too much, and being too careless of expense. Maple Grove will probably be my model more than it ought to be--for we do not at all affect to equal my brother, Mr. Suckling, in income.--However, my resolution is taken as to noticing Jane Fairfax.--I shall certainly have her very often at my house, shall introduce her wherever I can, shall have musical parties to draw out her talents, and shall be constantly on the watch for an eligible situation. My acquaintance is so very extensive, that I have little doubt of hearing of something to suit her shortly.--I shall introduce her, of course, very particularly to my brother and sister when they come to us. I am sure they will like her extremely; and when she gets a little acquainted with them, her fears will completely wear off, for there really is nothing in the manners of either but what is highly conciliating.--I shall have her very often indeed while they are with me, and I dare say we shall sometimes find a seat for her in the barouche-landau in some of our exploring parties." "Poor Jane Fairfax!"--thought Emma.--"You have not deserved this. You may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment beyond what you can have merited!--The kindness and protection of Mrs. Elton!--'Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.' Heavens! Let me not suppose that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!--But upon my honour, there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue!" Emma had not to listen to such paradings again--to any so exclusively addressed to herself--so disgustingly decorated with a "dear Miss Woodhouse." The change on Mrs. Elton's side soon afterwards appeared, and she was left in peace--neither forced to be the very particular friend of Mrs. Elton, nor, under Mrs. Elton's guidance, the very active patroness of Jane Fairfax, and only sharing with others in a general way, in knowing what was felt, what was meditated, what was done. She looked on with some amusement.--Miss Bates's gratitude for Mrs. Elton's attentions to Jane was in the first style of guileless simplicity and warmth. She was quite one of her worthies--the most amiable, affable, delightful woman--just as accomplished and condescending as Mrs. Elton meant to be considered. Emma's only surprize was that Jane Fairfax should accept those attentions and tolerate Mrs. Elton as she seemed to do. She heard of her walking with the Eltons, sitting with the Eltons, spending a day with the Eltons! This was astonishing!--She could not have believed it possible that the taste or the pride of Miss Fairfax could endure such society and friendship as the Vicarage had to offer. "She is a riddle, quite a riddle!" said she.--"To chuse to remain here month after month, under privations of every sort! And now to chuse the mortification of Mrs. Elton's notice and the penury of her conversation, rather than return to the superior companions who have always loved her with such real, generous affection." Jane had come to Highbury professedly for three months; the Campbells were gone to Ireland for three months; but now the Campbells had promised their daughter to stay at least till Midsummer, and fresh invitations had arrived for her to join them there. According to Miss Bates--it all came from her--Mrs. Dixon had written most pressingly. Would Jane but go, means were to be found, servants sent, friends contrived--no travelling difficulty allowed to exist; but still she had declined it! "She must have some motive, more powerful than appears, for refusing this invitation," was Emma's conclusion. "She must be under some sort of penance, inflicted either by the Campbells or herself. There is great fear, great caution, great resolution somewhere.--She is _not_ to be with the _Dixons_. The decree is issued by somebody. But why must she consent to be with the Eltons?--Here is quite a separate puzzle." Upon her speaking her wonder aloud on that part of the subject, before the few who knew her opinion of Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Weston ventured this apology for Jane. "We cannot suppose that she has any great enjoyment at the Vicarage, my dear Emma--but it is better than being always at home. Her aunt is a good creature, but, as a constant companion, must be very tiresome. We must consider what Miss Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for what she goes to." "You are right, Mrs. Weston," said Mr. Knightley warmly, "Miss Fairfax is as capable as any of us of forming a just opinion of Mrs. Elton. Could she have chosen with whom to associate, she would not have chosen her. But (with a reproachful smile at Emma) she receives attentions from Mrs. Elton, which nobody else pays her." Emma felt that Mrs. Weston was giving her a momentary glance; and she was herself struck by his warmth. With a faint blush, she presently replied, "Such attentions as Mrs. Elton's, I should have imagined, would rather disgust than gratify Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton's invitations I should have imagined any thing but inviting." "I should not wonder," said Mrs. Weston, "if Miss Fairfax were to have been drawn on beyond her own inclination, by her aunt's eagerness in accepting Mrs. Elton's civilities for her. Poor Miss Bates may very likely have committed her niece and hurried her into a greater appearance of intimacy than her own good sense would have dictated, in spite of the very natural wish of a little change." Both felt rather anxious to hear him speak again; and after a few minutes silence, he said, "Another thing must be taken into consideration too--Mrs. Elton does not talk _to_ Miss Fairfax as she speaks _of_ her. We all know the difference between the pronouns he or she and thou, the plainest spoken amongst us; we all feel the influence of a something beyond common civility in our personal intercourse with each other--a something more early implanted. We cannot give any body the disagreeable hints that we may have been very full of the hour before. We feel things differently. And besides the operation of this, as a general principle, you may be sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs. Elton by her superiority both of mind and manner; and that, face to face, Mrs. Elton treats her with all the respect which she has a claim to. Such a woman as Jane Fairfax probably never fell in Mrs. Elton's way before--and no degree of vanity can prevent her acknowledging her own comparative littleness in action, if not in consciousness." "I know how highly you think of Jane Fairfax," said Emma. Little Henry was in her thoughts, and a mixture of alarm and delicacy made her irresolute what else to say. "Yes," he replied, "any body may know how highly I think of her." "And yet," said Emma, beginning hastily and with an arch look, but soon stopping--it was better, however, to know the worst at once--she hurried on--"And yet, perhaps, you may hardly be aware yourself how highly it is. The extent of your admiration may take you by surprize some day or other." Mr. Knightley was hard at work upon the lower buttons of his thick leather gaiters, and either the exertion of getting them together, or some other cause, brought the colour into his face, as he answered, "Oh! are you there?--But you are miserably behindhand. Mr. Cole gave me a hint of it six weeks ago." He stopped.--Emma felt her foot pressed by Mrs. Weston, and did not herself know what to think. In a moment he went on-- "That will never be, however, I can assure you. Miss Fairfax, I dare say, would not have me if I were to ask her--and I am very sure I shall never ask her." Emma returned her friend's pressure with interest; and was pleased enough to exclaim, "You are not vain, Mr. Knightley. I will say that for you." He seemed hardly to hear her; he was thoughtful--and in a manner which shewed him not pleased, soon afterwards said, "So you have been settling that I should marry Jane Fairfax?" "No indeed I have not. You have scolded me too much for match-making, for me to presume to take such a liberty with you. What I said just now, meant nothing. One says those sort of things, of course, without any idea of a serious meaning. Oh! no, upon my word I have not the smallest wish for your marrying Jane Fairfax or Jane any body. You would not come in and sit with us in this comfortable way, if you were married." Mr. Knightley was thoughtful again. The result of his reverie was, "No, Emma, I do not think the extent of my admiration for her will ever take me by surprize.--I never had a thought of her in that way, I assure you." And soon afterwards, "Jane Fairfax is a very charming young woman--but not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife." Emma could not but rejoice to hear that she had a fault. "Well," said she, "and you soon silenced Mr. Cole, I suppose?" "Yes, very soon. He gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken; he asked my pardon and said no more. Cole does not want to be wiser or wittier than his neighbours." "In that respect how unlike dear Mrs. Elton, who wants to be wiser and wittier than all the world! I wonder how she speaks of the Coles--what she calls them! How can she find any appellation for them, deep enough in familiar vulgarity? She calls you, Knightley--what can she do for Mr. Cole? And so I am not to be surprized that Jane Fairfax accepts her civilities and consents to be with her. Mrs. Weston, your argument weighs most with me. I can much more readily enter into the temptation of getting away from Miss Bates, than I can believe in the triumph of Miss Fairfax's mind over Mrs. Elton. I have no faith in Mrs. Elton's acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed; or in her being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of good-breeding. I cannot imagine that she will not be continually insulting her visitor with praise, encouragement, and offers of service; that she will not be continually detailing her magnificent intentions, from the procuring her a permanent situation to the including her in those delightful exploring parties which are to take place in the barouche-landau." "Jane Fairfax has feeling," said Mr. Knightley--"I do not accuse her of want of feeling. Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strong--and her temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, self-control; but it wants openness. She is reserved, more reserved, I think, than she used to be--And I love an open temper. No--till Cole alluded to my supposed attachment, it had never entered my head. I saw Jane Fairfax and conversed with her, with admiration and pleasure always--but with no thought beyond." "Well, Mrs. Weston," said Emma triumphantly when he left them, "what do you say now to Mr. Knightley's marrying Jane Fairfax?" "Why, really, dear Emma, I say that he is so very much occupied by the idea of _not_ being in love with her, that I should not wonder if it were to end in his being so at last. Do not beat me."

More of the Eltons: Emma notices that the Eltons go out of their way to snub Harriet. This makes Emma hate them just a little bit more. Mrs. Elton takes a liking to Jane Fairfax. She tells Emma that "we" must bring her out into the world more. Emma wants no part of a "we" that includes Mrs. Elton. Or Jane Fairfax, for that matter. Nonetheless, she does pity Jane for the "assistance" that she's about to receive from Mrs. Elton. Even Emma can see that Jane is approximately 37 million times more of a gentlewoman than Mrs. Elton ever could be. Interestingly, soon after this visit Mrs. Elton grows suddenly cold towards Emma. As you can guess, Emma's rather OK with that. Emma wonders why Jane Fairfax is still staying with her aunts. It can't be too pleasant to stay with the Bateses - and now that Mrs. Elton's in the picture, Emma imagines that it must be insufferable. She talks Jane's situation over with Mrs. Weston when they next meet. Mrs. Weston suggests that perhaps Miss Bates unwittingly assisted Mrs. Elton's claim to "protect" Jane. Once her aunt asked for help, it might have been too hard for Jane to ask Mrs. Elton to leave her alone. Mr. Knightley, who's also part of the conversation, agrees. Perhaps he was the one to send the piano to Jane? Proclaiming that sending a huge gift to a lover anonymously is the sort of thing that only a naive man would do, Mr. Knightley seems to clear himself of any such suspicions. Emma slyly asks Mr. Knightley if he likes Jane. Mr. Knightley turns a bit red - but he declares that, although he thinks Jane is perfect, he's not in love with her. After he leaves, Mrs. Weston wonders aloud if Mr. Knightley doth protest too much.

Chapter XLI. In Which the Squirrel Falls,--the Adder Flies. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The king, full of impatience, went to his cabinet on the terrace, and kept opening the door of the corridor, to see what his secretaries were doing. M. Colbert, seated in the same place M. de Saint-Aignan had so long occupied in the morning, was chatting in a low voice with M. de Brienne. The king opened the door suddenly, and addressed them. "What is it you are saying?" "We were speaking of the first sitting of the States," said M. de Brienne, rising. "Very well," replied the king, and returned to his room. Five minutes after, the summons of the bell recalled Rose, whose hour it was. "Have you finished your copies?" asked the king. "Not yet, sire." "See if M. d'Artagnan has returned." "Not yet, sire." "It is very strange," murmured the king. "Call M. Colbert." Colbert entered; he had been expecting this all the morning. "Monsieur Colbert," said the king, very sharply; "you must ascertain what has become of M. d'Artagnan." Colbert in his calm voice replied, "Where does your majesty desire him to be sought for?" "Eh! monsieur! do you not know on what I have sent him?" replied Louis, acrimoniously. "Your majesty did not inform me." "Monsieur, there are things that must be guessed; and you, above all, are apt to guess them." "I might have been able to imagine, sire; but I do not presume to be positive." Colbert had not finished these words when a rougher voice than that of the king interrupted the interesting conversation thus begun between the monarch and his clerk. "D'Artagnan!" cried the king, with evident joy. D'Artagnan, pale and in evidently bad humor, cried to the king, as he entered, "Sire, is it your majesty who has given orders to my musketeers?" "What orders?" said the king. "About M. Fouquet's house?" "None!" replied Louis. "Ha!" said D'Artagnan, biting his mustache; "I was not mistaken, then; it was monsieur here;" and he pointed to Colbert. "What orders? Let me know," said the king. "Orders to turn the house topsy-turvy, to beat M. Fouquet's servants, to force the drawers, to give over a peaceful house to pillage! _Mordioux!_ these are savage orders!" "Monsieur!" said Colbert, turning pale. "Monsieur," interrupted D'Artagnan, "the king alone, understand,--the king alone has a right to command my musketeers; but, as to you, I forbid you to do it, and I tell you so before his majesty; gentlemen who carry swords do not sling pens behind their ears." "D'Artagnan! D'Artagnan!" murmured the king. "It is humiliating," continued the musketeer; "my soldiers are disgraced. I do not command _reitres_, thank you, nor clerks of the intendant, _mordioux!_" "Well! but what is all this about?" said the king with authority. "About this, sire; monsieur--monsieur, who could not guess your majesty's orders, and consequently could not know I was gone to arrest M. Fouquet; monsieur, who has caused the iron cage to be constructed for his patron of yesterday--has sent M. de Roncherolles to the lodgings of M. Fouquet, and, under the pretense of securing the surintendant's papers, they have taken away the furniture. My musketeers have been posted round the house all the morning; such were my orders. Why did any one presume to order them to enter? Why, by forcing them to assist in this pillage, have they been made accomplices in it? _Mordioux!_ we serve the king, we do; but we do not serve M. Colbert!" [5] "Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the king, sternly, "take care; it is not in my presence that such explanations, and made in such a tone, should take place." "I have acted for the good of the king," said Colbert, in a faltering voice. "It is hard to be so treated by one of your majesty's officers, and that without redress, on account of the respect I owe the king." "The respect you owe the king," cried D'Artagnan, his eyes flashing fire, "consists, in the first place, in making his authority respected, and his person beloved. Every agent of a power without control represents that power, and when people curse the hand which strikes them, it is the royal hand that God reproaches, do you hear? Must a soldier, hardened by forty years of wounds and blood, give you this lesson, monsieur? Must mercy be on my side, and ferocity on yours? You have caused the innocent to be arrested, bound, and imprisoned!" "Accomplices, perhaps, of M. Fouquet," said Colbert. "Who told you M. Fouquet had accomplices, or even that he was guilty? The king alone knows that; his justice is not blind! When he says, 'Arrest and imprison' such and such a man, he is obeyed. Do not talk to me, then, any more of the respect you owe the king, and be careful of your words, that they may not chance to convey the slightest menace; for the king will not allow those to be threatened who do him service by others who do him disservice; and if in case I should have, which God forbid! a master so ungrateful, I would make myself respected." Thus saying, D'Artagnan took his station haughtily in the king's cabinet, his eyes flashing, his hand on his sword, his lips trembling, affecting much more anger than he really felt. Colbert, humiliated and devoured with rage, bowed to the king as if to ask his permission to leave the room. The king, thwarted alike in pride and in curiosity, knew not which part to take. D'Artagnan saw him hesitate. To remain longer would have been a mistake: it was necessary to score a triumph over Colbert, and the only method was to touch the king so near the quick, that his majesty would have no other means of extrication but choosing between the two antagonists. D'Artagnan bowed as Colbert had done; but the king, who, in preference to everything else, was anxious to have all the exact details of the arrest of the surintendant of the finances from him who had made him tremble for a moment,--the king, perceiving that the ill-humor of D'Artagnan would put off for half an hour at least the details he was burning to be acquainted with,--Louis, we say, forgot Colbert, who had nothing new to tell him, and recalled his captain of the musketeers. "In the first place," said he, "let me see the result of your commission, monsieur; you may rest yourself hereafter." D'Artagnan, who was just passing through the doorway, stopped at the voice of the king, retraced his steps, and Colbert was forced to leave the closet. His countenance assumed almost a purple hue, his black and threatening eyes shone with a dark fire beneath their thick brows; he stepped out, bowed before the king, half drew himself up in passing D'Artagnan, and went away with death in his heart. D'Artagnan, on being left alone with the king, softened immediately, and composing his countenance: "Sire," said he, "you are a young king. It is by the dawn that people judge whether the day will be fine or dull. How, sire, will the people, whom the hand of God has placed under your law, argue of your reign, if between them and you, you allow angry and violent ministers to interpose their mischief? But let us speak of myself, sire, let us leave a discussion that may appear idle, and perhaps inconvenient to you. Let us speak of myself. I have arrested M. Fouquet." "You took plenty of time about it," said the king, sharply. D'Artagnan looked at the king. "I perceive that I have expressed myself badly. I announced to your majesty that I had arrested Monsieur Fouquet." "You did; and what then?" "Well! I ought to have told your majesty that M. Fouquet had arrested me; that would have been more just. I re-establish the truth, then; I have been arrested by M. Fouquet." It was now the turn of Louis XIV. to be surprised. His majesty was astonished in his turn. D'Artagnan, with his quick glance, appreciated what was passing in the heart of his master. He did not allow him time to put any questions. He related, with that poetry, that picturesqueness, which perhaps he alone possessed at that period, the escape of Fouquet, the pursuit, the furious race, and, lastly, the inimitable generosity of the surintendant, who might have fled ten times over, who might have killed the adversary in the pursuit, but who had preferred imprisonment, perhaps worse, to the humiliation of one who wished to rob him of his liberty. In proportion as the tale advanced, the king became agitated, devouring the narrator's words, and drumming with his finger-nails upon the table. "It results from all this, sire, in my eyes, at least, that the man who conducts himself thus is a gallant man, and cannot be an enemy to the king. That is my opinion, and I repeat it to your majesty. I know what the king will say to me, and I bow to it,--reasons of state. So be it! To my ears that sounds highly respectable. But I am a soldier, and I have received my orders, my orders are executed--very unwillingly on my part, it is true, but they are executed. I say no more." "Where is M. Fouquet at this moment?" asked Louis, after a short silence. "M. Fouquet, sire," replied D'Artagnan, "is in the iron cage that M. Colbert had prepared for him, and is galloping as fast as four strong horses can drag him, towards Angers." "Why did you leave him on the road?" "Because your majesty did not tell me to go to Angers. The proof, the best proof of what I advance, is that the king desired me to be sought for but this minute. And then I had another reason." "What is that?" "Whilst I was with him, poor M. Fouquet would never attempt to escape." "Well!" cried the king, astonished. "Your majesty ought to understand, and does understand, certainly, that my warmest wish is to know that M. Fouquet is at liberty. I have given him one of my brigadiers, the most stupid I could find among my musketeers, in order that the prisoner might have a chance of escaping." "Are you mad, Monsieur d'Artagnan?" cried the king, crossing his arms on his breast. "Do people utter such enormities, even when they have the misfortune to think them?" "Ah! sire, you cannot expect that I should be an enemy to M. Fouquet, after what he has just done for you and me. No, no; if you desire that he should remain under your lock and bolt, never give him in charge to me; however closely wired might be the cage, the bird would, in the end, take wing." "I am surprised," said the king, in his sternest tone, "you did not follow the fortunes of the man M. Fouquet wished to place upon my throne. You had in him all you want--affection, gratitude. In my service, monsieur, you will only find a master." "If M. Fouquet had not gone to seek you in the Bastile, sire," replied D'Artagnan, with a deeply impressive manner, "one single man would have gone there, and I should have been that man--you know that right well, sire." The king was brought to a pause. Before that speech of his captain of the musketeers, so frankly spoken and so true, the king had nothing to offer. On hearing D'Artagnan, Louis remembered the D'Artagnan of former times; him who, at the Palais Royal, held himself concealed behind the curtains of his bed, when the people of Paris, led by Cardinal de Retz, came to assure themselves of the presence of the king; the D'Artagnan whom he saluted with his hand at the door of his carriage, when repairing to Notre Dame on his return to Paris; the soldier who had quitted his service at Blois; the lieutenant he had recalled to be beside his person when the death of Mazarin restored his power; the man he had always found loyal, courageous, devoted. Louis advanced towards the door and called Colbert. Colbert had not left the corridor where the secretaries were at work. He reappeared. "Colbert, did you make a perquisition on the house of M. Fouquet?" "Yes, sire." "What has it produced?" "M. de Roncherolles, who was sent with your majesty's musketeers, has remitted me some papers," replied Colbert. "I will look at them. Give me your hand." "My hand, sire!" "Yes, that I may place it in that of M. d'Artagnan. In fact, M. d'Artagnan," added he, with a smile, turning towards the soldier, who, at sight of the clerk, had resumed his haughty attitude, "you do not know this man; make his acquaintance." And he pointed to Colbert. "He has been made but a moderately valuable servant in subaltern positions, but he will be a great man if I raise him to the foremost rank." "Sire!" stammered Colbert, confused with pleasure and fear. "I always understood why," murmured D'Artagnan in the king's ear; "he was jealous." "Precisely, and his jealousy confined his wings." "He will henceforward be a winged-serpent," grumbled the musketeer, with a remnant of hatred against his recent adversary. But Colbert, approaching him, offered to his eyes a physiognomy so different from that which he had been accustomed to see him wear; he appeared so good, so mild, so easy; his eyes took the expression of an intelligence so noble, that D'Artagnan, a connoisseur in physiognomies, was moved, and almost changed in his convictions. Colbert pressed his hand. "That which the king has just told you, monsieur, proves how well his majesty is acquainted with men. The inveterate opposition I have displayed, up to this day, against abuses and not against men, proves that I had it in view to prepare for my king a glorious reign, for my country a great blessing. I have many ideas, M. d'Artagnan. You will see them expand in the sun of public peace; and if I have not the good fortune to conquer the friendship of honest men, I am at least certain, monsieur, that I shall obtain their esteem. For their admiration, monsieur, I would give my life." This change, this sudden elevation, this mute approbation of the king, gave the musketeer matter for profound reflection. He bowed civilly to Colbert, who did not take his eyes off him. The king, when he saw they were reconciled, dismissed them. They left the room together. As soon as they were out of the cabinet, the new minister, stopping the captain, said: "Is it possible, M. d'Artagnan, that with such an eye as yours, you did not, at the first glance, at the first impression, discover what sort of man I am?" "Monsieur Colbert," replied the musketeer, "a ray of the sun in our eyes prevents us from seeing the most vivid flame. The man in power radiates, you know; and since you are there, why should you continue to persecute him who had just fallen into disgrace, and fallen from such a height?" "I, monsieur!" said Colbert; "oh, monsieur! I would never persecute him. I wished to administer the finances and to administer them alone, because I am ambitious, and, above all, because I have the most entire confidence in my own merit; because I know that all the gold of this country will ebb and flow beneath my eyes, and I love to look at the king's gold; because, if I live thirty years, in thirty years not a _denir_ of it will remain in my hands; because, with that gold, I will build granaries, castles, cities, and harbors; because I will create a marine, I will equip navies that shall waft the name of France to the most distant people; because I will create libraries and academies; because I will make France the first country in the world, and the wealthiest. These are the motives for my animosity against M. Fouquet, who prevented my acting. And then, when I shall be great and strong, when France is great and strong, in my turn, then, will I cry, 'Mercy'!" "Mercy, did you say? then ask his liberty of the king. The king is only crushing him on _your_ account." Colbert again raised his head. "Monsieur," said he, "you know that is not so, and that the king has his own personal animosity against M. Fouquet; it is not for me to teach you that." "But the king will grow tired; he will forget." "The king never forgets, M. d'Artagnan. Hark! the king calls. He is going to issue an order. I have not influenced him, have I? Listen." The king, in fact, was calling his secretaries. "Monsieur d'Artagnan," said he. "I am here, sire." "Give twenty of your musketeers to M. de Saint-Aignan, to form a guard for M. Fouquet." D'Artagnan and Colbert exchanged looks. "And from Angers," continued the king, "they will conduct the prisoner to the Bastile, in Paris." "You were right," said the captain to the minister. "Saint-Aignan," continued the king, "you will have any one shot who shall attempt to speak privately with M. Fouquet, during the journey." "But myself, sire," said the duke. "You, monsieur, you will only speak to him in the presence of the musketeers." The duke bowed and departed to execute his commission. D'Artagnan was about to retire likewise; but the king stopped him. "Monsieur," said he, "you will go immediately, and take possession of the isle and fief of Belle-Ile-en-Mer." "Yes, sire. Alone?" "You will take a sufficient number of troops to prevent delay, in case the place should be contumacious." A murmur of courtly incredulity rose from the group of courtiers. "That shall be done," said D'Artagnan. "I saw the place in my infancy," resumed the king, "and I do not wish to see it again. You have heard me? Go, monsieur, and do not return without the keys." Colbert went up to D'Artagnan. "A commission which, if you carry it out well," said he, "will be worth a marechal's baton to you." "Why do you employ the words, 'if you carry it out well'?" "Because it is difficult." "Ah! in what respect?" "You have friends in Belle-Isle, Monsieur d'Artagnan; and it is not an easy thing for men like you to march over the bodies of their friends to obtain success." D'Artagnan hung his head in deepest thought, whilst Colbert returned to the king. A quarter of an hour after, the captain received the written order from the king, to blow up the fortress of Belle-Isle, in case of resistance, with power of life and death over all the inhabitants or refugees, and an injunction not to allow one to escape. "Colbert was right," thought D'Artagnan; "for me the baton of a marechal of France will cost the lives of my two friends. Only they seem to forget that my friends are not more stupid than the birds, and that they will not wait for the hand of the fowler to extend over their wings. I will show them that hand so plainly, that they will have quite time enough to see it. Poor Porthos! Poor Aramis! No; my fortune should shall not cost your wings a feather." Having thus determined, D'Artagnan assembled the royal army, embarked it at Paimboeuf, and set sail, without the loss of an unnecessary minute.

It is two o'clock in the afternoon and the King is anxious about D'Artagnan's whereabouts. The King questions Colbert, who has no idea where the captain is. Eventually D'Artagnan himself walks into the room. He is in a bad mood. Somebody has ordered the Musketeers to search Fouquet's home. D'Artagnan is adamant that only the King has the authority to issue commands to the Musketeers. Colbert replies that he acted for the good of the King. D'Artagnan continues to berate Colbert. The King hesitates, unsure of what to do . D'Artagnan pretends he is about to leave. But the King wants details of the arrest. D'Artagnan relates the full story, sparing no detail and admitting his unwillingness to arrest the former minister. D'Artagnan further admits that Fouquet would never attempt escape while D'Artagnan was his guard, but that D'Artagnan would deliberately do a poor job guarding Fouquet. Understandably, the King is not pleased. The King calls Colbert back into the room and has him shake hands with D'Artagnan, who is surprised to see Colbert's face change into that of a noble and intelligent man. D'Artagnan and Colbert leave the room together. D'Artagnan chides his companion for his actions towards Fouquet. Colbert explains himself by saying that Fouquet has been holding him back from greatness. D'Artagnan asks Colbert to intercede with the King on Fouquet's account, but Colbert points out that the King has his own grudges against the man. The King calls for D'Artagnan to select twenty of his men as a guard for Fouquet, who is destined for the Bastille. As for D'Artagnan, the King orders him to take possession of Belle-Isle, using as many troops as necessary. Colbert tells D'Artagnan that such a deed is worth a marshal's baton, but then points out that it will come at the cost of his two friends' lives. D'Artagnan is determined not to hurt his friends. He assembles his men and hits the road.

CHAPTER XII ONE week of authentic spring, one rare sweet week of May, one tranquil moment between the blast of winter and the charge of summer. Daily Carol walked from town into flashing country hysteric with new life. One enchanted hour when she returned to youth and a belief in the possibility of beauty. She had walked northward toward the upper shore of Plover Lake, taking to the railroad track, whose directness and dryness make it the natural highway for pedestrians on the plains. She stepped from tie to tie, in long strides. At each road-crossing she had to crawl over a cattle-guard of sharpened timbers. She walked the rails, balancing with arms extended, cautious heel before toe. As she lost balance her body bent over, her arms revolved wildly, and when she toppled she laughed aloud. The thick grass beside the track, coarse and prickly with many burnings, hid canary-yellow buttercups and the mauve petals and woolly sage-green coats of the pasque flowers. The branches of the kinnikinic brush were red and smooth as lacquer on a saki bowl. She ran down the gravelly embankment, smiled at children gathering flowers in a little basket, thrust a handful of the soft pasque flowers into the bosom of her white blouse. Fields of springing wheat drew her from the straight propriety of the railroad and she crawled through the rusty barbed-wire fence. She followed a furrow between low wheat blades and a field of rye which showed silver lights as it flowed before the wind. She found a pasture by the lake. So sprinkled was the pasture with rag-baby blossoms and the cottony herb of Indian tobacco that it spread out like a rare old Persian carpet of cream and rose and delicate green. Under her feet the rough grass made a pleasant crunching. Sweet winds blew from the sunny lake beside her, and small waves sputtered on the meadowy shore. She leaped a tiny creek bowered in pussy-willow buds. She was nearing a frivolous grove of birch and poplar and wild plum trees. The poplar foliage had the downiness of a Corot arbor; the green and silver trunks were as candid as the birches, as slender and lustrous as the limbs of a Pierrot. The cloudy white blossoms of the plum trees filled the grove with a springtime mistiness which gave an illusion of distance. She ran into the wood, crying out for joy of freedom regained after winter. Choke-cherry blossoms lured her from the outer sun-warmed spaces to depths of green stillness, where a submarine light came through the young leaves. She walked pensively along an abandoned road. She found a moccasin-flower beside a lichen-covered log. At the end of the road she saw the open acres--dipping rolling fields bright with wheat. "I believe! The woodland gods still live! And out there, the great land. It's beautiful as the mountains. What do I care for Thanatopsises?" She came out on the prairie, spacious under an arch of boldly cut clouds. Small pools glittered. Above a marsh red-winged blackbirds chased a crow in a swift melodrama of the air. On a hill was silhouetted a man following a drag. His horse bent its neck and plodded, content. A path took her to the Corinth road, leading back to town. Dandelions glowed in patches amidst the wild grass by the way. A stream golloped through a concrete culvert beneath the road. She trudged in healthy weariness. A man in a bumping Ford rattled up beside her, hailed, "Give you a lift, Mrs. Kennicott?" "Thank you. It's awfully good of you, but I'm enjoying the walk." "Great day, by golly. I seen some wheat that must of been five inches high. Well, so long." She hadn't the dimmest notion who he was, but his greeting warmed her. This countryman gave her a companionship which she had never (whether by her fault or theirs or neither) been able to find in the matrons and commercial lords of the town. Half a mile from town, in a hollow between hazelnut bushes and a brook, she discovered a gipsy encampment: a covered wagon, a tent, a bunch of pegged-out horses. A broad-shouldered man was squatted on his heels, holding a frying-pan over a camp-fire. He looked toward her. He was Miles Bjornstam. "Well, well, what you doing out here?" he roared. "Come have a hunk o' bacon. Pete! Hey, Pete!" A tousled person came from behind the covered wagon. "Pete, here's the one honest-to-God lady in my bum town. Come on, crawl in and set a couple minutes, Mrs. Kennicott. I'm hiking off for all summer." The Red Swede staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the wire fence, held the strands apart for her. She unconsciously smiled at him as she went through. Her skirt caught on a barb; he carefully freed it. Beside this man in blue flannel shirt, baggy khaki trousers, uneven suspenders, and vile felt hat, she was small and exquisite. The surly Pete set out an upturned bucket for her. She lounged on it, her elbows on her knees. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Just starting off for the summer, horse-trading." Bjornstam chuckled. His red mustache caught the sun. "Regular hoboes and public benefactors we are. Take a hike like this every once in a while. Sharks on horses. Buy 'em from farmers and sell 'em to others. We're honest--frequently. Great time. Camp along the road. I was wishing I had a chance to say good-by to you before I ducked out but----Say, you better come along with us." "I'd like to." "While you're playing mumblety-peg with Mrs. Lym Cass, Pete and me will be rambling across Dakota, through the Bad Lands, into the butte country, and when fall comes, we'll be crossing over a pass of the Big Horn Mountains, maybe, and camp in a snow-storm, quarter of a mile right straight up above a lake. Then in the morning we'll lie snug in our blankets and look up through the pines at an eagle. How'd it strike you? Heh? Eagle soaring and soaring all day--big wide sky----" "Don't! Or I will go with you, and I'm afraid there might be some slight scandal. Perhaps some day I'll do it. Good-by." Her hand disappeared in his blackened leather glove. From the turn in the road she waved at him. She walked on more soberly now, and she was lonely. But the wheat and grass were sleek velvet under the sunset; the prairie clouds were tawny gold; and she swung happily into Main Street. II Through the first days of June she drove with Kennicott on his calls. She identified him with the virile land; she admired him as she saw with what respect the farmers obeyed him. She was out in the early chill, after a hasty cup of coffee, reaching open country as the fresh sun came up in that unspoiled world. Meadow larks called from the tops of thin split fence-posts. The wild roses smelled clean. As they returned in late afternoon the low sun was a solemnity of radial bands, like a heavenly fan of beaten gold; the limitless circle of the grain was a green sea rimmed with fog, and the willow wind-breaks were palmy isles. Before July the close heat blanketed them. The tortured earth cracked. Farmers panted through corn-fields behind cultivators and the sweating flanks of horses. While she waited for Kennicott in the car, before a farmhouse, the seat burned her fingers and her head ached with the glare on fenders and hood. A black thunder-shower was followed by a dust storm which turned the sky yellow with the hint of a coming tornado. Impalpable black dust far-borne from Dakota covered the inner sills of the closed windows. The July heat was ever more stifling. They crawled along Main Street by day; they found it hard to sleep at night. They brought mattresses down to the living-room, and thrashed and turned by the open window. Ten times a night they talked of going out to soak themselves with the hose and wade through the dew, but they were too listless to take the trouble. On cool evenings, when they tried to go walking, the gnats appeared in swarms which peppered their faces and caught in their throats. She wanted the Northern pines, the Eastern sea, but Kennicott declared that it would be "kind of hard to get away, just NOW." The Health and Improvement Committee of the Thanatopsis asked her to take part in the anti-fly campaign, and she toiled about town persuading householders to use the fly-traps furnished by the club, or giving out money prizes to fly-swatting children. She was loyal enough but not ardent, and without ever quite intending to, she began to neglect the task as heat sucked at her strength. Kennicott and she motored North and spent a week with his mother--that is, Carol spent it with his mother, while he fished for bass. The great event was their purchase of a summer cottage, down on Lake Minniemashie. Perhaps the most amiable feature of life in Gopher Prairie was the summer cottages. They were merely two-room shanties, with a seepage of broken-down chairs, peeling veneered tables, chromos pasted on wooden walls, and inefficient kerosene stoves. They were so thin-walled and so close together that you could--and did--hear a baby being spanked in the fifth cottage off. But they were set among elms and lindens on a bluff which looked across the lake to fields of ripened wheat sloping up to green woods. Here the matrons forgot social jealousies, and sat gossiping in gingham; or, in old bathing-suits, surrounded by hysterical children, they paddled for hours. Carol joined them; she ducked shrieking small boys, and helped babies construct sand-basins for unfortunate minnows. She liked Juanita Haydock and Maud Dyer when she helped them make picnic-supper for the men, who came motoring out from town each evening. She was easier and more natural with them. In the debate as to whether there should be veal loaf or poached egg on hash, she had no chance to be heretical and oversensitive. They danced sometimes, in the evening; they had a minstrel show, with Kennicott surprisingly good as end-man; always they were encircled by children wise in the lore of woodchucks and gophers and rafts and willow whistles. If they could have continued this normal barbaric life Carol would have been the most enthusiastic citizen of Gopher Prairie. She was relieved to be assured that she did not want bookish conversation alone; that she did not expect the town to become a Bohemia. She was content now. She did not criticize. But in September, when the year was at its richest, custom dictated that it was time to return to town; to remove the children from the waste occupation of learning the earth, and send them back to lessons about the number of potatoes which (in a delightful world untroubled by commission-houses or shortages in freight-cars) William sold to John. The women who had cheerfully gone bathing all summer looked doubtful when Carol begged, "Let's keep up an outdoor life this winter, let's slide and skate." Their hearts shut again till spring, and the nine months of cliques and radiators and dainty refreshments began all over. III Carol had started a salon. Since Kennicott, Vida Sherwin, and Guy Pollock were her only lions, and since Kennicott would have preferred Sam Clark to all the poets and radicals in the entire world, her private and self-defensive clique did not get beyond one evening dinner for Vida and Guy, on her first wedding anniversary; and that dinner did not get beyond a controversy regarding Raymie Wutherspoon's yearnings. Guy Pollock was the gentlest person she had found here. He spoke of her new jade and cream frock naturally, not jocosely; he held her chair for her as they sat down to dinner; and he did not, like Kennicott, interrupt her to shout, "Oh say, speaking of that, I heard a good story today." But Guy was incurably hermit. He sat late and talked hard, and did not come again. Then she met Champ Perry in the post-office--and decided that in the history of the pioneers was the panacea for Gopher Prairie, for all of America. We have lost their sturdiness, she told herself. We must restore the last of the veterans to power and follow them on the backward path to the integrity of Lincoln, to the gaiety of settlers dancing in a saw-mill. She read in the records of the Minnesota Territorial Pioneers that only sixty years ago, not so far back as the birth of her own father, four cabins had composed Gopher Prairie. The log stockade which Mrs. Champ Perry was to find when she trekked in was built afterward by the soldiers as a defense against the Sioux. The four cabins were inhabited by Maine Yankees who had come up the Mississippi to St. Paul and driven north over virgin prairie into virgin woods. They ground their own corn; the men-folks shot ducks and pigeons and prairie chickens; the new breakings yielded the turnip-like rutabagas, which they ate raw and boiled and baked and raw again. For treat they had wild plums and crab-apples and tiny wild strawberries. Grasshoppers came darkening the sky, and in an hour ate the farmwife's garden and the farmer's coat. Precious horses painfully brought from Illinois, were drowned in bogs or stampeded by the fear of blizzards. Snow blew through the chinks of new-made cabins, and Eastern children, with flowery muslin dresses, shivered all winter and in summer were red and black with mosquito bites. Indians were everywhere; they camped in dooryards, stalked into kitchens to demand doughnuts, came with rifles across their backs into schoolhouses and begged to see the pictures in the geographies. Packs of timber-wolves treed the children; and the settlers found dens of rattle-snakes, killed fifty, a hundred, in a day. Yet it was a buoyant life. Carol read enviously in the admirable Minnesota chronicles called "Old Rail Fence Corners" the reminiscence of Mrs. Mahlon Black, who settled in Stillwater in 1848: "There was nothing to parade over in those days. We took it as it came and had happy lives. . . . We would all gather together and in about two minutes would be having a good time--playing cards or dancing. . . . We used to waltz and dance contra dances. None of these new jigs and not wear any clothes to speak of. We covered our hides in those days; no tight skirts like now. You could take three or four steps inside our skirts and then not reach the edge. One of the boys would fiddle a while and then some one would spell him and he could get a dance. Sometimes they would dance and fiddle too." She reflected that if she could not have ballrooms of gray and rose and crystal, she wanted to be swinging across a puncheon-floor with a dancing fiddler. This smug in-between town, which had exchanged "Money Musk" for phonographs grinding out ragtime, it was neither the heroic old nor the sophisticated new. Couldn't she somehow, some yet unimagined how, turn it back to simplicity? She herself knew two of the pioneers: the Perrys. Champ Perry was the buyer at the grain-elevator. He weighed wagons of wheat on a rough platform-scale, in the cracks of which the kernels sprouted every spring. Between times he napped in the dusty peace of his office. She called on the Perrys at their rooms above Howland & Gould's grocery. When they were already old they had lost the money, which they had invested in an elevator. They had given up their beloved yellow brick house and moved into these rooms over a store, which were the Gopher Prairie equivalent of a flat. A broad stairway led from the street to the upper hall, along which were the doors of a lawyer's office, a dentist's, a photographer's "studio," the lodge-rooms of the Affiliated Order of Spartans and, at the back, the Perrys' apartment. They received her (their first caller in a month) with aged fluttering tenderness. Mrs. Perry confided, "My, it's a shame we got to entertain you in such a cramped place. And there ain't any water except that ole iron sink outside in the hall, but still, as I say to Champ, beggars can't be choosers. 'Sides, the brick house was too big for me to sweep, and it was way out, and it's nice to be living down here among folks. Yes, we're glad to be here. But----Some day, maybe we can have a house of our own again. We're saving up----Oh, dear, if we could have our own home! But these rooms are real nice, ain't they!" As old people will, the world over, they had moved as much as possible of their familiar furniture into this small space. Carol had none of the superiority she felt toward Mrs. Lyman Cass's plutocratic parlor. She was at home here. She noted with tenderness all the makeshifts: the darned chair-arms, the patent rocker covered with sleazy cretonne, the pasted strips of paper mending the birch-bark napkin-rings labeled "Papa" and "Mama." She hinted of her new enthusiasm. To find one of the "young folks" who took them seriously, heartened the Perrys, and she easily drew from them the principles by which Gopher Prairie should be born again--should again become amusing to live in. This was their philosophy complete . . . in the era of aeroplanes and syndicalism: The Baptist Church (and, somewhat less, the Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian Churches) is the perfect, the divinely ordained standard in music, oratory, philanthropy, and ethics. "We don't need all this new-fangled science, or this terrible Higher Criticism that's ruining our young men in colleges. What we need is to get back to the true Word of God, and a good sound belief in hell, like we used to have it preached to us." The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party of Blaine and McKinley, is the agent of the Lord and of the Baptist Church in temporal affairs. All socialists ought to be hanged. "Harold Bell Wright is a lovely writer, and he teaches such good morals in his novels, and folks say he's made prett' near a million dollars out of 'em." People who make more than ten thousand a year or less than eight hundred are wicked. Europeans are still wickeder. It doesn't hurt any to drink a glass of beer on a warm day, but anybody who touches wine is headed straight for hell. Virgins are not so virginal as they used to be. Nobody needs drug-store ice cream; pie is good enough for anybody. The farmers want too much for their wheat. The owners of the elevator-company expect too much for the salaries they pay. There would be no more trouble or discontent in the world if everybody worked as hard as Pa did when he cleared our first farm. IV Carol's hero-worship dwindled to polite nodding, and the nodding dwindled to a desire to escape, and she went home with a headache. Next day she saw Miles Bjornstam on the street. "Just back from Montana. Great summer. Pumped my lungs chuck-full of Rocky Mountain air. Now for another whirl at sassing the bosses of Gopher Prairie." She smiled at him, and the Perrys faded, the pioneers faded, till they were but daguerreotypes in a black walnut cupboard.

Carol takes a walk along the railroad track up to the lake and the Prairie beyond to enjoy the beauty of the spring. As she trudges along a man in a Ford car offers a lift. Carol feels the warmth of companionship in that offer which she never finds in any of her acquaintances in Gopher Prairie. She comes across Bjornstam in gypsy encampment. He offers her a hunk of bacon. He is on his way to the annual horse-trading. He buys horses from the farmers and sells them to others and claims that he makes some honest profit. He invites her to join him and she says there would be a scandal if she did. It is pleasant in the month of June and Carol goes along with Kennicott on his visits. She finds the July heat stifling. They find it impossible to sleep. On cool evenings the gnats plague them when they go for a walk. The Thanatopsis club starts its anti-fly campaign. Carol distributes flytraps and gives money to the fly swatting children. But the heat drains all her energy for social work. They visit Kennicotts mother for a week. They purchase a summer cottage. The whole social circle of the Kennicotts has cottages and Carol enjoys the outdoor life. They make picnic suppers and also have dances. But with the arrival of September they move back to their town homes and life goes back to the usual routine. Carol invites Vida and Guy Pollock for the party on her first wedding anniversary. The conversation does not go beyond the discussion of Raymie Wutherspoons dreams. Carol finds Guy Pollock to be the perfect gentleman and he talks to her with ease about any topic that is interesting. But he does not call on the Kennicotts again. Her meeting Champ Perry makes her think of the pioneering days of the American Middlewest and desires to know more about it. From the records she learns about the hardships they had faced. She reads about the grasshoppers that destroyed the crops and their gardens and about the rattlesnakes they had to kill. Carol feels that for the hardships, life was more buoyant in those days. She also feels that if Gopher Prairie could go back to those pioneer days, she would be able to like it better. Carol calls on the Perrys much to their delight. The Perrys had lost their money and were compelled to live in a flat. They feel sorry that they have to entertain Carol in their cramped flat. They feel thrilled to know that Carol wants their suggestions as to how Gopher Prairie can be taken to its pioneering days. According to them, the Baptist church is the standard in music, oratory, philanthropy and ethics. They do not need science and socialism. To earn more than ten thousand a year or less than eight hundred is wicked. They consider the Europeans to be wickeder. People do not need wine or ice cream. They should work as hard as Champ Perry did when he was young. Carol who had come with enthusiasm to listen to their ideas ends up with a headache. On her way back she meets Bjornstam who is back from the horse- trading trip.

On a corner a glass-fronted building shed a yellow glare upon the pavements. The open mouth of a saloon called seductively to passengers to enter and annihilate sorrow or create rage. The interior of the place was papered in olive and bronze tints of imitation leather. A shining bar of counterfeit massiveness extended down the side of the room. Behind it a great mahogany-appearing sideboard reached the ceiling. Upon its shelves rested pyramids of shimmering glasses that were never disturbed. Mirrors set in the face of the sideboard multiplied them. Lemons, oranges and paper napkins, arranged with mathematical precision, sat among the glasses. Many-hued decanters of liquor perched at regular intervals on the lower shelves. A nickel-plated cash register occupied a position in the exact centre of the general effect. The elementary senses of it all seemed to be opulence and geometrical accuracy. Across from the bar a smaller counter held a collection of plates upon which swarmed frayed fragments of crackers, slices of boiled ham, dishevelled bits of cheese, and pickles swimming in vinegar. An odor of grasping, begrimed hands and munching mouths pervaded. Pete, in a white jacket, was behind the bar bending expectantly toward a quiet stranger. "A beeh," said the man. Pete drew a foam-topped glassful and set it dripping upon the bar. At this moment the light bamboo doors at the entrance swung open and crashed against the siding. Jimmie and a companion entered. They swaggered unsteadily but belligerently toward the bar and looked at Pete with bleared and blinking eyes. "Gin," said Jimmie. "Gin," said the companion. Pete slid a bottle and two glasses along the bar. He bended his head sideways as he assiduously polished away with a napkin at the gleaming wood. He had a look of watchfulness upon his features. Jimmie and his companion kept their eyes upon the bartender and conversed loudly in tones of contempt. "He's a dindy masher, ain't he, by Gawd?" laughed Jimmie. "Oh, hell, yes," said the companion, sneering widely. "He's great, he is. Git onto deh mug on deh blokie. Dat's enough to make a feller turn hand-springs in 'is sleep." The quiet stranger moved himself and his glass a trifle further away and maintained an attitude of oblivion. "Gee! ain't he hot stuff!" "Git onto his shape! Great Gawd!" "Hey," cried Jimmie, in tones of command. Pete came along slowly, with a sullen dropping of the under lip. "Well," he growled, "what's eatin' yehs?" "Gin," said Jimmie. "Gin," said the companion. As Pete confronted them with the bottle and the glasses, they laughed in his face. Jimmie's companion, evidently overcome with merriment, pointed a grimy forefinger in Pete's direction. "Say, Jimmie," demanded he, "what deh hell is dat behind deh bar?" "Damned if I knows," replied Jimmie. They laughed loudly. Pete put down a bottle with a bang and turned a formidable face toward them. He disclosed his teeth and his shoulders heaved restlessly. "You fellers can't guy me," he said. "Drink yer stuff an' git out an' don' make no trouble." Instantly the laughter faded from the faces of the two men and expressions of offended dignity immediately came. "Who deh hell has said anyt'ing teh you," cried they in the same breath. The quiet stranger looked at the door calculatingly. "Ah, come off," said Pete to the two men. "Don't pick me up for no jay. Drink yer rum an' git out an' don' make no trouble." "Oh, deh hell," airily cried Jimmie. "Oh, deh hell," airily repeated his companion. "We goes when we git ready! See!" continued Jimmie. "Well," said Pete in a threatening voice, "don' make no trouble." Jimmie suddenly leaned forward with his head on one side. He snarled like a wild animal. "Well, what if we does? See?" said he. Dark blood flushed into Pete's face, and he shot a lurid glance at Jimmie. "Well, den we'll see whose deh bes' man, you or me," he said. The quiet stranger moved modestly toward the door. Jimmie began to swell with valor. "Don' pick me up fer no tenderfoot. When yeh tackles me yeh tackles one of deh bes' men in deh city. See? I'm a scrapper, I am. Ain't dat right, Billie?" "Sure, Mike," responded his companion in tones of conviction. "Oh, hell," said Pete, easily. "Go fall on yerself." The two men again began to laugh. "What deh hell is dat talkin'?" cried the companion. "Damned if I knows," replied Jimmie with exaggerated contempt. Pete made a furious gesture. "Git outa here now, an' don' make no trouble. See? Youse fellers er lookin' fer a scrap an' it's damn likely yeh'll fin' one if yeh keeps on shootin' off yer mout's. I know yehs! See? I kin lick better men dan yehs ever saw in yer lifes. Dat's right! See? Don' pick me up fer no stuff er yeh might be jolted out in deh street before yeh knows where yeh is. When I comes from behind dis bar, I t'rows yehs bote inteh deh street. See?" "Oh, hell," cried the two men in chorus. The glare of a panther came into Pete's eyes. "Dat's what I said! Unnerstan'?" He came through a passage at the end of the bar and swelled down upon the two men. They stepped promptly forward and crowded close to him. They bristled like three roosters. They moved their heads pugnaciously and kept their shoulders braced. The nervous muscles about each mouth twitched with a forced smile of mockery. "Well, what deh hell yer goin' teh do?" gritted Jimmie. Pete stepped warily back, waving his hands before him to keep the men from coming too near. "Well, what deh hell yer goin' teh do?" repeated Jimmie's ally. They kept close to him, taunting and leering. They strove to make him attempt the initial blow. "Keep back, now! Don' crowd me," ominously said Pete. Again they chorused in contempt. "Oh, hell!" In a small, tossing group, the three men edged for positions like frigates contemplating battle. "Well, why deh hell don' yeh try teh t'row us out?" cried Jimmie and his ally with copious sneers. The bravery of bull-dogs sat upon the faces of the men. Their clenched fists moved like eager weapons. The allied two jostled the bartender's elbows, glaring at him with feverish eyes and forcing him toward the wall. Suddenly Pete swore redly. The flash of action gleamed from his eyes. He threw back his arm and aimed a tremendous, lightning-like blow at Jimmie's face. His foot swung a step forward and the weight of his body was behind his fist. Jimmie ducked his head, Bowery-like, with the quickness of a cat. The fierce, answering blows of him and his ally crushed on Pete's bowed head. The quiet stranger vanished. The arms of the combatants whirled in the air like flails. The faces of the men, at first flushed to flame-colored anger, now began to fade to the pallor of warriors in the blood and heat of a battle. Their lips curled back and stretched tightly over the gums in ghoul-like grins. Through their white, gripped teeth struggled hoarse whisperings of oaths. Their eyes glittered with murderous fire. Each head was huddled between its owner's shoulders, and arms were swinging with marvelous rapidity. Feet scraped to and fro with a loud scratching sound upon the sanded floor. Blows left crimson blotches upon pale skin. The curses of the first quarter minute of the fight died away. The breaths of the fighters came wheezingly from their lips and the three chests were straining and heaving. Pete at intervals gave vent to low, labored hisses, that sounded like a desire to kill. Jimmie's ally gibbered at times like a wounded maniac. Jimmie was silent, fighting with the face of a sacrificial priest. The rage of fear shone in all their eyes and their blood-colored fists swirled. At a tottering moment a blow from Pete's hand struck the ally and he crashed to the floor. He wriggled instantly to his feet and grasping the quiet stranger's beer glass from the bar, hurled it at Pete's head. High on the wall it burst like a bomb, shivering fragments flying in all directions. Then missiles came to every man's hand. The place had heretofore appeared free of things to throw, but suddenly glass and bottles went singing through the air. They were thrown point blank at bobbing heads. The pyramid of shimmering glasses, that had never been disturbed, changed to cascades as heavy bottles were flung into them. Mirrors splintered to nothing. The three frothing creatures on the floor buried themselves in a frenzy for blood. There followed in the wake of missiles and fists some unknown prayers, perhaps for death. The quiet stranger had sprawled very pyrotechnically out on the sidewalk. A laugh ran up and down the avenue for the half of a block. "Dey've trowed a bloke inteh deh street." People heard the sound of breaking glass and shuffling feet within the saloon and came running. A small group, bending down to look under the bamboo doors, watching the fall of glass, and three pairs of violent legs, changed in a moment to a crowd. A policeman came charging down the sidewalk and bounced through the doors into the saloon. The crowd bended and surged in absorbing anxiety to see. Jimmie caught first sight of the on-coming interruption. On his feet he had the same regard for a policeman that, when on his truck, he had for a fire engine. He howled and ran for the side door. The officer made a terrific advance, club in hand. One comprehensive sweep of the long night stick threw the ally to the floor and forced Pete to a corner. With his disengaged hand he made a furious effort at Jimmie's coat-tails. Then he regained his balance and paused. "Well, well, you are a pair of pictures. What in hell yeh been up to?" Jimmie, with his face drenched in blood, escaped up a side street, pursued a short distance by some of the more law-loving, or excited individuals of the crowd. Later, from a corner safely dark, he saw the policeman, the ally and the bartender emerge from the saloon. Pete locked the doors and then followed up the avenue in the rear of the crowd-encompassed policeman and his charge. On first thoughts Jimmie, with his heart throbbing at battle heat, started to go desperately to the rescue of his friend, but he halted. "Ah, what deh hell?" he demanded of himself.

A bar stands on a corner. Inside, it is full of fake furnishings. Mirrors line the walls and glasses are neatly stacked along the sideboard. "An odor of grasping, begrimed hands and munching mouths pervaded. " Pete is the bartender. He serves a customer a drink and then wipes the bar. Suddenly, Jimmie and a companion come in the door and start making fun of Pete. They order drinks and continue to mock Pete. Pete tries to get them to stop, but they continue. Finally, he comes around the bar and gets into a fighting stance. The men circle each other for what seems like a long time and finally Pete throws a punch that Jimmie ducks. They fight viciously for a long time and then suddenly someone picks up a bottle and throws it. They all start throwing glass at each other. Outside in the street, people gather when they hear the breaking glass. Police officers arrive and enter the bar. Jimmie runs for the side door and escapes just as the police officer has subdued his companion and thrown Pete against the wall. Out at the entrance of the alley, Jimmie sees the police officer leading Pete and his companion away. He thinks for a moment about running to the rescue of his companion, but then decides "Ah, what deh hell?"

ACT II. SCENE 2. Troy. PRIAM'S palace Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS PRIAM. After so many hours, lives, speeches, spent, Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks: 'Deliver Helen, and all damage else- As honour, loss of time, travail, expense, Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum'd In hot digestion of this cormorant war- Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't? HECTOR. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I, As far as toucheth my particular, Yet, dread Priam, There is no lady of more softer bowels, More spongy to suck in the sense of fear, More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?' Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety, Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To th' bottom of the worst. Let Helen go. Since the first sword was drawn about this question, Every tithe soul 'mongst many thousand dismes Hath been as dear as Helen-I mean, of ours. If we have lost so many tenths of ours To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us, Had it our name, the value of one ten, What merit's in that reason which denies The yielding of her up? TROILUS. Fie, fie, my brother! Weigh you the worth and honour of a king, So great as our dread father's, in a scale Of common ounces? Will you with counters sum The past-proportion of his infinite, And buckle in a waist most fathomless With spans and inches so diminutive As fears and reasons? Fie, for godly shame! HELENUS. No marvel though you bite so sharp at reasons, You are so empty of them. Should not our father Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons, Because your speech hath none that tells him so? TROILUS. You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest; You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons: You know an enemy intends you harm; You know a sword employ'd is perilous, And reason flies the object of all harm. Who marvels, then, when Helenus beholds A Grecian and his sword, if he do set The very wings of reason to his heels And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove, Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason, Let's shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honour Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts With this cramm'd reason. Reason and respect Make livers pale and lustihood deject. HECTOR. Brother, she is not worth what she doth, cost The keeping. TROILUS. What's aught but as 'tis valued? HECTOR. But value dwells not in particular will: It holds his estimate and dignity As well wherein 'tis precious of itself As in the prizer. 'Tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god-I And the will dotes that is attributive To what infectiously itself affects, Without some image of th' affected merit. TROILUS. I take to-day a wife, and my election Is led on in the conduct of my will; My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores Of will and judgment: how may I avoid, Although my will distaste what it elected, The wife I chose? There can be no evasion To blench from this and to stand firm by honour. We turn not back the silks upon the merchant When we have soil'd them; nor the remainder viands We do not throw in unrespective sieve, Because we now are full. It was thought meet Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks; Your breath with full consent benied his sails; The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce, And did him service. He touch'd the ports desir'd; And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning. Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt. Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships, And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants. If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went- As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go'- If you'll confess he brought home worthy prize- As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands, And cried 'Inestimable!' -why do you now The issue of your proper wisdoms rate, And do a deed that never fortune did- Beggar the estimation which you priz'd Richer than sea and land? O theft most base, That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep! But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol'n That in their country did them that disgrace We fear to warrant in our native place! CASSANDRA. [Within] Cry, Troyans, cry. PRIAM. What noise, what shriek is this? TROILUS. 'Tis our mad sister; I do know her voice. CASSANDRA. [Within] Cry, Troyans. HECTOR. It is Cassandra. Enter CASSANDRA, raving CASSANDRA. Cry, Troyans, cry. Lend me ten thousand eyes, And I will fill them with prophetic tears. HECTOR. Peace, sister, peace. CASSANDRA. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld, Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry, Add to my clamours. Let us pay betimes A moiety of that mass of moan to come. Cry, Troyans, cry. Practise your eyes with tears. Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand; Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all. Cry, Troyans, cry, A Helen and a woe! Cry, cry. Troy burns, or else let Helen go. Exit HECTOR. Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains Of divination in our sister work Some touches of remorse, or is your blood So madly hot that no discourse of reason, Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause, Can qualify the same? TROILUS. Why, brother Hector, We may not think the justness of each act Such and no other than event doth form it; Nor once deject the courage of our minds Because Cassandra's mad. Her brain-sick raptures Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel Which hath our several honours all engag'd To make it gracious. For my private part, I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons; And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us Such things as might offend the weakest spleen To fight for and maintain. PARIS. Else might the world convince of levity As well my undertakings as your counsels; But I attest the gods, your full consent Gave wings to my propension, and cut of All fears attending on so dire a project. For what, alas, can these my single arms? What propugnation is in one man's valour To stand the push and enmity of those This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest, Were I alone to pass the difficulties, And had as ample power as I have will, Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done Nor faint in the pursuit. PRIAM. Paris, you speak Like one besotted on your sweet delights. You have the honey still, but these the gall; So to be valiant is no praise at all. PARIS. Sir, I propose not merely to myself The pleasures such a beauty brings with it; But I would have the soil of her fair rape Wip'd off in honourable keeping her. What treason were it to the ransack'd queen, Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me, Now to deliver her possession up On terms of base compulsion! Can it be That so degenerate a strain as this Should once set footing in your generous bosoms? There's not the meanest spirit on our party Without a heart to dare or sword to draw When Helen is defended; nor none so noble Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfam'd Where Helen is the subject. Then, I say, Well may we fight for her whom we know well The world's large spaces cannot parallel. HECTOR. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well; And on the cause and question now in hand Have gloz'd, but superficially; not much Unlike young men, whom Aristode thought Unfit to hear moral philosophy. The reasons you allege do more conduce To the hot passion of distemp'red blood Than to make up a free determination 'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice Of any true decision. Nature craves All dues be rend'red to their owners. Now, What nearer debt in all humanity Than wife is to the husband? If this law Of nature be corrupted through affection; And that great minds, of partial indulgence To their benumbed wills, resist the same; There is a law in each well-order'd nation To curb those raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refractory. If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta's king- As it is known she is-these moral laws Of nature and of nations speak aloud To have her back return'd. Thus to persist In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion Is this, in way of truth. Yet, ne'er the less, My spritely brethren, I propend to you In resolution to keep Helen still; For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependence Upon our joint and several dignities. TROILUS. Why, there you touch'd the life of our design. Were it not glory that we more affected Than the performance of our heaving spleens, I would not wish a drop of Troyan blood Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector, She is a theme of honour and renown, A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds, Whose present courage may beat down our foes, And fame in time to come canonize us; For I presume brave Hector would not lose So rich advantage of a promis'd glory As smiles upon the forehead of this action For the wide world's revenue. HECTOR. I am yours, You valiant offspring of great Priamus. I have a roisting challenge sent amongst The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits. I was advertis'd their great general slept, Whilst emulation in the army crept. This, I presume, will wake him. Exeunt

In Troy, Priam and his sons talk about whether or not they should just give Helen back to the Greeks so they can end the war that's cost so much money and so many Greek lives. Gee, that actually sounds ... sensible. So, obviously it's not going to happen. Hector thinks they should let her go. He argues that every "soul" that's been killed during the war is just as valuable as Helen's, and Helen just isn't worth it. Helenus agrees with Hector, but not Troilus. They had Paris's back seven years ago when he took Helen from the Greeks. Now they're going to say they should give Helen back? No way. Now we find out that Paris stole Helen from Menelaus not because he was in lust with her so much as to get revenge because the Greeks took his "old aunt" and held her captive. Troilus calls Helen a "pearl, / whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships." Brain Snack: This line is probably a shout-out to Christopher Marlowe's famous play, Doctor Faustus, in which a character asks "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" Just as Troilus is explaining why the Trojans shouldn't give up the prize they stole from the Greeks--you know, Helen--his sister Cassandra comes running in ranting and raving about a prophesy. Cassandra's hair is a crazy mess. In Shakespeare, a woman's crazy hair = madness. Just ask Ophelia in Act 4, scene 5 of Hamlet. Cassandra warns her dad and brothers that if they keep Helen, Troy is totally going to burn. Hector thinks maybe they should listen to their sis but Troilus blows her off and says Cassandra is crazy, obviously. After the guys dismiss their sis, they get back to arguing about Helen. When Paris defends his right to keep Helen, his dad points out that, even though he gets to enjoy Helen's "honey," everybody else has to suffer for it. Gross, dad. Paris argues that keeping Helen will erase "the soil of her fair rape," meaning--he knows it was wrong to kidnap Helen, but he thinks that if he can fend off the Greeks and keep her, it will bring him honor. Troilus agrees and says that Helen's a great excuse to keep fighting so they can all gain "honor" on the battlefield. Fine. Hector agrees to keep fighting to keep Helen, since it's now a matter of honor.

For some days after that evening Mr. Heathcliff shunned meeting us at meals; yet he would not consent formally to exclude Hareton and Cathy. He had an aversion to yielding so completely to his feelings, choosing rather to absent himself; and eating once in twenty-four hours seemed sufficient sustenance for him. One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs, and out at the front door. I did not hear him re-enter, and in the morning I found he was still away. We were in April then: the weather was sweet and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it, and the two dwarf apple-trees near the southern wall in full bloom. After breakfast, Catherine insisted on my bringing a chair and sitting with my work under the fir-trees at the end of the house; and she beguiled Hareton, who had perfectly recovered from his accident, to dig and arrange her little garden, which was shifted to that corner by the influence of Joseph's complaints. I was comfortably revelling in the spring fragrance around, and the beautiful soft blue overhead, when my young lady, who had run down near the gate to procure some primrose roots for a border, returned only half laden, and informed us that Mr. Heathcliff was coming in. 'And he spoke to me,' she added, with a perplexed countenance. 'What did he say?' asked Hareton. 'He told me to begone as fast as I could,' she answered. 'But he looked so different from his usual look that I stopped a moment to stare at him.' 'How?' he inquired. 'Why, almost bright and cheerful. No, _almost_ nothing--_very much_ excited, and wild, and glad!' she replied. 'Night-walking amuses him, then,' I remarked, affecting a careless manner: in reality as surprised as she was, and anxious to ascertain the truth of her statement; for to see the master looking glad would not be an every-day spectacle. I framed an excuse to go in. Heathcliff stood at the open door; he was pale, and he trembled: yet, certainly, he had a strange joyful glitter in his eyes, that altered the aspect of his whole face. 'Will you have some breakfast?' I said. 'You must be hungry, rambling about all night!' I wanted to discover where he had been, but I did not like to ask directly. 'No, I'm not hungry,' he answered, averting his head, and speaking rather contemptuously, as if he guessed I was trying to divine the occasion of his good humour. I felt perplexed: I didn't know whether it were not a proper opportunity to offer a bit of admonition. 'I don't think it right to wander out of doors,' I observed, 'instead of being in bed: it is not wise, at any rate this moist season. I daresay you'll catch a bad cold or a fever: you have something the matter with you now!' 'Nothing but what I can bear,' he replied; 'and with the greatest pleasure, provided you'll leave me alone: get in, and don't annoy me.' I obeyed: and, in passing, I noticed he breathed as fast as a cat. 'Yes!' I reflected to myself, 'we shall have a fit of illness. I cannot conceive what he has been doing.' That noon he sat down to dinner with us, and received a heaped-up plate from my hands, as if he intended to make amends for previous fasting. 'I've neither cold nor fever, Nelly,' he remarked, in allusion to my morning's speech; 'and I'm ready to do justice to the food you give me.' He took his knife and fork, and was going to commence eating, when the inclination appeared to become suddenly extinct. He laid them on the table, looked eagerly towards the window, then rose and went out. We saw him walking to and fro in the garden while we concluded our meal, and Earnshaw said he'd go and ask why he would not dine: he thought we had grieved him some way. 'Well, is he coming?' cried Catherine, when her cousin returned. 'Nay,' he answered; 'but he's not angry: he seemed rarely pleased indeed; only I made him impatient by speaking to him twice; and then he bid me be off to you: he wondered how I could want the company of anybody else.' I set his plate to keep warm on the fender; and after an hour or two he re-entered, when the room was clear, in no degree calmer: the same unnatural--it was unnatural--appearance of joy under his black brows; the same bloodless hue, and his teeth visible, now and then, in a kind of smile; his frame shivering, not as one shivers with chill or weakness, but as a tight-stretched cord vibrates--a strong thrilling, rather than trembling. I will ask what is the matter, I thought; or who should? And I exclaimed--'Have you heard any good news, Mr. Heathcliff? You look uncommonly animated.' 'Where should good news come from to me?' he said. 'I'm animated with hunger; and, seemingly, I must not eat.' 'Your dinner is here,' I returned; 'why won't you get it?' 'I don't want it now,' he muttered, hastily: 'I'll wait till supper. And, Nelly, once for all, let me beg you to warn Hareton and the other away from me. I wish to be troubled by nobody: I wish to have this place to myself.' 'Is there some new reason for this banishment?' I inquired. 'Tell me why you are so queer, Mr. Heathcliff? Where were you last night? I'm not putting the question through idle curiosity, but--' 'You are putting the question through very idle curiosity,' he interrupted, with a laugh. 'Yet I'll answer it. Last night I was on the threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me! And now you'd better go! You'll neither see nor hear anything to frighten you, if you refrain from prying.' Having swept the hearth and wiped the table, I departed; more perplexed than ever. He did not quit the house again that afternoon, and no one intruded on his solitude; till, at eight o'clock, I deemed it proper, though unsummoned, to carry a candle and his supper to him. He was leaning against the ledge of an open lattice, but not looking out: his face was turned to the interior gloom. The fire had smouldered to ashes; the room was filled with the damp, mild air of the cloudy evening; and so still, that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable, but its ripples and its gurgling over the pebbles, or through the large stones which it could not cover. I uttered an ejaculation of discontent at seeing the dismal grate, and commenced shutting the casements, one after another, till I came to his. 'Must I close this?' I asked, in order to rouse him; for he would not stir. The light flashed on his features as I spoke. Oh, Mr. Lockwood, I cannot express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view! Those deep black eyes! That smile, and ghastly paleness! It appeared to me, not Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin; and, in my terror, I let the candle bend towards the wall, and it left me in darkness. 'Yes, close it,' he replied, in his familiar voice. 'There, that is pure awkwardness! Why did you hold the candle horizontally? Be quick, and bring another.' I hurried out in a foolish state of dread, and said to Joseph--'The master wishes you to take him a light and rekindle the fire.' For I dared not go in myself again just then. Joseph rattled some fire into the shovel, and went: but he brought it back immediately, with the supper-tray in his other hand, explaining that Mr. Heathcliff was going to bed, and he wanted nothing to eat till morning. We heard him mount the stairs directly; he did not proceed to his ordinary chamber, but turned into that with the panelled bed: its window, as I mentioned before, is wide enough for anybody to get through; and it struck me that he plotted another midnight excursion, of which he had rather we had no suspicion. 'Is he a ghoul or a vampire?' I mused. I had read of such hideous incarnate demons. And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him in infancy, and watched him grow to youth, and followed him almost through his whole course; and what absurd nonsense it was to yield to that sense of horror. 'But where did he come from, the little dark thing, harboured by a good man to his bane?' muttered Superstition, as I dozed into unconsciousness. And I began, half dreaming, to weary myself with imagining some fit parentage for him; and, repeating my waking meditations, I tracked his existence over again, with grim variations; at last, picturing his death and funeral: of which, all I can remember is, being exceedingly vexed at having the task of dictating an inscription for his monument, and consulting the sexton about it; and, as he had no surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word, 'Heathcliff.' That came true: we were. If you enter the kirkyard, you'll read, on his headstone, only that, and the date of his death. Dawn restored me to common sense. I rose, and went into the garden, as soon as I could see, to ascertain if there were any footmarks under his window. There were none. 'He has stayed at home,' I thought, 'and he'll be all right to-day.' I prepared breakfast for the household, as was my usual custom, but told Hareton and Catherine to get theirs ere the master came down, for he lay late. They preferred taking it out of doors, under the trees, and I set a little table to accommodate them. On my re-entrance, I found Mr. Heathcliff below. He and Joseph were conversing about some farming business; he gave clear, minute directions concerning the matter discussed, but he spoke rapidly, and turned his head continually aside, and had the same excited expression, even more exaggerated. When Joseph quitted the room he took his seat in the place he generally chose, and I put a basin of coffee before him. He drew it nearer, and then rested his arms on the table, and looked at the opposite wall, as I supposed, surveying one particular portion, up and down, with glittering, restless eyes, and with such eager interest that he stopped breathing during half a minute together. 'Come now,' I exclaimed, pushing some bread against his hand, 'eat and drink that, while it is hot: it has been waiting near an hour.' He didn't notice me, and yet he smiled. I'd rather have seen him gnash his teeth than smile so. 'Mr. Heathcliff! master!' I cried, 'don't, for God's sake, stare as if you saw an unearthly vision.' 'Don't, for God's sake, shout so loud,' he replied. 'Turn round, and tell me, are we by ourselves?' 'Of course,' was my answer; 'of course we are.' Still, I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I was not quite sure. With a sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the breakfast things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease. Now, I perceived he was not looking at the wall; for when I regarded him alone, it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards' distance. And whatever it was, it communicated, apparently, both pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes: at least the anguished, yet raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea. The fancied object was not fixed, either: his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away. I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim. I sat, a model of patience, trying to attract his absorbed attention from its engrossing speculation; till he grew irritable, and got up, asking why I would not allow him to have his own time in taking his meals? and saying that on the next occasion I needn't wait: I might set the things down and go. Having uttered these words he left the house, slowly sauntered down the garden path, and disappeared through the gate. The hours crept anxiously by: another evening came. I did not retire to rest till late, and when I did, I could not sleep. He returned after midnight, and, instead of going to bed, shut himself into the room beneath. I listened, and tossed about, and, finally, dressed and descended. It was too irksome to lie there, harassing my brain with a hundred idle misgivings. I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff's step, restlessly measuring the floor, and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration, resembling a groan. He muttered detached words also; the only one I could catch was the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or suffering; and spoken as one would speak to a person present; low and earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul. I had not courage to walk straight into the apartment; but I desired to divert him from his reverie, and therefore fell foul of the kitchen fire, stirred it, and began to scrape the cinders. It drew him forth sooner than I expected. He opened the door immediately, and said--'Nelly, come here--is it morning? Come in with your light.' 'It is striking four,' I answered. 'You want a candle to take up-stairs: you might have lit one at this fire.' 'No, I don't wish to go up-stairs,' he said. 'Come in, and kindle _me_ a fire, and do anything there is to do about the room.' 'I must blow the coals red first, before I can carry any,' I replied, getting a chair and the bellows. He roamed to and fro, meantime, in a state approaching distraction; his heavy sighs succeeding each other so thick as to leave no space for common breathing between. 'When day breaks I'll send for Green,' he said; 'I wish to make some legal inquiries of him while I can bestow a thought on those matters, and while I can act calmly. I have not written my will yet; and how to leave my property I cannot determine. I wish I could annihilate it from the face of the earth.' 'I would not talk so, Mr. Heathcliff,' I interposed. 'Let your will be a while: you'll be spared to repent of your many injustices yet! I never expected that your nerves would be disordered: they are, at present, marvellously so, however; and almost entirely through your own fault. The way you've passed these three last days might knock up a Titan. Do take some food, and some repose. You need only look at yourself in a glass to see how you require both. Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes blood-shot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss of sleep.' 'It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest,' he replied. 'I assure you it is through no settled designs. I'll do both, as soon as I possibly can. But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water rest within arms' length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest. Well, never mind Mr. Green: as to repenting of my injustices, I've done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I'm too happy; and yet I'm not happy enough. My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.' 'Happy, master?' I cried. 'Strange happiness! If you would hear me without being angry, I might offer some advice that would make you happier.' 'What is that?' he asked. 'Give it.' 'You are aware, Mr. Heathcliff,' I said, 'that from the time you were thirteen years old you have lived a selfish, unchristian life; and probably hardly had a Bible in your hands during all that period. You must have forgotten the contents of the book, and you may not have space to search it now. Could it be hurtful to send for some one--some minister of any denomination, it does not matter which--to explain it, and show you how very far you have erred from its precepts; and how unfit you will be for its heaven, unless a change takes place before you die?' 'I'm rather obliged than angry, Nelly,' he said, 'for you remind me of the manner in which I desire to be buried. It is to be carried to the churchyard in the evening. You and Hareton may, if you please, accompany me: and mind, particularly, to notice that the sexton obeys my directions concerning the two coffins! No minister need come; nor need anything be said over me.--I tell you I have nearly attained _my_ heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me.' 'And supposing you persevered in your obstinate fast, and died by that means, and they refused to bury you in the precincts of the kirk?' I said, shocked at his godless indifference. 'How would you like it?' 'They won't do that,' he replied: 'if they did, you must have me removed secretly; and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically, that the dead are not annihilated!' As soon as he heard the other members of the family stirring he retired to his den, and I breathed freer. But in the afternoon, while Joseph and Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again, and, with a wild look, bid me come and sit in the house: he wanted somebody with him. I declined; telling him plainly that his strange talk and manner frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be his companion alone. 'I believe you think me a fiend,' he said, with his dismal laugh: 'something too horrible to live under a decent roof.' Then turning to Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he added, half sneeringly,--'Will _you_ come, chuck? I'll not hurt you. No! to you I've made myself worse than the devil. Well, there is _one_ who won't shrink from my company! By God! she's relentless. Oh, damn it! It's unutterably too much for flesh and blood to bear--even mine.' He solicited the society of no one more. At dusk he went into his chamber. Through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him groaning and murmuring to himself. Hareton was anxious to enter; but I bid him fetch Mr. Kenneth, and he should go in and see him. When he came, and I requested admittance and tried to open the door, I found it locked; and Heathcliff bid us be damned. He was better, and would be left alone; so the doctor went away. The following evening was very wet: indeed, it poured down till day-dawn; and, as I took my morning walk round the house, I observed the master's window swinging open, and the rain driving straight in. He cannot be in bed, I thought: those showers would drench him through. He must either be up or out. But I'll make no more ado, I'll go boldly and look.' Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key, I ran to unclose the panels, for the chamber was vacant; quickly pushing them aside, I peeped in. Mr. Heathcliff was there--laid on his back. His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I started; and then he seemed to smile. I could not think him dead: but his face and throat were washed with rain; the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still. The lattice, flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill; no blood trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could doubt no more: he was dead and stark! I hasped the window; I combed his black long hair from his forehead; I tried to close his eyes: to extinguish, if possible, that frightful, life-like gaze of exultation before any one else beheld it. They would not shut: they seemed to sneer at my attempts; and his parted lips and sharp white teeth sneered too! Taken with another fit of cowardice, I cried out for Joseph. Joseph shuffled up and made a noise, but resolutely refused to meddle with him. 'Th' divil's harried off his soul,' he cried, 'and he may hev' his carcass into t' bargin, for aught I care! Ech! what a wicked 'un he looks, girning at death!' and the old sinner grinned in mockery. I thought he intended to cut a caper round the bed; but suddenly composing himself, he fell on his knees, and raised his hands, and returned thanks that the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their rights. I felt stunned by the awful event; and my memory unavoidably recurred to former times with a sort of oppressive sadness. But poor Hareton, the most wronged, was the only one who really suffered much. He sat by the corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest. He pressed its hand, and kissed the sarcastic, savage face that every one else shrank from contemplating; and bemoaned him with that strong grief which springs naturally from a generous heart, though it be tough as tempered steel. Mr. Kenneth was perplexed to pronounce of what disorder the master died. I concealed the fact of his having swallowed nothing for four days, fearing it might lead to trouble, and then, I am persuaded, he did not abstain on purpose: it was the consequence of his strange illness, not the cause. We buried him, to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood, as he wished. Earnshaw and I, the sexton, and six men to carry the coffin, comprehended the whole attendance. The six men departed when they had let it down into the grave: we stayed to see it covered. Hareton, with a streaming face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself: at present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds--and I hope its tenant sleeps as soundly. But the country folks, if you ask them, would swear on the Bible that he _walks_: there are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house. Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I. Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on 'em looking out of his chamber window on every rainy night since his death:--and an odd thing happened to me about a month ago. I was going to the Grange one evening--a dark evening, threatening thunder--and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided. 'What is the matter, my little man?' I asked. 'There's Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t' nab,' he blubbered, 'un' I darnut pass 'em.' I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on so I bid him take the road lower down. He probably raised the phantoms from thinking, as he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents and companions repeat. Yet, still, I don't like being out in the dark now; and I don't like being left by myself in this grim house: I cannot help it; I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange. 'They are going to the Grange, then?' I said. 'Yes,' answered Mrs. Dean, 'as soon as they are married, and that will be on New Year's Day.' 'And who will live here then?' 'Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him company. They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut up.' 'For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it?' I observed. 'No, Mr. Lockwood,' said Nelly, shaking her head. 'I believe the dead are at peace: but it is not right to speak of them with levity.' At that moment the garden gate swung to; the ramblers were returning. '_They_ are afraid of nothing,' I grumbled, watching their approach through the window. 'Together, they would brave Satan and all his legions.' As they stepped on to the door-stones, and halted to take a last look at the moon--or, more correctly, at each other by her light--I felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and, pressing a remembrance into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house-door; and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his fellow-servant's gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognised me for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet. My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk. When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months: many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass; and slates jutted off here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms. I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor: the middle one grey, and half buried in the heath; Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's still bare. I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

In the next few days Heathcliff all but stopped eating, and spent the nights walking outside. Catherine, happily working on her garden, came across him and was surprised to see him looking "very much excited, and wild, and glad". Ellen urged him to eat, and indeed at dinner he took a heaping plate, but abruptly lost interest in food, seemed to be watching something by the window, and went outside. Hareton followed to ask him what was wrong, and Heathcliff told him to go back to Catherine and not bother him. He came back an hour or two later, with the same "unnatural appearance of joy" , shivering the way a "tight-stretched cord vibrates a strong thrilling, rather than trembling. Ellen asked him what was going on, and he answered that he was within sight of his heaven, hardly three feet away. His heaven, needless to say, was being buried alongside Catherine Earnshaw. Later that evening, Ellen found Heathcliff sitting in the dark with all the windows open. His black eyes and pale face frightened her. Ellen half-wondered if he were a vampire, but told herself that she was foolish, since she had watched him grow up. The next day he was even more restless and could hardly speak coherently, and stared with fascination at nothing with an "anguished, yet raptured expression". Early the next morning,. he declared he wanted to settle things with his lawyer, Mr. Green. Ellen said he should eat, and get some sleep, but he replied that he could do neither: "My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself". Ellen told him to repent his sins, and he thanked her for the reminder and asked her to make sure that he was buried next to Catherine: "I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued, and uncoveted by me. Heathcliff behaved more and more strangely, talking openly of Catherine. Ellen called the doctor, but Heathcliff refused to see him. The next morning she found him dead in his room, by the open window, wet from the rain and cut by the broken window-pane, with his eyes fiercely open and wearing a savage smile. Hareton mourned deeply for him. The doctor wondered what could have killed him, although Ellen knew that it was Heathcliff's depression. He was buried alongside Catherine's remains, as he had asked. People claim that his ghost roams the moors with Catherine. Ellen once came across a little boy crying because he believed he had seen Heathcliff's phantom with a woman and dared not pass them. Cathy and Hareton are engaged, and they plan to move to the Grange, leaving Wuthering Heights to Joseph and the ghosts. Lockwood notices on his walk home that the church was falling apart from neglect, and he found the three headstones--Catherine's, Edgar's, and Heathcliff's--covered by varying degrees of heather. He "wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for sleepers in that quiet earth"

Whatever a man like Hurstwood could be in Chicago, it is very evident that he would be but an inconspicuous drop in an ocean like New York. In Chicago, whose population still ranged about 500,000, millionaires were not numerous. The rich had not become so conspicuously rich as to drown all moderate incomes in obscurity. The attention of the inhabitants was not so distracted by local celebrities in the dramatic, artistic, social, and religious fields as to shut the well-positioned man from view. In Chicago the two roads to distinction were politics and trade. In New York the roads were any one of a half-hundred, and each had been diligently pursued by hundreds, so that celebrities were numerous. The sea was already full of whales. A common fish must needs disappear wholly from view--remain unseen. In other words, Hurstwood was nothing. There is a more subtle result of such a situation as this, which, though not always taken into account, produces the tragedies of the world. The great create an atmosphere which reacts badly upon the small. This atmosphere is easily and quickly felt. Walk among the magnificent residences, the splendid equipages, the gilded shops, restaurants, resorts of all kinds; scent the flowers, the silks, the wines; drink of the laughter springing from the soul of luxurious content, of the glances which gleam like light from defiant spears; feel the quality of the smiles which cut like glistening swords and of strides born of place, and you shall know of what is the atmosphere of the high and mighty. Little use to argue that of such is not the kingdom of greatness, but so long as the world is attracted by this and the human heart views this as the one desirable realm which it must attain, so long, to that heart, will this remain the realm of greatness. So long, also, will the atmosphere of this realm work its desperate results in the soul of man. It is like a chemical reagent. One day of it, like one drop of the other, will so affect and discolour the views, the aims, the desire of the mind, that it will thereafter remain forever dyed. A day of it to the untried mind is like opium to the untried body. A craving is set up which, if gratified, shall eternally result in dreams and death. Aye! dreams unfulfilled--gnawing, luring, idle phantoms which beckon and lead, beckon and lead, until death and dissolution dissolve their power and restore us blind to nature's heart. A man of Hurstwood's age and temperament is not subject to the illusions and burning desires of youth, but neither has he the strength of hope which gushes as a fountain in the heart of youth. Such an atmosphere could not incite in him the cravings of a boy of eighteen, but in so far as they were excited, the lack of hope made them proportionately bitter. He could not fail to notice the signs of affluence and luxury on every hand. He had been to New York before and knew the resources of its folly. In part it was an awesome place to him, for here gathered all that he most respected on this earth--wealth, place, and fame. The majority of the celebrities with whom he had tipped glasses in his day as manager hailed from this self-centred and populous spot. The most inviting stories of pleasure and luxury had been told of places and individuals here. He knew it to be true that unconsciously he was brushing elbows with fortune the livelong day; that a hundred or five hundred thousand gave no one the privilege of living more than comfortably in so wealthy a place. Fashion and pomp required more ample sums, so that the poor man was nowhere. All this he realised, now quite sharply, as he faced the city, cut off from his friends, despoiled of his modest fortune, and even his name, and forced to begin the battle for place and comfort all over again. He was not old, but he was not so dull but that he could feel he soon would be. Of a sudden, then, this show of fine clothes, place, and power took on peculiar significance. It was emphasised by contrast with his own distressing state. And it was distressing. He soon found that freedom from fear of arrest was not the sine qua non of his existence. That danger dissolved, the next necessity became the grievous thing. The paltry sum of thirteen hundred and some odd dollars set against the need of rent, clothing, food, and pleasure for years to come was a spectacle little calculated to induce peace of mind in one who had been accustomed to spend five times that sum in the course of a year. He thought upon the subject rather actively the first few days he was in New York, and decided that he must act quickly. As a consequence, he consulted the business opportunities advertised in the morning papers and began investigations on his own account. That was not before he had become settled, however. Carrie and he went looking for a flat, as arranged, and found one in Seventy-eighth Street near Amsterdam Avenue. It was a five-story building, and their flat was on the third floor. Owing to the fact that the street was not yet built up solidly, it was possible to see east to the green tops of the trees in Central Park and west to the broad waters of the Hudson, a glimpse of which was to be had out of the west windows. For the privilege of six rooms and a bath, running in a straight line, they were compelled to pay thirty-five dollars a month--an average, and yet exorbitant, rent for a home at the time. Carrie noticed the difference between the size of the rooms here and in Chicago and mentioned it. "You'll not find anything better, dear," said Hurstwood, "unless you go into one of the old-fashioned houses, and then you won't have any of these conveniences." Carrie picked out the new abode because of its newness and bright wood-work. It was one of the very new ones supplied with steam heat, which was a great advantage. The stationary range, hot and cold water, dumb-waiter, speaking tubes, and call-bell for the janitor pleased her very much. She had enough of the instincts of a housewife to take great satisfaction in these things. Hurstwood made arrangements with one of the instalment houses whereby they furnished the flat complete and accepted fifty dollars down and ten dollars a month. He then had a little plate, bearing the name G. W. Wheeler, made, which he placed on his letter-box in the hall. It sounded exceedingly odd to Carrie to be called Mrs. Wheeler by the janitor, but in time she became used to it and looked upon the name as her own. These house details settled, Hurstwood visited some of the advertised opportunities to purchase an interest in some flourishing down-town bar. After the palatial resort in Adams Street, he could not stomach the commonplace saloons which he found advertised. He lost a number of days looking up these and finding them disagreeable. He did, however, gain considerable knowledge by talking, for he discovered the influence of Tammany Hall and the value of standing in with the police. The most profitable and flourishing places he found to be those which conducted anything but a legitimate business, such as that controlled by Fitzgerald and Moy. Elegant back rooms and private drinking booths on the second floor were usually adjuncts of very profitable places. He saw by portly keepers, whose shirt fronts shone with large diamonds, and whose clothes were properly cut, that the liquor business here, as elsewhere, yielded the same golden profit. At last he found an individual who had a resort in Warren Street, which seemed an excellent venture. It was fairly well-appearing and susceptible of improvement. The owner claimed the business to be excellent, and it certainly looked so. "We deal with a very good class of people," he told Hurstwood. "Merchants, salesmen, and professionals. It's a well-dressed class. No bums. We don't allow 'em in the place." Hurstwood listened to the cash-register ring, and watched the trade for a while. "It's profitable enough for two, is it?" he asked. "You can see for yourself if you're any judge of the liquor trade," said the owner. "This is only one of the two places I have. The other is down in Nassau Street. I can't tend to them both alone. If I had some one who knew the business thoroughly I wouldn't mind sharing with him in this one and letting him manage it." "I've had experience enough," said Hurstwood blandly, but he felt a little diffident about referring to Fitzgerald and Moy. "Well, you can suit yourself, Mr. Wheeler," said the proprietor. He only offered a third interest in the stock, fixtures, and good-will, and this in return for a thousand dollars and managerial ability on the part of the one who should come in. There was no property involved, because the owner of the saloon merely rented from an estate. The offer was genuine enough, but it was a question with Hurstwood whether a third interest in that locality could be made to yield one hundred and fifty dollars a month, which he figured he must have in order to meet the ordinary family expenses and be comfortable. It was not the time, however, after many failures to find what he wanted, to hesitate. It looked as though a third would pay a hundred a month now. By judicious management and improvement, it might be made to pay more. Accordingly he agreed to enter into partnership, and made over his thousand dollars, preparing to enter the next day. His first inclination was to be elated, and he confided to Carrie that he thought he had made an excellent arrangement. Time, however, introduced food for reflection. He found his partner to be very disagreeable. Frequently he was the worse for liquor, which made him surly. This was the last thing which Hurstwood was used to in business. Besides, the business varied. It was nothing like the class of patronage which he had enjoyed in Chicago. He found that it would take a long time to make friends. These people hurried in and out without seeking the pleasures of friendship. It was no gathering or lounging place. Whole days and weeks passed without one such hearty greeting as he had been wont to enjoy every day in Chicago. For another thing, Hurstwood missed the celebrities--those well-dressed, elite individuals who lend grace to the average bars and bring news from far-off and exclusive circles. He did not see one such in a month. Evenings, when still at his post, he would occasionally read in the evening papers incidents concerning celebrities whom he knew--whom he had drunk a glass with many a time. They would visit a bar like Fitzgerald and Moy's in Chicago, or the Hoffman House, uptown, but he knew that he would never see them down here. Again, the business did not pay as well as he thought. It increased a little, but he found he would have to watch his household expenses, which was humiliating. In the very beginning it was a delight to go home late at night, as he did, and find Carrie. He managed to run up and take dinner with her between six and seven, and to remain home until nine o'clock in the morning, but the novelty of this waned after a time, and he began to feel the drag of his duties. The first month had scarcely passed before Carrie said in a very natural way: "I think I'll go down this week and buy a dress.' "What kind?" said Hurstwood. "Oh, something for street wear." "All right," he answered, smiling, although he noted mentally that it would be more agreeable to his finances if she didn't. Nothing was said about it the next day, but the following morning he asked: "Have you done anything about your dress?" "Not yet," said Carrie. He paused a few moments, as if in thought, and then said: "Would you mind putting it off a few days?" "No," replied Carrie, who did not catch the drift of his remarks. She had never thought of him in connection with money troubles before. "Why?" "Well, I'll tell you," said Hurstwood. "This investment of mine is taking a lot of money just now. I expect to get it all back shortly, but just at present I am running close." "Oh!" answered Carrie. "Why, certainly, dear. Why didn't you tell me before?" "It wasn't necessary," said Hurstwood. For all her acquiescence, there was something about the way Hurstwood spoke which reminded Carrie of Drouet and his little deal which he was always about to put through. It was only the thought of a second, but it was a beginning. It was something new in her thinking of Hurstwood. Other things followed from time to time, little things of the same sort, which in their cumulative effect were eventually equal to a full revelation. Carrie was not dull by any means. Two persons cannot long dwell together without coming to an understanding of one another. The mental difficulties of an individual reveal themselves whether he voluntarily confesses them or not. Trouble gets in the air and contributes gloom, which speaks for itself. Hurstwood dressed as nicely as usual, but they were the same clothes he had in Canada. Carrie noticed that he did not install a large wardrobe, though his own was anything but large. She noticed, also, that he did not suggest many amusements, said nothing about the food, seemed concerned about his business. This was not the easy Hurstwood of Chicago--not the liberal, opulent Hurstwood she had known. The change was too obvious to escape detection. In time she began to feel that a change had come about, and that she was not in his confidence. He was evidently secretive and kept his own counsel. She found herself asking him questions about little things. This is a disagreeable state to a woman. Great love makes it seem reasonable, sometimes plausible, but never satisfactory. Where great love is not, a more definite and less satisfactory conclusion is reached. As for Hurstwood, he was making a great fight against the difficulties of a changed condition. He was too shrewd not to realise the tremendous mistake he had made, and appreciate that he had done well in getting where he was, and yet he could not help contrasting his present state with his former, hour after hour, and day after day. Besides, he had the disagreeable fear of meeting old-time friends, ever since one such encounter which he made shortly after his arrival in the city. It was in Broadway that he saw a man approaching him whom he knew. There was no time for simulating non-recognition. The exchange of glances had been too sharp, the knowledge of each other too apparent. So the friend, a buyer for one of the Chicago wholesale houses, felt, perforce, the necessity of stopping. "How are you?" he said, extending his hand with an evident mixture of feeling and a lack of plausible interest. "Very well," said Hurstwood, equally embarrassed. "How is it with you?" "All right; I'm down here doing a little buying. Are you located here now?" "Yes," said Hurstwood, "I have a place down in Warren Street." "Is that so?" said the friend. "Glad to hear it. I'll come down and see you." "Do," said Hurstwood. "So long," said the other, smiling affably and going on. "He never asked for my number," thought Hurstwood; "he wouldn't think of coming." He wiped his forehead, which had grown damp, and hoped sincerely he would meet no one else. These things told upon his good-nature, such as it was. His one hope was that things would change for the better in a money way. He had Carrie. His furniture was being paid for. He was maintaining his position. As for Carrie, the amusements he could give her would have to do for the present. He could probably keep up his pretensions sufficiently long without exposure to make good, and then all would be well. He failed therein to take account of the frailties of human nature--the difficulties of matrimonial life. Carrie was young. With him and with her varying mental states were common. At any moment the extremes of feeling might be anti-polarised at the dinner table. This often happens in the best regulated families. Little things brought out on such occasions need great love to obliterate them afterward. Where that is not, both parties count two and two and make a problem after a while. The effect of the city and his own situation on Hurstwood was paralleled in the case of Carrie, who accepted the things which fortune provided with the most genial good-nature. New York, despite her first expression of disapproval, soon interested her exceedingly. Its clear atmosphere, more populous thoroughfares, and peculiar indifference struck her forcibly. She had never seen such a little flat as hers, and yet it soon enlisted her affection. The new furniture made an excellent showing, the sideboard which Hurstwood himself arranged gleamed brightly. The furniture for each room was appropriate, and in the so-called parlour, or front room, was installed a piano, because Carrie said she would like to learn to play. She kept a servant and developed rapidly in household tactics and information. For the first time in her life she felt settled, and somewhat justified in the eyes of society as she conceived of it. Her thoughts were merry and innocent enough. For a long while she concerned herself over the arrangement of New York flats, and wondered at ten families living in one building and all remaining strange and indifferent to each other. She also marvelled at the whistles of the hundreds of vessels in the harbour--the long, low cries of the Sound steamers and ferry-boats when fog was on. The mere fact that these things spoke from the sea made them wonderful. She looked much at what she could see of the Hudson from her west windows and of the great city building up rapidly on either hand. It was much to ponder over, and sufficed to entertain her for more than a year without becoming stale. For another thing, Hurstwood was exceedingly interesting in his affection for her. Troubled as he was, he never exposed his difficulties to her. He carried himself with the same self-important air, took his new state with easy familiarity, and rejoiced in Carrie's proclivities and successes. Each evening he arrived promptly to dinner, and found the little dining-room a most inviting spectacle. In a way, the smallness of the room added to its luxury. It looked full and replete. The white-covered table was arrayed with pretty dishes and lighted with a four-armed candelabra, each light of which was topped with a red shade. Between Carrie and the girl the steaks and chops came out all right, and canned goods did the rest for a while. Carrie studied the art of making biscuit, and soon reached the stage where she could show a plate of light, palatable morsels for her labour. In this manner the second, third, and fourth months passed. Winter came, and with it a feeling that indoors was best, so that the attending of theatres was not much talked of. Hurstwood made great efforts to meet all expenditures without a show of feeling one way or the other. He pretended that he was reinvesting his money in strengthening the business for greater ends in the future. He contented himself with a very moderate allowance of personal apparel, and rarely suggested anything for Carrie. Thus the first winter passed. In the second year, the business which Hurstwood managed did increase somewhat. He got out of it regularly the $150 per month which he had anticipated. Unfortunately, by this time Carrie had reached certain conclusions, and he had scraped up a few acquaintances. Being of a passive and receptive rather than an active and aggressive nature, Carrie accepted the situation. Her state seemed satisfactory enough. Once in a while they would go to a theatre together, occasionally in season to the beaches and different points about the city, but they picked up no acquaintances. Hurstwood naturally abandoned his show of fine manners with her and modified his attitude to one of easy familiarity. There were no misunderstandings, no apparent differences of opinion. In fact, without money or visiting friends, he led a life which could neither arouse jealousy nor comment. Carrie rather sympathised with his efforts and thought nothing upon her lack of entertainment such as she had enjoyed in Chicago. New York as a corporate entity and her flat temporarily seemed sufficient. However, as Hurstwood's business increased, he, as stated, began to pick up acquaintances. He also began to allow himself more clothes. He convinced himself that his home life was very precious to him, but allowed that he could occasionally stay away from dinner. The first time he did this he sent a message saying that he would be detained. Carrie ate alone, and wished that it might not happen again. The second time, also, he sent word, but at the last moment. The third time he forgot entirely and explained afterwards. These events were months apart, each. "Where were you, George?" asked Carrie, after the first absence. "Tied up at the office," he said genially. "There were some accounts I had to straighten." "I'm sorry you couldn't get home," she said kindly. "I was fixing to have such a nice dinner." The second time he gave a similar excuse, but the third time the feeling about it in Carrie's mind was a little bit out of the ordinary. "I couldn't get home," he said, when he came in later in the evening, "I was so busy." "Couldn't you have sent me word?" asked Carrie. "I meant to," he said, "but you know I forgot it until it was too late to do any good." "And I had such a good dinner!" said Carrie. Now, it so happened that from his observations of Carrie he began to imagine that she was of the thoroughly domestic type of mind. He really thought, after a year, that her chief expression in life was finding its natural channel in household duties. Notwithstanding the fact that he had observed her act in Chicago, and that during the past year he had only seen her limited in her relations to her flat and him by conditions which he made, and that she had not gained any friends or associates, he drew this peculiar conclusion. With it came a feeling of satisfaction in having a wife who could thus be content, and this satisfaction worked its natural result. That is, since he imagined he saw her satisfied, he felt called upon to give only that which contributed to such satisfaction. He supplied the furniture, the decorations, the food, and the necessary clothing. Thoughts of entertaining her, leading her out into the shine and show of life, grew less and less. He felt attracted to the outer world, but did not think she would care to go along. Once he went to the theatre alone. Another time he joined a couple of his new friends at an evening game of poker. Since his money-feathers were beginning to grow again he felt like sprucing about. All this, however, in a much less imposing way than had been his wont in Chicago. He avoided the gay places where he would be apt to meet those who had known him. Now, Carrie began to feel this in various sensory ways. She was not the kind to be seriously disturbed by his actions. Not loving him greatly, she could not be jealous in a disturbing way. In fact, she was not jealous at all. Hurstwood was pleased with her placid manner, when he should have duly considered it. When he did not come home it did not seem anything like a terrible thing to her. She gave him credit for having the usual allurements of men--people to talk to, places to stop, friends to consult with. She was perfectly willing that he should enjoy himself in his way, but she did not care to be neglected herself. Her state still seemed fairly reasonable, however. All she did observe was that Hurstwood was somewhat different. Some time in the second year of their residence in Seventy-eighth Street the flat across the hall from Carrie became vacant, and into it moved a very handsome young woman and her husband, with both of whom Carrie afterwards became acquainted. This was brought about solely by the arrangement of the flats, which were united in one place, as it were, by the dumb-waiter. This useful elevator, by which fuel, groceries, and the like were sent up from the basement, and garbage and waste sent down, was used by both residents of one floor; that is, a small door opened into it from each flat. If the occupants of both flats answered to the whistle of the janitor at the same time, they would stand face to face when they opened the dumb-waiter doors. One morning, when Carrie went to remove her paper, the newcomer, a handsome brunette of perhaps twenty-three years of age, was there for a like purpose. She was in a night-robe and dressing-gown, with her hair very much tousled, but she looked so pretty and good-natured that Carrie instantly conceived a liking for her. The newcomer did no more than smile shamefacedly, but it was sufficient. Carrie felt that she would like to know her, and a similar feeling stirred in the mind of the other, who admired Carrie's innocent face. "That's a real pretty woman who has moved in next door," said Carrie to Hurstwood at the breakfast table. "Who are they?" asked Hurstwood. "I don't know," said Carrie. "The name on the bell is Vance. Some one over there plays beautifully. I guess it must be she." "Well, you never can tell what sort of people you're living next to in this town, can you?" said Hurstwood, expressing the customary New York opinion about neighbours. "Just think," said Carrie, "I have been in this house with nine other families for over a year and I don't know a soul. These people have been here over a month and I haven't seen any one before this morning." "It's just as well," said Hurstwood. "You never know who you're going to get in with. Some of these people are pretty bad company." "I expect so," said Carrie, agreeably. The conversation turned to other things, and Carrie thought no more upon the subject until a day or two later, when, going out to market, she encountered Mrs. Vance coming in. The latter recognised her and nodded, for which Carrie returned a smile. This settled the probability of acquaintanceship. If there had been no faint recognition on this occasion, there would have been no future association. Carrie saw no more of Mrs. Vance for several weeks, but she heard her play through the thin walls which divided the front rooms of the flats, and was pleased by the merry selection of pieces and the brilliance of their rendition. She could play only moderately herself, and such variety as Mrs. Vance exercised bordered, for Carrie, upon the verge of great art. Everything she had seen and heard thus far--the merest scraps and shadows--indicated that these people were, in a measure, refined and in comfortable circumstances. So Carrie was ready for any extension of the friendship which might follow. One day Carrie's bell rang and the servant, who was in the kitchen, pressed the button which caused the front door of the general entrance on the ground floor to be electrically unlatched. When Carrie waited at her own door on the third floor to see who it might be coming up to call on her, Mrs. Vance appeared. "I hope you'll excuse me," she said. "I went out a while ago and forgot my outside key, so I thought I'd ring your bell." This was a common trick of other residents of the building, whenever they had forgotten their outside keys. They did not apologise for it, however. "Certainly," said Carrie. "I'm glad you did. I do the same thing sometimes." "Isn't it just delightful weather?" said Mrs. Vance, pausing for a moment. Thus, after a few more preliminaries, this visiting acquaintance was well launched, and in the young Mrs. Vance Carrie found an agreeable companion. On several occasions Carrie visited her and was visited. Both flats were good to look upon, though that of the Vances tended somewhat more to the luxurious. "I want you to come over this evening and meet my husband," said Mrs. Vance, not long after their intimacy began. "He wants to meet you. You play cards, don't you?" "A little," said Carrie. "Well, we'll have a game of cards. If your husband comes home bring him over." "He's not coming to dinner to-night," said Carrie. "Well, when he does come we'll call him in." Carrie acquiesced, and that evening met the portly Vance, an individual a few years younger than Hurstwood, and who owed his seemingly comfortable matrimonial state much more to his money than to his good looks. He thought well of Carrie upon the first glance and laid himself out to be genial, teaching her a new game of cards and talking to her about New York and its pleasures. Mrs. Vance played some upon the piano, and at last Hurstwood came. "I am very glad to meet you," he said to Mrs. Vance when Carrie introduced him, showing much of the old grace which had captivated Carrie. "Did you think your wife had run away?" said Mr. Vance, extending his hand upon introduction. "I didn't know but what she might have found a better husband," said Hurstwood. He now turned his attention to Mrs. Vance, and in a flash Carrie saw again what she for some time had subconsciously missed in Hurstwood--the adroitness and flattery of which he was capable. She also saw that she was not well dressed--not nearly as well dressed--as Mrs. Vance. These were not vague ideas any longer. Her situation was cleared up for her. She felt that her life was becoming stale, and therein she felt cause for gloom. The old helpful, urging melancholy was restored. The desirous Carrie was whispered to concerning her possibilities. There were no immediate results to this awakening, for Carrie had little power of initiative; but, nevertheless, she seemed ever capable of getting herself into the tide of change where she would be easily borne along. Hurstwood noticed nothing. He had been unconscious of the marked contrasts which Carrie had observed. He did not even detect the shade of melancholy which settled in her eyes. Worst of all, she now began to feel the loneliness of the flat and seek the company of Mrs. Vance, who liked her exceedingly. "Let's go to the matinee this afternoon," said Mrs. Vance, who had stepped across into Carrie's flat one morning, still arrayed in a soft pink dressing-gown, which she had donned upon rising. Hurstwood and Vance had gone their separate ways nearly an hour before. "All right," said Carrie, noticing the air of the petted and well-groomed woman in Mrs. Vance's general appearance. She looked as though she was dearly loved and her every wish gratified. "What shall we see?" "Oh, I do want to see Nat Goodwin," said Mrs. Vance. "I do think he is the jolliest actor. The papers say this is such a good play." "What time will we have to start?" asked Carrie. "Let's go at once and walk down Broadway from Thirty-fourth Street," said Mrs. Vance. "It's such an interesting walk. He's at the Madison Square." "I'll be glad to go," said Carrie. "How much will we have to pay for seats?" "Not more than a dollar," said Mrs. Vance. The latter departed, and at one o'clock reappeared, stunningly arrayed in a dark-blue walking dress, with a nobby hat to match. Carrie had gotten herself up charmingly enough, but this woman pained her by contrast. She seemed to have so many dainty little things which Carrie had not. There were trinkets of gold, an elegant green leather purse set with her initials, a fancy handkerchief, exceedingly rich in design, and the like. Carrie felt that she needed more and better clothes to compare with this woman, and that any one looking at the two would pick Mrs. Vance for her raiment alone. It was a trying, though rather unjust thought, for Carrie had now developed an equally pleasing figure, and had grown in comeliness until she was a thoroughly attractive type of her colour of beauty. There was some difference in the clothing of the two, both of quality and age, but this difference was not especially noticeable. It served, however, to augment Carrie's dissatisfaction with her state. The walk down Broadway, then as now, was one of the remarkable features of the city. There gathered, before the matinee and afterwards, not only all the pretty women who love a showy parade, but the men who love to gaze upon and admire them. It was a very imposing procession of pretty faces and fine clothes. Women appeared in their very best hats, shoes, and gloves, and walked arm in arm on their way to the fine shops or theatres strung along from Fourteenth to Thirty-fourth Streets. Equally the men paraded with the very latest they could afford. A tailor might have secured hints on suit measurements, a shoemaker on proper lasts and colours, a hatter on hats. It was literally true that if a lover of fine clothes secured a new suit, it was sure to have its first airing on Broadway. So true and well understood was this fact, that several years later a popular song, detailing this and other facts concerning the afternoon parade on matinee days, and entitled "What Right Has He on Broadway?" was published, and had quite a vogue about the music-halls of the city. In all her stay in the city, Carrie had never heard of this showy parade; had never even been on Broadway when it was taking place. On the other hand, it was a familiar thing to Mrs. Vance, who not only knew of it as an entity, but had often been in it, going purposely to see and be seen, to create a stir with her beauty and dispel any tendency to fall short in dressiness by contrasting herself with the beauty and fashion of the town. Carrie stepped along easily enough after they got out of the car at Thirty-fourth Street, but soon fixed her eyes upon the lovely company which swarmed by and with them as they proceeded. She noticed suddenly that Mrs. Vance's manner had rather stiffened under the gaze of handsome men and elegantly dressed ladies, whose glances were not modified by any rules of propriety. To stare seemed the proper and natural thing. Carrie found herself stared at and ogled. Men in flawless top-coats, high hats, and silver-headed walking sticks elbowed near and looked too often into conscious eyes. Ladies rustled by in dresses of stiff cloth, shedding affected smiles and perfume. Carrie noticed among them the sprinkling of goodness and the heavy percentage of vice. The rouged and powdered cheeks and lips, the scented hair, the large, misty, and languorous eye, were common enough. With a start she awoke to find that she was in fashion's crowd, on parade in a show place--and such a show place! Jewellers' windows gleamed along the path with remarkable frequency. Florist shops, furriers, haberdashers, confectioners--all followed in rapid succession. The street was full of coaches. Pompous doormen in immense coats, shiny brass belts and buttons, waited in front of expensive salesrooms. Coachmen in tan boots, white tights, and blue jackets waited obsequiously for the mistresses of carriages who were shopping inside. The whole street bore the flavour of riches and show, and Carrie felt that she was not of it. She could not, for the life of her, assume the attitude and smartness of Mrs. Vance, who, in her beauty, was all assurance. She could only imagine that it must be evident to many that she was the less handsomely dressed of the two. It cut her to the quick, and she resolved that she would not come here again until she looked better. At the same time she longed to feel the delight of parading here as an equal. Ah, then she would be happy!

Approximately the first two years in New York is sketched in briefly. Hurstwood purchases a one-third partnership in a downtown establishment, one not nearly so "swell" as Fitzgerald and Moy's. After a few months, business improves and Hurstwood begins to resume his old public self He occasionally gambles and attends the theater with friends but cherishes his home life greatly. He begins to enlarge his wardrobe, but does not encourage Carrie to do so. It seems to him that she is content to be a housewife and so he begins to relax his demeanor before her and treat her with "easy familiarity." For Carrie the routine of running the flat and basking in Hurstwood's affection seem interesting for a time. She attempts to understand that Hurstwood must spend his money frugally and so makes no demands for luxuries or entertainment. Because she is "passive and receptive" and she does not love Hurstwood, she is not jealous of his public life. Gradually, however, she becomes aware of the changes in Hurstwood and begins to resent being neglected. In the second year, Carrie meets a new neighbor, Mrs. Vance, whose elegant clothing and fashionable behavior begin to awaken her old desires. One day she attends a matinee with Mrs. Vance, and she becomes fascinated with the "showy parade" of "pretty faces and fine clothes" on Broadway. "With a start she awoke to find that she was in fashion's crowd, on parade in a show place -- and such a show place!" Carrie is "cut to the quick" by her own lack of quality and stylish apparel and she resolves never to walk upon Broadway again until she looks better. She feels her old desire to enter into the world of fashion as an equal; "then she would be happy!"

XIX. An Opinion Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled by the shining of the sun into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken him when it was dark night. He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, going to the door of the Doctor's room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker's bench and tools were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly studious and attentive. Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the late shoemaking might not be a disturbed dream of his own; for, did not his eyes show him his friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed as usual; and was there any sign within their range, that the change of which he had so strong an impression had actually happened? It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the answer being obvious. If the impression were not produced by a real corresponding and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor Manette's consulting-room, and to be debating these points outside the Doctor's bedroom door in the early morning? Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would of necessity have resolved it; but he was by that time clear-headed, and had none. He advised that they should let the time go by until the regular breakfast-hour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. Lorry would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance from the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain. Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was worked out with care. Having abundance of time for his usual methodical toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the breakfast-hour in his usual white linen, and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the usual way, and came to breakfast. So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. Lorry felt to be the only safe advance, he at first supposed that his daughter's marriage had taken place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, he was so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own. Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he and the Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, feelingly: "My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be less so." Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late work, the Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He had already glanced at his hands more than once. "Doctor Manette," said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the arm, "the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sake--and above all, for his daughter's--his daughter's, my dear Manette." "If I understand," said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, "some mental shock--?" "Yes!" "Be explicit," said the Doctor. "Spare no detail." Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded. "My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, of great acuteness and severity to the affections, the feelings, the--the--as you express it--the mind. The mind. It is the case of a shock under which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how long, because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and there are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himself--as I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It is the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to his stock of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately, there has been," he paused and took a deep breath--"a slight relapse." The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, "Of how long duration?" "Nine days and nights." "How did it show itself? I infer," glancing at his hands again, "in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with the shock?" "That is the fact." "Now, did you ever see him," asked the Doctor, distinctly and collectedly, though in the same low voice, "engaged in that pursuit originally?" "Once." "And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects--or in all respects--as he was then?" "I think in all respects." "You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of the relapse?" "No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted." The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, "That was very kind. That was very thoughtful!" Mr. Lorry grasped his hand in return, and neither of the two spoke for a little while. "Now, my dear Manette," said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most considerate and most affectionate way, "I am a mere man of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not possess the kind of information necessary; I do not possess the kind of intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a repetition of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it be treated? How does it come about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man ever can have been more desirous in his heart to serve a friend, than I am to serve mine, if I knew how. "But I don't know how to originate, in such a case. If your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put me on the right track, I might be able to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. Pray discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a little more clearly, and teach me how to be a little more useful." Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press him. "I think it probable," said the Doctor, breaking silence with an effort, "that the relapse you have described, my dear friend, was not quite unforeseen by its subject." "Was it dreaded by him?" Mr. Lorry ventured to ask. "Very much." He said it with an involuntary shudder. "You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer's mind, and how difficult--how almost impossible--it is, for him to force himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him." "Would he," asked Mr. Lorry, "be sensibly relieved if he could prevail upon himself to impart that secret brooding to any one, when it is on him?" "I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impossible. I even believe it--in some cases--to be quite impossible." "Now," said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the Doctor's arm again, after a short silence on both sides, "to what would you refer this attack?" "I believe," returned Doctor Manette, "that there had been a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of thought and remembrance that was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a most distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that there had long been a dread lurking in his mind, that those associations would be recalled--say, under certain circumstances--say, on a particular occasion. He tried to prepare himself in vain; perhaps the effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear it." "Would he remember what took place in the relapse?" asked Mr. Lorry, with natural hesitation. The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, and answered, in a low voice, "Not at all." "Now, as to the future," hinted Mr. Lorry. "As to the future," said the Doctor, recovering firmness, "I should have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its mercy to restore him so soon, I should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a complicated something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and contended against, and recovering after the cloud had burst and passed, I should hope that the worst was over." "Well, well! That's good comfort. I am thankful!" said Mr. Lorry. "I am thankful!" repeated the Doctor, bending his head with reverence. "There are two other points," said Mr. Lorry, "on which I am anxious to be instructed. I may go on?" "You cannot do your friend a better service." The Doctor gave him his hand. "To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually energetic; he applies himself with great ardour to the acquisition of professional knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to many things. Now, does he do too much?" "I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be always in singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, natural to it; in part, the result of affliction. The less it was occupied with healthy things, the more it would be in danger of turning in the unhealthy direction. He may have observed himself, and made the discovery." "You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?" "I think I am quite sure of it." "My dear Manette, if he were overworked now--" "My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has been a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a counterweight." "Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for a moment, that he _was_ overworked; it would show itself in some renewal of this disorder?" "I do not think so. I do not think," said Doctor Manette with the firmness of self-conviction, "that anything but the one train of association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some extraordinary jarring of that chord could renew it. After what has happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any such violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted." He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confidence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than he really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to be the most difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in the last nine days, he knew that he must face it. "The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing affliction so happily recovered from," said Mr. Lorry, clearing his throat, "we will call--Blacksmith's work, Blacksmith's work. We will say, to put a case and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his bad time, to work at a little forge. We will say that he was unexpectedly found at his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by him?" The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his foot nervously on the ground. "He has always kept it by him," said Mr. Lorry, with an anxious look at his friend. "Now, would it not be better that he should let it go?" Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously on the ground. "You do not find it easy to advise me?" said Mr. Lorry. "I quite understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think--" And there he shook his head, and stopped. "You see," said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy pause, "it is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost workings of this poor man's mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the mental torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need that old employment, and not find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child." He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr. Lorry's face. "But may not--mind! I ask for information, as a plodding man of business who only deals with such material objects as guineas, shillings, and bank-notes--may not the retention of the thing involve the retention of the idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go with it? In short, is it not a concession to the misgiving, to keep the forge?" There was another silence. "You see, too," said the Doctor, tremulously, "it is such an old companion." "I would not keep it," said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; for he gained in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted. "I would recommend him to sacrifice it. I only want your authority. I am sure it does no good. Come! Give me your authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter's sake, my dear Manette!" Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him! "In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I would not take it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not there; let him miss his old companion after an absence." Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was ended. They passed the day in the country, and the Doctor was quite restored. On the three following days he remained perfectly well, and on the fourteenth day he went away to join Lucie and her husband. The precaution that had been taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had previously explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance with it, and she had no suspicions. On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder--for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime.

On the tenth day the doctor regains normality and has no memory of the past nine days. By speaking in the third person, Mr. Lorry informs the Doctor of his nine day relapse and that his daughter has not been told of this. He also tries to find out how this relapse occurred and if it will ever happen again. The Doctor assures him that this is not likely to happen again. He tells Mr. Lorry that the relapse occurs due to a painful recollection, which is alleviated by cobbling. In prison, the Doctor had taken up cobbling as a means of occupying himself and as a means of forgetting his mental anguish. The Doctor agrees to hand over his bench, cobbling tools, and material. The doctor then leaves for a vacation in Wales, where he will join Darnay and Lucie. During his absence, Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross chop the bench into little bits and use it as firewood. They bury the tools, shoes, and leather in the garden.

VIII. A Hand at Cards Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets and crossed the river by the bridge of the Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her mind the number of indispensable purchases she had to make. Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They both looked to the right and to the left into most of the shops they passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people, and turned out of their road to avoid any very excited group of talkers. It was a raw evening, and the misty river, blurred to the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with harsh noises, showed where the barges were stationed in which the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of the Republic. Woe to the man who played tricks with _that_ Army, or got undeserved promotion in it! Better for him that his beard had never grown, for the National Razor shaved him close. Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a measure of oil for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself of the wine they wanted. After peeping into several wine-shops, she stopped at the sign of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the National Palace, once (and twice) the Tuileries, where the aspect of things rather took her fancy. It had a quieter look than any other place of the same description they had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, was not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and finding him of her opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, attended by her cavalier. Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe in mouth, playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes; of the one bare-breasted, bare-armed, soot-begrimed workman reading a journal aloud, and of the others listening to him; of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be resumed; of the two or three customers fallen forward asleep, who in the popular high-shouldered shaggy black spencer looked, in that attitude, like slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish customers approached the counter, and showed what they wanted. As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another man in a corner, and rose to depart. In going, he had to face Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross uttered a scream, and clapped her hands. In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That somebody was assassinated by somebody vindicating a difference of opinion was the likeliest occurrence. Everybody looked to see somebody fall, but only saw a man and a woman standing staring at each other; the man with all the outward aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough Republican; the woman, evidently English. What was said in this disappointing anti-climax, by the disciples of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that it was something very voluble and loud, would have been as so much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss Pross and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, they had no ears for anything in their surprise. For, it must be recorded, that not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation, but, Mr. Cruncher--though it seemed on his own separate and individual account--was in a state of the greatest wonder. "What is the matter?" said the man who had caused Miss Pross to scream; speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice (though in a low tone), and in English. "Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!" cried Miss Pross, clapping her hands again. "After not setting eyes upon you or hearing of you for so long a time, do I find you here!" "Don't call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of me?" asked the man, in a furtive, frightened way. "Brother, brother!" cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. "Have I ever been so hard with you that you ask me such a cruel question?" "Then hold your meddlesome tongue," said Solomon, "and come out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine, and come out. Who's this man?" Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by no means affectionate brother, said through her tears, "Mr. Cruncher." "Let him come out too," said Solomon. "Does he think me a ghost?" Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. He said not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the depths of her reticule through her tears with great difficulty paid for her wine. As she did so, Solomon turned to the followers of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, and offered a few words of explanation in the French language, which caused them all to relapse into their former places and pursuits. "Now," said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner, "what do you want?" "How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever turned my love away from!" cried Miss Pross, "to give me such a greeting, and show me no affection." "There. Confound it! There," said Solomon, making a dab at Miss Pross's lips with his own. "Now are you content?" Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence. "If you expect me to be surprised," said her brother Solomon, "I am not surprised; I knew you were here; I know of most people who are here. If you really don't want to endanger my existence--which I half believe you do--go your ways as soon as possible, and let me go mine. I am busy. I am an official." "My English brother Solomon," mourned Miss Pross, casting up her tear-fraught eyes, "that had the makings in him of one of the best and greatest of men in his native country, an official among foreigners, and such foreigners! I would almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in his--" "I said so!" cried her brother, interrupting. "I knew it. You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered Suspected, by my own sister. Just as I am getting on!" "The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!" cried Miss Pross. "Far rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, though I have ever loved you truly, and ever shall. Say but one affectionate word to me, and tell me there is nothing angry or estranged between us, and I will detain you no longer." Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them had come of any culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had not known it for a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, that this precious brother had spent her money and left her! He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more grudging condescension and patronage than he could have shown if their relative merits and positions had been reversed (which is invariably the case, all the world over), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, hoarsely and unexpectedly interposed with the following singular question: "I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your name is John Solomon, or Solomon John?" The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He had not previously uttered a word. "Come!" said Mr. Cruncher. "Speak out, you know." (Which, by the way, was more than he could do himself.) "John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, and she must know, being your sister. And _I_ know you're John, you know. Which of the two goes first? And regarding that name of Pross, likewise. That warn't your name over the water." "What do you mean?" "Well, I don't know all I mean, for I can't call to mind what your name was, over the water." "No?" "No. But I'll swear it was a name of two syllables." "Indeed?" "Yes. T'other one's was one syllable. I know you. You was a spy--witness at the Bailey. What, in the name of the Father of Lies, own father to yourself, was you called at that time?" "Barsad," said another voice, striking in. "That's the name for a thousand pound!" cried Jerry. The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He had his hands behind him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher's elbow as negligently as he might have stood at the Old Bailey itself. "Don't be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry's, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful; I present myself here, to beg a little talk with your brother. I wish you had a better employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad was not a Sheep of the Prisons." Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the gaolers. The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked him how he dared-- "I'll tell you," said Sydney. "I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago. You have a face to be remembered, and I remember faces well. Made curious by seeing you in that connection, and having a reason, to which you are no stranger, for associating you with the misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your direction. I walked into the wine-shop here, close after you, and sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your unreserved conversation, and the rumour openly going about among your admirers, the nature of your calling. And gradually, what I had done at random, seemed to shape itself into a purpose, Mr. Barsad." "What purpose?" the spy asked. "It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain in the street. Could you favour me, in confidence, with some minutes of your company--at the office of Tellson's Bank, for instance?" "Under a threat?" "Oh! Did I say that?" "Then, why should I go there?" "Really, Mr. Barsad, I can't say, if you can't." "Do you mean that you won't say, sir?" the spy irresolutely asked. "You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won't." Carton's negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of his quickness and skill, in such a business as he had in his secret mind, and with such a man as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and made the most of it. "Now, I told you so," said the spy, casting a reproachful look at his sister; "if any trouble comes of this, it's your doing." "Come, come, Mr. Barsad!" exclaimed Sydney. "Don't be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our mutual satisfaction. Do you go with me to the Bank?" "I'll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I'll go with you." "I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected; and as your escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite him to Mr. Lorry's with us. Are we ready? Come then!" Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney's arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man. She was too much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little deserved her affection, and with Sydney's friendly reassurances, adequately to heed what she observed. They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the way to Mr. Lorry's, which was within a few minutes' walk. John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side. Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a cheery little log or two of fire--perhaps looking into their blaze for the picture of that younger elderly gentleman from Tellson's, who had looked into the red coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a good many years ago. He turned his head as they entered, and showed the surprise with which he saw a stranger. "Miss Pross's brother, sir," said Sydney. "Mr. Barsad." "Barsad?" repeated the old gentleman, "Barsad? I have an association with the name--and with the face." "I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad," observed Carton, coolly. "Pray sit down." As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown, "Witness at that trial." Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an undisguised look of abhorrence. "Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the affectionate brother you have heard of," said Sydney, "and has acknowledged the relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay has been arrested again." Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, "What do you tell me! I left him safe and free within these two hours, and am about to return to him!" "Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad?" "Just now, if at all." "Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir," said Sydney, "and I have it from Mr. Barsad's communication to a friend and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. He left the messengers at the gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. There is no earthly doubt that he is retaken." Mr. Lorry's business eye read in the speaker's face that it was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sensible that something might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was silently attentive. "Now, I trust," said Sydney to him, "that the name and influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead to-morrow--you said he would be before the Tribunal again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?--" "Yes; I believe so." "--In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor Manette's not having had the power to prevent this arrest." "He may not have known of it beforehand," said Mr. Lorry. "But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember how identified he is with his son-in-law." "That's true," Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton. "In short," said Sydney, "this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one. No man's life here is worth purchase. Any one carried home by the people to-day, may be condemned tomorrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. Barsad." "You need have good cards, sir," said the spy. "I'll run them over. I'll see what I hold,--Mr. Lorry, you know what a brute I am; I wish you'd give me a little brandy." It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful--drank off another glassful--pushed the bottle thoughtfully away. "Mr. Barsad," he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at cards: "Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. That's a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That's an excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That's a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?" "Not to understand your play," returned the spy, somewhat uneasily. "I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don't hurry." He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank another glassful. "Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time." It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown out of his honourable employment in England, through too much unsuccessful hard swearing there--not because he was not wanted there; our English reasons for vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies are of very modern date--he knew that he had crossed the Channel, and accepted service in France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his own countrymen there: gradually, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the natives. He knew that under the overthrown government he had been a spy upon Saint Antoine and Defarge's wine-shop; had received from the watchful police such heads of information concerning Doctor Manette's imprisonment, release, and history, as should serve him for an introduction to familiar conversation with the Defarges; and tried them on Madame Defarge, and had broken down with them signally. He always remembered with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had knitted when he talked with her, and had looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. He had since seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and over again produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one employed as he was did, that he was never safe; that flight was impossible; that he was tied fast under the shadow of the axe; and that in spite of his utmost tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning terror, a word might bring it down upon him. Once denounced, and on such grave grounds as had just now been suggested to his mind, he foresaw that the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he had seen many proofs, would produce against him that fatal register, and would quash his last chance of life. Besides that all secret men are men soon terrified, here were surely cards enough of one black suit, to justify the holder in growing rather livid as he turned them over. "You scarcely seem to like your hand," said Sydney, with the greatest composure. "Do you play?" "I think, sir," said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he turned to Mr. Lorry, "I may appeal to a gentleman of your years and benevolence, to put it to this other gentleman, so much your junior, whether he can under any circumstances reconcile it to his station to play that Ace of which he has spoken. I admit that _I_ am a spy, and that it is considered a discreditable station--though it must be filled by somebody; but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so demean himself as to make himself one?" "I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad," said Carton, taking the answer on himself, and looking at his watch, "without any scruple, in a very few minutes." "I should have hoped, gentlemen both," said the spy, always striving to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, "that your respect for my sister--" "I could not better testify my respect for your sister than by finally relieving her of her brother," said Sydney Carton. "You think not, sir?" "I have thoroughly made up my mind about it." The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with his ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual demeanour, received such a check from the inscrutability of Carton,--who was a mystery to wiser and honester men than he,--that it faltered here and failed him. While he was at a loss, Carton said, resuming his former air of contemplating cards: "And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression that I have another good card here, not yet enumerated. That friend and fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in the country prisons; who was he?" "French. You don't know him," said the spy, quickly. "French, eh?" repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing to notice him at all, though he echoed his word. "Well; he may be." "Is, I assure you," said the spy; "though it's not important." "Though it's not important," repeated Carton, in the same mechanical way--"though it's not important--No, it's not important. No. Yet I know the face." "I think not. I am sure not. It can't be," said the spy. "It-can't-be," muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and idling his glass (which fortunately was a small one) again. "Can't-be. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner, I thought?" "Provincial," said the spy. "No. Foreign!" cried Carton, striking his open hand on the table, as a light broke clearly on his mind. "Cly! Disguised, but the same man. We had that man before us at the Old Bailey." "Now, there you are hasty, sir," said Barsad, with a smile that gave his aquiline nose an extra inclination to one side; "there you really give me an advantage over you. Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at this distance of time, was a partner of mine) has been dead several years. I attended him in his last illness. He was buried in London, at the church of Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. His unpopularity with the blackguard multitude at the moment prevented my following his remains, but I helped to lay him in his coffin." Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source, he discovered it to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising and stiffening of all the risen and stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher's head. "Let us be reasonable," said the spy, "and let us be fair. To show you how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded assumption yours is, I will lay before you a certificate of Cly's burial, which I happened to have carried in my pocket-book," with a hurried hand he produced and opened it, "ever since. There it is. Oh, look at it, look at it! You may take it in your hand; it's no forgery." Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elongate, and Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His hair could not have been more violently on end, if it had been that moment dressed by the Cow with the crumpled horn in the house that Jack built. Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and touched him on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff. "That there Roger Cly, master," said Mr. Cruncher, with a taciturn and iron-bound visage. "So _you_ put him in his coffin?" "I did." "Who took him out of it?" Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, "What do you mean?" "I mean," said Mr. Cruncher, "that he warn't never in it. No! Not he! I'll have my head took off, if he was ever in it." The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both looked in unspeakable astonishment at Jerry. "I tell you," said Jerry, "that you buried paving-stones and earth in that there coffin. Don't go and tell me that you buried Cly. It was a take in. Me and two more knows it." "How do you know it?" "What's that to you? Ecod!" growled Mr. Cruncher, "it's you I have got a old grudge again, is it, with your shameful impositions upon tradesmen! I'd catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea." Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in amazement at this turn of the business, here requested Mr. Cruncher to moderate and explain himself. "At another time, sir," he returned, evasively, "the present time is ill-conwenient for explainin'. What I stand to, is, that he knows well wot that there Cly was never in that there coffin. Let him say he was, in so much as a word of one syllable, and I'll either catch hold of his throat and choke him for half a guinea;" Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as quite a liberal offer; "or I'll out and announce him." "Humph! I see one thing," said Carton. "I hold another card, Mr. Barsad. Impossible, here in raging Paris, with Suspicion filling the air, for you to outlive denunciation, when you are in communication with another aristocratic spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has the mystery about him of having feigned death and come to life again! A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner against the Republic. A strong card--a certain Guillotine card! Do you play?" "No!" returned the spy. "I throw up. I confess that we were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only got away from England at the risk of being ducked to death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he never would have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this man knows it was a sham, is a wonder of wonders to me." "Never you trouble your head about this man," retorted the contentious Mr. Cruncher; "you'll have trouble enough with giving your attention to that gentleman. And look here! Once more!"--Mr. Cruncher could not be restrained from making rather an ostentatious parade of his liberality--"I'd catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea." The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton, and said, with more decision, "It has come to a point. I go on duty soon, and can't overstay my time. You told me you had a proposal; what is it? Now, it is of no use asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my office, putting my head in great extra danger, and I had better trust my life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent. In short, I should make that choice. You talk of desperation. We are all desperate here. Remember! I may denounce you if I think proper, and I can swear my way through stone walls, and so can others. Now, what do you want with me?" "Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?" "I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape possible," said the spy, firmly. "Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?" "I am sometimes." "You can be when you choose?" "I can pass in and out when I choose." Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It being all spent, he said, rising: "So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as well that the merits of the cards should not rest solely between you and me. Come into the dark room here, and let us have one final word alone."

Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher are on a shopping expedition and they enter a wine shop where she discovers her brother Solomon Pross and she lets out a scream. Jerry Cruncher recognizes the man, but he can't quite place him. Solomon tells her to be quiet and they all leave the shop. They meet up with Sidney Carton who has recently arrived in Paris and he identifies Solomon as John Barsad, the spy from Darnay's trial in England. Carton threatens Barsad because he knows that he is a prison informer. Carton says that the will denounce him to the French authorities as an English spy unless he co-operates with them. Carton also reveals that Roger Cly is not dead, his coffin was empty and that he too is in Paris working as a spy. Barsad gives in and agrees to give Carton what he wants, and that is access to the prison.

XXIV. Drawn to the Loadstone Rock In such risings of fire and risings of sea--the firm earth shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb, but was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders on the shore--three years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays of little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful tissue of the life of her home. Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in the corner, with hearts that failed them when they heard the thronging feet. For, the footsteps had become to their minds as the footsteps of a people, tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared in danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long persisted in. Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of his not being appreciated: of his being so little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and this life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading the Lord's Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels. The shining Bull's Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had never been a good eye to see with--had long had the mote in it of Lucifer's pride, Sardanapalus's luxury, and a mole's blindness--but it had dropped out and was gone. The Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone together. Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace and "suspended," when the last tidings came over. The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two was come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide. As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering-place of Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson's Bank. Spirits are supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur without a guinea haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. Moreover, it was the spot to which such French intelligence as was most to be relied upon, came quickest. Again: Tellson's was a munificent house, and extended great liberality to old customers who had fallen from their high estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the coming storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made provident remittances to Tellson's, were always to be heard of there by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that every new-comer from France reported himself and his tidings at Tellson's, almost as a matter of course. For such variety of reasons, Tellson's was at that time, as to French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this was so well known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so numerous, that Tellson's sometimes wrote the latest news out in a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to read. On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. The penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now the news-Exchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within half an hour or so of the time of closing. "But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived," said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, "I must still suggest to you--" "I understand. That I am too old?" said Mr. Lorry. "Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a disorganised country, a city that may not be even safe for you." "My dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, "you touch some of the reasons for my going: not for my staying away. It is safe enough for me; nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow of hard upon fourscore when there are so many people there much better worth interfering with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a disorganised city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our House here to our House there, who knows the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson's confidence. As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not prepared to submit myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson's, after all these years, who ought to be?" "I wish I were going myself," said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one thinking aloud. "Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!" exclaimed Mr. Lorry. "You wish you were going yourself? And you a Frenchman born? You are a wise counsellor." "My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed through my mind often. One cannot help thinking, having had some sympathy for the miserable people, and having abandoned something to them," he spoke here in his former thoughtful manner, "that one might be listened to, and might have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last night, after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie--" "When you were talking to Lucie," Mr. Lorry repeated. "Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time of day!" "However, I am not going," said Charles Darnay, with a smile. "It is more to the purpose that you say you are." "And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles," Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, "you can have no conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved. The Lord above knows what the compromising consequences would be to numbers of people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed; and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! Now, a judicious selection from these with the least possible delay, and the burying of them, or otherwise getting of them out of harm's way, is within the power (without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall I hang back, when Tellson's knows this and says this--Tellson's, whose bread I have eaten these sixty years--because I am a little stiff about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a dozen old codgers here!" "How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry." "Tut! Nonsense, sir!--And, my dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, glancing at the House again, "you are to remember, that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like to whisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and go, as easily as in business-like Old England; but now, everything is stopped." "And do you really go to-night?" "I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit of delay." "And do you take no one with you?" "All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been my bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am used to him. Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bull-dog, or of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his master." "I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and youthfulness." "I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson's proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old." This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk, with Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do to avenge himself on the rascal-people before long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been sown--as if nothing had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led to it--as if observers of the wretched millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the restoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so. Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar, far on his way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme: broaching to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating them from the face of the earth, and doing without them: and for accomplishing many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided between going away that he might hear no more, and remaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was to be, went on to shape itself out. The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of the person to whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down so close to Darnay that he saw the direction--the more quickly because it was his own right name. The address, turned into English, ran: "Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evremonde, of France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, London, England." On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his one urgent and express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of this name should be--unless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligation--kept inviolate between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name; his own wife had no suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none. "No," said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; "I have referred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this gentleman is to be found." The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry's desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English, concerning the Marquis who was not to be found. "Nephew, I believe--but in any case degenerate successor--of the polished Marquis who was murdered," said one. "Happy to say, I never knew him." "A craven who abandoned his post," said another--this Monseigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of hay--"some years ago." "Infected with the new doctrines," said a third, eyeing the direction through his glass in passing; "set himself in opposition to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves." "Hey?" cried the blatant Stryver. "Did he though? Is that the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. D--n the fellow!" Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on the shoulder, and said: "I know the fellow." "Do you, by Jupiter?" said Stryver. "I am sorry for it." "Why?" "Why, Mr. Darnay? D'ye hear what he did? Don't ask, why, in these times." "But I do ask why?" "Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry to hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I'll answer you. I am sorry because I believe there is contamination in such a scoundrel. That's why." Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and said: "You may not understand the gentleman." "I understand how to put _you_ in a corner, Mr. Darnay," said Bully Stryver, "and I'll do it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I _don't_ understand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You may also tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, gentlemen," said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, "I know something of human nature, and I tell you that you'll never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the mercies of such precious _proteges_. No, gentlemen; he'll always show 'em a clean pair of heels very early in the scuffle, and sneak away." With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver shouldered himself into Fleet-street, amidst the general approbation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at the desk, in the general departure from the Bank. "Will you take charge of the letter?" said Mr. Lorry. "You know where to deliver it?" "I do." "Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it, and that it has been here some time?" "I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?" "From here, at eight." "I will come back, to see you off." Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened the letter, and read it. These were its contents: "Prison of the Abbaye, Paris. "June 21, 1792. "MONSIEUR HERETOFORE THE MARQUIS. "After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffered a great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been destroyed--razed to the ground. "The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me, treason against the majesty of the people, in that I have acted against them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have acted for them, and not against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected no rent; that I had had recourse to no process. The only response is, that I have acted for an emigrant, and where is that emigrant? "Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I demand of Heaven, will he not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your ears through the great bank of Tilson known at Paris! "For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you. Oh Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be you true to me! "From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service. "Your afflicted, "Gabelle." The latent uneasiness in Darnay's mind was roused to vigourous life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him so reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the passersby. He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his own mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it had never been done. The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of the time which had followed on one another so fast, that the events of this week annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events of the week following made all new again; he knew very well, that to the force of these circumstances he had yielded:--not without disquiet, but still without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had watched the times for a time of action, and that they had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from France by every highway and byway, and their property was in course of confiscation and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was as well known to himself as it could be to any new authority in France that might impeach him for it. But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with no favour in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estate on written instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little there was to give--such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have in the winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same grip in the summer--and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his own safety, so that it could not but appear now. This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, that he would go to Paris. Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he who could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he had been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison (injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon those, had followed Gabelle's letter: the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his justice, honour, and good name. His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, until he struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly any danger. The intention with which he had done what he had done, even although he had left it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would be gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himself to assert it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild. As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; and her father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old, should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not in the balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety to avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did not discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence in his course. He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to return to Tellson's and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he must say nothing of his intention now. A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was booted and equipped. "I have delivered that letter," said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. "I would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?" "That I will, and readily," said Mr. Lorry, "if it is not dangerous." "Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye." "What is his name?" said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his hand. "Gabelle." "Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?" "Simply, 'that he has received the letter, and will come.'" "Any time mentioned?" "He will start upon his journey to-morrow night." "Any person mentioned?" "No." He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the old Bank, into the misty air of Fleet-street. "My love to Lucie, and to little Lucie," said Mr. Lorry at parting, "and take precious care of them till I come back." Charles Darnay shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage rolled away. That night--it was the fourteenth of August--he sat up late, and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length, the reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could become involved in no personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie and their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would despatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his arrival. It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they were profoundly unsuspicious. But, an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and the day passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would return by-and-bye (an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart. The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began his journey. "For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name!" was the poor prisoner's cry with which he strengthened his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone Rock. The end of the second book. Book the Third--the Track of a Storm

It's August, 1792. Monseigneur, that amazing man who stands in for all French aristocrats, has decided that France is not the safest place to be hanging out. He's now fleeing across the ocean, headed for countries that are a bit more friendly than his own. But we're not concerned with Monseigneur right now. We're back in London. At Tellson's, to be specific. Tellson's, in case you were wondering, is as dark and dingy and cramped as it ever was. That's just the way that Mr. Lorry likes it. At the moment, Darnay is trying to talk Mr. Lorry out of going to France on business. It's too dangerous in France at the moment--especially for an elderly man. Mr. Lorry agrees, but business is business. Tellson's has many French customers, and someone has to look after their property, even during times of strife. As it turns out, Mr. Lorry happens to be one of the youngest members of Tellson's. If anyone could brave war and revolution, it'd be him. That's what he thinks, at any rate. Darnay remains unconvinced. Mr. Lorry assures him that he'll bring Jerry Cruncher along as a bodyguard. Between the two of them, they should be able to stop any mischief that people might intend toward the bank or the bank's property. Darnay and Mr. Lorry stand in a corner of the bank talking together. Gradually, another conversation in the bank catches their attention. Our good old friend, Mr. Stryver, has brought a letter to the bank. It's addressed to a Marquis St. Evremonde, care of Tellson's Bank. Our narrator quickly informs us that Dr. Manette made Darnay promise never to reveal his real identity. Perhaps that's why Darnay starts when he sees the letter--but he doesn't say a word. Luckily, Stryver has more than enough words for the entire office. He explains that the new Marquis is a craven coward. He abandoned his lands before the old Marquis died. Darnay steps into the conversation and says that he knows the Marquis. He can deliver the letter. Puzzled, Mr. Lorry hands it to him. Darnay quickly leaves. As he walks out, he opens the letter. It's from Monsieur Gabelle, the steward of his uncle's lands. Gabelle has been taken prisoner merely because he did what the Marquis ordered him to do. Now he begs the new Marquis to come back and take responsibility for his own lands. Darnay puts down the letter and begins some serious thinking. Sure, he once believed that it would be better for him to abandon his inheritance entirely. Starting life over in England was a bit hard, but at least he wasn't the cause of other people's pain. Now, however, he sees that inaction can be as morally corrupt as bad actions. Quickly, Darnay comes to a conclusion: he must return to France. With this decided, Darnay sets about planning a "business" trip. He tells Lucie that he'll be gone for a few days. Then he writes a letter explaining his real situation and leaves it for her to find once he's left. He also writes to the doctor, asking him to take care of the family until he returns. In the dead of the night, Darnay sets out for Paris. We're not sure, but we really don't have a very good feeling about this...

Her fit of weeping, however, was soon smothered, and the signs of it had vanished when, an hour later, she broke the news to her aunt. I use this expression because she had been sure Mrs. Touchett would not be pleased; Isabel had only waited to tell her till she had seen Mr. Goodwood. She had an odd impression that it would not be honourable to make the fact public before she should have heard what Mr. Goodwood would say about it. He had said rather less than she expected, and she now had a somewhat angry sense of having lost time. But she would lose no more; she waited till Mrs. Touchett came into the drawing-room before the mid-day breakfast, and then she began. "Aunt Lydia, I've something to tell you." Mrs. Touchett gave a little jump and looked at her almost fiercely. "You needn't tell me; I know what it is." "I don't know how you know." "The same way that I know when the window's open--by feeling a draught. You're going to marry that man." "What man do you mean?" Isabel enquired with great dignity. "Madame Merle's friend--Mr. Osmond." "I don't know why you call him Madame Merle's friend. Is that the principal thing he's known by?" "If he's not her friend he ought to be--after what she has done for him!" cried Mrs. Touchett. "I shouldn't have expected it of her; I'm disappointed." "If you mean that Madame Merle has had anything to do with my engagement you're greatly mistaken," Isabel declared with a sort of ardent coldness. "You mean that your attractions were sufficient, without the gentleman's having had to be lashed up? You're quite right. They're immense, your attractions, and he would never have presumed to think of you if she hadn't put him up to it. He has a very good opinion of himself, but he was not a man to take trouble. Madame Merle took the trouble for him." "He has taken a great deal for himself!" cried Isabel with a voluntary laugh. Mrs. Touchett gave a sharp nod. "I think he must, after all, to have made you like him so much." "I thought he even pleased YOU." "He did, at one time; and that's why I'm angry with him." "Be angry with me, not with him," said the girl. "Oh, I'm always angry with you; that's no satisfaction! Was it for this that you refused Lord Warburton?" "Please don't go back to that. Why shouldn't I like Mr. Osmond, since others have done so?" "Others, at their wildest moments, never wanted to marry him. There's nothing OF him," Mrs. Touchett explained. "Then he can't hurt me," said Isabel. "Do you think you're going to be happy? No one's happy, in such doings, you should know." "I shall set the fashion then. What does one marry for?" "What YOU will marry for, heaven only knows. People usually marry as they go into partnership--to set up a house. But in your partnership you'll bring everything." "Is it that Mr. Osmond isn't rich? Is that what you're talking about?" Isabel asked. "He has no money; he has no name; he has no importance. I value such things and I have the courage to say it; I think they're very precious. Many other people think the same, and they show it. But they give some other reason." Isabel hesitated a little. "I think I value everything that's valuable. I care very much for money, and that's why I wish Mr. Osmond to have a little." "Give it to him then; but marry some one else." "His name's good enough for me," the girl went on. "It's a very pretty name. Have I such a fine one myself?" "All the more reason you should improve on it. There are only a dozen American names. Do you marry him out of charity?" "It was my duty to tell you, Aunt Lydia, but I don't think it's my duty to explain to you. Even if it were I shouldn't be able. So please don't remonstrate; in talking about it you have me at a disadvantage. I can't talk about it." "I don't remonstrate, I simply answer you: I must give some sign of intelligence. I saw it coming, and I said nothing. I never meddle." "You never do, and I'm greatly obliged to you. You've been very considerate." "It was not considerate--it was convenient," said Mrs. Touchett. "But I shall talk to Madame Merle." "I don't see why you keep bringing her in. She has been a very good friend to me." "Possibly; but she has been a poor one to me." "What has she done to you?" "She has deceived me. She had as good as promised me to prevent your engagement." "She couldn't have prevented it." "She can do anything; that's what I've always liked her for. I knew she could play any part; but I understood that she played them one by one. I didn't understand that she would play two at the same time." "I don't know what part she may have played to you," Isabel said; "that's between yourselves. To me she has been honest and kind and devoted." "Devoted, of course; she wished you to marry her candidate. She told me she was watching you only in order to interpose." "She said that to please you," the girl answered; conscious, however, of the inadequacy of the explanation. "To please me by deceiving me? She knows me better. Am I pleased to-day?" "I don't think you're ever much pleased," Isabel was obliged to reply. "If Madame Merle knew you would learn the truth what had she to gain by insincerity?" "She gained time, as you see. While I waited for her to interfere you were marching away, and she was really beating the drum." "That's very well. But by your own admission you saw I was marching, and even if she had given the alarm you wouldn't have tried to stop me." "No, but some one else would." "Whom do you mean?" Isabel asked, looking very hard at her aunt. Mrs. Touchett's little bright eyes, active as they usually were, sustained her gaze rather than returned it. "Would you have listened to Ralph?" "Not if he had abused Mr. Osmond." "Ralph doesn't abuse people; you know that perfectly. He cares very much for you." "I know he does," said Isabel; "and I shall feel the value of it now, for he knows that whatever I do I do with reason." "He never believed you would do this. I told him you were capable of it, and he argued the other way." "He did it for the sake of argument," the girl smiled. "You don't accuse him of having deceived you; why should you accuse Madame Merle?" "He never pretended he'd prevent it." "I'm glad of that!" cried Isabel gaily. "I wish very much," she presently added, "that when he comes you'd tell him first of my engagement." "Of course I'll mention it," said Mrs. Touchett. "I shall say nothing more to you about it, but I give you notice I shall talk to others." "That's as you please. I only meant that it's rather better the announcement should come from you than from me." "I quite agree with you; it's much more proper!" And on this the aunt and the niece went to breakfast, where Mrs. Touchett, as good as her word, made no allusion to Gilbert Osmond. After an interval of silence, however, she asked her companion from whom she had received a visit an hour before. "From an old friend--an American gentleman," Isabel said with a colour in her cheek. "An American gentleman of course. It's only an American gentleman who calls at ten o'clock in the morning." "It was half-past ten; he was in a great hurry; he goes away this evening." "Couldn't he have come yesterday, at the usual time?" "He only arrived last night." "He spends but twenty-four hours in Florence?" Mrs. Touchett cried. "He's an American gentleman truly." "He is indeed," said Isabel, thinking with perverse admiration of what Caspar Goodwood had done for her. Two days afterward Ralph arrived; but though Isabel was sure that Mrs. Touchett had lost no time in imparting to him the great fact, he showed at first no open knowledge of it. Their prompted talk was naturally of his health; Isabel had many questions to ask about Corfu. She had been shocked by his appearance when he came into the room; she had forgotten how ill he looked. In spite of Corfu he looked very ill to-day, and she wondered if he were really worse or if she were simply disaccustomed to living with an invalid. Poor Ralph made no nearer approach to conventional beauty as he advanced in life, and the now apparently complete loss of his health had done little to mitigate the natural oddity of his person. Blighted and battered, but still responsive and still ironic, his face was like a lighted lantern patched with paper and unsteadily held; his thin whisker languished upon a lean cheek; the exorbitant curve of his nose defined itself more sharply. Lean he was altogether, lean and long and loose-jointed; an accidental cohesion of relaxed angles. His brown velvet jacket had become perennial; his hands had fixed themselves in his pockets; he shambled and stumbled and shuffled in a manner that denoted great physical helplessness. It was perhaps this whimsical gait that helped to mark his character more than ever as that of the humorous invalid--the invalid for whom even his own disabilities are part of the general joke. They might well indeed with Ralph have been the chief cause of the want of seriousness marking his view of a world in which the reason for his own continued presence was past finding out. Isabel had grown fond of his ugliness; his awkwardness had become dear to her. They had been sweetened by association; they struck her as the very terms on which it had been given him to be charming. He was so charming that her sense of his being ill had hitherto had a sort of comfort in it; the state of his health had seemed not a limitation, but a kind of intellectual advantage; it absolved him from all professional and official emotions and left him the luxury of being exclusively personal. The personality so resulting was delightful; he had remained proof against the staleness of disease; he had had to consent to be deplorably ill, yet had somehow escaped being formally sick. Such had been the girl's impression of her cousin; and when she had pitied him it was only on reflection. As she reflected a good deal she had allowed him a certain amount of compassion; but she always had a dread of wasting that essence--a precious article, worth more to the giver than to any one else. Now, however, it took no great sensibility to feel that poor Ralph's tenure of life was less elastic than it should be. He was a bright, free, generous spirit, he had all the illumination of wisdom and none of its pedantry, and yet he was distressfully dying. Isabel noted afresh that life was certainly hard for some people, and she felt a delicate glow of shame as she thought how easy it now promised to become for herself. She was prepared to learn that Ralph was not pleased with her engagement; but she was not prepared, in spite of her affection for him, to let this fact spoil the situation. She was not even prepared, or so she thought, to resent his want of sympathy; for it would be his privilege--it would be indeed his natural line--to find fault with any step she might take toward marriage. One's cousin always pretended to hate one's husband; that was traditional, classical; it was a part of one's cousin's always pretending to adore one. Ralph was nothing if not critical; and though she would certainly, other things being equal, have been as glad to marry to please him as to please any one, it would be absurd to regard as important that her choice should square with his views. What were his views after all? He had pretended to believe she had better have married Lord Warburton; but this was only because she had refused that excellent man. If she had accepted him Ralph would certainly have taken another tone; he always took the opposite. You could criticise any marriage; it was the essence of a marriage to be open to criticism. How well she herself, should she only give her mind to it, might criticise this union of her own! She had other employment, however, and Ralph was welcome to relieve her of the care. Isabel was prepared to be most patient and most indulgent. He must have seen that, and this made it the more odd he should say nothing. After three days had elapsed without his speaking our young woman wearied of waiting; dislike it as he would, he might at least go through the form. We, who know more about poor Ralph than his cousin, may easily believe that during the hours that followed his arrival at Palazzo Crescentini he had privately gone through many forms. His mother had literally greeted him with the great news, which had been even more sensibly chilling than Mrs. Touchett's maternal kiss. Ralph was shocked and humiliated; his calculations had been false and the person in the world in whom he was most interested was lost. He drifted about the house like a rudderless vessel in a rocky stream, or sat in the garden of the palace on a great cane chair, his long legs extended, his head thrown back and his hat pulled over his eyes. He felt cold about the heart; he had never liked anything less. What could he do, what could he say? If the girl were irreclaimable could he pretend to like it? To attempt to reclaim her was permissible only if the attempt should succeed. To try to persuade her of anything sordid or sinister in the man to whose deep art she had succumbed would be decently discreet only in the event of her being persuaded. Otherwise he should simply have damned himself. It cost him an equal effort to speak his thought and to dissemble; he could neither assent with sincerity nor protest with hope. Meanwhile he knew--or rather he supposed--that the affianced pair were daily renewing their mutual vows. Osmond at this moment showed himself little at Palazzo Crescentini; but Isabel met him every day elsewhere, as she was free to do after their engagement had been made public. She had taken a carriage by the month, so as not to be indebted to her aunt for the means of pursuing a course of which Mrs. Touchett disapproved, and she drove in the morning to the Cascine. This suburban wilderness, during the early hours, was void of all intruders, and our young lady, joined by her lover in its quietest part, strolled with him a while through the grey Italian shade and listened to the nightingales.

Isabel breaks the news of her engagement to Mrs. Touchett. Mrs. Touchett though, already seems to know. She blames Madame Merle, telling Isabel she now realizes that Merle only pretended to her that she would interfere if there were a danger that Isabel would marry Osmond. She thinks Merle has done something grand for Osmond, in giving him Isabel. Isabel does not think Merle had anything to do with her engagement. Mrs. Touchett thinks that Osmond has no name, no importance, and no fortune, so she has no idea why Isabel would marry him. Isabel hesitantly suggests that she should like to give Osmond some money. Mrs. Touchett wonders if Isabel marries Osmond for charity, and Isabel responds that she does not have to explain herself to Mrs. Touchett

When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em'ly, and her emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred confidence, and that to disclose them, even to Steerforth, would be wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards anyone than towards the pretty creature who had been my playmate, and whom I have always been persuaded, and shall always be persuaded, to my dying day, I then devotedly loved. The repetition to any ears--even to Steerforth's--of what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself, unworthy of the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw encircling her head. I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in my own breast; and there it gave her image a new grace. While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my aunt. As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could advise me as well as anyone, and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult him, I resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. For the present we had enough to do, in taking leave of all our friends. Mr. Barkis was far from being the last among them, in his regret at our departure; and I believe would even have opened the box again, and sacrificed another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty hours in Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of grief at our going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us good-bye; and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on Steerforth, when our portmanteaux went to the coach, that if we had had the baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have wanted porters to carry it. In a word, we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned, and left a great many people very sorry behind US. 'Do you stay long here, Littimer?' said I, as he stood waiting to see the coach start. 'No, sir,' he replied; 'probably not very long, sir.' 'He can hardly say, just now,' observed Steerforth, carelessly. 'He knows what he has to do, and he'll do it.' 'That I am sure he will,' said I. Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgement of my good opinion, and I felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us a good journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as respectable a mystery as any pyramid in Egypt. For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being unusually silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering, within myself, when I should see the old places again, and what new changes might happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length Steerforth, becoming gay and talkative in a moment, as he could become anything he liked at any moment, pulled me by the arm: 'Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of at breakfast?' 'Oh!' said I, taking it out of my pocket. 'It's from my aunt.' 'And what does she say, requiring consideration?' 'Why, she reminds me, Steerforth,' said I, 'that I came out on this expedition to look about me, and to think a little.' 'Which, of course, you have done?' 'Indeed I can't say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth, I am afraid I have forgotten it.' 'Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,' said Steerforth. 'Look to the right, and you'll see a flat country, with a good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you'll see the same. Look to the front, and you'll find no difference; look to the rear, and there it is still.' I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable profession in the whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness. 'What says our aunt on the subject?' inquired Steerforth, glancing at the letter in my hand. 'Does she suggest anything?' 'Why, yes,' said I. 'She asks me, here, if I think I should like to be a proctor? What do you think of it?' 'Well, I don't know,' replied Steerforth, coolly. 'You may as well do that as anything else, I suppose?' I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and professions so equally; and I told him so. 'What is a proctor, Steerforth?' said I. 'Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,' replied Steerforth. 'He is, to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons,--a lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard--what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best what he is, by telling you what Doctors' Commons is. It's a little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and people's marriages, and disputes among ships and boats.' 'Nonsense, Steerforth!' I exclaimed. 'You don't mean to say that there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters?' 'I don't, indeed, my dear boy,' he returned; 'but I mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down in that same Doctors' Commons. You shall go there one day, and find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's Dictionary, apropos of the "Nancy" having run down the "Sarah Jane", or Mr. Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the "Nelson" Indiaman in distress; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the nautical case, the advocate in the clergyman's case, or contrariwise. They are like actors: now a man's a judge, and now he is not a judge; now he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something else, change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant, profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an uncommonly select audience.' 'But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?' said I, a little puzzled. 'Are they?' 'No,' returned Steerforth, 'the advocates are civilians--men who have taken a doctor's degree at college--which is the first reason of my knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the advocates. Both get very comfortable fees, and altogether they make a mighty snug little party. On the whole, I would recommend you to take to Doctors' Commons kindly, David. They plume them-selves on their gentility there, I can tell you, if that's any satisfaction.' I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and antiquity which I associated with that 'lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard', did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour. 'That's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all events,' said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; 'and one deserving of all encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to Doctors' Commons.' I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my aunt was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a convenient door in the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was going to be burnt down every night. We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring to Doctors' Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I should be a proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety of humorous and whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we came to our journey's end, he went home, engaging to call upon me next day but one; and I drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I found my aunt up, and waiting supper. If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have been better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she embraced me; and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother had been alive, that silly little creature would have shed tears, she had no doubt. 'So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?' said I. 'I am sorry for that. Ah, Janet, how do you do?' As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt's visage lengthen very much. 'I am sorry for it, too,' said my aunt, rubbing her nose. 'I have had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.' Before I could ask why, she told me. 'I am convinced,' said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy firmness on the table, 'that Dick's character is not a character to keep the donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose. I ought to have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might perhaps have been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green,' said my aunt, with emphasis, 'there was one this afternoon at four o'clock. A cold feeling came over me from head to foot, and I know it was a donkey!' I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation. 'It was a donkey,' said my aunt; 'and it was the one with the stumpy tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she came to my house.' This had been, ever since, the only name my aunt knew for Miss Murdstone. 'If there is any Donkey in Dover, whose audacity it is harder to me to bear than another's, that,' said my aunt, striking the table, 'is the animal!' Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was then engaged in the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not available for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn't hear of it. Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were very high up--whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money, or might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don't know--and consisted of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to all of which I did ample justice, and which were all excellent. But my aunt had her own ideas concerning London provision, and ate but little. 'I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a cellar,' said my aunt, 'and never took the air except on a hackney coach-stand. I hope the steak may be beef, but I don't believe it. Nothing's genuine in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt.' 'Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?' I hinted. 'Certainly not,' returned my aunt. 'It would be no pleasure to a London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was.' I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good supper, which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the table was cleared, Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put on her nightcap, which was of a smarter construction than usual ('in case of fire', my aunt said), and to fold her gown back over her knees, these being her usual preparations for warming herself before going to bed. I then made her, according to certain established regulations from which no deviation, however slight, could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and water, and a slice of toast cut into long thin strips. With these accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting opposite to me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast in it, one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me, from among the borders of her nightcap. 'Well, Trot,' she began, 'what do you think of the proctor plan? Or have you not begun to think about it yet?' 'I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have talked a good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much indeed. I like it exceedingly.' 'Come!' said my aunt. 'That's cheering!' 'I have only one difficulty, aunt.' 'Say what it is, Trot,' she returned. 'Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand, to be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not be very expensive?' 'It will cost,' returned my aunt, 'to article you, just a thousand pounds.' 'Now, my dear aunt,' said I, drawing my chair nearer, 'I am uneasy in my mind about that. It's a large sum of money. You have expended a great deal on my education, and have always been as liberal to me in all things as it was possible to be. You have been the soul of generosity. Surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any outlay, and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion. Are you sure that it would not be better to try that course? Are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money, and that it is right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second mother, to consider. Are you certain?' My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then setting her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon her folded skirts, replied as follows: 'Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it--so is Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick's conversation on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no one knows the resources of that man's intellect, except myself!' She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on: 'It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better friends with your poor father. Perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor child your mother, even after your sister Betsey Trotwood disappointed me. When you came to me, a little runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn, perhaps I thought so. From that time until now, Trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means; at least'--here to my surprise she hesitated, and was confused--'no, I have no other claim upon my means--and you are my adopted child. Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my whims and fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever that old woman did for you.' It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history. There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if anything could. 'All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,' said my aunt, 'and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we'll go to the Commons after breakfast tomorrow.' We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in a room on the same floor with my aunt's, and was a little disturbed in the course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as she was agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or market-carts, and inquiring, 'if I heard the engines?' But towards morning she slept better, and suffered me to do so too. At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and Jorkins, in Doctors' Commons. My aunt, who had this other general opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a pickpocket, gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten guineas in it and some silver. We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants of Saint Dunstan's strike upon the bells--we had timed our going, so as to catch them at it, at twelve o'clock--and then went on towards Ludgate Hill, and St. Paul's Churchyard. We were crossing to the former place, when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed, and looked frightened. I observed, at the same time, that a lowering ill-dressed man who had stopped and stared at us in passing, a little before, was coming so close after us as to brush against her. 'Trot! My dear Trot!' cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and pressing my arm. 'I don't know what I am to do.' 'Don't be alarmed,' said I. 'There's nothing to be afraid of. Step into a shop, and I'll soon get rid of this fellow.' 'No, no, child!' she returned. 'Don't speak to him for the world. I entreat, I order you!' 'Good Heaven, aunt!' said I. 'He is nothing but a sturdy beggar.' 'You don't know what he is!' replied my aunt. 'You don't know who he is! You don't know what you say!' We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he had stopped too. 'Don't look at him!' said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly, 'but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul's Churchyard.' 'Wait for you?' I replied. 'Yes,' rejoined my aunt. 'I must go alone. I must go with him.' 'With him, aunt? This man?' 'I am in my senses,' she replied, 'and I tell you I must. Get me a coach!' However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no right to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I hurried away a few paces, and called a hackney-chariot which was passing empty. Almost before I could let down the steps, my aunt sprang in, I don't know how, and the man followed. She waved her hand to me to go away, so earnestly, that, all confounded as I was, I turned from them at once. In doing so, I heard her say to the coachman, 'Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!' and presently the chariot passed me, going up the hill. What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion of his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person was the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though what the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was quite unable to imagine. After half an hour's cooling in the churchyard, I saw the chariot coming back. The driver stopped beside me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone. She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get into the chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little while. She said no more, except, 'My dear child, never ask me what it was, and don't refer to it,' until she had perfectly regained her composure, when she told me she was quite herself now, and we might get out. On her giving me her purse to pay the driver, I found that all the guineas were gone, and only the loose silver remained. Doctors' Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we had taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the city seemed to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A few dull courts and narrow ways brought us to the sky-lighted offices of Spenlow and Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple, accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking, three or four clerks were at work as copyists. One of these, a little dry man, sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my aunt, and show us into Mr. Spenlow's room. 'Mr. Spenlow's in Court, ma'am,' said the dry man; 'it's an Arches day; but it's close by, and I'll send for him directly.' As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the writing-table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale as an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it, some endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels, and some as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches Court, and some in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty Court, and some in the Delegates' Court; giving me occasion to wonder much, how many Courts there might be in the gross, and how long it would take to understand them all. Besides these, there were sundry immense manuscript Books of Evidence taken on affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in massive sets, a set to each cause, as if every cause were a history in ten or twenty volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business. I was casting my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects, when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying in, taking off his hat as he came. He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned up, mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came across me, that he ought to have a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the goldbeaters' shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body, from the bottom of his spine, like Punch. I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been courteously received. He now said: 'And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our profession? I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the pleasure of an interview with her the other day,'--with another inclination of his body--Punch again--'that there was a vacancy here. Miss Trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar care, and for whom she was seeking to provide genteelly in life. That nephew, I believe, I have now the pleasure of'--Punch again. I bowed my acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that there was that opening, and that I believed I should like it very much. That I was strongly inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the proposal. That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until I knew something more about it. That although it was little else than a matter of form, I presumed I should have an opportunity of trying how I liked it, before I bound myself to it irrevocably. 'Oh surely! surely!' said Mr. Spenlow. 'We always, in this house, propose a month--an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, to propose two months--three--an indefinite period, in fact--but I have a partner. Mr. Jorkins.' 'And the premium, sir,' I returned, 'is a thousand pounds?' 'And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,' said Mr. Spenlow. 'As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by no mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but Mr. Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect Mr. Jorkins's opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little, in short.' 'I suppose, sir,' said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, 'that it is not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly useful, and made himself a perfect master of his profession'--I could not help blushing, this looked so like praising myself--'I suppose it is not the custom, in the later years of his time, to allow him any--' Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word 'salary': 'No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is immovable.' I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, whose place in the business was to keep himself in the background, and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn't listen to such a proposition. If a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was resolved to have it paid; and however painful these things might be (and always were) to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would have his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would have been always open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have grown older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins! It was settled that I should begin my month's probation as soon as I pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to be the subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then and there, and show me what sort of place it was. As I was willing enough to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind; who would trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who, I think, regarded all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any time. Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors' names upon the doors, to be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth had told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off from the rest; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who, I learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe, lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow's rank, and dressed like him in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table. Their cravats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty; but in this last respect I presently conceived I had done them an injustice, for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. The public, represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid stillness of the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little roadside inns of argument on the journey. Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made one at such a cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family-party in all my life; and I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any character--except perhaps as a suitor. Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I informed Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined my aunt; in company with whom I presently departed from the Commons, feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins's, on account of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out. We arrived at Lincoln's Inn Fields without any new adventures, except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger's cart, who suggested painful associations to my aunt. We had another long talk about my plans, when we were safely housed; and as I knew she was anxious to get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets, could never be considered at her ease for half-an-hour in London, I urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me to take care of myself. 'I have not been here a week tomorrow, without considering that too, my dear,' she returned. 'There is a furnished little set of chambers to be let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel.' With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in Buckingham Street in the Adelphi there was to be let furnished, with a view of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set of chambers, forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate possession. Terms moderate, and could be taken for a month only, if required. 'Why, this is the very thing, aunt!' said I, flushed with the possible dignity of living in chambers. 'Then come,' replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she had a minute before laid aside. 'We'll go and look at 'em.' Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or four times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown. 'Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma'am,' said my aunt. 'For this gentleman?' said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for her keys. 'Yes, for my nephew,' said my aunt. 'And a sweet set they is for sich!' said Mrs. Crupp. So we went upstairs. They were on the top of the house--a great point with my aunt, being near the fire-escape--and consisted of a little half-blind entry where you could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind pantry where you could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a bedroom. The furniture was rather faded, but quite good enough for me; and, sure enough, the river was outside the windows. As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew into the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the sitting-room sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could be destined to live in such a noble residence. After a single combat of some duration they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both in Mrs. Crupp's countenance and in my aunt's, that the deed was done. 'Is it the last occupant's furniture?' inquired my aunt. 'Yes, it is, ma'am,' said Mrs. Crupp. 'What's become of him?' asked my aunt. Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which she articulated with much difficulty. 'He was took ill here, ma'am, and--ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me!--and he died!' 'Hey! What did he die of?' asked my aunt. 'Well, ma'am, he died of drink,' said Mrs. Crupp, in confidence. 'And smoke.' 'Smoke? You don't mean chimneys?' said my aunt. 'No, ma'am,' returned Mrs. Crupp. 'Cigars and pipes.' 'That's not catching, Trot, at any rate,' remarked my aunt, turning to me. 'No, indeed,' said I. In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, took them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when that time was out. Mrs. Crupp was to find linen, and to cook; every other necessary was already provided; and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that she should always yearn towards me as a son. I was to take possession the day after tomorrow, and Mrs. Crupp said, thank Heaven she had now found summun she could care for! On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that the life I was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant, which was all I wanted. She repeated this several times next day, in the intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books from Mr. Wickfield's; relative to which, and to all my late holiday, I wrote a long letter to Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was to leave on the succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I need only add, that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went away; that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with Janet at her side; and that when the coach was gone, I turned my face to the Adelphi, pondering on the old days when I used to roam about its subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which had brought me to the surface.

I corroborate Mr. Dick, and choose a Profession David determines not to tell Steerforth about Little Em'ly's outburst the night before because he loves Little Em'ly and believes that she did not mean to reveal to him so much about herself. David also tells Steerforth, as they are on their way home by coach, about a letter he has received from Miss Betsey suggesting that he become a proctor. Steerforth thinks that the profession of proctor would suit David well, and David agrees. When David arrives in London, he meets up with Miss Betsey, who has traveled to London to see him. She is very concerned that Mr. Dick, whom she has left behind at home, will not be able to keep the donkeys off her yard. Miss Betsey and David eventually resolve that David will become a proctor, despite his protestations that it is expensive to do so. On their way to establish David at the Doctors' Commons , a man who looks like a beggar approaches them, and Miss Betsey jumps into a cab with him. When she returns, David notices that she has given the man most of her money. David is very disturbed, but Miss Betsey makes him swear never to mention the event again. They go to the offices of Spenlow and Jorkins, where Mr. Spenlow agrees to engage David as a clerk. Afterward, they find lodgings for David with Mrs. Crupp, an old landlady who promises to take care of David as though he were her own son

XII. The Fellow of Delicacy Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor's daughter, resolved to make her happiness known to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some mental debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it and Hilary. As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly grounds--the only grounds ever worth taking into account--it was a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case could be. Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind. Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation's infancy was still upon it. Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he was yet on Saint Dunstan's side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full-blown way along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker people, might have seen how safe and strong he was. His way taking him past Tellson's, and he both banking at Tellson's and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr. Stryver's mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everything under the clouds were a sum. "Halloa!" said Mr. Stryver. "How do you do? I hope you are well!" It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson's, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat. The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would recommend under the circumstances, "How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do you do, sir?" and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson's who shook hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co. "Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?" asked Mr. Lorry, in his business character. "Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; I have come for a private word." "Oh indeed!" said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayed to the House afar off. "I am going," said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the desk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared to be not half desk enough for him: "I am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry." "Oh dear me!" cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his visitor dubiously. "Oh dear me, sir?" repeated Stryver, drawing back. "Oh dear you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?" "My meaning," answered the man of business, "is, of course, friendly and appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and--in short, my meaning is everything you could desire. But--really, you know, Mr. Stryver--" Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally, "you know there really is so much too much of you!" "Well!" said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath, "if I understand you, Mr. Lorry, I'll be hanged!" Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards that end, and bit the feather of a pen. "D--n it all, sir!" said Stryver, staring at him, "am I not eligible?" "Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you're eligible!" said Mr. Lorry. "If you say eligible, you are eligible." "Am I not prosperous?" asked Stryver. "Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous," said Mr. Lorry. "And advancing?" "If you come to advancing you know," said Mr. Lorry, delighted to be able to make another admission, "nobody can doubt that." "Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?" demanded Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen. "Well! I--Were you going there now?" asked Mr. Lorry. "Straight!" said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk. "Then I think I wouldn't, if I was you." "Why?" said Stryver. "Now, I'll put you in a corner," forensically shaking a forefinger at him. "You are a man of business and bound to have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn't you go?" "Because," said Mr. Lorry, "I wouldn't go on such an object without having some cause to believe that I should succeed." "D--n _me_!" cried Stryver, "but this beats everything." Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angry Stryver. "Here's a man of business--a man of years--a man of experience--_in_ a Bank," said Stryver; "and having summed up three leading reasons for complete success, he says there's no reason at all! Says it with his head on!" Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off. "When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; and when I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak of causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The young lady, my good sir," said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, "the young lady. The young lady goes before all." "Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver, squaring his elbows, "that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady at present in question is a mincing Fool?" "Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver," said Mr. Lorry, reddening, "that I will hear no disrespectful word of that young lady from any lips; and that if I knew any man--which I hope I do not--whose taste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he could not restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady at this desk, not even Tellson's should prevent my giving him a piece of my mind." The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver's blood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to be angry; Mr. Lorry's veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, were in no better state now it was his turn. "That is what I mean to tell you, sir," said Mr. Lorry. "Pray let there be no mistake about it." Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stood hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him the toothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying: "This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not to go up to Soho and offer myself--_my_self, Stryver of the King's Bench bar?" "Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?" "Yes, I do." "Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly." "And all I can say of it is," laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, "that this--ha, ha!--beats everything past, present, and to come." "Now understand me," pursued Mr. Lorry. "As a man of business, I am not justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a man of business, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has carried Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and of her father too, and who has a great affection for them both, I have spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think I may not be right?" "Not I!" said Stryver, whistling. "I can't undertake to find third parties in common sense; I can only find it for myself. I suppose sense in certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It's new to me, but you are right, I dare say." "What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myself--And understand me, sir," said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, "I will not--not even at Tellson's--have it characterised for me by any gentleman breathing." "There! I beg your pardon!" said Stryver. "Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say:--it might be painful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful to Doctor Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might be very painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with you. You know the terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to stand with the family. If you please, committing you in no way, representing you in no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by the exercise of a little new observation and judgment expressly brought to bear upon it. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test its soundness for yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what is best spared. What do you say?" "How long would you keep me in town?" "Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in the evening, and come to your chambers afterwards." "Then I say yes," said Stryver: "I won't go up there now, I am not so hot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I shall expect you to look in to-night. Good morning." Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against it bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons were always seen by the public in the act of bowing, and were popularly believed, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in the empty office until they bowed another customer in. The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not have gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground than moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to swallow, he got it down. "And now," said Mr. Stryver, shaking his forensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was down, "my way out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong." It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he found great relief. "You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady," said Mr. Stryver; "I'll do that for you." Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o'clock, Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for the purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of the morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was altogether in an absent and preoccupied state. "Well!" said that good-natured emissary, after a full half-hour of bootless attempts to bring him round to the question. "I have been to Soho." "To Soho?" repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. "Oh, to be sure! What am I thinking of!" "And I have no doubt," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was right in the conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my advice." "I assure you," returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, "that I am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father's account. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family; let us say no more about it." "I don't understand you," said Mr. Lorry. "I dare say not," rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing and final way; "no matter, no matter." "But it does matter," Mr. Lorry urged. "No it doesn't; I assure you it doesn't. Having supposed that there was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is done. Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have repented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view--it is hardly necessary to say I could have gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means certain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and giddinesses of empty-headed girls; you must not expect to do it, or you will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account. And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do; you were right, it never would have done." Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance of showering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head. "Make the best of it, my dear sir," said Stryver; "say no more about it; thank you again for allowing me to sound you; good night!" Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryver was lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling.

Before Stryver's vacation begins, he decides to propose to Lucie. He heads towards her house in Soho. On his way, he stops at Tellson's Bank to inform Mr. Lorry of his plans to marry Lucie. Mr. Lorry, on hearing the news, hints that Stryver will not be successful. Stryver is shocked at the suggestion and demands to know what prevents him from being a suitable, prospective husband. Mr. Lorry intimates that Lucie may not find him agreeable. This upsets Stryver even more, and he calls Lucie silly and giddy-headed. Such criticisms of Lucie annoy Mr. Lorry, for he is excessively fond of and protective towards her. Lorry agrees to go to the Manette residence to get a feel for Lucies estimation of Stryver. He returns with the news that Stryver has been rejected by Lucie, as expected. Stryver pretends to be unbothered by the news and judges his proposal to be an act of charity that has somehow misfired.

'An outward-bound mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and the big dining-room of the hotel was more than half full of people with a-hundred-pounds-round-the-world tickets in their pockets. There were married couples looking domesticated and bored with each other in the midst of their travels; there were small parties and large parties, and lone individuals dining solemnly or feasting boisterously, but all thinking, conversing, joking, or scowling as was their wont at home; and just as intelligently receptive of new impressions as their trunks upstairs. Henceforth they would be labelled as having passed through this and that place, and so would be their luggage. They would cherish this distinction of their persons, and preserve the gummed tickets on their portmanteaus as documentary evidence, as the only permanent trace of their improving enterprise. The dark-faced servants tripped without noise over the vast and polished floor; now and then a girl's laugh would be heard, as innocent and empty as her mind, or, in a sudden hush of crockery, a few words in an affected drawl from some wit embroidering for the benefit of a grinning tableful the last funny story of shipboard scandal. Two nomadic old maids, dressed up to kill, worked acrimoniously through the bill of fare, whispering to each other with faded lips, wooden-faced and bizarre, like two sumptuous scarecrows. A little wine opened Jim's heart and loosened his tongue. His appetite was good, too, I noticed. He seemed to have buried somewhere the opening episode of our acquaintance. It was like a thing of which there would be no more question in this world. And all the time I had before me these blue, boyish eyes looking straight into mine, this young face, these capable shoulders, the open bronzed forehead with a white line under the roots of clustering fair hair, this appearance appealing at sight to all my sympathies: this frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness. He was of the right sort; he was one of us. He talked soberly, with a sort of composed unreserve, and with a quiet bearing that might have been the outcome of manly self-control, of impudence, of callousness, of a colossal unconsciousness, of a gigantic deception. Who can tell! From our tone we might have been discussing a third person, a football match, last year's weather. My mind floated in a sea of conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being offensive, to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been pretty trying to him. He darted his arm across the tablecloth, and clutching my hand by the side of my plate, glared fixedly. I was startled. "It must be awfully hard," I stammered, confused by this display of speechless feeling. "It is--hell," he burst out in a muffled voice. 'This movement and these words caused two well-groomed male globe-trotters at a neighbouring table to look up in alarm from their iced pudding. I rose, and we passed into the front gallery for coffee and cigars. 'On little octagon tables candles burned in glass globes; clumps of stiff-leaved plants separated sets of cosy wicker chairs; and between the pairs of columns, whose reddish shafts caught in a long row the sheen from the tall windows, the night, glittering and sombre, seemed to hang like a splendid drapery. The riding lights of ships winked afar like setting stars, and the hills across the roadstead resembled rounded black masses of arrested thunder-clouds. '"I couldn't clear out," Jim began. "The skipper did--that's all very well for him. I couldn't, and I wouldn't. They all got out of it in one way or another, but it wouldn't do for me." 'I listened with concentrated attention, not daring to stir in my chair; I wanted to know--and to this day I don't know, I can only guess. He would be confident and depressed all in the same breath, as if some conviction of innate blamelessness had checked the truth writhing within him at every turn. He began by saying, in the tone in which a man would admit his inability to jump a twenty-foot wall, that he could never go home now; and this declaration recalled to my mind what Brierly had said, "that the old parson in Essex seemed to fancy his sailor son not a little." 'I can't tell you whether Jim knew he was especially "fancied," but the tone of his references to "my Dad" was calculated to give me a notion that the good old rural dean was about the finest man that ever had been worried by the cares of a large family since the beginning of the world. This, though never stated, was implied with an anxiety that there should be no mistake about it, which was really very true and charming, but added a poignant sense of lives far off to the other elements of the story. "He has seen it all in the home papers by this time," said Jim. "I can never face the poor old chap." I did not dare to lift my eyes at this till I heard him add, "I could never explain. He wouldn't understand." Then I looked up. He was smoking reflectively, and after a moment, rousing himself, began to talk again. He discovered at once a desire that I should not confound him with his partners in--in crime, let us call it. He was not one of them; he was altogether of another sort. I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come in his way. I didn't know how much of it he believed himself. I didn't know what he was playing up to--if he was playing up to anything at all--and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. I made no sound all the time he was wondering what he had better do after "that stupid inquiry was over." 'Apparently he shared Brierly's contemptuous opinion of these proceedings ordained by law. He would not know where to turn, he confessed, clearly thinking aloud rather than talking to me. Certificate gone, career broken, no money to get away, no work that he could obtain as far as he could see. At home he could perhaps get something; but it meant going to his people for help, and that he would not do. He saw nothing for it but ship before the mast--could get perhaps a quartermaster's billet in some steamer. Would do for a quartermaster. . . . "Do you think you would?" I asked pitilessly. He jumped up, and going to the stone balustrade looked out into the night. In a moment he was back, towering above my chair with his youthful face clouded yet by the pain of a conquered emotion. He had understood very well I did not doubt his ability to steer a ship. In a voice that quavered a bit he asked me why did I say that? I had been "no end kind" to him. I had not even laughed at him when--here he began to mumble--"that mistake, you know--made a confounded ass of myself." I broke in by saying rather warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to laugh at. He sat down and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the last drop. "That does not mean I admit for a moment the cap fitted," he declared distinctly. "No?" I said. "No," he affirmed with quiet decision. "Do you know what _you_ would have done? Do you? And you don't think yourself" . . . he gulped something . . . "you don't think yourself a--a--cur?" 'And with this--upon my honour!--he looked up at me inquisitively. It was a question it appears--a bona fide question! However, he didn't wait for an answer. Before I could recover he went on, with his eyes straight before him, as if reading off something written on the body of the night. "It is all in being ready. I wasn't; not--not then. I don't want to excuse myself; but I would like to explain--I would like somebody to understand--somebody--one person at least! You! Why not you?" 'It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure. He began his story quietly enough. On board that Dale Line steamer that had picked up these four floating in a boat upon the discreet sunset glow of the sea, they had been after the first day looked askance upon. The fat skipper told some story, the others had been silent, and at first it had been accepted. You don't cross-examine poor castaways you had the good luck to save, if not from cruel death, then at least from cruel suffering. Afterwards, with time to think it over, it might have struck the officers of the Avondale that there was "something fishy" in the affair; but of course they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had picked up the captain, the mate, and two engineers of the steamer Patna sunk at sea, and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about the nature of his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From the way he narrated that part I was at liberty to infer he was partly stunned by the discovery he had made--the discovery about himself--and no doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who was capable of appreciating all its tremendous magnitude. You must understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure; and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the tale in which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and it is difficult to imagine. 'I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder? But no doubt he managed to get a fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore a whole fortnight waiting in the Sailors' Home, and as there were six or seven men staying there at the time, I had heard of him a little. Their languid opinion seemed to be that, in addition to his other shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He had passed these days on the verandah, buried in a long chair, and coming out of his place of sepulture only at meal-times or late at night, when he wandered on the quays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and silent, like a ghost without a home to haunt. "I don't think I've spoken three words to a living soul in all that time," he said, making me very sorry for him; and directly he added, "One of these fellows would have been sure to blurt out something I had made up my mind not to put up with, and I didn't want a row. No! Not then. I was too--too . . . I had no heart for it." "So that bulkhead held out after all," I remarked cheerfully. "Yes," he murmured, "it held. And yet I swear to you I felt it bulge under my hand." "It's extraordinary what strains old iron will stand sometimes," I said. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly several times. You could not conceive a sadder spectacle. Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up; he slapped his thigh. "Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last "missed" resembled a cry wrung out by pain. 'He was silent again with a still, far-away look of fierce yearning after that missed distinction, with his nostrils for an instant dilated, sniffing the intoxicating breath of that wasted opportunity. If you think I was either surprised or shocked you do me an injustice in more ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar! He would give himself away; he would give himself up. I could see in his glance darted into the night all his inner being carried on, projected headlong into the fanciful realm of recklessly heroic aspirations. He had no leisure to regret what he had lost, he was so wholly and naturally concerned for what he had failed to obtain. He was very far away from me who watched him across three feet of space. With every instant he was penetrating deeper into the impossible world of romantic achievements. He got to the heart of it at last! A strange look of beatitude overspread his features, his eyes sparkled in the light of the candle burning between us; he positively smiled! He had penetrated to the very heart--to the very heart. It was an ecstatic smile that your faces--or mine either--will never wear, my dear boys. I whisked him back by saying, "If you had stuck to the ship, you mean!" 'He turned upon me, his eyes suddenly amazed and full of pain, with a bewildered, startled, suffering face, as though he had tumbled down from a star. Neither you nor I will ever look like this on any man. He shuddered profoundly, as if a cold finger-tip had touched his heart. Last of all he sighed. 'I was not in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradictory indiscretions. "It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell harmless--dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not even seen it. Presently, lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was holding up my lamp along the angle-iron in the lower deck when a flake of rust as big as the palm of my hand fell off the plate, all of itself." He passed his hand over his forehead. "The thing stirred and jumped off like something alive while I was looking at it." "That made you feel pretty bad," I observed casually. "Do you suppose," he said, "that I was thinking of myself, with a hundred and sixty people at my back, all fast asleep in that fore-'tween-deck alone--and more of them aft; more on the deck--sleeping--knowing nothing about it--three times as many as there were boats for, even if there had been time? I expected to see the iron open out as I stood there and the rush of water going over them as they lay. . . . What could I do--what?" 'I can easily picture him to myself in the peopled gloom of the cavernous place, with the light of the globe-lamp falling on a small portion of the bulkhead that had the weight of the ocean on the other side, and the breathing of unconscious sleepers in his ears. I can see him glaring at the iron, startled by the falling rust, overburdened by the knowledge of an imminent death. This, I gathered, was the second time he had been sent forward by that skipper of his, who, I rather think, wanted to keep him away from the bridge. He told me that his first impulse was to shout and straightway make all those people leap out of sleep into terror; but such an overwhelming sense of his helplessness came over him that he was not able to produce a sound. This is, I suppose, what people mean by the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth. "Too dry," was the concise expression he used in reference to this state. Without a sound, then, he scrambled out on deck through the number one hatch. A windsail rigged down there swung against him accidentally, and he remembered that the light touch of the canvas on his face nearly knocked him off the hatchway ladder. 'He confessed that his knees wobbled a good deal as he stood on the foredeck looking at another sleeping crowd. The engines having been stopped by that time, the steam was blowing off. Its deep rumble made the whole night vibrate like a bass string. The ship trembled to it. 'He saw here and there a head lifted off a mat, a vague form uprise in sitting posture, listen sleepily for a moment, sink down again into the billowy confusion of boxes, steam-winches, ventilators. He was aware all these people did not know enough to take intelligent notice of that strange noise. The ship of iron, the men with white faces, all the sights, all the sounds, everything on board to that ignorant and pious multitude was strange alike, and as trustworthy as it would for ever remain incomprehensible. It occurred to him that the fact was fortunate. The idea of it was simply terrible. 'You must remember he believed, as any other man would have done in his place, that the ship would go down at any moment; the bulging, rust-eaten plates that kept back the ocean, fatally must give way, all at once like an undermined dam, and let in a sudden and overwhelming flood. He stood still looking at these recumbent bodies, a doomed man aware of his fate, surveying the silent company of the dead. They _were_ dead! Nothing could save them! There were boats enough for half of them perhaps, but there was no time. No time! No time! It did not seem worth while to open his lips, to stir hand or foot. Before he could shout three words, or make three steps, he would be floundering in a sea whitened awfully by the desperate struggles of human beings, clamorous with the distress of cries for help. There was no help. He imagined what would happen perfectly; he went through it all motionless by the hatchway with the lamp in his hand--he went through it to the very last harrowing detail. I think he went through it again while he was telling me these things he could not tell the court. '"I saw as clearly as I see you now that there was nothing I could do. It seemed to take all life out of my limbs. I thought I might just as well stand where I was and wait. I did not think I had many seconds. . . ." Suddenly the steam ceased blowing off. The noise, he remarked, had been distracting, but the silence at once became intolerably oppressive. '"I thought I would choke before I got drowned," he said. 'He protested he did not think of saving himself. The only distinct thought formed, vanishing, and re-forming in his brain, was: eight hundred people and seven boats; eight hundred people and seven boats. '"Somebody was speaking aloud inside my head," he said a little wildly. "Eight hundred people and seven boats--and no time! Just think of it." He leaned towards me across the little table, and I tried to avoid his stare. "Do you think I was afraid of death?" he asked in a voice very fierce and low. He brought down his open hand with a bang that made the coffee-cups dance. "I am ready to swear I was not--I was not. . . . By God--no!" He hitched himself upright and crossed his arms; his chin fell on his breast. 'The soft clashes of crockery reached us faintly through the high windows. There was a burst of voices, and several men came out in high good-humour into the gallery. They were exchanging jocular reminiscences of the donkeys in Cairo. A pale anxious youth stepping softly on long legs was being chaffed by a strutting and rubicund globe-trotter about his purchases in the bazaar. "No, really--do you think I've been done to that extent?" he inquired very earnest and deliberate. The band moved away, dropping into chairs as they went; matches flared, illuminating for a second faces without the ghost of an expression and the flat glaze of white shirt-fronts; the hum of many conversations animated with the ardour of feasting sounded to me absurd and infinitely remote. '"Some of the crew were sleeping on the number one hatch within reach of my arm," began Jim again. 'You must know they kept Kalashee watch in that ship, all hands sleeping through the night, and only the reliefs of quartermasters and look-out men being called. He was tempted to grip and shake the shoulder of the nearest lascar, but he didn't. Something held his arms down along his sides. He was not afraid--oh no! only he just couldn't--that's all. He was not afraid of death perhaps, but I'll tell you what, he was afraid of the emergency. His confounded imagination had evoked for him all the horrors of panic, the trampling rush, the pitiful screams, boats swamped--all the appalling incidents of a disaster at sea he had ever heard of. He might have been resigned to die but I suspect he wanted to die without added terrors, quietly, in a sort of peaceful trance. A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person--this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well,--the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.'

During dinner, the wine loosened Jim's tongue, and he began his painful story. Now, he has no money, no job, no future as a sailor, and he has shamed his pastor father, who is incapable of understanding what has happened. Impulsively, Jim asks Marlow if he can understand it all. What would Marlow have done? Jim said that after he and his fellow officers were picked up and taken ashore, he learned that the Patna did not sink. The news seemed impossible to believe; the Patna had been doomed. Jim recalled in detail how he himself examined the bulkhead of the ship; he remembered how it had bulged, ready to crack momentarily. There were seven lifeboats and 800 passengers. If Jim had alerted the passengers, their panic would have caused virtual chaos. He was surrounded by a sea ready to swallow him up, and he was surrounded by 800 sleeping natives who would soon be drowning, screaming like frightened, panicking animals. "They were dead. Nothing could save them!" Jim swore to Marlow that he was not afraid of death, even as they were talking; nor was he afraid of death then, and Marlow was inclined to believe him -- simply because Jim's mind dwelled not on death, but on his fear of unleashed panic. Marlow realized also that Jim never tried to suggest that what the crewmen did was not terribly wrong, and "therein lies his distinction." In anguish, Jim moaned, "What a chance missed!" What should he have done? Even now, he didn't know. All he could do was remember what he did do.

In that lively sense of the immediate which is the very air of a child's mind the past, on each occasion, became for her as indistinct as the future: she surrendered herself to the actual with a good faith that might have been touching to either parent. Crudely as they had calculated they were at first justified by the event: she was the little feathered shuttlecock they could fiercely keep flying between them. The evil they had the gift of thinking or pretending to think of each other they poured into her little gravely-gazing soul as into a boundless receptacle, and each of them had doubtless the best conscience in the world as to the duty of teaching her the stern truth that should be her safeguard against the other. She was at the age for which all stories are true and all conceptions are stories. The actual was the absolute, the present alone was vivid. The objurgation for instance launched in the carriage by her mother after she had at her father's bidding punctually performed was a missive that dropped into her memory with the dry rattle of a letter falling into a pillar-box. Like the letter it was, as part of the contents of a well-stuffed post-bag, delivered in due course at the right address. In the presence of these overflowings, after they had continued for a couple of years, the associates of either party sometimes felt that something should be done for what they called "the real good, don't you know?" of the child. The only thing done, however, in general, took place when it was sighingly remarked that she fortunately wasn't all the year round where she happened to be at the awkward moment, and that, furthermore, either from extreme cunning or from extreme stupidity, she appeared not to take things in. The theory of her stupidity, eventually embraced by her parents, corresponded with a great date in her small still life: the complete vision, private but final, of the strange office she filled. It was literally a moral revolution and accomplished in the depths of her nature. The stiff dolls on the dusky shelves began to move their arms and legs; old forms and phrases began to have a sense that frightened her. She had a new feeling, the feeling of danger; on which a new remedy rose to meet it, the idea of an inner self or, in other words, of concealment. She puzzled out with imperfect signs, but with a prodigious spirit, that she had been a centre of hatred and a messenger of insult, and that everything was bad because she had been employed to make it so. Her parted lips locked themselves with the determination to be employed no longer. She would forget everything, she would repeat nothing, and when, as a tribute to the successful application of her system, she began to be called a little idiot, she tasted a pleasure new and keen. When therefore, as she grew older, her parents in turn announced before her that she had grown shockingly dull, it was not from any real contraction of her little stream of life. She spoiled their fun, but she practically added to her own. She saw more and more; she saw too much. It was Miss Overmore, her first governess, who on a momentous occasion had sown the seeds of secrecy; sown them not by anything she said, but by a mere roll of those fine eyes which Maisie already admired. Moddle had become at this time, after alternations of residence of which the child had no clear record, an image faintly embalmed in the remembrance of hungry disappearances from the nursery and distressful lapses in the alphabet, sad embarrassments, in particular, when invited to recognise something her nurse described as "the important letter haitch." Miss Overmore, however hungry, never disappeared: this marked her somehow as of higher rank, and the character was confirmed by a prettiness that Maisie supposed to be extraordinary. Mrs. Farange had described her as almost too pretty, and some one had asked what that mattered so long as Beale wasn't there. "Beale or no Beale," Maisie had heard her mother reply, "I take her because she's a lady and yet awfully poor. Rather nice people, but there are seven sisters at home. What do people mean?" Maisie didn't know what people meant, but she knew very soon all the names of all the sisters; she could say them off better than she could say the multiplication-table. She privately wondered moreover, though she never asked, about the awful poverty, of which her companion also never spoke. Food at any rate came up by mysterious laws; Miss Overmore never, like Moddle, had on an apron, and when she ate she held her fork with her little finger curled out. The child, who watched her at many moments, watched her particularly at that one. "I think you're lovely," she often said to her; even mamma, who was lovely too, had not such a pretty way with the fork. Maisie associated this showier presence with her now being "big," knowing of course that nursery-governesses were only for little girls who were not, as she said, "really" little. She vaguely knew, further, somehow, that the future was still bigger than she, and that a part of what made it so was the number of governesses lurking in it and ready to dart out. Everything that had happened when she was really little was dormant, everything but the positive certitude, bequeathed from afar by Moddle, that the natural way for a child to have her parents was separate and successive, like her mutton and her pudding or her bath and her nap. "DOES he know he lies?"--that was what she had vivaciously asked Miss Overmore on the occasion which was so suddenly to lead to a change in her life. "Does he know--" Miss Overmore stared; she had a stocking pulled over her hand and was pricking at it with a needle which she poised in the act. Her task was homely, but her movement, like all her movements, graceful. "Why papa." "That he 'lies'?" "That's what mamma says I'm to tell him--'that he lies and he knows he lies.'" Miss Overmore turned very red, though she laughed out till her head fell back; then she pricked again at her muffled hand so hard that Maisie wondered how she could bear it. "AM I to tell him?" the child went on. It was then that her companion addressed her in the unmistakeable language of a pair of eyes of deep dark grey. "I can't say No," they replied as distinctly as possible; "I can't say No, because I'm afraid of your mamma, don't you see? Yet how can I say Yes after your papa has been so kind to me, talking to me so long the other day, smiling and flashing his beautiful teeth at me the time we met him in the Park, the time when, rejoicing at the sight of us, he left the gentlemen he was with and turned and walked with us, stayed with us for half an hour?" Somehow in the light of Miss Overmore's lovely eyes that incident came back to Maisie with a charm it hadn't had at the time, and this in spite of the fact that after it was over her governess had never but once alluded to it. On their way home, when papa had quitted them, she had expressed the hope that the child wouldn't mention it to mamma. Maisie liked her so, and had so the charmed sense of being liked by her, that she accepted this remark as settling the matter and wonderingly conformed to it. The wonder now lived again, lived in the recollection of what papa had said to Miss Overmore: "I've only to look at you to see you're a person I can appeal to for help to save my daughter." Maisie's ignorance of what she was to be saved from didn't diminish the pleasure of the thought that Miss Overmore was saving her. It seemed to make them cling together as in some wild game of "going round."

As Maisie is passed like a "little feathered shuttlecock" from parent to parent, rather than focusing on the past or the future, she simply lives in the present. Her parents tell her terrible things about one another, and she absorbs all of it. Eventually, to get out of passing on her parents' spiteful comments, Maisie learns to pretend to be stupid. On the inside, she is actually extremely mature and astute in her observations about her parents. She finds her ruse of being stupid enjoyable, and when her parents call her hateful names as a result of her not understanding or passing on their comments, she "taste a pleasure new and keen". At Ida Farange's house, Maisie is again cared for by a servant--a governess named Miss Overmore. Miss Overmore is a young woman who is very pretty and is poor because she comes from a large family. Maisie is intrigued by Miss Overmore; she learns the names of all of her sisters and admires the way she genteelly holds her fork while eating. One day, Maisie asks Miss Overmore whether her father actually knows that he lies, as her mother has told her. Miss Overmore is shocked by the question, and answers by saying that she can't tell Maisie no because she is afraid of Ida, but she also doesn't want to disparage Beale because he was friendly to her when they met once at the park. Maisie remembers the encounter, particularly thinking about how her father told Miss Overmore, "I've only to look at you to see you're a person I can appeal to for help to save my daughter"

Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks: till Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily; so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there 'lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit, which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in. Hindley lifted her from her horse, exclaiming delightedly, 'Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty! I should scarcely have known you: you look like a lady now. Isabella Linton is not to be compared with her, is she, Frances?' 'Isabella has not her natural advantages,' replied his wife: 'but she must mind and not grow wild again here. Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her things--Stay, dear, you will disarrange your curls--let me untie your hat.' I removed the habit, and there shone forth beneath a grand plaid silk frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes; and, while her eyes sparkled joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she dared hardly touch them lest they should fawn upon her splendid garments. She kissed me gently: I was all flour making the Christmas cake, and it would not have done to give me a hug; and then she looked round for Heathcliff. Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw watched anxiously their meeting; thinking it would enable them to judge, in some measure, what grounds they had for hoping to succeed in separating the two friends. Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first. If he were careless, and uncared for, before Catherine's absence, he had been ten times more so since. Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy, and bid him wash himself, once a week; and children of his age seldom have a natural pleasure in soap and water. Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months' service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded. He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed counterpart of himself, as he expected. 'Is Heathcliff not here?' she demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors. 'Heathcliff, you may come forward,' cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he would be compelled to present himself. 'You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants.' Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming, 'Why, how very black and cross you look! and how--how funny and grim! But that's because I'm used to Edgar and Isabella Linton. Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?' She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable. 'Shake hands, Heathcliff,' said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; 'once in a way that is permitted.' 'I shall not,' replied the boy, finding his tongue at last; 'I shall not stand to be laughed at. I shall not bear it!' And he would have broken from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him again. 'I did not mean to laugh at you,' she said; 'I could not hinder myself: Heathcliff, shake hands at least! What are you sulky for? It was only that you looked odd. If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will be all right: but you are so dirty!' She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from its contact with his. 'You needn't have touched me!' he answered, following her eye and snatching away his hand. 'I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty.' With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine; who could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an exhibition of bad temper. After playing lady's-maid to the new-comer, and putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires, befitting Christmas-eve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by singing carols, all alone; regardless of Joseph's affirmations that he considered the merry tunes I chose as next door to songs. He had retired to private prayer in his chamber, and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw were engaging Missy's attention by sundry gay trifles bought for her to present to the little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness. They had invited them to spend the morrow at Wuthering Heights, and the invitation had been accepted, on one condition: Mrs. Linton begged that her darlings might be kept carefully apart from that 'naughty swearing boy.' Under these circumstances I remained solitary. I smelt the rich scent of the heating spices; and admired the shining kitchen utensils, the polished clock, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray ready to be filled with mulled ale for supper; and above all, the speckless purity of my particular care--the scoured and well-swept floor. I gave due inward applause to every object, and then I remembered how old Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass, and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmas-box; and from that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should suffer neglect after death had removed him: and that naturally led me to consider the poor lad's situation now, and from singing I changed my mind to crying. It struck me soon, however, there would be more sense in endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding tears over them: I got up and walked into the court to seek him. He was not far; I found him smoothing the glossy coat of the new pony in the stable, and feeding the other beasts, according to custom. 'Make haste, Heathcliff!' I said, 'the kitchen is so comfortable; and Joseph is up-stairs: make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss Cathy comes out, and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth to yourselves, and have a long chatter till bedtime.' He proceeded with his task, and never turned his head towards me. 'Come--are you coming?' I continued. 'There's a little cake for each of you, nearly enough; and you'll need half-an-hour's donning.' I waited five minutes, but getting no answer left him. Catherine supped with her brother and sister-in-law: Joseph and I joined at an unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other. His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies. He managed to continue work till nine o'clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber. Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to order for the reception of her new friends: she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back. In the morning he rose early; and, as it was a holiday, carried his ill-humour on to the moors; not re-appearing till the family were departed for church. Fasting and reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit. He hung about me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed abruptly--'Nelly, make me decent, I'm going to be good.' 'High time, Heathcliff,' I said; 'you _have_ grieved Catherine: she's sorry she ever came home, I daresay! It looks as if you envied her, because she is more thought of than you.' The notion of _envying_ Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough. 'Did she say she was grieved?' he inquired, looking very serious. 'She cried when I told her you were off again this morning.' 'Well, _I_ cried last night,' he returned, 'and I had more reason to cry than she.' 'Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty stomach,' said I. 'Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But, if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in. You must go up and offer to kiss her, and say--you know best what to say; only do it heartily, and not as if you thought her converted into a stranger by her grand dress. And now, though I have dinner to get ready, I'll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar Linton shall look quite a doll beside you: and that he does. You are younger, and yet, I'll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders; you could knock him down in a twinkling; don't you feel that you could?' Heathcliff's face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and he sighed. 'But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn't make him less handsome or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!' 'And cried for mamma at every turn,' I added, 'and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain. Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass, and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes; and those thick brows, that, instead of rising arched, sink in the middle; and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes. Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its dessert, and yet hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.' 'In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes and even forehead,' he replied. 'I do--and that won't help me to them.' 'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,' I continued, 'if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking--tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!' So I chattered on; and Heathcliff gradually lost his frown and began to look quite pleasant, when all at once our conversation was interrupted by a rumbling sound moving up the road and entering the court. He ran to the window and I to the door, just in time to behold the two Lintons descend from the family carriage, smothered in cloaks and furs, and the Earnshaws dismount from their horses: they often rode to church in winter. Catherine took a hand of each of the children, and brought them into the house and set them before the fire, which quickly put colour into their white faces. I urged my companion to hasten now and show his amiable humour, and he willingly obeyed; but ill luck would have it that, as he opened the door leading from the kitchen on one side, Hindley opened it on the other. They met, and the master, irritated at seeing him clean and cheerful, or, perhaps, eager to keep his promise to Mrs. Linton, shoved him back with a sudden thrust, and angrily bade Joseph 'keep the fellow out of the room--send him into the garret till dinner is over. He'll be cramming his fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit, if left alone with them a minute.' 'Nay, sir,' I could not avoid answering, 'he'll touch nothing, not he: and I suppose he must have his share of the dainties as well as we.' 'He shall have his share of my hand, if I catch him downstairs till dark,' cried Hindley. 'Begone, you vagabond! What! you are attempting the coxcomb, are you? Wait till I get hold of those elegant locks--see if I won't pull them a bit longer!' 'They are long enough already,' observed Master Linton, peeping from the doorway; 'I wonder they don't make his head ache. It's like a colt's mane over his eyes!' He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but Heathcliff's violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival. He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce (the first thing that came under his grip) and dashed it full against the speaker's face and neck; who instantly commenced a lament that brought Isabella and Catherine hurrying to the place. Mr. Earnshaw snatched up the culprit directly and conveyed him to his chamber; where, doubtless, he administered a rough remedy to cool the fit of passion, for he appeared red and breathless. I got the dishcloth, and rather spitefully scrubbed Edgar's nose and mouth, affirming it served him right for meddling. His sister began weeping to go home, and Cathy stood by confounded, blushing for all. 'You should not have spoken to him!' she expostulated with Master Linton. 'He was in a bad temper, and now you've spoilt your visit; and he'll be flogged: I hate him to be flogged! I can't eat my dinner. Why did you speak to him, Edgar?' 'I didn't,' sobbed the youth, escaping from my hands, and finishing the remainder of the purification with his cambric pocket-handkerchief. 'I promised mamma that I wouldn't say one word to him, and I didn't.' 'Well, don't cry,' replied Catherine, contemptuously; 'you're not killed. Don't make more mischief; my brother is coming: be quiet! Hush, Isabella! Has anybody hurt you?' 'There, there, children--to your seats!' cried Hindley, bustling in. 'That brute of a lad has warmed me nicely. Next time, Master Edgar, take the law into your own fists--it will give you an appetite!' The little party recovered its equanimity at sight of the fragrant feast. They were hungry after their ride, and easily consoled, since no real harm had befallen them. Mr. Earnshaw carved bountiful platefuls, and the mistress made them merry with lively talk. I waited behind her chair, and was pained to behold Catherine, with dry eyes and an indifferent air, commence cutting up the wing of a goose before her. 'An unfeeling child,' I thought to myself; 'how lightly she dismisses her old playmate's troubles. I could not have imagined her to be so selfish.' She lifted a mouthful to her lips: then she set it down again: her cheeks flushed, and the tears gushed over them. She slipped her fork to the floor, and hastily dived under the cloth to conceal her emotion. I did not call her unfeeling long; for I perceived she was in purgatory throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of getting by herself, or paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the master: as I discovered, on endeavouring to introduce to him a private mess of victuals. In the evening we had a dance. Cathy begged that he might be liberated then, as Isabella Linton had no partner: her entreaties were vain, and I was appointed to supply the deficiency. We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty. Catherine loved it too: but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark: I followed. They shut the house door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people. She made no stay at the stairs'-head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to warn her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again. When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour's, to be removed from the sound of our 'devil's psalmody,' as it pleased him to call it. I told them I intended by no means to encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had never broken his fast since yesterday's dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr. Hindley that once. He went down: I set him a stool by the fire, and offered him a quantity of good things: but he was sick and could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away. He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely--'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!' 'For shame, Heathcliff!' said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.' 'No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain.' 'But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you. I'm annoyed how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate; and your gruel cold, and you nodding for bed! I could have told Heathcliff's history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.' * * * * * Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and proceeded to lay aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding. 'Sit still, Mrs. Dean,' I cried; 'do sit still another half-hour. You've done just right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the same style. I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more or less.' 'The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.' 'No matter--I'm not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.' 'You shouldn't lie till ten. There's the very prime of the morning gone long before that time. A person who has not done one-half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.' 'Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair; because to-morrow I intend lengthening the night till afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least.' 'I hope not, sir. Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years; during that space Mrs. Earnshaw--' 'No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper?' 'A terribly lazy mood, I should say.' 'On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present; and, therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these regions acquire over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the looker-on. They _do_ live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface, change, and frivolous external things. I could fancy a love for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love of a year's standing. One state resembles setting a hungry man down to a single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do it justice; the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks: he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but each part is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance.' 'Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us,' observed Mrs. Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech. 'Excuse me,' I responded; 'you, my good friend, are a striking evidence against that assertion. Excepting a few provincialisms of slight consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to consider as peculiar to your class. I am sure you have thought a great deal more than the generality of servants think. You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles.' Mrs. Dean laughed. 'I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body,' she said; 'not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year's end to year's end; but I have undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of also: unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of French; and those I know one from another: it is as much as you can expect of a poor man's daughter. However, if I am to follow my story in true gossip's fashion, I had better go on; and instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summer--the summer of 1778, that is nearly twenty-three years ago.'

Five weeks later, Catherine returns to Wuthering Heights, and you can bet that was a long five weeks for Heathcliff. Without her around, Heathcliff was neglected and abused even more than usual. Catherine has changed a lot during her stay at Thrushcross Grange. No longer the tomboyish wild child, she is composed and groomed, looking quite the little lady. Hindley and Frances look on as the friends are reuniteda polished young miss and swarthy, "beclouded" Heathcliff. No one can fail to see the contrast between them, and Hindley refers to Heathcliff as a servant, leaving him humiliated and bitter. The Lintons are invited to Wuthering Heights and Nelly Dean sets out to clean up Heathcliff. After pouting and fasting, Heathcliff approaches Mrs. Dean, exclaiming, "Nelly, make me decent, I'm going to be good" . Nelly cautions Heathcliff to watch his behavior around Edgar Linton, who, though fair-skinned, blue-eyed, well-behaved, and rich, is also far less strong and well-built than Heathcliff. Though now groomed and well-mannered, Heathcliff is kept away from the company by Hindley, who proceeds to torment him with names like "vagabond" and "coxcomb." When Edgar Linton pipes in, Heathcliff throws a tureen of hot applesauce in his face. That's gotta hurt. Hindley banishes Heathcliff to his room for the remainder of the evening. Meanwhile, Catherine alternates between lively participation in the party and dark moodiness while lurking in the stairwell. When Heathcliff finally emerges, he makes a solemn vow to Nelly Dean: "I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do" . Thus, the revenge plot is set in motion. Now things start to get really ugly. Nelly Dean's narrative stops as she tries to skip over a few years, but Lockwood insists she include all of the details. She is now up to the summer of 1778, which, she remarks, is "nearly twenty-three years ago" .

Much rain fell in the night; and the next morning there blew a bitter wintry wind out of the north-west, driving scattered clouds. For all that, and before the sun began to peep or the last of the stars had vanished, I made my way to the side of the burn, and had a plunge in a deep whirling pool. All aglow from my bath, I sat down once more beside the fire, which I replenished, and began gravely to consider my position. There was now no doubt about my uncle's enmity; there was no doubt I carried my life in my hand, and he would leave no stone unturned that he might compass my destruction. But I was young and spirited, and like most lads that have been country-bred, I had a great opinion of my shrewdness. I had come to his door no better than a beggar and little more than a child; he had met me with treachery and violence; it would be a fine consummation to take the upper hand, and drive him like a herd of sheep. I sat there nursing my knee and smiling at the fire; and I saw myself in fancy smell out his secrets one after another, and grow to be that man's king and ruler. The warlock of Essendean, they say, had made a mirror in which men could read the future; it must have been of other stuff than burning coal; for in all the shapes and pictures that I sat and gazed at, there was never a ship, never a seaman with a hairy cap, never a big bludgeon for my silly head, or the least sign of all those tribulations that were ripe to fall on me. Presently, all swollen with conceit, I went up-stairs and gave my prisoner his liberty. He gave me good-morning civilly; and I gave the same to him, smiling down upon him, from the heights of my sufficiency. Soon we were set to breakfast, as it might have been the day before. "Well, sir," said I, with a jeering tone, "have you nothing more to say to me?" And then, as he made no articulate reply, "It will be time, I think, to understand each other," I continued. "You took me for a country Johnnie Raw, with no more mother-wit or courage than a porridge-stick. I took you for a good man, or no worse than others at the least. It seems we were both wrong. What cause you have to fear me, to cheat me, and to attempt my life--" He murmured something about a jest, and that he liked a bit of fun; and then, seeing me smile, changed his tone, and assured me he would make all clear as soon as we had breakfasted. I saw by his face that he had no lie ready for me, though he was hard at work preparing one; and I think I was about to tell him so, when we were interrupted by a knocking at the door. Bidding my uncle sit where he was, I went to open it, and found on the doorstep a half-grown boy in sea-clothes. He had no sooner seen me than he began to dance some steps of the sea-hornpipe (which I had never before heard of far less seen), snapping his fingers in the air and footing it right cleverly. For all that, he was blue with the cold; and there was something in his face, a look between tears and laughter, that was highly pathetic and consisted ill with this gaiety of manner. "What cheer, mate?" says he, with a cracked voice. I asked him soberly to name his pleasure. "O, pleasure!" says he; and then began to sing: "For it's my delight, of a shiny night, In the season of the year." "Well," said I, "if you have no business at all, I will even be so unmannerly as to shut you out." "Stay, brother!" he cried. "Have you no fun about you? or do you want to get me thrashed? I've brought a letter from old Heasyoasy to Mr. Belflower." He showed me a letter as he spoke. "And I say, mate," he added, "I'm mortal hungry." "Well," said I, "come into the house, and you shall have a bite if I go empty for it." With that I brought him in and set him down to my own place, where he fell-to greedily on the remains of breakfast, winking to me between whiles, and making many faces, which I think the poor soul considered manly. Meanwhile, my uncle had read the letter and sat thinking; then, suddenly, he got to his feet with a great air of liveliness, and pulled me apart into the farthest corner of the room. "Read that," said he, and put the letter in my hand. Here it is, lying before me as I write: "The Hawes Inn, at the Queen's Ferry. "Sir,--I lie here with my hawser up and down, and send my cabin-boy to informe. If you have any further commands for over-seas, to-day will be the last occasion, as the wind will serve us well out of the firth. I will not seek to deny that I have had crosses with your doer,* Mr. Rankeillor; of which, if not speedily redd up, you may looke to see some losses follow. I have drawn a bill upon you, as per margin, and am, sir, your most obedt., humble servant, "ELIAS HOSEASON."* Agent. "You see, Davie," resumed my uncle, as soon as he saw that I had done, "I have a venture with this man Hoseason, the captain of a trading brig, the Covenant, of Dysart. Now, if you and me was to walk over with yon lad, I could see the captain at the Hawes, or maybe on board the Covenant if there was papers to be signed; and so far from a loss of time, we can jog on to the lawyer, Mr. Rankeillor's. After a' that's come and gone, ye would be swier* to believe me upon my naked word; but ye'll believe Rankeillor. He's factor to half the gentry in these parts; an auld man, forby: highly respeckit, and he kenned your father." * Unwilling. I stood awhile and thought. I was going to some place of shipping, which was doubtless populous, and where my uncle durst attempt no violence, and, indeed, even the society of the cabin-boy so far protected me. Once there, I believed I could force on the visit to the lawyer, even if my uncle were now insincere in proposing it; and, perhaps, in the bottom of my heart, I wished a nearer view of the sea and ships. You are to remember I had lived all my life in the inland hills, and just two days before had my first sight of the firth lying like a blue floor, and the sailed ships moving on the face of it, no bigger than toys. One thing with another, I made up my mind. "Very well," says I, "let us go to the Ferry." My uncle got into his hat and coat, and buckled an old rusty cutlass on; and then we trod the fire out, locked the door, and set forth upon our walk. The wind, being in that cold quarter the north-west, blew nearly in our faces as we went. It was the month of June; the grass was all white with daisies, and the trees with blossom; but, to judge by our blue nails and aching wrists, the time might have been winter and the whiteness a December frost. Uncle Ebenezer trudged in the ditch, jogging from side to side like an old ploughman coming home from work. He never said a word the whole way; and I was thrown for talk on the cabin-boy. He told me his name was Ransome, and that he had followed the sea since he was nine, but could not say how old he was, as he had lost his reckoning. He showed me tattoo marks, baring his breast in the teeth of the wind and in spite of my remonstrances, for I thought it was enough to kill him; he swore horribly whenever he remembered, but more like a silly schoolboy than a man; and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had done: stealthy thefts, false accusations, ay, and even murder; but all with such a dearth of likelihood in the details, and such a weak and crazy swagger in the delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to believe him. I asked him of the brig (which he declared was the finest ship that sailed) and of Captain Hoseason, in whose praises he was equally loud. Heasyoasy (for so he still named the skipper) was a man, by his account, that minded for nothing either in heaven or earth; one that, as people said, would "crack on all sail into the day of judgment;" rough, fierce, unscrupulous, and brutal; and all this my poor cabin-boy had taught himself to admire as something seamanlike and manly. He would only admit one flaw in his idol. "He ain't no seaman," he admitted. "That's Mr. Shuan that navigates the brig; he's the finest seaman in the trade, only for drink; and I tell you I believe it! Why, look'ere;" and turning down his stocking he showed me a great, raw, red wound that made my blood run cold. "He done that--Mr. Shuan done it," he said, with an air of pride. "What!" I cried, "do you take such savage usage at his hands? Why, you are no slave, to be so handled!" "No," said the poor moon-calf, changing his tune at once, "and so he'll find. See'ere;" and he showed me a great case-knife, which he told me was stolen. "O," says he, "let me see him try; I dare him to; I'll do for him! O, he ain't the first!" And he confirmed it with a poor, silly, ugly oath. I have never felt such pity for any one in this wide world as I felt for that half-witted creature, and it began to come over me that the brig Covenant (for all her pious name) was little better than a hell upon the seas. "Have you no friends?" said I. He said he had a father in some English seaport, I forget which. "He was a fine man, too," he said, "but he's dead." "In Heaven's name," cried I, "can you find no reputable life on shore?" "O, no," says he, winking and looking very sly, "they would put me to a trade. I know a trick worth two of that, I do!" I asked him what trade could be so dreadful as the one he followed, where he ran the continual peril of his life, not alone from wind and sea, but by the horrid cruelty of those who were his masters. He said it was very true; and then began to praise the life, and tell what a pleasure it was to get on shore with money in his pocket, and spend it like a man, and buy apples, and swagger, and surprise what he called stick-in-the-mud boys. "And then it's not all as bad as that," says he; "there's worse off than me: there's the twenty-pounders. O, laws! you should see them taking on. Why, I've seen a man as old as you, I dessay"--(to him I seemed old)--"ah, and he had a beard, too--well, and as soon as we cleared out of the river, and he had the drug out of his head--my! how he cried and carried on! I made a fine fool of him, I tell you! And then there's little uns, too: oh, little by me! I tell you, I keep them in order. When we carry little uns, I have a rope's end of my own to wollop'em." And so he ran on, until it came in on me what he meant by twenty-pounders were those unhappy criminals who were sent over-seas to slavery in North America, or the still more unhappy innocents who were kidnapped or trepanned (as the word went) for private interest or vengeance. Just then we came to the top of the hill, and looked down on the Ferry and the Hope. The Firth of Forth (as is very well known) narrows at this point to the width of a good-sized river, which makes a convenient ferry going north, and turns the upper reach into a landlocked haven for all manner of ships. Right in the midst of the narrows lies an islet with some ruins; on the south shore they have built a pier for the service of the Ferry; and at the end of the pier, on the other side of the road, and backed against a pretty garden of holly-trees and hawthorns, I could see the building which they called the Hawes Inn. The town of Queensferry lies farther west, and the neighbourhood of the inn looked pretty lonely at that time of day, for the boat had just gone north with passengers. A skiff, however, lay beside the pier, with some seamen sleeping on the thwarts; this, as Ransome told me, was the brig's boat waiting for the captain; and about half a mile off, and all alone in the anchorage, he showed me the Covenant herself. There was a sea-going bustle on board; yards were swinging into place; and as the wind blew from that quarter, I could hear the song of the sailors as they pulled upon the ropes. After all I had listened to upon the way, I looked at that ship with an extreme abhorrence; and from the bottom of my heart I pitied all poor souls that were condemned to sail in her. We had all three pulled up on the brow of the hill; and now I marched across the road and addressed my uncle. "I think it right to tell you, sir," says I, "there's nothing that will bring me on board that Covenant." He seemed to waken from a dream. "Eh?" he said. "What's that?" I told him over again. "Well, well," he said, "we'll have to please ye, I suppose. But what are we standing here for? It's perishing cold; and if I'm no mistaken, they're busking the Covenant for sea."

Waking up the next morning, David starts contemplating the events of the previous night. Assured of his superior strength, he goes up to release his uncle from his room. Shortly afterwards, a cabin boy appears at the door and delivers a letter to Mr. Balfour. Reading the letter, Ebenezer tells David that they will have to leave for Queensferry to meet the captain of the "Covenant" and, later, to visit their lawyer. David, although suspicious of his uncle, departs with his uncle because he wants to view the sea up close and also to meet the lawyer. On the way to the boat, David converses with the cabin boy, Ransom. The boy relates his dangerous adventures on the sea and the cruelties he has faced at the hands of his masters. When they arrive at Queensferry, David looks at the "Covenant" with distaste.

I. In Secret The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris from England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad horses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory; but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads there was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey's end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series that was barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone. This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris. Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at the guard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night. Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed. "Emigrant," said the functionary, "I am going to send you on to Paris, under an escort." "Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could dispense with the escort." "Silence!" growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the butt-end of his musket. "Peace, aristocrat!" "It is as the good patriot says," observed the timid functionary. "You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort--and must pay for it." "I have no choice," said Charles Darnay. "Choice! Listen to him!" cried the same scowling red-cap. "As if it was not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!" "It is always as the good patriot says," observed the functionary. "Rise and dress yourself, emigrant." Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he started with it on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning. The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-coloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay between them and the capital. They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort of being so attended, and apart from such considerations of present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made. But when they came to the town of Beauvais--which they did at eventide, when the streets were filled with people--he could not conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount of the posting-yard, and many voices called out loudly, "Down with the emigrant!" He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, resuming it as his safest place, said: "Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own will?" "You are a cursed emigrant," cried a farrier, making at him in a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; "and you are a cursed aristocrat!" The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider's bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, "Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris." "Judged!" repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. "Ay! and condemned as a traitor." At this the crowd roared approval. Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to the yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make his voice heard: "Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a traitor." "He lies!" cried the smith. "He is a traitor since the decree. His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!" At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which another instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse's flanks, and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, no more was done. "What is this decree that the smith spoke of?" Darnay asked the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard. "Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants." "When passed?" "On the fourteenth." "The day I left England!" "Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be others--if there are not already--banishing all emigrants, and condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said your life was not your own." "But there are no such decrees yet?" "What do I know!" said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders; "there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would you have?" They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among the many wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild ride unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long and lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and would find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawn up together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais that night to help them out of it and they passed on once more into solitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads. Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it. "Where are the papers of this prisoner?" demanded a resolute-looking man in authority, who was summoned out by the guard. Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country had imposed upon him, and which he had paid for. "Where," repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of him whatever, "are the papers of this prisoner?" The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting his eyes over Gabelle's letter, the same personage in authority showed some disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention. He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and went into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, Charles Darnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingress into the city for peasants' carts bringing in supplies, and for similar traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue forth; but, the previous identification was so strict, that they filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew their turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loitered about. The red cap and tri-colour cockade were universal, both among men and women. When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse, turned and rode away without entering the city. He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. The light in the guard-house, half derived from the waning oil-lamps of the night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these. "Citizen Defarge," said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took a slip of paper to write on. "Is this the emigrant Evremonde?" "This is the man." "Your age, Evremonde?" "Thirty-seven." "Married, Evremonde?" "Yes." "Where married?" "In England." "Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?" "In England." "Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to the prison of La Force." "Just Heaven!" exclaimed Darnay. "Under what law, and for what offence?" The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. "We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since you were here." He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing. "I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in response to that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before you. I demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. Is not that my right?" "Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde," was the stolid reply. The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had written, sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words "In secret." Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots attended them. "Is it you," said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the guardhouse steps and turned into Paris, "who married the daughter of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?" "Yes," replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. "My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter Saint Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me." "My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!" The word "wife" seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, "In the name of that sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?" "You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is the truth?" "A bad truth for you," said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, and looking straight before him. "Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me a little help?" "None." Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him. "Will you answer me a single question?" "Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is." "In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free communication with the world outside?" "You will see." "I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means of presenting my case?" "You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly buried in worse prisons, before now." "But never by me, Citizen Defarge." Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steady and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainter hope there was--or so Darnay thought--of his softening in any slight degree. He, therefore, made haste to say: "It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even better than I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English gentleman who is now in Paris, the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into the prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?" "I will do," Defarge doggedly rejoined, "nothing for you. My duty is to my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, against you. I will do nothing for you." Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pride was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excited audience on the crimes against the people, of the king and the royal family. The few words that he caught from this man's lips, first made it known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the foreign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and the universal watchfulness had completely isolated him. That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had developed themselves when he left England, he of course knew now. That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself that he might not have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the events of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousand years away. The "sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine," was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind? Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this on his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force. A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defarge presented "The Emigrant Evremonde." "What the Devil! How many more of them!" exclaimed the man with the bloated face. Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots. "What the Devil, I say again!" exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife. "How many more!" The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the question, merely replied, "One must have patience, my dear!" Three turnkeys who entered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one added, "For the love of Liberty;" which sounded in that place like an inappropriate conclusion. The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the noisome flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places that are ill cared for! "In secret, too," grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. "As if I was not already full to bursting!" He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing to and fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat: in either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chief and his subordinates. "Come!" said the chief, at length taking up his keys, "come with me, emigrant." Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with prisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the room. In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowning unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising to receive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with all the engaging graces and courtesies of life. So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to stand in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had died in coming there. It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the other gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who were there--with the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately bred--that the inversion of all experience and likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades! "In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune," said a gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward, "I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling with you on the calamity that has brought you among us. May it soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, to ask your name and condition?" Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, in words as suitable as he could find. "But I hope," said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with his eyes, who moved across the room, "that you are not in secret?" "I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard them say so." "Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; several members of our society have been in secret, at first, and it has lasted but a short time." Then he added, raising his voice, "I grieve to inform the society--in secret." There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed the room to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and many voices--among which, the soft and compassionate voices of women were conspicuous--gave him good wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to render the thanks of his heart; it closed under the gaoler's hand; and the apparitions vanished from his sight forever. The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When they had ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour already counted them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed into a solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark. "Yours," said the gaoler. "Why am I confined alone?" "How do I know!" "I can buy pen, ink, and paper?" "Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then. At present, you may buy your food, and nothing more." There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the four walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way, "Now am I left, as if I were dead." Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, "And here in these crawling creatures is the first condition of the body after death." "Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half." The prisoner walked to and fro in his cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like muffled drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. "He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes." The prisoner counted the measurement again, and paced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter repetition. "The ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one among them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had a light shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like * * * * Let us ride on again, for God's sake, through the illuminated villages with the people all awake! * * * * He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four and a half." With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting; and the roar of the city changed to this extent--that it still rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that rose above them.

In Secret The disorganization of France makes Darnay's trip long, and he is questioned at every step. When he nears Paris, he is woken in the middle of the night and told he is to be sent to Paris with an escort, which he is forced to accept and pay for. This escort is Monsieur Defarge. When they enter the town of Beauvais, people shout "down with the emigrant. and Darnay knows he is in trouble. A decree had been passed the day Darnay left England, authorizing the sale of the property of emigrants and condemning those who return to death. When he reaches Paris, Darnay is condemned to prison in La Force. Defarge reveals his identity and the fact that he knows that Darnay is married to Lucie Manette, but he refuses to help. Darnay is thrown into the La Force Prison, where he finds the other prisoners surprisingly genteel. He paces in his room and begins to understand what drove Doctor Manette to shoemaking

Sicilia. A prison Enter PAULINA, a GENTLEMAN, and ATTENDANTS PAULINA. The keeper of the prison- call to him; Let him have knowledge who I am. Exit GENTLEMAN Good lady! No court in Europe is too good for thee; What dost thou then in prison? Re-enter GENTLEMAN with the GAOLER Now, good sir, You know me, do you not? GAOLER. For a worthy lady, And one who much I honour. PAULINA. Pray you, then, Conduct me to the Queen. GAOLER. I may not, madam; To the contrary I have express commandment. PAULINA. Here's ado, to lock up honesty and honour from Th' access of gentle visitors! Is't lawful, pray you, To see her women- any of them? Emilia? GAOLER. So please you, madam, To put apart these your attendants, Shall bring Emilia forth. PAULINA. I pray now, call her. Withdraw yourselves. Exeunt ATTENDANTS GAOLER. And, madam, I must be present at your conference. PAULINA. Well, be't so, prithee. Exit GAOLER Here's such ado to make no stain a stain As passes colouring. Re-enter GAOLER, with EMILIA Dear gentlewoman, How fares our gracious lady? EMILIA. As well as one so great and so forlorn May hold together. On her frights and griefs, Which never tender lady hath borne greater, She is, something before her time, deliver'd. PAULINA. A boy? EMILIA. A daughter, and a goodly babe, Lusty, and like to live. The Queen receives Much comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner, I am as innocent as you.' PAULINA. I dare be sworn. These dangerous unsafe lunes i' th' King, beshrew them! He must be told on't, and he shall. The office Becomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me; If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister, And never to my red-look'd anger be The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia, Commend my best obedience to the Queen; If she dares trust me with her little babe, I'll show't the King, and undertake to be Her advocate to th' loud'st. We do not know How he may soften at the sight o' th' child: The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails. EMILIA. Most worthy madam, Your honour and your goodness is so evident That your free undertaking cannot miss A thriving issue; there is no lady living So meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship To visit the next room, I'll presently Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer Who but to-day hammer'd of this design, But durst not tempt a minister of honour, Lest she should be denied. PAULINA. Tell her, Emilia, I'll use that tongue I have; if wit flow from't As boldness from my bosom, let't not be doubted I shall do good. EMILIA. Now be you blest for it! I'll to the Queen. Please you come something nearer. GAOLER. Madam, if't please the Queen to send the babe, I know not what I shall incur to pass it, Having no warrant. PAULINA. You need not fear it, sir. This child was prisoner to the womb, and is By law and process of great Nature thence Freed and enfranchis'd- not a party to The anger of the King, nor guilty of, If any be, the trespass of the Queen. GAOLER. I do believe it. PAULINA. Do not you fear. Upon mine honour, I Will stand betwixt you and danger. Exeunt

Paulina and her attendants appear at the prison to request a visit with Hermione. The gaoler replies that he has orders not to allow visitors. Paulina then requests a chance to speak to one of the queen's ladies, Emilia if possible. The gaoler agrees to bring Emilia to Paulina if she dismisses her attendants, and if he himself can attend the conference. Paulina cooperates, but she expresses in asides the building fury that she feels about her good queen's imprisonment. Emilia reports that Hermione is doing as well as one "so great and so forlorn" might expect in her situation. Blaming the fears and sadnesses that weigh upon the queen, Emilia reports the premature delivery of a daughter. In spite of the "dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king," Paulina decides to show Leontes his infant daughter, and she pledges a blistering advocacy for the queen. If Hermione will trust her with the infant, Paulina feels that the sight of the innocent baby will persuade Leontes to change his attitude toward the queen. Emilia praises Paulina as the most suitable woman to undertake the brave errand. In fact, she says, Hermione had thought of the same plan but had rejected it because she feared that anyone whom she might ask to do so would turn her down. When Emilia exits to ask for the baby, the gaoler tells Paulina that he cannot allow the baby to leave the prison unless he sees a warrant. Paulina convinces him that the baby entered the prison as an innocent in her mother's womb and therefore needs no warrant in order to leave. This argument easily sways the simple gaoler, but Paulina further soothes his fears by pledging to stand between him and any danger from Leontes.

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE A FORTNIGHT later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave one of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all intelligent, reputable men and all judges of good wine; and Mr. Utterson so contrived that he remained behind after the others had departed. This was no new arrangement, but a thing that had befallen many scores of times. Where Utterson was liked, he was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the light-hearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company, practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich silence after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule, Dr. Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of the fire--a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness--you could see by his looks that he cherished for Mr. Utterson a sincere and warm affection. 25) "I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll," began the latter. "You know that will of yours?" A close observer might have gathered that the topic was distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily. "My poor Utterson," said he, "you are unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies. Oh, I know he's a good fellow--you needn't frown--an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but a hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon." "You know I never approved of it," pursued Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic. "My will? Yes, certainly, I know that," said the doctor, a trifle sharply. "You have told me so." "Well, I tell you so again," continued the lawyer. "I have been learning something of young Hyde." The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes. "I do not care to hear more," said he. "This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop." "What I heard was abominable," said Utterson. "It can make no change. You do not under- 26) stand my position," returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner. "I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange--a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by talking." "Jekyll," said Utterson, "you know me: I am a man to be trusted. Make a clean breast of this in confidence; and I make no doubt I can get you out of it." "My good Utterson," said the doctor, "this is very good of you, this is downright good of you, and I cannot find words to thank you in. I believe you fully; I would trust you before any man alive, ay, before myself, if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn't what you fancy; it is not so bad as that; and just to put your good heart at rest, I will tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde. I give you my hand upon that; and I thank you again and again; and I will just add one little word, Utterson, that I'm sure you'll take in good part: this is a private matter, and I beg of you to let it sleep." Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire. "I have no doubt you are perfectly right," he said at last, getting to his feet. "Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for the last time I hope," continued the doctor, "there is one point I should like you to understand. I have really a very great interest in poor Hyde. I know you have seen 27) him; he told me so; and I fear he was rude. But, I do sincerely take a great, a very great interest in that young man; and if I am taken away, Utterson, I wish you to promise me that you will bear with him and get his rights for him. I think you would, if you knew all; and it would be a weight off my mind if you would promise." "I can't pretend that I shall ever like him," said the lawyer. "I don't ask that," pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand upon the other's arm; "I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him for my sake, when I am no longer here." Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh. "Well," said he, "I promise."

Two weeks later, Dr. Jekyll is holding a dinner party at which Mr. Utterson is a guest. After the guests leave, Utterson confronts Jekyll over the matter of his will and tells him that he has been learning about Mr. Hyde. Jekyll becomes upset when he hears of this and tells Utterson to drop the subject. Utterson urges Hyde to confide in him, but again Jekyll tells Utterson to leave the subject alone and assures him that he can be rid of Mr. Hyde at any point. As Mr. Utterson gets up to leave, Jekyll tells him that he does have a great interest in "poor Hyde" and apologizes for his rude behavior, but begs him to make sure that he takes care of Hyde when Jekyll is no longer there.

PERPLEXITY--GRINDING THE SHEARS--A QUARREL "He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can desire," Bathsheba mused. Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind, did not exercise kindness, here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all. Bathsheba, not being the least in love with him, was eventually able to look calmly at his offer. It was one which many women of her own station in the neighbourhood, and not a few of higher rank, would have been wild to accept and proud to publish. In every point of view, ranging from politic to passionate, it was desirable that she, a lonely girl, should marry, and marry this earnest, well-to-do, and respected man. He was close to her doors: his standing was sufficient: his qualities were even supererogatory. Had she felt, which she did not, any wish whatever for the married state in the abstract, she could not reasonably have rejected him, being a woman who frequently appealed to her understanding for deliverance from her whims. Boldwood as a means to marriage was unexceptionable: she esteemed and liked him, yet she did not want him. It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession; with totally differing aims the method is the same on both sides. But the understood incentive on the woman's part was wanting here. Besides, Bathsheba's position as absolute mistress of a farm and house was a novel one, and the novelty had not yet begun to wear off. But a disquiet filled her which was somewhat to her credit, for it would have affected few. Beyond the mentioned reasons with which she combated her objections, she had a strong feeling that, having been the one who began the game, she ought in honesty to accept the consequences. Still the reluctance remained. She said in the same breath that it would be ungenerous not to marry Boldwood, and that she couldn't do it to save her life. Bathsheba's was an impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect. An Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit, she often performed actions of the greatest temerity with a manner of extreme discretion. Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds. The next day to that of the declaration she found Gabriel Oak at the bottom of her garden, grinding his shears for the sheep-shearing. All the surrounding cottages were more or less scenes of the same operation; the scurr of whetting spread into the sky from all parts of the village as from an armoury previous to a campaign. Peace and war kiss each other at their hours of preparation--sickles, scythes, shears, and pruning-hooks, ranking with swords, bayonets, and lances, in their common necessity for point and edge. Cainy Ball turned the handle of Gabriel's grindstone, his head performing a melancholy see-saw up and down with each turn of the wheel. Oak stood somewhat as Eros is represented when in the act of sharpening his arrows: his figure slightly bent, the weight of his body thrown over on the shears, and his head balanced side-ways, with a critical compression of the lips and contraction of the eyelids to crown the attitude. His mistress came up and looked upon them in silence for a minute or two; then she said-- "Cain, go to the lower mead and catch the bay mare. I'll turn the winch of the grindstone. I want to speak to you, Gabriel." Cain departed, and Bathsheba took the handle. Gabriel had glanced up in intense surprise, quelled its expression, and looked down again. Bathsheba turned the winch, and Gabriel applied the shears. The peculiar motion involved in turning a wheel has a wonderful tendency to benumb the mind. It is a sort of attenuated variety of Ixion's punishment, and contributes a dismal chapter to the history of gaols. The brain gets muddled, the head grows heavy, and the body's centre of gravity seems to settle by degrees in a leaden lump somewhere between the eyebrows and the crown. Bathsheba felt the unpleasant symptoms after two or three dozen turns. "Will you turn, Gabriel, and let me hold the shears?" she said. "My head is in a whirl, and I can't talk." Gabriel turned. Bathsheba then began, with some awkwardness, allowing her thoughts to stray occasionally from her story to attend to the shears, which required a little nicety in sharpening. "I wanted to ask you if the men made any observations on my going behind the sedge with Mr. Boldwood yesterday?" "Yes, they did," said Gabriel. "You don't hold the shears right, miss--I knew you wouldn't know the way--hold like this." He relinquished the winch, and inclosing her two hands completely in his own (taking each as we sometimes slap a child's hand in teaching him to write), grasped the shears with her. "Incline the edge so," he said. Hands and shears were inclined to suit the words, and held thus for a peculiarly long time by the instructor as he spoke. "That will do," exclaimed Bathsheba. "Loose my hands. I won't have them held! Turn the winch." Gabriel freed her hands quietly, retired to his handle, and the grinding went on. "Did the men think it odd?" she said again. "Odd was not the idea, miss." "What did they say?" "That Farmer Boldwood's name and your own were likely to be flung over pulpit together before the year was out." "I thought so by the look of them! Why, there's nothing in it. A more foolish remark was never made, and I want you to contradict it! that's what I came for." Gabriel looked incredulous and sad, but between his moments of incredulity, relieved. "They must have heard our conversation," she continued. "Well, then, Bathsheba!" said Oak, stopping the handle, and gazing into her face with astonishment. "Miss Everdene, you mean," she said, with dignity. "I mean this, that if Mr. Boldwood really spoke of marriage, I bain't going to tell a story and say he didn't to please you. I have already tried to please you too much for my own good!" Bathsheba regarded him with round-eyed perplexity. She did not know whether to pity him for disappointed love of her, or to be angry with him for having got over it--his tone being ambiguous. "I said I wanted you just to mention that it was not true I was going to be married to him," she murmured, with a slight decline in her assurance. "I can say that to them if you wish, Miss Everdene. And I could likewise give an opinion to 'ee on what you have done." "I daresay. But I don't want your opinion." "I suppose not," said Gabriel bitterly, and going on with his turning, his words rising and falling in a regular swell and cadence as he stooped or rose with the winch, which directed them, according to his position, perpendicularly into the earth, or horizontally along the garden, his eyes being fixed on a leaf upon the ground. With Bathsheba a hastened act was a rash act; but, as does not always happen, time gained was prudence insured. It must be added, however, that time was very seldom gained. At this period the single opinion in the parish on herself and her doings that she valued as sounder than her own was Gabriel Oak's. And the outspoken honesty of his character was such that on any subject, even that of her love for, or marriage with, another man, the same disinterestedness of opinion might be calculated on, and be had for the asking. Thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of his own suit, a high resolve constrained him not to injure that of another. This is a lover's most stoical virtue, as the lack of it is a lover's most venial sin. Knowing he would reply truly she asked the question, painful as she must have known the subject would be. Such is the selfishness of some charming women. Perhaps it was some excuse for her thus torturing honesty to her own advantage, that she had absolutely no other sound judgment within easy reach. "Well, what is your opinion of my conduct," she said, quietly. "That it is unworthy of any thoughtful, and meek, and comely woman." In an instant Bathsheba's face coloured with the angry crimson of a Danby sunset. But she forbore to utter this feeling, and the reticence of her tongue only made the loquacity of her face the more noticeable. The next thing Gabriel did was to make a mistake. "Perhaps you don't like the rudeness of my reprimanding you, for I know it is rudeness; but I thought it would do good." She instantly replied sarcastically-- "On the contrary, my opinion of you is so low, that I see in your abuse the praise of discerning people!" "I am glad you don't mind it, for I said it honestly and with every serious meaning." "I see. But, unfortunately, when you try not to speak in jest you are amusing--just as when you wish to avoid seriousness you sometimes say a sensible word." It was a hard hit, but Bathsheba had unmistakably lost her temper, and on that account Gabriel had never in his life kept his own better. He said nothing. She then broke out-- "I may ask, I suppose, where in particular my unworthiness lies? In my not marrying you, perhaps!" "Not by any means," said Gabriel quietly. "I have long given up thinking of that matter." "Or wishing it, I suppose," she said; and it was apparent that she expected an unhesitating denial of this supposition. Whatever Gabriel felt, he coolly echoed her words-- "Or wishing it either." A woman may be treated with a bitterness which is sweet to her, and with a rudeness which is not offensive. Bathsheba would have submitted to an indignant chastisement for her levity had Gabriel protested that he was loving her at the same time; the impetuosity of passion unrequited is bearable, even if it stings and anathematizes--there is a triumph in the humiliation, and a tenderness in the strife. This was what she had been expecting, and what she had not got. To be lectured because the lecturer saw her in the cold morning light of open-shuttered disillusion was exasperating. He had not finished, either. He continued in a more agitated voice:-- "My opinion is (since you ask it) that you are greatly to blame for playing pranks upon a man like Mr. Boldwood, merely as a pastime. Leading on a man you don't care for is not a praiseworthy action. And even, Miss Everdene, if you seriously inclined towards him, you might have let him find it out in some way of true loving-kindness, and not by sending him a valentine's letter." Bathsheba laid down the shears. "I cannot allow any man to--to criticise my private conduct!" she exclaimed. "Nor will I for a minute. So you'll please leave the farm at the end of the week!" It may have been a peculiarity--at any rate it was a fact--that when Bathsheba was swayed by an emotion of an earthly sort her lower lip trembled: when by a refined emotion, her upper or heavenward one. Her nether lip quivered now. "Very well, so I will," said Gabriel calmly. He had been held to her by a beautiful thread which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather than by a chain he could not break. "I should be even better pleased to go at once," he added. "Go at once then, in Heaven's name!" said she, her eyes flashing at his, though never meeting them. "Don't let me see your face any more." "Very well, Miss Everdene--so it shall be." And he took his shears and went away from her in placid dignity, as Moses left the presence of Pharaoh.

Bathsheba, though not in love, nevertheless realized that Boldwood was an eligible bachelor. "He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can desire," she thought. "Yet Farmer Boldwood," the author informs us, "whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind, did not exercise kindness here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all." Bathsheba was not eager to be married, nor had the novelty of being a landowner begun to wear off. "Bathsheba's was an impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect. An Elizabeth in brain, and a Mary Stuart in spirit." Next day, Bathsheba saw Gabriel grinding shears. Cainy Ball was turning the handle of Gabriel's grindstone, but Bathsheba sent him on an errand, offering to sharpen while Gabriel turned the stone. She did not do well, and Gabriel took her hands to show her the proper angle for holding the blades. Meanwhile, she attempted to find out about the men's comments on her meeting with Boldwood. Oak admitted the men had spoken of the prospect of a marriage. When she asked Gabriel to contradict them, he refused to lie for her. He told her that her conduct was unworthy of a thoughtful woman. Bathsheba became sarcastic, saying his attitude might be due to her refusal of him. To this, Gabriel replied that he had long since stopped thinking about the possibility of marrying her. He repeated that it was wrong for her to trifle with Boldwood. Angrily, Bathsheba dismissed Oak as of the end of the week. Gabriel preferred going at once. " 'Go at once then, in Heaven's name!' said she, her eyes flashing at his, though never meeting them. 'Don't let me ever see your face any more.'" Gabriel agreed. "And he took his shears, and went away from her in placid dignity, as Moses left the presence of Pharaoh."

When I had attained the age of seventeen my parents resolved that I should become a student at the university of Ingolstadt. I had hitherto attended the schools of Geneva, but my father thought it necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made acquainted with other customs than those of my native country. My departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before the day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life occurred—an omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper—Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. “My children,” she said, “my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world.” She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed for ever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not seized. My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by these events, was now again determined upon. I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks. It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, akin to death, of the house of mourning and to rush into the thick of life. I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me. I was unwilling to quit the sight of those that remained to me, and above all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth in some degree consoled. She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all. She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and zeal. She devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call her uncle and cousins. Never was she so enchanting as at this time, when she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us. She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget. The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce. We sat late. We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor persuade ourselves to say the word “Farewell!” It was said, and we retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived; but when at morning’s dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there—my father again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to renew her entreaties that I would write often and to bestow the last feminine attentions on her playmate and friend. I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure—I was now alone. In the university whither I was going I must form my own friends and be my own protector. My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were “old familiar faces,” but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent. I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing. At length the high white steeple of the town met my eyes. I alighted and was conducted to my solitary apartment to spend the evening as I pleased. The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a visit to some of the principal professors. Chance—or rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father’s door—led me first to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science. He asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy. I replied carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared. “Have you,” he said, “really spent your time in studying such nonsense?” I replied in the affirmative. “Every minute,” continued M. Krempe with warmth, “every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly and entirely lost. You have burdened your memory with exploded systems and useless names. Good God! In what desert land have you lived, where no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient? I little expected, in this enlightened and scientific age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My dear sir, you must begin your studies entirely anew.” So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure, and dismissed me after mentioning that in the beginning of the following week he intended to commence a course of lectures upon natural philosophy in its general relations, and that M. Waldman, a fellow professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that he omitted. I returned home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape. M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits. In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to concerning them in my early years. As a child I had not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science. With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme youth and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the steps of knowledge along the paths of time and exchanged the discoveries of recent inquirers for the dreams of forgotten alchemists. Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy. It was very different when the masters of the science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand; but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth. Such were my reflections during the first two or three days of my residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in becoming acquainted with the localities and the principal residents in my new abode. But as the ensuing week commenced, I thought of the information which M. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures. And although I could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow deliver sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said of M. Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town. Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness, I went into the lecturing room, which M. Waldman entered shortly after. This professor was very unlike his colleague. He appeared about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive of the greatest benevolence; a few grey hairs covered his temples, but those at the back of his head were nearly black. His person was short but remarkably erect and his voice the sweetest I had ever heard. He began his lecture by a recapitulation of the history of chemistry and the various improvements made by different men of learning, pronouncing with fervour the names of the most distinguished discoverers. He then took a cursory view of the present state of the science and explained many of its elementary terms. After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget: “The ancient teachers of this science,” said he, “promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.” Such were the professor’s words—rather let me say such the words of the fate—enounced to destroy me. As he went on I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I had no power to produce it. By degrees, after the morning’s dawn, sleep came. I awoke, and my yesternight’s thoughts were as a dream. There only remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to possess a natural talent. On the same day I paid M. Waldman a visit. His manners in private were even more mild and attractive than in public, for there was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture which in his own house was replaced by the greatest affability and kindness. I gave him pretty nearly the same account of my former pursuits as I had given to his fellow professor. He heard with attention the little narration concerning my studies and smiled at the names of Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, but without the contempt that M. Krempe had exhibited. He said that “These were men to whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their knowledge. They had left to us, as an easier task, to give new names and arrange in connected classifications the facts which they in a great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light. The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.” I listened to his statement, which was delivered without any presumption or affectation, and then added that his lecture had removed my prejudices against modern chemists; I expressed myself in measured terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have made me ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended labours. I requested his advice concerning the books I ought to procure. “I am happy,” said M. Waldman, “to have gained a disciple; and if your application equals your ability, I have no doubt of your success. Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have been and may be made; it is on that account that I have made it my peculiar study; but at the same time, I have not neglected the other branches of science. A man would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics.” He then took me into his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his various machines, instructing me as to what I ought to procure and promising me the use of his own when I should have advanced far enough in the science not to derange their mechanism. He also gave me the list of books which I had requested, and I took my leave. Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.

The 17 year-old Victor is poised to become a student at Ingolstadt University in Germany, but a local outbreak of scarlet fever delays his trip. Both his mother and Elizabeth are struck down with the disease and only Elizabeth survives. Before Caroline dies, she reveals her desire that Victor and Elizabeth should marry. Elizabeth takes over control of the household and Victor finds it difficult to say goodbye to his family at this time, but he is encouraged to begin his studies in Ingolstadt. In Germany, two professors, Krempe and Waldman, become Victor's main mentors. He finds Waldman's teaching much more conducive and he soon has a close affinity to this professor.

We are sitting at a table and we are writing this upon paper made thousands of years ago. The light is dim, and we cannot see the Golden One, only one lock of gold on the pillow of an ancient bed. This is our home. We came upon it today, at sunrise. For many days we [-had-] {+have+} been crossing a chain of mountains. The forest rose among cliffs, and whenever we walked out upon a barren stretch of rock we saw great peaks before us in the west, and to the north of us, and to the south, as far as our eyes could see. The peaks were red and brown, with the green streaks of forests as veins upon them, with blue mists as veils over their heads. We had never heard of these mountains, nor seen them marked on any map. The Uncharted Forest has protected them from the Cities and from the men of the Cities. We climbed paths where the wild goat dared not follow. Stones rolled from under our feet, and we heard them striking the rocks below, farther and farther down, and the mountains rang with each stroke, and long after the strokes had died. But we went on, for we knew that no men would ever follow our track nor reach us here. Then today, at sunrise, we saw a white flame among the trees, high on a sheer peak before us. We thought that it was a fire and {+we+} stopped. But the flame [-was-] {+as+} unmoving, yet blinding as liquid metal. So we climbed toward it through the rocks. And there, before us, on a broad summit, with the mountains rising behind it, stood a house such as we had never seen, and the white fire came from the sun on the glass of its windows. The house had two stories and a strange roof flat as a floor. There was more window than wall upon its walls, and the windows went on straight around [-the-] corners, though how this [-kept the-] house {+kept+} standing we could not guess. The walls were hard and smooth, of that stone unlike stone which we had seen in our tunnel. We both knew it without words: this house was left from the Unmentionable Times. The trees had protected it from time and weather, and from men who have less pity than time and weather. We turned to the Golden One and we asked: "Are you afraid?" But they shook their head. So we walked to the door, and we threw it open, and we stepped together into the house of the Unmentionable Times. We shall need the days and the years ahead, to look, to [-learn,-] {+learn+} and to understand the things of this house. Today, we could only look and try to believe the sight of our eyes. We pulled the heavy curtains from the windows and we saw that the rooms were small, and we thought that not more than twelve men could have lived here. We thought it strange that [-men-] {+man+} had been permitted to build a house for only twelve. Never had we seen rooms so full of light. The sunrays danced upon colors, colors, {+and+} more colors [-that-] {+than+} we thought possible, we who had seen no houses save the white ones, the brown ones and the grey. There were great pieces of glass on the walls, but it was not glass, for when we looked upon it we saw our own bodies and all the things behind us, as on the face of a lake. There were strange things which we had never seen and the use of which we do not know. And there were globes of glass everywhere, in each room, the globes with the metal cobwebs inside, such as we had seen in our tunnel. We found the sleeping hall and we stood in awe upon its threshold. For it was a small room and there were only two beds in it. We found no other beds in the house, and then we knew that only two had lived here, and this passes understanding. What kind of world did they have, the men of the Unmentionable Times? We found garments, and the Golden One gasped at the sight of them. For they were not white tunics, nor white togas; they were of all colors, no two of them alike. Some crumbled to dust as we touched [-them. But-] {+them, but+} others were of heavier cloth, and they felt soft and new in our fingers. We found a room with walls made of shelves, which held rows of manuscripts, from the floor to the ceiling. Never had we seen such a number of them, nor of such strange shape. They were not soft and rolled, they had hard shells of cloth and leather; and the letters on their pages were [-so-] small and so even that we wondered at the men who had such handwriting. We glanced through the pages, and we saw that they were written in our language, but we found many words which we could not understand. Tomorrow, we shall begin to read these scripts. When we had seen all the rooms of the house, we looked at the Golden One and we both knew the thought in our minds. "We shall never leave this house," we said, "nor let it be taken from us. This is our home and the end of our journey. This is your house, Golden One, and ours, and it belongs to no other men whatever as far as the earth may stretch. We shall not share it with others, as we share not our joy with them, nor our love, nor our hunger. So be it to the end of our days." "Your will be done," they said. Then we went out to gather wood for the great hearth of our home. We brought water from the stream which runs among the trees under our windows. We killed a mountain goat, and we brought its flesh to be cooked in a strange copper pot we found in a place of wonders, which must have been the cooking room of the house. We did this work alone, for no words of ours could take the Golden One away from the big glass which is not glass. They stood before it and they looked and looked upon their own body. When the sun sank beyond the mountains, the Golden One fell asleep on the floor, amidst jewels, and bottles of crystal, and flowers of silk. We lifted the Golden One in our arms and we carried them to a bed, their head falling softly upon our shoulder. Then we lit a candle, and we brought paper from the room of the manuscripts, and we sat by the window, for we knew that we could not sleep tonight. And now we look upon the earth and sky. This spread of naked rock and peaks and moonlight is like a world ready to be born, a world that waits. It seems to us it asks a sign from us, a spark, a first commandment. We cannot know what word we are to give, nor what great deed this earth expects to witness. We know it waits. It seems to say it has great gifts to lay before [-us, but it wishes a greater gift for-] us. We are to speak. We are to give its goal, its highest meaning to all this glowing space of rock and sky. We look ahead, we beg our heart for guidance in answering this call no voice has spoken, yet we have heard. We look upon our hands. We see the dust of centuries, the dust which hid [-the-] great secrets and perhaps great evils. And yet it stirs no fear within our heart, but only silent reverence and pity. May knowledge come to us! What is [-the-] {+this+} secret our heart has understood and yet will not reveal to us, although it seems to beat as if it were endeavoring to tell it?

Equality 7-2521 and the Golden One discover a house in the depths of the forest, a house such as they have never seen resting on a broad summit with the mountains behind it. The house has two stories, a flat roof, and walls made more of glass than of any other substance. They immediately understand that no one they know built this structure. The house is a remnant of the Unmentionable Times. Equality 7-2521 realizes that they will need years to understand all that they find in the house. They are surprised by the smallness of the rooms and decide that no more than 12 men could have occupied them. When they come to the bedroom and find only two beds, they are baffled by the recognition that this building was home to but two persons. They find clothes that are not limited to white tunics or togas, but are of diverse colors and styles. They encounter mirrors, and Equality 7-2521 notices on the walls the same globes of wire-filled glass that he had seen in his tunnel. He is amazed when he comes to the library and finds shelves of books. He ascertains that they are written in their language and decides that the next day he will begin to read them. When they look at all of the house's rooms, Equality 7-2521 says to the Golden One that the house is theirs. It belongs to them alone; they will not leave or allow it to be taken from them. He says that they will not share it with others in the sense that they do not share their love or their joy or their hunger. The Golden One agrees. That night Equality 7-2521 does not sleep. He senses that the earth awaits his command, that in some way he and the Golden One are to give it "its goal, its highest meaning." He does not know what word he is to speak or what deed he is to perform. He knows only that the final fulfillment of the earth's promise must come from him and those like him, but he lacks the knowledge necessary to bring these great deeds to pass. What is the secret, he wonders, that his heart has grasped but his mind is yet to comprehend?

He had told her, the first evening she ever spent at Gardencourt, that if she should live to suffer enough she might some day see the ghost with which the old house was duly provided. She apparently had fulfilled the necessary condition; for the next morning, in the cold, faint dawn, she knew that a spirit was standing by her bed. She had lain down without undressing, it being her belief that Ralph would not outlast the night. She had no inclination to sleep; she was waiting, and such waiting was wakeful. But she closed her eyes; she believed that as the night wore on she should hear a knock at her door. She heard no knock, but at the time the darkness began vaguely to grow grey she started up from her pillow as abruptly as if she had received a summons. It seemed to her for an instant that he was standing there--a vague, hovering figure in the vagueness of the room. She stared a moment; she saw his white face--his kind eyes; then she saw there was nothing. She was not afraid; she was only sure. She quitted the place and in her certainty passed through dark corridors and down a flight of oaken steps that shone in the vague light of a hall-window. Outside Ralph's door she stopped a moment, listening, but she seemed to hear only the hush that filled it. She opened the door with a hand as gentle as if she were lifting a veil from the face of the dead, and saw Mrs. Touchett sitting motionless and upright beside the couch of her son, with one of his hands in her own. The doctor was on the other side, with poor Ralph's further wrist resting in his professional fingers. The two nurses were at the foot between them. Mrs. Touchett took no notice of Isabel, but the doctor looked at her very hard; then he gently placed Ralph's hand in a proper position, close beside him. The nurse looked at her very hard too, and no one said a word; but Isabel only looked at what she had come to see. It was fairer than Ralph had ever been in life, and there was a strange resemblance to the face of his father, which, six years before, she had seen lying on the same pillow. She went to her aunt and put her arm around her; and Mrs. Touchett, who as a general thing neither invited nor enjoyed caresses, submitted for a moment to this one, rising, as might be, to take it. But she was stiff and dry-eyed; her acute white face was terrible. "Dear Aunt Lydia," Isabel murmured. "Go and thank God you've no child," said Mrs. Touchett, disengaging herself. Three days after this a considerable number of people found time, at the height of the London "season," to take a morning train down to a quiet station in Berkshire and spend half an hour in a small grey church which stood within an easy walk. It was in the green burial-place of this edifice that Mrs. Touchett consigned her son to earth. She stood herself at the edge of the grave, and Isabel stood beside her; the sexton himself had not a more practical interest in the scene than Mrs. Touchett. It was a solemn occasion, but neither a harsh nor a heavy one; there was a certain geniality in the appearance of things. The weather had changed to fair; the day, one of the last of the treacherous May-time, was warm and windless, and the air had the brightness of the hawthorn and the blackbird. If it was sad to think of poor Touchett, it was not too sad, since death, for him, had had no violence. He had been dying so long; he was so ready; everything had been so expected and prepared. There were tears in Isabel's eyes, but they were not tears that blinded. She looked through them at the beauty of the day, the splendour of nature, the sweetness of the old English churchyard, the bowed heads of good friends. Lord Warburton was there, and a group of gentlemen all unknown to her, several of whom, as she afterwards learned, were connected with the bank; and there were others whom she knew. Miss Stackpole was among the first, with honest Mr. Bantling beside her; and Caspar Goodwood, lifting his head higher than the rest--bowing it rather less. During much of the time Isabel was conscious of Mr. Goodwood's gaze; he looked at her somewhat harder than he usually looked in public, while the others had fixed their eyes upon the churchyard turf. But she never let him see that she saw him; she thought of him only to wonder that he was still in England. She found she had taken for granted that after accompanying Ralph to Gardencourt he had gone away; she remembered how little it was a country that pleased him. He was there, however, very distinctly there; and something in his attitude seemed to say that he was there with a complex intention. She wouldn't meet his eyes, though there was doubtless sympathy in them; he made her rather uneasy. With the dispersal of the little group he disappeared, and the only person who came to speak to her--though several spoke to Mrs. Touchett--was Henrietta Stackpole. Henrietta had been crying. Ralph had said to Isabel that he hoped she would remain at Gardencourt, and she made no immediate motion to leave the place. She said to herself that it was but common charity to stay a little with her aunt. It was fortunate she had so good a formula; otherwise she might have been greatly in want of one. Her errand was over; she had done what she had left her husband to do. She had a husband in a foreign city, counting the hours of her absence; in such a case one needed an excellent motive. He was not one of the best husbands, but that didn't alter the case. Certain obligations were involved in the very fact of marriage, and were quite independent of the quantity of enjoyment extracted from it. Isabel thought of her husband as little as might be; but now that she was at a distance, beyond its spell, she thought with a kind of spiritual shudder of Rome. There was a penetrating chill in the image, and she drew back into the deepest shade of Gardencourt. She lived from day to day, postponing, closing her eyes, trying not to think. She knew she must decide, but she decided nothing; her coming itself had not been a decision. On that occasion she had simply started. Osmond gave no sound and now evidently would give none; he would leave it all to her. From Pansy she heard nothing, but that was very simple: her father had told her not to write. Mrs. Touchett accepted Isabel's company, but offered her no assistance; she appeared to be absorbed in considering, without enthusiasm but with perfect lucidity, the new conveniences of her own situation. Mrs. Touchett was not an optimist, but even from painful occurrences she managed to extract a certain utility. This consisted in the reflexion that, after all, such things happened to other people and not to herself. Death was disagreeable, but in this case it was her son's death, not her own; she had never flattered herself that her own would be disagreeable to any one but Mrs. Touchett. She was better off than poor Ralph, who had left all the commodities of life behind him, and indeed all the security; since the worst of dying was, to Mrs. Touchett's mind, that it exposed one to be taken advantage of. For herself she was on the spot; there was nothing so good as that. She made known to Isabel very punctually--it was the evening her son was buried--several of Ralph's testamentary arrangements. He had told her everything, had consulted her about everything. He left her no money; of course she had no need of money. He left her the furniture of Gardencourt, exclusive of the pictures and books and the use of the place for a year; after which it was to be sold. The money produced by the sale was to constitute an endowment for a hospital for poor persons suffering from the malady of which he died; and of this portion of the will Lord Warburton was appointed executor. The rest of his property, which was to be withdrawn from the bank, was disposed of in various bequests, several of them to those cousins in Vermont to whom his father had already been so bountiful. Then there were a number of small legacies. "Some of them are extremely peculiar," said Mrs. Touchett; "he has left considerable sums to persons I never heard of. He gave me a list, and I asked then who some of them were, and he told me they were people who at various times had seemed to like him. Apparently he thought you didn't like him, for he hasn't left you a penny. It was his opinion that you had been handsomely treated by his father, which I'm bound to say I think you were--though I don't mean that I ever heard him complain of it. The pictures are to be dispersed; he has distributed them about, one by one, as little keepsakes. The most valuable of the collection goes to Lord Warburton. And what do you think he has done with his library? It sounds like a practical joke. He has left it to your friend Miss Stackpole--'in recognition of her services to literature.' Does he mean her following him up from Rome? Was that a service to literature? It contains a great many rare and valuable books, and as she can't carry it about the world in her trunk he recommends her to sell it at auction. She will sell it of course at Christie's, and with the proceeds she'll set up a newspaper. Will that be a service to literature?" This question Isabel forbore to answer, as it exceeded the little interrogatory to which she had deemed it necessary to submit on her arrival. Besides, she had never been less interested in literature than to-day, as she found when she occasionally took down from the shelf one of the rare and valuable volumes of which Mrs. Touchett had spoken. She was quite unable to read; her attention had never been so little at her command. One afternoon, in the library, about a week after the ceremony in the churchyard, she was trying to fix it for an hour; but her eyes often wandered from the book in her hand to the open window, which looked down the long avenue. It was in this way that she saw a modest vehicle approach the door and perceived Lord Warburton sitting, in rather an uncomfortable attitude, in a corner of it. He had always had a high standard of courtesy, and it was therefore not remarkable, under the circumstances, that he should have taken the trouble to come down from London to call on Mrs. Touchett. It was of course Mrs. Touchett he had come to see, and not Mrs. Osmond; and to prove to herself the validity of this thesis Isabel presently stepped out of the house and wandered away into the park. Since her arrival at Gardencourt she had been but little out of doors, the weather being unfavourable for visiting the grounds. This evening, however, was fine, and at first it struck her as a happy thought to have come out. The theory I have just mentioned was plausible enough, but it brought her little rest, and if you had seen her pacing about you would have said she had a bad conscience. She was not pacified when at the end of a quarter of an hour, finding herself in view of the house, she saw Mrs. Touchett emerge from the portico accompanied by her visitor. Her aunt had evidently proposed to Lord Warburton that they should come in search of her. She was in no humour for visitors and, if she had had a chance, would have drawn back behind one of the great trees. But she saw she had been seen and that nothing was left her but to advance. As the lawn at Gardencourt was a vast expanse this took some time; during which she observed that, as he walked beside his hostess, Lord Warburton kept his hands rather stiffly behind him and his eyes upon the ground. Both persons apparently were silent; but Mrs. Touchett's thin little glance, as she directed it toward Isabel, had even at a distance an expression. It seemed to say with cutting sharpness: "Here's the eminently amenable nobleman you might have married!" When Lord Warburton lifted his own eyes, however, that was not what they said. They only said "This is rather awkward, you know, and I depend upon you to help me." He was very grave, very proper and, for the first time since Isabel had known him, greeted her without a smile. Even in his days of distress he had always begun with a smile. He looked extremely selfconscious. "Lord Warburton has been so good as to come out to see me," said Mrs. Touchett. "He tells me he didn't know you were still here. I know he's an old friend of yours, and as I was told you were not in the house I brought him out to see for himself." "Oh, I saw there was a good train at 6.40, that would get me back in time for dinner," Mrs. Touchett's companion rather irrelevantly explained. "I'm so glad to find you've not gone." "I'm not here for long, you know," Isabel said with a certain eagerness. "I suppose not; but I hope it's for some weeks. You came to England sooner than--a--than you thought?" "Yes, I came very suddenly." Mrs. Touchett turned away as if she were looking at the condition of the grounds, which indeed was not what it should be, while Lord Warburton hesitated a little. Isabel fancied he had been on the point of asking about her husband--rather confusedly--and then had checked himself. He continued immitigably grave, either because he thought it becoming in a place over which death had just passed, or for more personal reasons. If he was conscious of personal reasons it was very fortunate that he had the cover of the former motive; he could make the most of that. Isabel thought of all this. It was not that his face was sad, for that was another matter; but it was strangely inexpressive. "My sisters would have been so glad to come if they had known you were still here--if they had thought you would see them," Lord Warburton went on. "Do kindly let them see you before you leave England." "It would give me great pleasure; I have such a friendly recollection of them." "I don't know whether you would come to Lockleigh for a day or two? You know there's always that old promise." And his lordship coloured a little as he made this suggestion, which gave his face a somewhat more familiar air. "Perhaps I'm not right in saying that just now; of course you're not thinking of visiting. But I meant what would hardly be a visit. My sisters are to be at Lockleigh at Whitsuntide for five days; and if you could come then--as you say you're not to be very long in England--I would see that there should be literally no one else." Isabel wondered if not even the young lady he was to marry would be there with her mamma; but she did not express this idea. "Thank you extremely," she contented herself with saying; "I'm afraid I hardly know about Whitsuntide." "But I have your promise--haven't I?--for some other time." There was an interrogation in this; but Isabel let it pass. She looked at her interlocutor a moment, and the result of her observation was that--as had happened before--she felt sorry for him. "Take care you don't miss your train," she said. And then she added: "I wish you every happiness." He blushed again, more than before, and he looked at his watch. "Ah yes, 6.40; I haven't much time, but I've a fly at the door. Thank you very much." It was not apparent whether the thanks applied to her having reminded him of his train or to the more sentimental remark. "Good-bye, Mrs. Osmond; good-bye." He shook hands with her, without meeting her eyes, and then he turned to Mrs. Touchett, who had wandered back to them. With her his parting was equally brief; and in a moment the two ladies saw him move with long steps across the lawn. "Are you very sure he's to be married?" Isabel asked of her aunt. "I can't be surer than he; but he seems sure. I congratulated him, and he accepted it." "Ah," said Isabel, "I give it up!"--while her aunt returned to the house and to those avocations which the visitor had interrupted. She gave it up, but she still thought of it--thought of it while she strolled again under the great oaks whose shadows were long upon the acres of turf. At the end of a few minutes she found herself near a rustic bench, which, a moment after she had looked at it, struck her as an object recognised. It was not simply that she had seen it before, nor even that she had sat upon it; it was that on this spot something important had happened to her--that the place had an air of association. Then she remembered that she had been sitting there, six years before, when a servant brought her from the house the letter in which Caspar Goodwood informed her that he had followed her to Europe; and that when she had read the letter she looked up to hear Lord Warburton announcing that he should like to marry her. It was indeed an historical, an interesting, bench; she stood and looked at it as if it might have something to say to her. She wouldn't sit down on it now--she felt rather afraid of it. She only stood before it, and while she stood the past came back to her in one of those rushing waves of emotion by which persons of sensibility are visited at odd hours. The effect of this agitation was a sudden sense of being very tired, under the influence of which she overcame her scruples and sank into the rustic seat. I have said that she was restless and unable to occupy herself; and whether or no, if you had seen her there, you would have admired the justice of the former epithet, you would at least have allowed that at this moment she was the image of a victim of idleness. Her attitude had a singular absence of purpose; her hands, hanging at her sides, lost themselves in the folds of her black dress; her eyes gazed vaguely before her. There was nothing to recall her to the house; the two ladies, in their seclusion, dined early and had tea at an indefinite hour. How long she had sat in this position she could not have told you; but the twilight had grown thick when she became aware that she was not alone. She quickly straightened herself, glancing about, and then saw what had become of her solitude. She was sharing it with Caspar Goodwood, who stood looking at her, a few yards off, and whose footfall on the unresonant turf, as he came near, she had not heard. It occurred to her in the midst of this that it was just so Lord Warburton had surprised her of old. She instantly rose, and as soon as Goodwood saw he was seen he started forward. She had had time only to rise when, with a motion that looked like violence, but felt like--she knew not what, he grasped her by the wrist and made her sink again into the seat. She closed her eyes; he had not hurt her; it was only a touch, which she had obeyed. But there was something in his face that she wished not to see. That was the way he had looked at her the other day in the churchyard; only at present it was worse. He said nothing at first; she only felt him close to her--beside her on the bench and pressingly turned to her. It almost seemed to her that no one had ever been so close to her as that. All this, however, took but an instant, at the end of which she had disengaged her wrist, turning her eyes upon her visitant. "You've frightened me," she said. "I didn't mean to," he answered, "but if I did a little, no matter. I came from London a while ago by the train, but I couldn't come here directly. There was a man at the station who got ahead of me. He took a fly that was there, and I heard him give the order to drive here. I don't know who he was, but I didn't want to come with him; I wanted to see you alone. So I've been waiting and walking about. I've walked all over, and I was just coming to the house when I saw you here. There was a keeper, or someone, who met me; but that was all right, because I had made his acquaintance when I came here with your cousin. Is that gentleman gone? Are you really alone? I want to speak to you." Goodwood spoke very fast; he was as excited as when they had parted in Rome. Isabel had hoped that condition would subside; and she shrank into herself as she perceived that, on the contrary, he had only let out sail. She had a new sensation; he had never produced it before; it was a feeling of danger. There was indeed something really formidable in his resolution. She gazed straight before her; he, with a hand on each knee, leaned forward, looking deeply into her face. The twilight seemed to darken round them. "I want to speak to you," he repeated; "I've something particular to say. I don't want to trouble you--as I did the other day in Rome. That was of no use; it only distressed you. I couldn't help it; I knew I was wrong. But I'm not wrong now; please don't think I am," he went on with his hard, deep voice melting a moment into entreaty. "I came here to-day for a purpose. It's very different. It was vain for me to speak to you then; but now I can help you." She couldn't have told you whether it was because she was afraid, or because such a voice in the darkness seemed of necessity a boon; but she listened to him as she had never listened before; his words dropped deep into her soul. They produced a sort of stillness in all her being; and it was with an effort, in a moment, that she answered him. "How can you help me?" she asked in a low tone, as if she were taking what he had said seriously enough to make the enquiry in confidence. "By inducing you to trust me. Now I know--to-day I know. Do you remember what I asked you in Rome? Then I was quite in the dark. But to-day I know on good authority; everything's clear to me to-day. It was a good thing when you made me come away with your cousin. He was a good man, a fine man, one of the best; he told me how the case stands for you. He explained everything; he guessed my sentiments. He was a member of your family and he left you--so long as you should be in England--to my care," said Goodwood as if he were making a great point. "Do you know what he said to me the last time I saw him--as he lay there where he died? He said: 'Do everything you can for her; do everything she'll let you.'" Isabel suddenly got up. "You had no business to talk about me!" "Why not--why not, when we talked in that way?" he demanded, following her fast. "And he was dying--when a man's dying it's different." She checked the movement she had made to leave him; she was listening more than ever; it was true that he was not the same as that last time. That had been aimless, fruitless passion, but at present he had an idea, which she scented in all her being. "But it doesn't matter!" he exclaimed, pressing her still harder, though now without touching a hem of her garment. "If Touchett had never opened his mouth I should have known all the same. I had only to look at you at your cousin's funeral to see what's the matter with you. You can't deceive me any more; for God's sake be honest with a man who's so honest with you. You're the most unhappy of women, and your husband's the deadliest of fiends." She turned on him as if he had struck her. "Are you mad?" she cried. "I've never been so sane; I see the whole thing. Don't think it's necessary to defend him. But I won't say another word against him; I'll speak only of you," Goodwood added quickly. "How can you pretend you're not heart-broken? You don't know what to do--you don't know where to turn. It's too late to play a part; didn't you leave all that behind you in Rome? Touchett knew all about it, and I knew it too--what it would cost you to come here. It will have cost you your life? Say it will"--and he flared almost into anger: "give me one word of truth! When I know such a horror as that, how can I keep myself from wishing to save you? What would you think of me if I should stand still and see you go back to your reward? 'It's awful, what she'll have to pay for it!'--that's what Touchett said to me. I may tell you that, mayn't I? He was such a near relation!" cried Goodwood, making his queer grim point again. "I'd sooner have been shot than let another man say those things to me; but he was different; he seemed to me to have the right. It was after he got home--when he saw he was dying, and when I saw it too. I understand all about it: you're afraid to go back. You're perfectly alone; you don't know where to turn. You can't turn anywhere; you know that perfectly. Now it is therefore that I want you to think of ME." "To think of 'you'?" Isabel said, standing before him in the dusk. The idea of which she had caught a glimpse a few moments before now loomed large. She threw back her head a little; she stared at it as if it had been a comet in the sky. "You don't know where to turn. Turn straight to me. I want to persuade you to trust me," Goodwood repeated. And then he paused with his shining eyes. "Why should you go back--why should you go through that ghastly form?" "To get away from you!" she answered. But this expressed only a little of what she felt. The rest was that she had never been loved before. She had believed it, but this was different; this was the hot wind of the desert, at the approach of which the others dropped dead, like mere sweet airs of the garden. It wrapped her about; it lifted her off her feet, while the very taste of it, as of something potent, acrid and strange, forced open her set teeth. At first, in rejoinder to what she had said, it seemed to her that he would break out into greater violence. But after an instant he was perfectly quiet; he wished to prove he was sane, that he had reasoned it all out. "I want to prevent that, and I think I may, if you'll only for once listen to me. It's too monstrous of you to think of sinking back into that misery, of going to open your mouth to that poisoned air. It's you that are out of your mind. Trust me as if I had the care of you. Why shouldn't we be happy--when it's here before us, when it's so easy? I'm yours for ever--for ever and ever. Here I stand; I'm as firm as a rock. What have you to care about? You've no children; that perhaps would be an obstacle. As it is you've nothing to consider. You must save what you can of your life; you mustn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. It would be an insult to you to assume that you care for the look of the thing, for what people will say, for the bottomless idiocy of the world. We've nothing to do with all that; we're quite out of it; we look at things as they are. You took the great step in coming away; the next is nothing; it's the natural one. I swear, as I stand here, that a woman deliberately made to suffer is justified in anything in life--in going down into the streets if that will help her! I know how you suffer, and that's why I'm here. We can do absolutely as we please; to whom under the sun do we owe anything? What is it that holds us, what is it that has the smallest right to interfere in such a question as this? Such a question is between ourselves--and to say that is to settle it! Were we born to rot in our misery--were we born to be afraid? I never knew YOU afraid! If you'll only trust me, how little you will be disappointed! The world's all before us--and the world's very big. I know something about that." Isabel gave a long murmur, like a creature in pain; it was as if he were pressing something that hurt her. "The world's very small," she said at random; she had an immense desire to appear to resist. She said it at random, to hear herself say something; but it was not what she meant. The world, in truth, had never seemed so large; it seemed to open out, all round her, to take the form of a mighty sea, where she floated in fathomless waters. She had wanted help, and here was help; it had come in a rushing torrent. I know not whether she believed everything he said; but she believed just then that to let him take her in his arms would be the next best thing to her dying. This belief, for a moment, was a kind of rapture, in which she felt herself sink and sink. In the movement she seemed to beat with her feet, in order to catch herself, to feel something to rest on. "Ah, be mine as I'm yours!" she heard her companion cry. He had suddenly given up argument, and his voice seemed to come, harsh and terrible, through a confusion of vaguer sounds. This however, of course, was but a subjective fact, as the metaphysicians say; the confusion, the noise of waters, all the rest of it, were in her own swimming head. In an instant she became aware of this. "Do me the greatest kindness of all," she panted. "I beseech you to go away!" "Ah, don't say that. Don't kill me!" he cried. She clasped her hands; her eyes were streaming with tears. "As you love me, as you pity me, leave me alone!" He glared at her a moment through the dusk, and the next instant she felt his arms about her and his lips on her own lips. His kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed; and it was extraordinarily as if, while she took it, she felt each thing in his hard manhood that had least pleased her, each aggressive fact of his face, his figure, his presence, justified of its intense identity and made one with this act of possession. So had she heard of those wrecked and under water following a train of images before they sink. But when darkness returned she was free. She never looked about her; she only darted from the spot. There were lights in the windows of the house; they shone far across the lawn. In an extraordinarily short time--for the distance was considerable--she had moved through the darkness (for she saw nothing) and reached the door. Here only she paused. She looked all about her; she listened a little; then she put her hand on the latch. She had not known where to turn; but she knew now. There was a very straight path. Two days afterwards Caspar Goodwood knocked at the door of the house in Wimpole Street in which Henrietta Stackpole occupied furnished lodgings. He had hardly removed his hand from the knocker when the door was opened and Miss Stackpole herself stood before him. She had on her hat and jacket; she was on the point of going out. "Oh, good-morning," he said, "I was in hopes I should find Mrs. Osmond." Henrietta kept him waiting a moment for her reply; but there was a good deal of expression about Miss Stackpole even when she was silent. "Pray what led you to suppose she was here?" "I went down to Gardencourt this morning, and the servant told me she had come to London. He believed she was to come to you." Again Miss Stackpole held him--with an intention of perfect kindness--in suspense. "She came here yesterday, and spent the night. But this morning she started for Rome." Caspar Goodwood was not looking at her; his eyes were fastened on the doorstep. "Oh, she started--?" he stammered. And without finishing his phrase or looking up he stiffly averted himself. But he couldn't otherwise move. Henrietta had come out, closing the door behind her, and now she put out her hand and grasped his arm. "Look here, Mr. Goodwood," she said; "just you wait!" On which he looked up at her--but only to guess, from her face, with a revulsion, that she simply meant he was young. She stood shining at him with that cheap comfort, and it added, on the spot, thirty years to his life. She walked him away with her, however, as if she had given him now the key to patience.

Ralph had told Isabel long ago that if she wanted to see the ghosts in Gardencourt, she must suffer greatly. During the night she senses the presence of something and upon leaving her room, learns that Ralph has just died. Isabel remains at Gardencourt for a while so as to comfort her aunt and to recover her own strength. One day she receives two visitors. The first is Lord Warburton who again extends to her an invitation to visit his home. The second visitor is Caspar Goodwood. He tries to make Isabel see that it is foolish for her to return to her husband. He tells her that he knows everything and can see no reason for her to return to "that ghastly form" of a marriage. He tells Isabel that the world is wide and there are many places where they could live. "She had wanted help, and here was help; it had come in a rushing torrent." Goodwood takes her into his arms, and "his kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed Isabel recovered herself and realized that her path was now very straight. Two days later, Goodwood calls at Henrietta Stackpole's in London and learns that Isabel has left that morning for Rome.

Chapter III. The Second Marriage And The Second Family Very shortly after getting his four-year-old Mitya off his hands Fyodor Pavlovitch married a second time. His second marriage lasted eight years. He took this second wife, Sofya Ivanovna, also a very young girl, from another province, where he had gone upon some small piece of business in company with a Jew. Though Fyodor Pavlovitch was a drunkard and a vicious debauchee he never neglected investing his capital, and managed his business affairs very successfully, though, no doubt, not over- scrupulously. Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan without relations. She grew up in the house of a general's widow, a wealthy old lady of good position, who was at once her benefactress and tormentor. I do not know the details, but I have only heard that the orphan girl, a meek and gentle creature, was once cut down from a halter in which she was hanging from a nail in the loft, so terrible were her sufferings from the caprice and everlasting nagging of this old woman, who was apparently not bad-hearted but had become an insufferable tyrant through idleness. Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him and he was refused. But again, as in his first marriage, he proposed an elopement to the orphan girl. There is very little doubt that she would not on any account have married him if she had known a little more about him in time. But she lived in another province; besides, what could a little girl of sixteen know about it, except that she would be better at the bottom of the river than remaining with her benefactress. So the poor child exchanged a benefactress for a benefactor. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not get a penny this time, for the general's widow was furious. She gave them nothing and cursed them both. But he had not reckoned on a dowry; what allured him was the remarkable beauty of the innocent girl, above all her innocent appearance, which had a peculiar attraction for a vicious profligate, who had hitherto admired only the coarser types of feminine beauty. "Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor," he used to say afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her "from the halter," he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had "wronged" him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elementary decencies of marriage. He gathered loose women into his house, and carried on orgies of debauchery in his wife's presence. To show what a pass things had come to, I may mention that Grigory, the gloomy, stupid, obstinate, argumentative servant, who had always hated his first mistress, Adelaida Ivanovna, took the side of his new mistress. He championed her cause, abusing Fyodor Pavlovitch in a manner little befitting a servant, and on one occasion broke up the revels and drove all the disorderly women out of the house. In the end this unhappy young woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that kind of nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women who are said to be "possessed by devils." At times after terrible fits of hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovitch two sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year of marriage and the second three years later. When she died, little Alexey was in his fourth year, and, strange as it seems, I know that he remembered his mother all his life, like a dream, of course. At her death almost exactly the same thing happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother, Mitya. They were completely forgotten and abandoned by their father. They were looked after by the same Grigory and lived in his cottage, where they were found by the tyrannical old lady who had brought up their mother. She was still alive, and had not, all those eight years, forgotten the insult done her. All that time she was obtaining exact information as to her Sofya's manner of life, and hearing of her illness and hideous surroundings she declared aloud two or three times to her retainers: "It serves her right. God has punished her for her ingratitude." Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovna's death the general's widow suddenly appeared in our town, and went straight to Fyodor Pavlovitch's house. She spent only half an hour in the town but she did a great deal. It was evening. Fyodor Pavlovitch, whom she had not seen for those eight years, came in to her drunk. The story is that instantly upon seeing him, without any sort of explanation, she gave him two good, resounding slaps on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, and shook him three times up and down. Then, without a word, she went straight to the cottage to the two boys. Seeing, at the first glance, that they were unwashed and in dirty linen, she promptly gave Grigory, too, a box on the ear, and announcing that she would carry off both the children she wrapped them just as they were in a rug, put them in the carriage, and drove off to her own town. Grigory accepted the blow like a devoted slave, without a word, and when he escorted the old lady to her carriage he made her a low bow and pronounced impressively that, "God would repay her for the orphans." "You are a blockhead all the same," the old lady shouted to him as she drove away. Fyodor Pavlovitch, thinking it over, decided that it was a good thing, and did not refuse the general's widow his formal consent to any proposition in regard to his children's education. As for the slaps she had given him, he drove all over the town telling the story. It happened that the old lady died soon after this, but she left the boys in her will a thousand roubles each "for their instruction, and so that all be spent on them exclusively, with the condition that it be so portioned out as to last till they are twenty-one, for it is more than adequate provision for such children. If other people think fit to throw away their money, let them." I have not read the will myself, but I heard there was something queer of the sort, very whimsically expressed. The principal heir, Yefim Petrovitch Polenov, the Marshal of Nobility of the province, turned out, however, to be an honest man. Writing to Fyodor Pavlovitch, and discerning at once that he could extract nothing from him for his children's education (though the latter never directly refused but only procrastinated as he always did in such cases, and was, indeed, at times effusively sentimental), Yefim Petrovitch took a personal interest in the orphans. He became especially fond of the younger, Alexey, who lived for a long while as one of his family. I beg the reader to note this from the beginning. And to Yefim Petrovitch, a man of a generosity and humanity rarely to be met with, the young people were more indebted for their education and bringing up than to any one. He kept the two thousand roubles left to them by the general's widow intact, so that by the time they came of age their portions had been doubled by the accumulation of interest. He educated them both at his own expense, and certainly spent far more than a thousand roubles upon each of them. I won't enter into a detailed account of their boyhood and youth, but will only mention a few of the most important events. Of the elder, Ivan, I will only say that he grew into a somewhat morose and reserved, though far from timid boy. At ten years old he had realized that they were living not in their own home but on other people's charity, and that their father was a man of whom it was disgraceful to speak. This boy began very early, almost in his infancy (so they say at least), to show a brilliant and unusual aptitude for learning. I don't know precisely why, but he left the family of Yefim Petrovitch when he was hardly thirteen, entering a Moscow gymnasium, and boarding with an experienced and celebrated teacher, an old friend of Yefim Petrovitch. Ivan used to declare afterwards that this was all due to the "ardor for good works" of Yefim Petrovitch, who was captivated by the idea that the boy's genius should be trained by a teacher of genius. But neither Yefim Petrovitch nor this teacher was living when the young man finished at the gymnasium and entered the university. As Yefim Petrovitch had made no provision for the payment of the tyrannical old lady's legacy, which had grown from one thousand to two, it was delayed, owing to formalities inevitable in Russia, and the young man was in great straits for the first two years at the university, as he was forced to keep himself all the time he was studying. It must be noted that he did not even attempt to communicate with his father, perhaps from pride, from contempt for him, or perhaps from his cool common sense, which told him that from such a father he would get no real assistance. However that may have been, the young man was by no means despondent and succeeded in getting work, at first giving sixpenny lessons and afterwards getting paragraphs on street incidents into the newspapers under the signature of "Eye-Witness." These paragraphs, it was said, were so interesting and piquant that they were soon taken. This alone showed the young man's practical and intellectual superiority over the masses of needy and unfortunate students of both sexes who hang about the offices of the newspapers and journals, unable to think of anything better than everlasting entreaties for copying and translations from the French. Having once got into touch with the editors Ivan Fyodorovitch always kept up his connection with them, and in his latter years at the university he published brilliant reviews of books upon various special subjects, so that he became well known in literary circles. But only in his last year he suddenly succeeded in attracting the attention of a far wider circle of readers, so that a great many people noticed and remembered him. It was rather a curious incident. When he had just left the university and was preparing to go abroad upon his two thousand roubles, Ivan Fyodorovitch published in one of the more important journals a strange article, which attracted general notice, on a subject of which he might have been supposed to know nothing, as he was a student of natural science. The article dealt with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the time--the position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several opinions on the subject he went on to explain his own view. What was most striking about the article was its tone, and its unexpected conclusion. Many of the Church party regarded him unquestioningly as on their side. And yet not only the secularists but even atheists joined them in their applause. Finally some sagacious persons opined that the article was nothing but an impudent satirical burlesque. I mention this incident particularly because this article penetrated into the famous monastery in our neighborhood, where the inmates, being particularly interested in the question of the ecclesiastical courts, were completely bewildered by it. Learning the author's name, they were interested in his being a native of the town and the son of "that Fyodor Pavlovitch." And just then it was that the author himself made his appearance among us. Why Ivan Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself at the time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was the first step leading to so many consequences, I never fully explained to myself. It seemed strange on the face of it that a young man so learned, so proud, and apparently so cautious, should suddenly visit such an infamous house and a father who had ignored him all his life, hardly knew him, never thought of him, and would not under any circumstances have given him money, though he was always afraid that his sons Ivan and Alexey would also come to ask him for it. And here the young man was staying in the house of such a father, had been living with him for two months, and they were on the best possible terms. This last fact was a special cause of wonder to many others as well as to me. Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miuesov, of whom we have spoken already, the cousin of Fyodor Pavlovitch's first wife, happened to be in the neighborhood again on a visit to his estate. He had come from Paris, which was his permanent home. I remember that he was more surprised than any one when he made the acquaintance of the young man, who interested him extremely, and with whom he sometimes argued and not without an inner pang compared himself in acquirements. "He is proud," he used to say, "he will never be in want of pence; he has got money enough to go abroad now. What does he want here? Every one can see that he hasn't come for money, for his father would never give him any. He has no taste for drink and dissipation, and yet his father can't do without him. They get on so well together!" That was the truth; the young man had an unmistakable influence over his father, who positively appeared to be behaving more decently and even seemed at times ready to obey his son, though often extremely and even spitefully perverse. It was only later that we learned that Ivan had come partly at the request of, and in the interests of, his elder brother, Dmitri, whom he saw for the first time on this very visit, though he had before leaving Moscow been in correspondence with him about an important matter of more concern to Dmitri than himself. What that business was the reader will learn fully in due time. Yet even when I did know of this special circumstance I still felt Ivan Fyodorovitch to be an enigmatic figure, and thought his visit rather mysterious. I may add that Ivan appeared at the time in the light of a mediator between his father and his elder brother Dmitri, who was in open quarrel with his father and even planning to bring an action against him. The family, I repeat, was now united for the first time, and some of its members met for the first time in their lives. The younger brother, Alexey, had been a year already among us, having been the first of the three to arrive. It is of that brother Alexey I find it most difficult to speak in this introduction. Yet I must give some preliminary account of him, if only to explain one queer fact, which is that I have to introduce my hero to the reader wearing the cassock of a novice. Yes, he had been for the last year in our monastery, and seemed willing to be cloistered there for the rest of his life.

Now we get to wife #2. The next lovely lady Fyodor decided to take for a wife was Sofia Ivanovna, an orphan and the ward of General Vorokhov's widow. This widow was apparently was so hard on Sofia that she was once caught trying to hang herself. Fyodor swooped in and eloped with Sofia, but he was enraged to discover that she wouldn't be getting any dowry. This second marriage was just as terrible as the first, or perhaps more so, with Fyodor having orgies in the house in front of his wife. Sofia became a "shrieker," which is the local term for a hysteric. Sofia bore Fyodor two sons, Ivan and Alexei, and died soon afterward. Upon her death, the general's widow visited Fyodor, slapped his face, and took the children into her care. When she died, the kids went to stay with her heir, Yefim Petrovich Polenov, who actually took good care of them and made sure they got an education. Ivan seemed to be particularly gifted intellectually and went off to Moscow to study. He paid his own way by writing journalism and reviews. One editorial on the issue of ecclesiastical courts caused quite a controversy. Everyone was surprised when Ivan showed up back in town at Fyodor's, on the invitation of Dmitri as it turned out. The precise reasons why, however, the narrator isn't going to tell us until later . But it turns out that Alexei has been in town staying at the local monastery for at least a year before Ivan shows up, which is the narrator's way of shifting gears into the next chapter.

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

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

SUSPICION--FANNY IS SENT FOR Bathsheba said very little to her husband all that evening of their return from market, and he was not disposed to say much to her. He exhibited the unpleasant combination of a restless condition with a silent tongue. The next day, which was Sunday, passed nearly in the same manner as regarded their taciturnity, Bathsheba going to church both morning and afternoon. This was the day before the Budmouth races. In the evening Troy said, suddenly-- "Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?" Her countenance instantly sank. "Twenty pounds?" she said. "The fact is, I want it badly." The anxiety upon Troy's face was unusual and very marked. It was a culmination of the mood he had been in all the day. "Ah! for those races to-morrow." Troy for the moment made no reply. Her mistake had its advantages to a man who shrank from having his mind inspected as he did now. "Well, suppose I do want it for races?" he said, at last. "Oh, Frank!" Bathsheba replied, and there was such a volume of entreaty in the words. "Only such a few weeks ago you said that I was far sweeter than all your other pleasures put together, and that you would give them all up for me; and now, won't you give up this one, which is more a worry than a pleasure? Do, Frank. Come, let me fascinate you by all I can do--by pretty words and pretty looks, and everything I can think of--to stay at home. Say yes to your wife--say yes!" The tenderest and softest phases of Bathsheba's nature were prominent now--advanced impulsively for his acceptance, without any of the disguises and defences which the wariness of her character when she was cool too frequently threw over them. Few men could have resisted the arch yet dignified entreaty of the beautiful face, thrown a little back and sideways in the well known attitude that expresses more than the words it accompanies, and which seems to have been designed for these special occasions. Had the woman not been his wife, Troy would have succumbed instantly; as it was, he thought he would not deceive her longer. "The money is not wanted for racing debts at all," he said. "What is it for?" she asked. "You worry me a great deal by these mysterious responsibilities, Frank." Troy hesitated. He did not now love her enough to allow himself to be carried too far by her ways. Yet it was necessary to be civil. "You wrong me by such a suspicious manner," he said. "Such strait-waistcoating as you treat me to is not becoming in you at so early a date." "I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay," she said, with features between a smile and a pout. "Exactly; and, the former being done, suppose we proceed to the latter. Bathsheba, fun is all very well, but don't go too far, or you may have cause to regret something." She reddened. "I do that already," she said, quickly. "What do you regret?" "That my romance has come to an end." "All romances end at marriage." "I wish you wouldn't talk like that. You grieve me to my soul by being smart at my expense." "You are dull enough at mine. I believe you hate me." "Not you--only your faults. I do hate them." "'Twould be much more becoming if you set yourself to cure them. Come, let's strike a balance with the twenty pounds, and be friends." She gave a sigh of resignation. "I have about that sum here for household expenses. If you must have it, take it." "Very good. Thank you. I expect I shall have gone away before you are in to breakfast to-morrow." "And must you go? Ah! there was a time, Frank, when it would have taken a good many promises to other people to drag you away from me. You used to call me darling, then. But it doesn't matter to you how my days are passed now." "I must go, in spite of sentiment." Troy, as he spoke, looked at his watch, and, apparently actuated by _non lucendo_ principles, opened the case at the back, revealing, snugly stowed within it, a small coil of hair. Bathsheba's eyes had been accidentally lifted at that moment, and she saw the action and saw the hair. She flushed in pain and surprise, and some words escaped her before she had thought whether or not it was wise to utter them. "A woman's curl of hair!" she said. "Oh, Frank, whose is that?" Troy had instantly closed his watch. He carelessly replied, as one who cloaked some feelings that the sight had stirred. "Why, yours, of course. Whose should it be? I had quite forgotten that I had it." "What a dreadful fib, Frank!" "I tell you I had forgotten it!" he said, loudly. "I don't mean that--it was yellow hair." "Nonsense." "That's insulting me. I know it was yellow. Now whose was it? I want to know." "Very well--I'll tell you, so make no more ado. It is the hair of a young woman I was going to marry before I knew you." "You ought to tell me her name, then." "I cannot do that." "Is she married yet?" "No." "Is she alive?" "Yes." "Is she pretty?" "Yes." "It is wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an awful affliction!" "Affliction--what affliction?" he inquired, quickly. "Having hair of that dreadful colour." "Oh--ho--I like that!" said Troy, recovering himself. "Why, her hair has been admired by everybody who has seen her since she has worn it loose, which has not been long. It is beautiful hair. People used to turn their heads to look at it, poor girl!" "Pooh! that's nothing--that's nothing!" she exclaimed, in incipient accents of pique. "If I cared for your love as much as I used to I could say people had turned to look at mine." "Bathsheba, don't be so fitful and jealous. You knew what married life would be like, and shouldn't have entered it if you feared these contingencies." Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart was big in her throat, and the ducts to her eyes were painfully full. Ashamed as she was to show emotion, at last she burst out:-- "This is all I get for loving you so well! Ah! when I married you your life was dearer to me than my own. I would have died for you--how truly I can say that I would have died for you! And now you sneer at my foolishness in marrying you. O! is it kind to me to throw my mistake in my face? Whatever opinion you may have of my wisdom, you should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am in your power." "I can't help how things fall out," said Troy; "upon my heart, women will be the death of me!" "Well you shouldn't keep people's hair. You'll burn it, won't you, Frank?" Frank went on as if he had not heard her. "There are considerations even before my consideration for you; reparations to be made--ties you know nothing of. If you repent of marrying, so do I." Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in mingled tones of wretchedness and coaxing, "I only repent it if you don't love me better than any woman in the world! I don't otherwise, Frank. You don't repent because you already love somebody better than you love me, do you?" "I don't know. Why do you say that?" "You won't burn that curl. You like the woman who owns that pretty hair--yes; it is pretty--more beautiful than my miserable black mane! Well, it is no use; I can't help being ugly. You must like her best, if you will!" "Until to-day, when I took it from a drawer, I have never looked upon that bit of hair for several months--that I am ready to swear." "But just now you said 'ties'; and then--that woman we met?" "'Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair." "Is it hers, then?" "Yes. There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope you are content." "And what are the ties?" "Oh! that meant nothing--a mere jest." "A mere jest!" she said, in mournful astonishment. "Can you jest when I am so wretchedly in earnest? Tell me the truth, Frank. I am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman's moments. Come! treat me fairly," she said, looking honestly and fearlessly into his face. "I don't want much; bare justice--that's all! Ah! once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the highest homage from the husband I should choose. Now, anything short of cruelty will content me. Yes! the independent and spirited Bathsheba is come to this!" "For Heaven's sake don't be so desperate!" Troy said, snappishly, rising as he did so, and leaving the room. Directly he had gone, Bathsheba burst into great sobs--dry-eyed sobs, which cut as they came, without any softening by tears. But she determined to repress all evidences of feeling. She was conquered; but she would never own it as long as she lived. Her pride was indeed brought low by despairing discoveries of her spoliation by marriage with a less pure nature than her own. She chafed to and fro in rebelliousness, like a caged leopard; her whole soul was in arms, and the blood fired her face. Until she had met Troy, Bathsheba had been proud of her position as a woman; it had been a glory to her to know that her lips had been touched by no man's on earth--that her waist had never been encircled by a lover's arm. She hated herself now. In those earlier days she had always nourished a secret contempt for girls who were the slaves of the first good-looking young fellow who should choose to salute them. She had never taken kindly to the idea of marriage in the abstract as did the majority of women she saw about her. In the turmoil of her anxiety for her lover she had agreed to marry him; but the perception that had accompanied her happiest hours on this account was rather that of self-sacrifice than of promotion and honour. Although she scarcely knew the divinity's name, Diana was the goddess whom Bathsheba instinctively adored. That she had never, by look, word, or sign, encouraged a man to approach her--that she had felt herself sufficient to herself, and had in the independence of her girlish heart fancied there was a certain degradation in renouncing the simplicity of a maiden existence to become the humbler half of an indifferent matrimonial whole--were facts now bitterly remembered. Oh, if she had never stooped to folly of this kind, respectable as it was, and could only stand again, as she had stood on the hill at Norcombe, and dare Troy or any other man to pollute a hair of her head by his interference! The next morning she rose earlier than usual, and had the horse saddled for her ride round the farm in the customary way. When she came in at half-past eight--their usual hour for breakfasting--she was informed that her husband had risen, taken his breakfast, and driven off to Casterbridge with the gig and Poppet. After breakfast she was cool and collected--quite herself in fact--and she rambled to the gate, intending to walk to another quarter of the farm, which she still personally superintended as well as her duties in the house would permit, continually, however, finding herself preceded in forethought by Gabriel Oak, for whom she began to entertain the genuine friendship of a sister. Of course, she sometimes thought of him in the light of an old lover, and had momentary imaginings of what life with him as a husband would have been like; also of life with Boldwood under the same conditions. But Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given to futile dreaming, and her musings under this head were short and entirely confined to the times when Troy's neglect was more than ordinarily evident. She saw coming up the road a man like Mr. Boldwood. It was Mr. Boldwood. Bathsheba blushed painfully, and watched. The farmer stopped when still a long way off, and held up his hand to Gabriel Oak, who was in a footpath across the field. The two men then approached each other and seemed to engage in earnest conversation. Thus they continued for a long time. Joseph Poorgrass now passed near them, wheeling a barrow of apples up the hill to Bathsheba's residence. Boldwood and Gabriel called to him, spoke to him for a few minutes, and then all three parted, Joseph immediately coming up the hill with his barrow. Bathsheba, who had seen this pantomime with some surprise, experienced great relief when Boldwood turned back again. "Well, what's the message, Joseph?" she said. He set down his barrow, and, putting upon himself the refined aspect that a conversation with a lady required, spoke to Bathsheba over the gate. "You'll never see Fanny Robin no more--use nor principal--ma'am." "Why?" "Because she's dead in the Union." "Fanny dead--never!" "Yes, ma'am." "What did she die from?" "I don't know for certain; but I should be inclined to think it was from general neshness of constitution. She was such a limber maid that 'a could stand no hardship, even when I knowed her, and 'a went like a candle-snoff, so 'tis said. She was took bad in the morning, and, being quite feeble and worn out, she died in the evening. She belongs by law to our parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a waggon at three this afternoon to fetch her home here and bury her." "Indeed I shall not let Mr. Boldwood do any such thing--I shall do it! Fanny was my uncle's servant, and, although I only knew her for a couple of days, she belongs to me. How very, very sad this is!--the idea of Fanny being in a workhouse." Bathsheba had begun to know what suffering was, and she spoke with real feeling.... "Send across to Mr. Boldwood's, and say that Mrs. Troy will take upon herself the duty of fetching an old servant of the family.... We ought not to put her in a waggon; we'll get a hearse." "There will hardly be time, ma'am, will there?" "Perhaps not," she said, musingly. "When did you say we must be at the door--three o'clock?" "Three o'clock this afternoon, ma'am, so to speak it." "Very well--you go with it. A pretty waggon is better than an ugly hearse, after all. Joseph, have the new spring waggon with the blue body and red wheels, and wash it very clean. And, Joseph--" "Yes, ma'am." "Carry with you some evergreens and flowers to put upon her coffin--indeed, gather a great many, and completely bury her in them. Get some boughs of laurustinus, and variegated box, and yew, and boy's-love; ay, and some bunches of chrysanthemum. And let old Pleasant draw her, because she knew him so well." "I will, ma'am. I ought to have said that the Union, in the form of four labouring men, will meet me when I gets to our churchyard gate, and take her and bury her according to the rites of the Board of Guardians, as by law ordained." "Dear me--Casterbridge Union--and is Fanny come to this?" said Bathsheba, musing. "I wish I had known of it sooner. I thought she was far away. How long has she lived there?" "On'y been there a day or two." "Oh!--then she has not been staying there as a regular inmate?" "No. She first went to live in a garrison-town t'other side o' Wessex, and since then she's been picking up a living at seampstering in Melchester for several months, at the house of a very respectable widow-woman who takes in work of that sort. She only got handy the Union-house on Sunday morning 'a b'lieve, and 'tis supposed here and there that she had traipsed every step of the way from Melchester. Why she left her place, I can't say, for I don't know; and as to a lie, why, I wouldn't tell it. That's the short of the story, ma'am." "Ah-h!" No gem ever flashed from a rosy ray to a white one more rapidly than changed the young wife's countenance whilst this word came from her in a long-drawn breath. "Did she walk along our turnpike-road?" she said, in a suddenly restless and eager voice. "I believe she did.... Ma'am, shall I call Liddy? You bain't well, ma'am, surely? You look like a lily--so pale and fainty!" "No; don't call her; it is nothing. When did she pass Weatherbury?" "Last Saturday night." "That will do, Joseph; now you may go." "Certainly, ma'am." "Joseph, come hither a moment. What was the colour of Fanny Robin's hair?" "Really, mistress, now that 'tis put to me so judge-and-jury like, I can't call to mind, if ye'll believe me!" "Never mind; go on and do what I told you. Stop--well no, go on." She turned herself away from him, that he might no longer notice the mood which had set its sign so visibly upon her, and went indoors with a distressing sense of faintness and a beating brow. About an hour after, she heard the noise of the waggon and went out, still with a painful consciousness of her bewildered and troubled look. Joseph, dressed in his best suit of clothes, was putting in the horse to start. The shrubs and flowers were all piled in the waggon, as she had directed; Bathsheba hardly saw them now. "Died of what? did you say, Joseph?" "I don't know, ma'am." "Are you quite sure?" "Yes, ma'am, quite sure." "Sure of what?" "I'm sure that all I know is that she arrived in the morning and died in the evening without further parley. What Oak and Mr. Boldwood told me was only these few words. 'Little Fanny Robin is dead, Joseph,' Gabriel said, looking in my face in his steady old way. I was very sorry, and I said, 'Ah!--and how did she come to die?' 'Well, she's dead in Casterbridge Union,' he said, 'and perhaps 'tisn't much matter about how she came to die. She reached the Union early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon--that's clear enough.' Then I asked what she'd been doing lately, and Mr. Boldwood turned round to me then, and left off spitting a thistle with the end of his stick. He told me about her having lived by seampstering in Melchester, as I mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at the end of last week, passing near here Saturday night in the dusk. They then said I had better just name a hint of her death to you, and away they went. Her death might have been brought on by biding in the night wind, you know, ma'am; for people used to say she'd go off in a decline: she used to cough a good deal in winter time. However, 'tisn't much odds to us about that now, for 'tis all over." "Have you heard a different story at all?" She looked at him so intently that Joseph's eyes quailed. "Not a word, mistress, I assure 'ee!" he said. "Hardly anybody in the parish knows the news yet." "I wonder why Gabriel didn't bring the message to me himself. He mostly makes a point of seeing me upon the most trifling errand." These words were merely murmured, and she was looking upon the ground. "Perhaps he was busy, ma'am," Joseph suggested. "And sometimes he seems to suffer from things upon his mind, connected with the time when he was better off than 'a is now. 'A's rather a curious item, but a very understanding shepherd, and learned in books." "Did anything seem upon his mind whilst he was speaking to you about this?" "I cannot but say that there did, ma'am. He was terrible down, and so was Farmer Boldwood." "Thank you, Joseph. That will do. Go on now, or you'll be late." Bathsheba, still unhappy, went indoors again. In the course of the afternoon she said to Liddy, who had been informed of the occurrence, "What was the colour of poor Fanny Robin's hair? Do you know? I cannot recollect--I only saw her for a day or two." "It was light, ma'am; but she wore it rather short, and packed away under her cap, so that you would hardly notice it. But I have seen her let it down when she was going to bed, and it looked beautiful then. Real golden hair." "Her young man was a soldier, was he not?" "Yes. In the same regiment as Mr. Troy. He says he knew him very well." "What, Mr. Troy says so? How came he to say that?" "One day I just named it to him, and asked him if he knew Fanny's young man. He said, 'Oh yes, he knew the young man as well as he knew himself, and that there wasn't a man in the regiment he liked better.'" "Ah! Said that, did he?" "Yes; and he said there was a strong likeness between himself and the other young man, so that sometimes people mistook them--" "Liddy, for Heaven's sake stop your talking!" said Bathsheba, with the nervous petulance that comes from worrying perceptions.

Bathsheba gives Troy the silent treatment during the evening after they return from the market, and he doesn't seem to mind all that much. The next day, Troy asks her for twenty pounds, which is a hefty sum of money. She asks him if it's for gambling on the horse races, and after a pause, he says "Sure, why not?" We readers know, though, that he's probably getting the money for Fanny. Bathsheba begs him to stay home. Finally, Troy admits that the money isn't for gambling. When he won't tell her what it's for, though, the two get into a terrible argument. Each of them tells the other that they wish they'd never gotten married. Bathsheba eventually gives up and hands over the money. Troy also says he plans on leaving the next day to go to Bath. Again, he won't tell Bathsheba about why he's going. At this point, Troy opens his pocket watch and Bathsheba sees a lock of blond hair fall out of it. She knows instantly that the hair belongs to another woman, though Troy tries to say it's hers. He eventually admits that it's the hair of a young woman he was going to marry before he met Bathsheba. He refuses to say the woman's name, though. But it comes out that the girl they met on the road a few days earlier is someone that Troy used to be engaged to, and that the hair in his watch is hers. At this point, Troy doesn't want to hash out details any longer, so he gets up and leaves the house. Bathsheba dissolves into tears. She leaves the house to walk in the fields. While doing so, she sees Farmer Boldwood at a distance stopping for a chat with Gabriel Oak. Joseph Poorgrass also stops to talk to the men, and then comes up the road to Bathsheba to tell her that her former servant, Fanny Robin, has died in the shelter at Casterbridge. Mr. Boldwood plans on sending a wagon for her body, but Bathsheba says she'll hear nothing of it. Fanny was her servant, so she'll send the cart. During the conversation, Bathsheba learns that Fanny had travelled to Casterbridge along the main road a few days earlier. This, of course, gets her wondering about whether this was the woman she saw with Troy. Apparently, Sergeant Troy has also said in the past that a man from his regiment used to be sweethearts with Fanny Robin. Bathsheba is starting to put two and two together.